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“Melting” Down the Writers

                 Which is more dangerous the avalanches caused by melting glaciers or the fear caused by the tongue of a news reporter? News articles are often twisted and reworded to have the greatest effect on the reader or audience. I gathered a news article on the effects of glaciers on avalanches, and also a research article on Glaciers in the Chinghai- Tibet plateau. Then analyzed the differences in writing based on their perspective audiences. Media has a way of shifting the information to being very entertaining the reader where, researchers are very straight to the point, and informative on avalanches. Although media may be easier to understand it may not always have the most reliable information. Researchers use hard data, where the media may add numbers to appeal more to the reader’s emotion.  Both methods are strong, but all depend on the audience and purpose for the writing. The effect of writing a piece to appeal to a certain audience is necessary to draw their attention in and relay information, but may not always be the most factual information.

The first piece that I looked at was a newspaper article titled “When Glaciers Transform into Deadly 150-mph Avalanches” written by Robinson Meyer in the News Bank. This article gives us several examples of when Glaciers have cracked when melting and slid down the mountain face and caused many deaths. It was written with the exigence of showing how bad global warming is.  The first example Robinson gives is the glacier Kolka on the Georgia- Russian boarder. Robinson adds rhetorical information such as many numerical details and also scientific terminology to this article to effect the reader’s emotions. One example of how he uses numerical values to appeal to ones emotions in in the use of time. He uses exact times like 8:08, and 8:13 to make it seem like he is counting down in anticipation of something major. This excites the reader and gives them a rush that draws them in to the story. The addition of scientific terms to the article also gives it a more appealing dialect. He uses phrases such as “million cubic meters, land sat 7, miles of ice, and 10 meters per year” to give the reader what he thinks is factual information to draw from the text. This may sound really good but could just be non-important information. The true information that is important is amount of people that died and where and not the speed at which the rate fell and size of the ice. Those facts just make the article more interesting. The other thing that the writer of the news article did was to use vocabulary the appealed to the readers. He uses words such as surge, collapse, crevasses, pooled, and captured to excite the reader. An example of this from the article is “The glacier before its collapse in early July. Some crevasses, a sign of imminent surging.”   These words give the reader a sense of urgency and danger and get the adrenalin pumping. This contrasts with what you would see in a research article where the writer is just giving hard facts and does not worry about drawing the reader in. An example from the research text is, “Wissman (1959) calculated that the total area of the Himalayas in 33,250 Km².” This method of drawing in the readers emotions can be very important the overall success of this news article in the media.

The second article I drew was from a research stand point, with the purpose of giving a reader specific information on that specific topic. The article was titled “Recent Research on glaciers on the Chinghai-Tibet Plateau” written by Li Chi-chun and Cheng Pen-hsing. As you can see there is a major difference in the two titles of the articles. The newspaper article title creates that since of urgency in the words used. The research article on the other hand was written to tell you exactly what is going to be about.                                                                                                                         Not unlike the news article the research article was most likely also written because of global change and the effects on glaciers. Since this article was not based on getting the reader’s attention drawn in, it was more based on telling the reader hard facts about the glaciers. This research tells up the exact size and location of every glacier on this plateau. It informs us of the exact area in Km² of each type of glacier and the structures there are and even the amount of precipitation and what the totals are for each season. It is important to get this information straight up for anyone doing other research on the glaciers and not the random facts like the news article.  If the research article had all the other random details in it, it would waist way too much time for the reader trying to gather information. But on the other hand for someone trying to read an article for entertainment this article would not be the one to choose out of the two. Another thing that sets the research article apart from the newspaper article is the use of charts and graphs to give the data. In the newspaper article, the author just develops a story and does not give us any other types of information. In the research article, the author uses graphs to clearly lay out and labeled the data to make it easy for the person reading the information to understand it. This form of research article can be very useful and important but only to the right reader. Research articles are structured very informational based on their specific topic of study.

Both of these writing methods are good but very specific based on the audience it is being written too. In the newspaper article the facts all flow together and are all general based on the topic. In the research article on the other hand the claims and facts are very direct and straight to the point all on the same topic with specific factual data. Not saying that all the newspaper articles facts are false but they may have been changed slightly to appeal to the reader. The information from the research came from specific scientific calculations using geological mapping to calculate the area. The newspaper article does not tell where its information came from. Another major difference in the two articles is the difference in the development of the information. In the news article, the information was developed based on a story telling how the ice cracked and then leading to the conclusion, whereas the other article just went straight to the facts. The information in the news article did not contradict the information in the research article just gave more information than was needed from the research article. The scientist would not have to refute any claims made by this article he would just not need most of them for his specific research.  Research articles are very specific and give the reader important data on their topic.

As you can see newspaper articles and research articles are very different but both fulfill their own separate purpose. The newspaper article has the goal of entertaining the reader and engaging them in the story. The research article is made to give specific information to someone interested in that same field of study. The methods by which they get their message across may be different but they are both very effective at what they do. The newspaper article gives a lot of numerical values and scientific sounding data points in order to make the information sound like a reliable source. It also adds time and specific vocabulary into the writing in order to give the reader a sense of urgency and danger when reading. This draws the reader and engages them in to what is going on, even if the information is not one hundred percent reliable. The research article on the other hand is based on cold hard facts. It is informing the people on a specific topic and giving them real data. In this case it gave us specific information on the areas and locations of glaciers on the Chinghai-Tibet Plateau but research articles can give you information on just about anything. They are very important for information and research purposes. Both types of writing are very specific for their varied audiences. Even though they may appeal the same exigence, they are made for very specific audiences, and very specific rhetors, and come up with very different conclusions.

Word count: 1534

Works cited

Covino,William, and David Jolliffe.”What is rhetoric?”Rhetoric: Concepts, Definitions,

 Boundaries. Ed William Covino and David Jollife. Boston: Allyn &Bacon 1995. 3-26.

Print.

Grant-1Davie, Keith. “Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents.”Rhetoric Review 15.2

(1997): 264-79.Print.

Inventory, World Glacier. Recent Research on Glaciers on the Chinghai-Tibet Plateau (n.d.): n.

pag. Web.

Meyers, Robinson. “when glaciers transform into deadly 150-mph avalanches.” Atlantic: Web

Edition Articles (USA) 18 October 2016, News. NewsBank . Web. 21 October 18, 2016.

Porter, James E. “Intertextuality and the Discource Community” Rhetoric Review 5.1 (1986):

34-47. Print.

Help Received: Peer reading, spell check

Sliding in to Activity Systems and Discourse Communities

From the feeling of the ball hitting the bat, to the taste of crackerjacks at a game, baseball has always been a part of my life.   I have played baseball for almost eleven years, since I was seven years old. Many would say that I have become part of the baseball discourse community, with a very specific activity system. The activity system has very specific goals set to try to achieve. In which they use very specific tools to accomplish these goals. The activity system is structured in to three main groups; the coaches leading the team, the players compete in the games and last but not least the fans cheering us on. Each role has specific motives for wanting to win. But lastly on top of all this, there are many, many rules in the game of baseball that make this very complicating. Not only has baseball affected me in this way but it has also change my vocabualy a lot too. I am a member of the baseball activity system with a common goal set out to win every game.

As an activity system our goal is win every game as a team, but everyone also has individual goals that they work toward achieving. The coach’s goals are to improve every one of his player’s abilities, and to win as many games as possible. They achieve this by giving the knowledge of baseball that they have on to the next generation of players.  The players on the other hand, not only set goals as a team, but individual as well. Going in to my senior year my batting average was at .280, and I wanted to finish out high school with above a .300 average. I trained really hard and ended up batting .315 on the season which was much better than I had hoped. This was all possible because of the help of my coaches, and fellow player pushing me to get better each day. And because my betting average was better our whole team’s performance was better in our next games. My activity system not only helped me to achieve my goals , but also in return it helped out the teams goals.

Activity system’s, also use tools to help them achieve their goals. The two most common tools in my activity system are the baseball bat and the glove. The baseball bat is used to hit the baseball as far as possible when thrown by the pitcher. The pitch could be thrown anywhere from 75- 95 miles per hours, and have some crazy spin on it as well. It is our job as the batter to make sure that ball does not get past us. The baseball bat is a very important tool, and is necessary to achieve our goal. The other main tool our activity system uses is the baseball glove, commonly known as the “mitt” in the community. This tool is used to keep the baseball from touching the ground when it is hit up in to the air by the opposing team, or to stop the ball from getting past you if it is hit on the ground. If you could not stop or catch the ball, you could not get out, and if you could not get outs, you could not win ball games. My activity system could not achieve its goal of winning without these tools necessary to win. We would not be about to hit, or make outs, and we would lose.

Our activity system is very structured between the leadership and players on the team. This structure is necessary to improve and win ball games. Our activity system is structured in to three groups; coaches, players, and fans. The role of our coaches is to improve our skills and to lead us to winning ball games. They improve our skills by setting up practices, workout groups, and scrimmages for us to play against other teams. In our practices our coaches set us up to work on the things we are the weakest in. This helps us to gain muscle memory and to be very precise in everything that we do. The work out groups that we are put in help improve our strength. This new strength leads to improvements in speed, agility, and over all power in the fundamental parts of baseball such as throwing, catching, and hitting. These skills will help us to win games. And lastly, our coaches set up scrimmages for us to get a chance to play another team and see where our skills need improving. We get to see how well we play in a live game time scenario and individually what we need to improve on most. All scrimmages, practices, and workouts are all very important to the success of our team and these come down to the coaches. The role of the players on the other had is to take in all of this information and apply it to their skills and to give one hundred and fifty percent every day. But ultimately in the end, it comes down to the players to win every game. And lastly, but possibly the most important the fans are a very important role to the success of the activity system. The fans role in the system is to motivate the players on the team, to support us in all of the travel, but also to get in the head of the opposing team. They cheer for us all game long no matter how good we are doing or how bad. They will always yell”come now kid” when we are up to bat and keep our heads high. We could not do it without the fans in the crowd cheering us on. Every role in our activity system is needed in order to achieve our goals.

What make baseball so complicated and not fun to watch for some people are all of the rules that go in to it. Baseball has rules for literally every scenario of what could happen. There are rules for the players, rules for the coaches, rules for the umpires and even rules for the fans. These rules can make or break a game. You could be winning by ten runs and if you have three fouled up plays you could be losing by two. Like if a ball rolls under the fence and you don’t hold your arm up they could run all around the bases and get a homerun. And this could be a game changer. Your parents could be asked to leave if they are being too loud or obstructing the game. Rules can even be called wrong by the umpire and the result of the game could switch. Last year I was in a game that was tied two to two in the twelfth inning. The game had gone on for three hours nonstop. And it all came down to one play. It was the bottom of the twelfth inning and we were on defense out in the field. The count was three and two with two outs and the bases loaded. It can down all to one pitch. Ball or strike. Bo Kenan was on the mound.  The pitch was thrown and the umpire called a “BALL”. We lost the game all because the umpire was wrong. The rules of our activity system caused us to lose our game and not achieve our goal.

Many of the common baseball phrases come from what you hear in the stands from the parents cheering. Things like “swing batter swing” or “come on ump what are ya blind”, but the ones that affect me the most are the ones that come from inside the dugout. When anyone on our team does anything good or goes up to bat we are cheering for them. We are yelling things like “come now kid” which mean get a hit, or “Or throw him one right down the pipe” which means throw a strike. And these are only two examples of many, of parts of my vocabulary that have been changed. but the discourse community baseball has definitely changed me.

Our activity system could not function without all of these things working in sink.  Our community set goals that we try to achieve both individually and as a group. As you could see the tools we use such as the baseball bat and the baseball glove are necessary for us to achieve these goals. It is also very necessary for all of the different roles of my discourse community to function together in order to achieve our goal. The coaches, the players, and fans need to function as one in order to keep winning. And lastly many rules factor in that must go perfectly as planned to in order for the community to achieve the goal. Not even to mention how the community has changed the way I talk. This activity system has to go exactly as planned in order to achieve our goal and win ball games.

Words: 1554

Works cited

** need to fix   Pg. 273- 283 “Activity Systems.” Writing about writing: A College Reader. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martins, 2011. Print.