Brian Navarro

Matt Wilson
Writing 2
March 10, 2016

Analysis over Academic Journal to Letter

The academic journal I choose to translate was Urbanization Effects on Childhood Obesity. I
chose to translate it towards a new genre because an academic journal appeals to academically
oriented people and with childhood obesity being a growing issue in our society, it is important
for people to be aware and informed. I translate the journal into an open letter towards the people
of Watsonville, my hometown, with the main recipients of the letter being the city council and
the School board within the community (PVUSD), which would redistribute my letter to the
parents of Watsonville. The difficulties encountered from translating the academic journal into a
letter was the fact that some information presented within the academic journal would not appeal
to the community of Watsonville. Watsonville is a community that is primarily Spanish speaking
so for the message to be important to parents, it would have to be translated. Overall, while it
was difficult to translate useful information in the journal into a letter and make the letter
presentable to everyone I listed; it was significantly more effective because of the emotions a
letter present through the usage of pathos and rhetorical devices.
Translating the academic journal into a letter was the best manner in which I could draw an
emotional response from the audience. From the academic journal, it took a statistical and
scientifically approach to wards childhood obesity. A letter is consistent of language that can
appeal to people of the community while drawing an emotion response. By using pathos as the
main form of rhetoric in my letter, it significantly increased the emotions of the audience when
compared to an academic journal because the care of children is an emotion parents have and
should respond when asked if they are willing to face the consequences such as, depression,
asthma, and hypertension.

I chose to integrate information from the academic journal into the letter was by presenting the
issue into the world which I live in. I chose to write the letter towards the community of
Watsonville, my hometown, because %50 of the children are overweight. By paraphrasing the
information in the academic journal, I was able to use it in my letter as a sentence I wrote myself
to reinforce the message the childhood obesity has to be prevented. For example, They
constructed a plan in which they reconstructed cities for public health, created parks and
walkways and bike paths to promote exercise and physical activity. It starts with the community
to fight this deadly health disease we cause. I was able to incorporate information from the
academic journal, but also direct that information towards Watsonville to improve the conditions
or face the consequences. It showed the relevance of the situation with the childhood obesity in
Watsonville. Overall, my letter incorporated the information from the academic journal and
related it to the situation in Watsonville through the use of pathos to draw emotional responses.
Anne Lamotts, Shitty First Drafts was influential in the translation of the academic journal to
a letter. Anne Lamotts writing has helped me understand and get through the processes of
writing. She quoted Bird by Bird(1994) and it stated, Shtity first drafts that lead to clarity and
sometimes brilliance in our second and third drafts (Lamott 1). That quote has assisted me
through the process of translating this genre because at first, I was stuck on what I wanted to
write/translate the academic journal into, so I chose a letter and wrote a first draft. Lamott made
me aware that the first draft would be shitty. I wanted to incorporate statistics and important
information in my letter but they did not make sense in the letter and after reviewing the shitty
first draft, I realized that information from the journal did not translate well into a letter to my
hometown because it did not appeal to people of Watsonville. For example, In studies
conducted in the USA and Australia, traditional neighbor relationships have been found to be one

of the factors increasing the frequency of obesity (18,19). The distance between houses was a
key argument in the academic journal that deciphered the correlation between childhood obesity
and a healthy weight. Although it was useful information, the removal of this quote allowed the
letter to flow. I had to take a step back from the writing and analyze what was causing it to be
ineffective. The clarity came on its own after giving it some time. Thus, Lamotts Shitty First
Drafts was beneficially influential on my translation of genres as it made me realize information
in the journal would not apply in my letter.
Kerry Driks, Navigating Genres, presented that in order for an individual to understand a
genre, they must have some background to the information within the genre. Kirk then stated,
determine what this essay might look like (Dirk, Navigating Genres 7). For me to translate my
academic journal into a letter, I had to breakdown the components of the journal and decide how
I wanted to structure my letter and background information about Watsonville to include. I chose
to include the 50% of children obese and 3 McDonalds in Watsonville as background
information for the audience to understand the obesity persistent. I also realized I had to translate
the English letter into a Spanish letter because the majority of people in Watsonville speak
Spanish. Dirk then wrote how there is different types of rhetoric she employed, how personal she
could get, and she turned to examples of how she could words her writing (Dirk 7). It helped me
direct the way in which my letter was going to be translated to because I chose to employ pathos.
I chose to get very personal and try to appeal to the people in Watsonville directly and overall,
assisted the process of translating the genre because she broke it down into a process of how to
understand/write different styles of genre.
As a result of Dirk's process and choosing pathos, I t led me to think if I am able to write about
childhood obesity and appeal to the emotions of parents and the school districts, changes will

occur. I chose to incorporate rhetoric devices as well to my letter because it empowers the writer
and allows the writer to portray a message. The rhetorical devices I chose to incorporate were
anaphora, allusions and a mix of analogy and hyperbole. Allusion was incorporated when I
compared the parents of our community as David and childhood obesity as Goliath. It shows the
emotion behind the message and highlights the importance of it. An analogy was made between
cancer/removing tumor and childhood obesity/removing that issue, Hyperbole was incorporated
to highlight the issue and heighten the importance of it.