Monday, May 11, 2015

Writing for different audiences

PB3A
The article that I have chosen for WP3 is titled Ecology, Sexual Selection, and the Evolution of Mating Systems, by Stephen T. Emlen and Lewis W. Oring. The main point of the article is to discuss how evolution has changed sexual selection and the mating systems, specifically of Humans and other primates. I chose this article because I believe that it is fascinating to find out how interactions amongst individuals has changed throughout history. It is also a topic that is not specific to one certain age group and many people can benefit from learning about it.
            For a younger audience, it would make the most sense to focus on the ecology and evolutionary aspects of the paper rather than the sexual content. Though it is all scientific and not crude, the audience I am targeting (4th-7th graders) might not be aware of how sexual relationships work. I believe that there is a way to get across the majority of the information in this paper without having to make them uncomfortable. Because it is a science-based article, pictures can help with the audience’s learning of this information. I want to create an adventure comic in which a main character analyzes the evolution of these social systems. That way I can also incorporate goofy fonts, younger jargon, and cool animations.
            For the older people genre, I had a harder time deciding which method would be the best to get across the information of the article. Obviously it would over-view all of the information without having to censor any, but would have less scientific jargon than the original paper. I finally decided on doing a news piece, similar to those found in magazines such at Time, or The New Yorker. These magazines are known for being very factual and therefor readers trust the institutions. The news article will contain all of the information, just a bit more simplified.

            I’m excited to work on the different parts of this word project because I feel that it allows us to be more creative than the last two projects. Writing for younger audiences seems like there is more freedom to be silly and yourself. Writing for an older audience will rely more on making the right moves and keeping the right style. I do think it will be a lot of work to create these pieces and wonder if I have to create the whole entirety of those pieces or just the beginnings? I will find out eventually I suppose.

3 comments:

  1. I also think your topic is quite interesting! I like that you took into consideration the maturity of your audience for your first genre. It wouldn’t exactly be the greatest idea to include sexual content especially in terms a young audience wouldn’t understand. I like that you’re thinking about how comfortable your audience will be with the content. Your right I think maybe your second genre can have the same tone but just less of the scientific jargon than the original. I think a news piece is perfect for this. Newspapers are really good at bridging scientific news with the common public. I agree there is probably a bit more freedom with the younger geared genre. Overall I think your topic is really interesting! I’m interested in how you’ll go about “censoring” it for the younger audience.

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  2. This is a really cool and fascinating topic! I really enjoyed how you took your target audience into account when deciding what information to include in your remixed genre and what information to omit. I totally agree that a group of kids that young probably aren’t fully matured enough to read through sexual content like that. I like that you pointed out that the newspaper article wouldn’t have to censor any of the information present in the original article—it’s definitely an important distinction to make that some information is suitable for one audience but not for another. Good luck on your WP!

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  3. I really am excited to see what you come up with because I think your topic is very unique and interesting for this assignment. I like that you went with a subject that is kind of out of the box and something your interested in. I think that your idea for the younger audience is clever, but while reading it I had an idea that came to mind. I thought it would be kinda cool if you could make a children's book kind of similar to the magic treehouse series, where kids go back in the future and learn about the times. You could do something like that and analyze how people choose mates in different time periods or something. Just a simple idea I had that I wanted to share. Overall though great work!

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