Savanna Parangan

Matt Wilson
June 1, 16
WP3 Revision
We are in the age of social media. Kids use it, teens use it, adults use it, and even
some older people use it. But whats the reasoning behind this? What makes the use of
social media, Instagram for instance, so widespread and popular? Psychological academic
papers such as one written by Pavica Sheldon and Katherine Bryant, Instagram: Motives
for its use and relationship to narcissism and contextual age, can easily inform readers
on these topics. But, a satirical made-for-adults kids book can be both informational
about Instagram and psychology, and also jab at adults and make them rethink their
attachment to social media. Techniques such as recognizing audience, recognizing
authors purpose, and concision are essential for taking a psychological article and turn it
into a strong message about how much we really use Instagram.
For this project, I translated a psychological research paper into a picture book for
adults. This genre involves creating a book that looks like a childrens book short,
simple sentences and pictures and twisting it with sarcasm and humor that is targeted
towards adults. I turned a structured piece of academic writing, the article Instagram:
Motives for its use and relationship to narcissism and contextual age by Pavica Sheldon
and Katherine Bryant, into a story about Bear, a bear who has just created her own
Instagram account. It may appear that the book I wrote is intended for children, but that is
not the case. I decided to make the translation for adults but write it like a book for
children to emphasize that my message is easy enough for a child to understand.

Recognizing audience is an extremely important skill because they are who you
expect to fulfill your exigence the circumstance or condition that invites a response
according to Carroll in Backpacks vs. Briefcases. It determines your language used and
how you deliver rhetoric. Basically, the audience determines the style or genre. For
example, instead of saying that A survey of 239 college students revealed that the main
reasons for Instagram use are Surveillance/Knowledge about others, Documentation,
Coolness, and Creativity (Bryant and Sheldon paragraph 1) I said Bear made an
Instagram! Now what does Bear do with it? Bear checks what her friends are doing
without her. Bear keeps track of stuff she did. Bear shows her friends the cool stuff she
does. Bear shows everyone how much more creative she is than others. The tone is
changed from academic and scholarly to the tone that someone would use when telling a
story to a young child, but sarcastic to prove a point to my older audience.
Making translations from two genres as different as an academic article and a
childrens book makes it crucial to understand the authors purpose. Its importance is
discussed in Reading Like a Writer by Bunn. According to the essay, knowing the
purpose can help explain why the author might have made certain choices or used
particular techniques in the writing. The purpose has a noticeable effect on language. I
translated this study investigates how participants life position indicators, including
interpersonal relations into something that would be stronger and satirical for my
purpose of jabbing at Instagram users a picture of bear saying sorry I cant go ice
skating right now, Im following everyone back who likes this picture within the hour!
The sarcasm somewhat insults the audience and makes them evaluate their usage of
social media.

Finally, one of the most important technique for this specific translation was
concision. Or it could be referred to choice of moment which is discussed in Scott
McClouds Writing with Pictures. Concision involves showing moments that matter
and cutting those that dont. I wouldnt be able to get my message across as strongly if I
just had someone read the entire article. I had to take the most important parts that
contained the main message, the abstract and the introduction of the research paper, and
turn them into something understandable enough to get a message cross, and make my
audience hear my message. I cut out all the statistics and psychology jargon and turned it
into terms simple enough for a child to understand. Instead of just discussing the
psychological trait of narcissism and including all the data and research that goes along
with it, I said It [referring to Instagram] lets Bear see how great she is. The minimal
and simple words make the message easier for the reader to understand my message and
have it stick in their head.
Translating an academic research paper into a seems-like-its-for-kids-but-itsactually-for-adults book was not only a fun process that allowed me to exercise creativity.
It also allowed me to exercise skills that I have learned about writing throughout the
quarter such as audience recognition, purpose recognition, concision, and the skills that
fall into them such as analysis of genre, convention, and tone, reading academic papers,
and identifying rhetoric situations.