Transformations

Older https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B34wlfoOump4RzZNek4yVWFHWWc/view?usp=sharing Younger https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B34wlfoOump4Q0dIMkFxalhRZFU/view?usp=sharing For WP3 I transformed the scholarly article Do we really know what makes us happy? A review of the economic literature on the factors associated with subjective well-being by Paul Dolan into a BuzzFeed article for and older genre, and a high school graduation speech from a principal or a dean for the younger audience. This article goes into depth to analyze data and reports from studies on happiness linked to economics and psychology to determine what aspects of life provide the highest level of happiness. To make these transformations, I had to make certain choices, particularly choice of moment and choice of word to fit conventions (McCloud). Article Summary: In the academic article Do we really know what makes us happy? A review of the economic literature on the factors associated with subjective well-being, Paul Dolan sets out to find out what aspects of life make people the most happy. Dolan found that money is only responsible for happiness to a certain extent, mainly stopping after ones needs are met. It was also found that a mid level of education is responsible for happiness as well. Health, both physical and mental, is also important for one to be happy throughout their life. It was also found that those who are social, whether it be in the community, with friends and family, or in an intimate relationship, tend to be happier than those who abstain from social activity. The most important part of this article that is not directly stated but strongly implied is that a balance of happiness factors is key so that one doesn’t over nourish one area and let the others perish. For the older audience I transformed my scholarly article into a BuzzFeed article titled “Happiness: What Causes It? How Can We Get It (You Might Be Surprised).” The intended audience for my transformation are early to mid twenty year olds who are still in to news sources that have a pop culture-y feel to them. BuzzFeed articles are characterized by short, catchy article titles that try to entice the reader to read them, smaller titles for each part of the article indicating the subject of a certain part of the article, simple conversational styled dialogue, and lots of visuals. To transform the title of my scholarly piece, I had to reword it to make it shorter and sound catchier so that someone skimming a website for interesting articles could read it quickly and hopefully be intrigued enough to click the hyperlink. Do we really know what makes us happy? A review of the economic literature on the factors associated with subjective well-being was not going to cut it because it is rather long and seems like it would be quite a boring read. Instead, I rewrote the title by taking the general idea of the article and rewriting it to read “Happiness: What Causes It? How Can We Get It?” and below in parenthesis “You Might Be Surprised”. I chose to add the part in parenthesis because it uses mystery to make the potential reader question what they thought they knew about happiness, and make them more likely to read the article to see if they really are surprised by the information in it. Also, I chose to include titles to each subcategory in my article so the reader knows what they are reading about as the article is separated into parts including “Money,” “Education,” “Health,” etc. Both of these title moves are made by myself and those who actually write for BuzzFeed because young adults browsing the Internet generally want to read something that is interesting and easy to read. My BuzzFeed article also used simpler language than the scholarly article and had a conversational tone because a BuzzFeed article is supposed to be easy, light reading. The reader is not supposed to be bombarded with sophisticated language and terms that they might not know the meaning of. In this effect, I omitted phrases such as reverse causation and acronyms like SWB that would only make sense if the reader read the article itself. In addition, I referenced my article but didn’t cite it within the article so the reader wouldn’t get tripped up every time it was referenced. I also took a conversational tone when transforming my article. I used the words we and you that aren’t used in the article, as well as phrases like hit the books. These moves make my article take on a more casual tone and bring it away from the scholarly article genre, and help turn it into a pop culture news source/information article genre. Lastly, my BuzzFeed article featured a large amount of visuals. Visuals are used to make my article more attractive. There is a visual next to the title hyper link, visuals before every sub category, and of course visuals in the margins that consist of advertisements and links to other articles. An actual BuzzFeed article take on this form so I decided to be artistic and make a recreation so my article takes on that pop culture website feel. For my transformation aimed at a younger audience, I transformed my article into a graduation speech that would be given to the class of 2016 by a dean or a principal on the subject of happiness. Graduation speeches tend to be formal, addressing the graduating class and giving them advice for the next step in their lives as they are generally given during a farewell ceremony or the actual graduation. My graduation speech on happiness uses formal language because it is intended to be given in front of the entire graduating class, the parents, grandparents, and other relatives of the graduates. Because of the seriousness of the setting and the high image of the principal or dean giving the speech, the casual tone is abandoned for a more sincere one. To fit this convention, I didn’t use slang or contractions, and made sure there are no cacophonic sentences if it were to be read out loud. Also, my graduation speech addressed the class of 2016 directly since the principal or dean wants to give them the advice. I used words such as you and we so the speech seems as if it is spoken directly at the class so that it doesn’t seem like the speech giver is reading some script that uses third person. Also, I used the phrase my friends a couple times to help signify that the class has now graduated and is no longer under the faculty, but peers among them who have joined them through advancement in life. It helps signify that the class is moving on, and that their high school memories are to be cherished and celebrated, as most high schools would wish this of their students. Ultimately I took the information in my scholarly article and transformed it into two different genres based on the conventions of each genre in question. I made specific moves to make this happen. Since BuzzFeed is a pop culture information source, I had to make my boring scholarly article sound more interesting using catchy titles, simple language, and imagery so it would stand out. Because of these conventions, I had to use summarizations when writing about my article. For the graduation speech, I had to take the information in my article and turn it in to sort of a lesson that contains formal language and unifying language. I also had to make the information applicable to 17 and 18 year olds because they are the ones who would be using it in the future. In conclusion, I had to “leap into identities,” (Losh, Alexander) to transform my article by putting on artist/writer’s shoes and fulfill conventions.