A Fever Pitch!

          For my upcoming writing project, I am planning to convert a scientific and academic journal into pieces of writing that will fit to the needs of different audiences. The topic I will be focusing on is about is immunology, a specific field I am interested in. The article I have decided to write about explains how natural killer cells can be used in immunotherapy for cancer patients through vaccines. In order to appeal to the variety of the audiences, I will have to think like my audience and attempt to follow the style of writings that are usually used for certain age groups.

            As a fellow and/or used-to-be young audience, I think the best way to approach this topic is to create a short story. Growing up, I remember reading story books about a particular topic that explained a complicated process in simple terminology. Because kids, in general, are not accustomed to the complicated jargon, it only makes sense to follow these guidelines. I also like how authors have personified certain concepts to help explain concepts. For example, I can make the immune system be a wall and personify incoming virus and bacteria as antagonists of the natural killer cells and other white blood cells. The only challenge I see with this project is coming up with a story-line to accommodate the article. The article has a setup, where they are challenging a certain idea, so I think I will focus on explaining the basic function of the immune system through characterization and explaining the findings of this paper.

            To be honest, I am not that familiar with the older audiences because I feel that this article is already targeted to this age group. Instead of a scholarly article, I am thinking to write like a, “Understanding How to Approach Cancer.” I feel like it is not only important to write these kinds of precautionary guides, but it is one of the few things I am familiar with. I feel like a lot of the pieces that are written to an older audience is mostly about health information/prevention. Unlike kids, the older people are more concerned about their well-beings as they get older. It is common to see in magazines how they explain certain concepts in an everyday language. Although some may understand the jargon used in the academic journal, but even in such a wide audience, word choices can narrow the range of audiences who will understand.

            As the week progress, I am sure I will have a better idea of how to approach this writing project. At this point, I feel like I only have half of the understanding of the project. I would assume writing for different audiences would not be as different as any other types of writing. Since I am not used to writing towards these kinds of audiences, I feel like this writing project will be a nice change from the types of writing I am accustomed to as a college student. Though creativity is something I enjoy, the limitless feeling to this project may be a bit overwhelming and confusing as I tackle this project. 

Journal Q and A + Painting Trees

Q1. So, in the end, how’d your WP2 paper go?  What were you happy with?  What weren't you?  Why?  Be specific!


In the end, I felt that my WP2 has definitely improved from what I have started of with. Not only was I more organized, but I had a better idea of what my argument should be. I thinking seeing other people's examples have helped me figure out what exactly I should focus on writing about. I just did not like the fact that I could not figure out a better way to further support my thoughts. 

Q2. Which 2 or 3 comments that you received yesterday were the most helpful for you?  Why?

The comment to introduce the articles in the intro paragraph was very useful. At first, I did not quite understand the impact, but as I have improved upon my thesis, the reason became clearer. 

The second comment that was useful for my WP2 is the comment about how I should have a clearer thesis.... It took me a while to fully understand what I, myself, was trying to get at in my essay.... By reflecting about what I wrote about, it seemed to have worked out in the end. 

Q3. What did you think about yesterday’s digital Peer/Reader Review sesh?  Better/worse/same as the “old school” hard copy one?  Please explain!

I thought that our peer/review sesh was somewhat better than the last time. Not only did we have one more person to look at it, I found it easier to just look over, type, highlight and comment on certain aspects of the person's paper. This opinion may be biased because we are just so used to technology in our generation... 


Painting Trees 


How could you characterize their styles, and what impact does that have on you (an audience member)?

Some of the characteristics of each of the artist were: 

• realistic
• cartoon-like
• modern
• textual

As an audience, each of these styles gives off different portrayals of how the tree is expressed. The perspective and technique of each of the artists differ. For instance, the artist ,who compared the tree as a skyscraper, drew his tree in a bottom-up way. This made the tree have a mighty and sturdy feel like a skyscraper. 

And, most importantly, how have they described their moves? Be specific.

Like previously mentioned, one states that they are more focused on getting what they think as the important part of the tree (the trunk), another wants to emphasize the tall and strong architectural-like tree, some wanted to get the skeletal and bony looking tree in 3-dimension and the last one was more about expressing the texture of the tree in his painting.  

What decisions did these artists make? What similarities/differences between their decisions did you see?

Each of these all had the same goal of drawing a tree, except how they approached to accomplish their goal varied depending upon the artist. All of the artist have different perspectives of how they view the tree. In the Walt Disney's clip, one of the artists viewed the tree as a skyscraper, another viewed the tree and wanted to focus on the trunk of the tree, the next artist focused on the texture of the tree and the last one try to bring a three dimensional feel to the tree. Additionally, each of these artists used different sized canvases and materials to depict the same tree. Overall, they had the sense of freedom to draw the tree as how they perceived or felt about them.