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Academic Discipline of Economics and Biology

Writing Project 1

Academic Discipline of Economic and Biology

Akash Ghoman

Fahler

Writing 2

25 April 2020
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Academic Discipline of Economics and Biology

Dear Valentina,

Throughout this writing process I have carefully selected the 2 academic disciplines I

wanted to work with, as well as a topic that I have an interest in, food. The academic disciplines I

chose were Economics and Biology. Though what I noticed was they do have a lot of similarities

in their writing. So how first it was difficult organizing my essay and what I was going to write

about though as I read through numerous articles I was debating on using I realized even though

they are similar in some essence, even their similarities have some slight differences in them

which I could use to prove a point in my essay how even though, these genres had some

comparisons they both still have their own individual styles you can seek out if you look closely.

I feel proud of how I organized my paper and that it will be clear to the reader what each

paragraph is about and what the point of it is. This was after I read my revision and how the

reader stated that my paper was well organized and spoke on the structure and how the flow

really made the essay smooth and transition.

Best Wishes,

Akash Ghoman

Food, one of the basic necessities, not only do humans depend on it to survive but so does

every other species on the planet. Food has been cooked, savored, and loved; it has also sickened
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Academic Discipline of Economics and Biology

and killed people. Food has led to obesity, and because of our need for it, it has led to starvation

as well in some places. It has stirred the interest of research in many academic fields of study:

economics, health, psychology, biology, chemistry, even art. Though we will explicitly be

discussing two academic fields that have extensively studied food; economics and biology.

These fields, however, differ greatly on the topics they raise questions about and the way they go

by arguing and informing their audiences. The field of economics explores the production,

distribution, and consumption of goods and services, on the other side biology digs into the

microscopic world of bacteria. These academic disciplines, as assumed, use their own separate

methodology within their texts in order to communicate to their audiences, though these

disciplines have some shared methods as well. The two disciplines each have various techniques

and writing styles that give them their own uniqueness, these uniquensses will be analyzed.

The intended audience plays a key role on how and why things are mentioned or written

in the economic discipline. Rapidly rising food prices and the experience of food insecurity in

urban Ethiopia: Impacts on health and well-being, discusses the spiking of food prices occurring

in 2007-2011, and the great burden it put on the lives of Ethiopian citizens. Food in this article is

looked at from the economic perspective and how the price of it affected consumption and

distribution in Ethiopia, as well as what it means for the rest of the world. The article discusses

problems economists believe may occur in the future hypothesizing “that food price increases

will be particularly damaging for urban dwellers' food security because urban dwellers are more

exposed to market prices” (Hadley 2012). Academic Arguments states “you can also identify

academic arguments by the way it addresses its audience” (Lunsford et al 2016 p. 381). When we

analyze this journal it shows how the author takes his approach towards his audience specifically

using words such as “urban dwellers” to bring attention to his audience. You can see how the
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Academic Discipline of Economics and Biology

author takes into account what academic arguments they use to address their audience. This

article is in English, written by an American, so it is safe to assume the author’s audience at the

very least are Americans, specifically urban American households. They make up about 84% of

the United States population, this fact supporting my claim that economic writing has a wider

audience, because of how major of a factor the economy is to all people, everyone deals with

making a living, spending, and consuming.

The biology discipline has strict writing conventions when we highlight the structuring

and organization of a piece. High Stability of Stx2 Phage in Food and under Food-Processing

Conditions, discusses how “Stx phage particles can maintain their infectivity in foods and under

food-processing conditions” (Rode 2011). This article also discusses the topic of food as well,

but instead of the prices, it looks at the bacteria in the food. The biological discipline has its own

structure of its writing, in What Is It We Do When We Write Articles Like This One-and How

Can We Get Students to Join Us, it discusses the importance of structure and organization in

writing. A writing article’s structure and organization allow for points to be clear because

“organization [is] a process of understanding what [an] audience already [knows], [and] what

they need to know” (Kleine 1987 p. 29). The article shows us the importance of what the

organization and structure of a piece can do it for and how it can elevate readers’ understanding

of the context. These pieces are just what is implemented in biological discipline writing. In the

biology article, it is organized from an introduction to materials and methods used to then results

of their experiment, then finally ending with a discussion on what went on in the experiment.

This organization allows for an efficient way to get their points across in what they were trying

to conclude or show with their experiment.

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Academic Discipline of Economics and Biology

Writings in the biology discipline tend to focus on facts and numbers as well as jotting

down results exactly how they are. This is because the discipline is not focused on trying to win

arguments or persuade readers, it is created so the author's work can be exposed and interpreted

for the use of their readers. For example, “a steady and continuous decrease in phage titer was

observed at 24°C throughout the study period. For storage exceeding 50 days, 4°C showed a

higher stability of phages than 24°C” (Rode 2011). This is a perfect example of how biology

discipline does not add emotions or outer influences into their writing and focuses primarily on

just providing evidence. Discourse Communities states, the text should maintain a “rubber-

gloved” quality of voice (Johns 1997), now as shown for the example the texts do exactly that,

they leave out all emotions and personal implications from the results. Biology pieces tend to do

this because of their intended audience, usually more specialized professionals around the

science field, because for the writers their only job is to get their findings out to other

professionals so they can assess what the results can do towards finding future answers for

specific problems.

Keywords are a feature the economic and biology academic disciplines share, though

they each have their own little tweaks to them, biology has more of exclusive jargon. In

economic writing, the intended audience as stated before is broad because economics affects

everybody’s pockets whether it be direct or indirect. This being said economic writing has to

make sure it can not only be read but understood by its broad audience. In order for this to be

achieved, economic-based writers have to be careful with the jargon and keywords they use in

their writing so readers do not get confused. Though economic articles do at times need to

mention economic keywords in their writing; they will define the keywords following when it is

mentioned in order to diminish confusion. In Rapidly rising food prices and the experience of
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Academic Discipline of Economics and Biology

food insecurity in urban Ethiopia: Impacts on health and well-being, the introduction starts off

talking about world food prices increase and how it is leading to “concurrent decreases in

household food security”, now the term “food security” is an economic keyword that most

citizens wouldn’t just know the difference. The author knows his intended audience might have a

lack of knowledge in this so he proceeds with the following sentence “Food security is defined as

a condition in which people have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and

nutritious food which meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy

life” (Hadley 2012). The author educates his readers to be able to understand their content

completely by defining economic keywords readers might not be familiar with. Now biology is a

bit different; they have keywords too just as economic writing does though they approach them

in a different manner. Biological writing is complex and is intended towards specialized

professionals, their writing might be readable, it will not be understood to the full intended extent

because of the lack of knowledge from an unspecialized reader. This is why the author will not

take time to define a term such as how the economic piece would. The first sentence of the

article speaks about how “Bacteriophages (phages) carrying Shiga toxin genes constitute a major

virulence attribute in enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC)” (Rode 2011). That is the first

sentence! Right off the bat, there are at least 5 keywords that I am unfamiliar with, no definition

given like in the economic article. This is because the author’s audience is more narrow and

focused on a group of specialists, most commoners will not even care to read this article because

of the lack of interest in this field. Whereas in economics you are almost forced to know about

this field because almost everything you do involves money.

By focusing on the different approaches taken by economic and biological academic

discipline on the topic of food, we are able to appreciate and understand the tools and features of
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each discipline through what the articles showcased. Both disciplines each use their own

conventions to further clarify and inform their readers. The disciplines can be individualized

through understanding audiences, organizations, and keywords of each specific discipline; this

was shown by how contrasting the disciplines were even when they were discussing the same

topic.

References

Hadley, C., Stevenson, E. G. J., Tadesse, Y., & Belachew, T. (2012). Rapidly rising food prices

and the experience of food insecurity in urban Ethiopia: Impacts on health and

well-being. Social Science & Medicine, 75(12), 2412–2419.

doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.09.018
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Johns, Ann M. (1997). Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice:

Membership, Conflict, and Diversity. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge UP.

Kleine, Michael. (1987). “What Is It We Do When We Write Articles Like This One-and How

Can

We Get Students to Join Us?” The Writing Instructor. Boston, New York: Bedford/St.

Martin’s.

Lunsford et al. (2016). Everything’s an Argument. Boston, New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

Rode, T. M., Axelsson, L., Granum, P. E., Heir, E., Holck, A., & Labée-Lund, T. M. (2011).

High

Stability of Stx2 Phage in Food and under Food-Processing Conditions. Applied and

Environmental Microbiology, 77(15), 5336–5341. doi: 10.1128/aem.00180-11