Ziqi Dai Writing 2

Reflection for my translation

Recently, I read an article called music, memory and mechanisms in Alzheimer’s disease

(Camilla & Jason, 2015, p.2122). I will analyze it in the following paragraphs.

Both authors of this article are scientists from the University College London neurology

center. In this article, they commented on research about music and Alzheimer’s disease

conducted by Jacobson et al (2015, p.2438-2450), summarized their results, related them to a

broader field of dementia, and appeal to scientists to continue studying this topic.

The audience for this article is brain readers including amateurs, psychologists,

biologists, doctors, and clinical neurologists. These people have some basic knowledge of

neurology but may not have specialized knowledge of the topic the author discusses.

Camilla’s explanation of different kinds of memories and introduction of the parts of brain

processing music indicates that he wants a broad audience to understand his statements while

his lack of further explanation for terms such as implicit memory and functional MRI

indicates that he expects his audience to at least have some basic knowledge about neurology

(2015, p.2123).

In this article, Camilla mainly argued that music can work as a probe to study dementia.

This main argument is mentioned in the beginning, the 2nd paragraph, the 4th paragraph, and

the end of the article. I noticed it because it is the focus of both the first and the last

paragraphs. Then I realized the arguments and claims in other paragraphs are trying to

support this argument, so I concluded that it is the main argument (Camilla & Jason, 2015,

p.2122).

To support the main argument, the authors first introduce the background to indicate the

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importance of this topic - though music has long been used clinically to deal with

Alzheimer’s disease, the theory behind has never been studied scientifically because of the

complexity of music (as it involves multiple brain areas and systems). Then Camilla indicates

that Jacob’s essay provides a way to study how music cures Alzheimer’s disease (Camilla &

Jason, 2015, p.2122).

Then Camilla summarizes and introduces Jacob’s research methods and findings in the

following paragraph. To further explore this topic, Camilla claimed that there are several

types of memory, each impaired by Alzheimer’s disease to very different extents (This claim

is supported by a cite from another essay). He then makes a hypothesis that musical

memories are impaired the least and uses Jacob and several other scientists’ findings to

support this hypothesis. There’s one writing technique to notice: at the end of the previous

paragraph, the author posts a question and then answers it in this paragraph. This can act as a

strong link between each claim and the main claim (Camilla & Jason, 2015, p.2122).

In the end, Camilla suggests further research on this topic and mentioned again that to

study dementia, music can act as a good tool due to its potential of causing physiological

responses such as chills, tears, etc. (Camilla & Jason, 2015, p.2122).

The new genre I choose is popular science. I choose it because I think keeping normal

people learning about science topics is beneficial because it can both intrigue their interest in

a science area and improve the common knowledge level for the whole society. Moreover,

this translation is simple because popular science genre can keep most of the original content

while only changing the way to talk about it.

To convert this article into a popular science article, I look for references from three

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popular science books: 100,000 Whys: A Trip Around the Room (Mikhail, ll’in, 1934), A Brief

History Of Time (Stephen, Hawking, 1988), and Does God Play Dice: history of quantum

physics (Capo, Cao, 2006). Though varied in publication time, this kind of book has many

similarities. Firstly, they always try to include some anecdotes or fun facts. Second, as this

genre’s targeted audience is normal people, especially children, they often use simple words

and a relaxed, informal tone. Third, they always try to use as least equations and long

verification for science theories as possible. Even if they have to use it, they often hint that if

the reader feels uncomfortable, they could skip that part.

I have also used readings from class to convert the original article. For example, I used

ideas from Navigating Genres to analyze popular science genres (Kerry, Dirk, 2010). I first

summarize some common features from three books in this genre (in the above paragraph)

and then also try to get some sense of why they write like that by analyzing their audience. I

also make use of rhetorical situation in my own writing (Laura, Bolin, Carroll, 2010). When I

was writing, I kept thinking about the rhetorical situation of my writing and use them to guide

me through the writing process. For example, the audience are normal people with minimal

science background, the exigence is to popularization science topics, the constraints are that

some topics are hard to tell without equations or long explanations.

As I realized that my new audience is normal people without science backgrounds, I tried

to choose mostly daily-used diction. I also used an amiable style as if I were talking directly

to the reader in order to make their reading easier. Imitating other popular science books, I

tried to include one interesting fact in my writing. However, there is actually a small

challenge: Though that fact is interesting to me, I do not know if others will consider it as

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interesting. This is because I already have some science background (as an undergrad) and

my thoughts may differ from my audience. What’s more, writing science topics in an easy

way is harder than I thought because this approach requires me to have both a profound

understanding of the original article and the ability to transfer it to a simple style. I still

managed to do it after reading the original article several times, searching for obscure

concepts on google, and looking at articles that are referenced by the original article. In

conclusion, I think my work conveys the most key ideas from the original article while

transferring it to a popular science style.

Reference

Camilla N. Clark, & Jason D. Warren (2015). music, memory and mechanisms in Alzheimer’s

disease. Brain, 138(8), 2122-2125.

https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awv148

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Jörn-Henrik Jacobsen, Johannes Stelzer, Thomas Hans Fritz, Gael Chételat, Renaud La

Joie, Robert Turner (2015). Why musical memory can be preserved in advanced

Alzheimer’s disease. Brain, 138(8), 2438-2450.

https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awv135

Mikhail, ll’in (1934). 100,000 Whys: A Trip Around the Room. J.B. Lippincott Company

Stephen, Hawking (1988). A Brief History Of Time. Bantam Dell Publishing Group.

Capo, Cao (2006). Does God Play Dice: history of quantum physics. Liao Ning Education

Press.

Kerry, Dirk (2010). Navigating Genres. Parlor Press.

Laura, Bolin, Carroll (2010). Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis.
Parlor Press.