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Jordan Vieler
Wilson
Writing 2
November 18, 2015
WP3
Academic journals are one of the most important ways in which
members of an academic discourse community can communicate. The
problem is that, often, only members of that particular community have
access to the information. This is due to the conventions of the genre of an
academic journal, namely technical language, blocking the layman from
understanding the subject matter. For example, an article from a biology
academic journal is going to be near impossible for someone from outside
the biology discourse community to understand effectively. Translating to
another medium that is much more accessible than academic journals is
necessary to reach a greater number of people. One such medium is the
comic. In order to properly translate to a comic, we have to consider the
needs of the comic book reader.
In order to address this audience we first must identify it and
distinguish it from the academic audience. In my translation of Systematic
synergy modeling: understanding drug synergy from a systems biology
perspective, an article which appeared in BMC Systems Biology Journal, I
identified my intended audience as readers of comic books who do not have
a whole lot of prior interest in biology. This audience is very different from
the original audience of the work. They lack an in depth understanding of

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biology. This means that typical biology jargon cannot be used. The audience
needs a language translation. The audience also is not going to be familiar
with the typical structure of the academic journal article. The typical
abstract, introduction, body, conclusion format is not going to work. Instead
we have to use the formatting style of a comic book. Finally, readers of comic
books will not care about the technical aspects of the article. They are only
going to care about the message of the story. Now that we know the
differences between our new audience and our old one, we can now begin
our translation into a comic.
A comic strip, at its core, is a string of pictures with brief amounts of
writing below them to help explain what is appearing in those pictures. The
pictures help to attract readers. Luckily for us, at a quick glance, illustrations
of biological concepts are futuristic, sexy, and mystical. These will draw my
reader in to the story in order to seek an explanation. This is not the only
purposes images serve though. Images also allow charts and graphs to be
snuck into the new genre. Often times in an academic science article, charts
and graphs are used as a tool to help explain data. With a comic these pieces
can be slipped in to force the reader to acknowledge them. A comic also
addresses my audiences lack of familiarity with the structure of an academic
journal.
My readers will already be familiar with the conventions of a comic and
expect that information will flow in that expected way. In comics, the
information flows as the reader follows the frames left to right. This means

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that I have to translate the academic journal from its five part information
format abstract, introduction, body, conclusion and works cited to a single
part, linear, left to right format. As the new audience reads right to left, they
will be guided through the five parts, reading explanations in the writing
portion of the comic.
The writing portion of the comic is a great place to sneak in
explanations and information to the readers, but we have to be careful to not
include too much information. This can overwhelm the reader and turn them
off to the new work. We have to remember that the reader lacks an
understanding of even basic biology principles. This means that many
principles from the original work have to be omitted the ones we do include
have to be stripped of their technical language and replaced with basic
explanations. For example, the original article reads: Systems biology allows
us to describe the interactions among different molecules from a
comprehensive network perspective. Instead I wrote in my translation:
Systems biology analyzes the individual components of a biological system,
often with the help of computers. The latter is much more comprehensible.
My new audience may not be comfortable with the idea of a comprehensive
network perspective. Thanks to readings done in writing two I was able to
identify the things that needed to be done to translate this piece.
In crafting this translation, the two most valuable resources for me
were Navigating Genres by Dirk and The Concept of Discourse
Community by Swales. Navigating Genres taught me how to recognize

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what sets the comic book and the academic journal apart. It allowed me to
pick out each genres specific conventions. Identifying these conventions
made my translation easier.
The Concept of Discourse Community helped me to identify the
target audiences of each genre. Because every discourse community has a
genre which serves its purposes, it can be said that a discourse community
is a target audience of a specific community. Identifying the community of
academic biology, helped me to identify the journal articles target audience.
When I compared this to a comics target audience I was able to distinguish
between the two audiences needs. I could see what aspects of the journal
article would not be compatible with the comic. This led me to identifying
what to omit, and what to morph into something new.
While this new translation lacks the same level of depth as the original
work, it allows for the main message to be preserved and to be transmitted.
This message helps to show a new audience the significance of these types
of scientific works. Translations such as these are important in todays
society. Today, rapid scientific advances make it very hard for the average
person to understand what is current in a science field. Imagine if everyone
was interested in science in such a way as there would be comic strips in the
back of newspapers translating recent journal articles for popular culture.

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Sometimes, taking two

drugs together, instead
of one, can really help
treat a disease

This is due two what is called

Synergistic effect. Which is
when the effects of taking two
drugs together has an effect
greater than the sum of the
effects of each drug
individually.

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The problem is, there are

so many different drugs
and diseases out there. It
is currently impractical to
screen all possible drug
combinations for different
diseases.

and it lies in the new and exciting

field of systems biology.

Luckily, there
seems to be a
solution

Systems biology analyzes the individual

components of a biological system,
Often with the help of computers

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Systems biology allows us to describe

the interactions among different
molecules from the perspective of the
whole

This has been used to

discover some novel drug
combinations, but in the
future it will provide the
tools to create otherwise
overlooked possible new
drug combinations.