Gutierrez 1

Alyssa Gutierrez

Instructor Jessica Zisa

Writing 2: Academic Writing

5 December 2022

A Look Into the Process

After creating a translation, I realized my newfound purpose in writing was sharing

something I am passionate about in a way that I choose to. Whatever genre I may have chosen to

go about for this project, I see that my choices are what make the writing “perfect” in its own

way. These ideas and realizations came to light as a result of reading sections of Downs and

Wardle’s, “Wring about Writing.” The authors mention, “what you believe about writing directly

impacts what you do or are willing to do” (Downs and Wardle, 7). Once I changed my

perspective, the process and deciding what I wanted practically felt like no work.

The initial peer-reviewed article I translated was, “Young Men’s Attitudes and Behaviour

in Relation to Mental Health and Technology: Implications for the Development of Online

Mental Health Services” by authors Ellis et al.. Their audience consisted of scholars who were

looking for solutions to men's mental health through various testing to locate the problem and

work around it. Similarly, their purpose involved informing the problems and testing possible

solutions with technology which included surveys and data as well as analyzing various

responses. Although I used a lot of the information from the text, my ways of going about it and

how I chose to portray it varied because of our differences in these rhetorical situations.

The overall article itself can be overwhelming as there are a multitude of words on a page

with data that isn’t straightforward and may be difficult to comprehend. This caused some things

to be excluded from the translation such as most (or all) quantitative data in order to focus on the
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qualitative points to show what was happening. Even though information such as “only 13% of

young men aged 16 to 24 years seek help when experiencing mental health difficulty compared

with 31% of young females” (Ellis et al. 1), is important I chose not to include it because I went

for the more personal story route. Additionally, since I’m choosing to spread more awareness of

the topic and what it entailed, I also choose to exclude their exact “solution” as I think that

awareness is the first step. Aside from those exclusions practically all of the qualitative

information was mentioned in some sort of way because it all held importance to the purpose of

what I am trying to convey.

The translation itself went from a peer-reviewed social science article to ballad song

lyrics. I decided on song lyrics because when expressing emotions music was found to be my

first outlet. Additionally, since my audience is aimed towards younger men, song lyrics are a

fitting genre as they create easy communication and a clearer understanding of the information I

am trying to convey. The lyrics create relatability to the words and allow the reader to be put into

an experience that they may develop a new understanding for. For song lyrics overall, there are

various ways to develop them depending on the intended sound and portrayal; however, based on

the emotional content of the article, a ballad was the best-fitting sub-genre. I used information

from Cabag’s “How to Write a Ballad: 5 Steps to Creating Your Own Poetic Narrative” in order

to write the ballad. Ballad lyrics didn’t have many conventions to follow and can vary depending

on even more stylistic choices (Cabag 1). As a result, it was narrowed down to a rhyming pattern

of both “ABCB” and “ABAB,” with a storyline, a softer tone, and the inclusion of a chorus. The

chorus is vital and displays the progression of the story within the lyrics.

With the choice of song lyrics, I chose to put them on a small CD booklet. In doing so I

was able to add certain things to it like a “special note” and hidden details like background
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choice. The special note is an add-on to further the understanding of the rhetorical situation

(audience and purpose) and also creates an even more emotional environment that may have not

been established by just the lyrics. I incorporated two different backgrounds for the design of the

booklet. The first background is of an empty road at night from the perspective of a car and was

chosen because I’ve seen that men use long night car rides to relieve their emotions and even

express themselves through long talks. On the other hand, the second background was from the

perspective of someone on a walk. Many male friends I have, listen to music on walks/runs and

it helps them relate to the lyrics because that’s all they hear. With the background choices, I

hoped to create more familiarity for the audience to relate to.

While translating the article, one specific struggle I had was rhyming and actually writing

song lyrics as I had not done so prior. I kept wondering “does this make sense” or “will people

not understand the lyric flow because they can't hear it.” Despite this, I decided to make the

words sound as if I was singing them, so it does make sense from my perspective as a writer.

Additionally, for the lyrics, I realized that I wanted them to be in the first person to make it more

personal so readers can relate, as though the song is their story. The difficulty with this is that I

am not a male and although I can say I am in the song, it’s different in reality. I genuinely wanted

to portray a story through the lyrics and I was able to do this by creating a narrative based on my

experiences with the male figures in my life and what they themselves have personally

experienced. From this, I saw a general theme and created a storyline for the lyrics which tied

together very well with the article. This was probably the most detailed part of the process

primarily because I wanted a true story that would be relatable, but I also had to face difficult

information about a reality that was not my own. Even though I was aware of the issue, it’s

always much more difficult to handle or deal with something when you face it. Hearing about
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and recalling experiences my male friends had endured made me ensure that each lyric held

significance as they were someone's reality. After that, I summarized the main points of each

section which then became a song lyric that I ordered based on my storyline.

A specific example of stylistic choice within the lyrics is an adlib “mental” that is written

in parenthesis. This was included because although the song is about men’s mental health I chose

to write the line as “A man can care about his (mental) health” to show that health is something

everyone needs to take care of but isn't limited to only their physical health. The word “mental”

is not the main aspect as it’s hoped the audience can eventually see “(mental) health” as just

“health,” but before then it’s a small stepping stone to getting there.

Overall, each sentence or word choice I wrote depended on who I was as a writer in that

exact movement. As the author of “Reflection is Critical for Writers’ Development,” mentioned,

“reflection is a mode of inquiry: deliberate way of systematically recalling writing experiences”

(Taczak 1). Looking back, the emotions and ideas I had in those moments changed greatly

depending on how I now see things. This also connects to the threshold concept mentioned by

Wardle and Downs, “how you write, what you think about writing, and how you make sense of

texts when you read are impacted by all that you’ve done and experienced” (7). To me, this is

probably the most important and recognizable concept because even though you may not realize

it, as each day occurs little experiences change who you are, how you think about something, and

even your passion for certain topics. My passion for this project was derived from the previous

connections I’ve made with men and their perspectives on this topic.

I think it will always be difficult to perfect my own writing entirely, but I can definitely

decide when I’m satisfied with the words and thoughts I wrote. This does not mean that I’m

complacent and chose to leave things as is because it was enough, but from what I’ve learned,
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reflecting on your words is vital and that everything can be improved. Despite this, a writer's

work doesn't need to change to fit what the audience wants it to be. There are many alternatives

that could have occurred throughout this process. For one, the song could’ve just been empty

words that only translated the article I researched. In choosing to incorporate experiences and

actual occurrences with the translation I believe the lyrics came to be more realistic. All

additional choices were made based on relatability to the audience and the deeper meanings

behind those choices. Throughout this process, I have grown as a writer and can now say that

I’ve written a song.

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Works Cited

Cabag, Yen. “How to Write a Ballad: 5 Steps to Creating Your Own Poetic Narrative.” TCK

Publishing, 15 Jan. 2021, https://www.tckpublishing.com/how-to-write-a-ballad/.

Ellis, Louise A., et al. “Young Men’s Attitudes and Behaviour in Relation to Mental

Health and Technology: Implications for the Development of Online Mental Health

Services.” BMC Psychiatry, vol. 13, no. 1, 2013, pp. 119–119,

https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-244X-13-119.

Taczak, Kara. “Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies.”

https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt15nmjt7.

Wardle, Elizabeth, and Doug Downs. “Writing about Writing.” Bedford/St. Martin's, Macmillan

Learning, 2020. https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/reader/books/9781319423360/pageid/0