Robertson 1

Aidan Robertson

Writing 2 general change: changed font from

calibri to times new roman for
page count and spacing
Mx. Pennington

February 4, 2023

WP 1 Reflection

Last quarter, I took an upper division Environmental Studies class titled Water Supply

and Demand. In this class, we learned about the water we use, where it comes from, and which

sectors use it the most. The lectures that captivated me the most were the ones on
specified which class
groundwater: the water stored beneath our feet. For this class, I knew I wanted to translate

something relating to groundwater, both because I wanted to learn more about our relationship

with groundwater, and because I wanted to make the information more accessible to other
reworded to improve clarity
UCSB students who want to learn about its intricacies. I also knew I wanted to use an article

whose research was done in California, because I’m from California. Groundwater management

is very state-specific, so it’s important to be aware of your own state’s policies and issues.

This is why I selected the article “Domestic Well Vulnerability to Drought Duration and
added authors!!!
Unstable Groundwater Management in California’s Central Valley” as the article I was going to
added why I chose this specific article
translate. The article centers on a data-driven model estimating the amount of well failures that

would occur should another long term drought occur in California, based on differing

groundwater management practices. It is meant to inform hydrogeologists and policymakers, so

there are a lot of complicated maps and number-driven paragraphs. removed

Because the article I chose was so science-heavy, I wanted to translate it into a genre
reworded to improve clarity

that could still convey a lot of information, but in a less formal, and more accessible way for
 Robertson 2

UCSB students. I also wanted to have my translation be something that could be easily
not a true statement! made sure to clarify that, while there are other genres I could have chosen this is why i chose a zine
distributed and consumed. The best choice for me was to translate this article into a booklet

style zine. A zine is a self-published print that can be photocopied and distributed easily. Zines

typically have striking graphics, and a very specific topic that they focus on. Ideally, this zine

this paragraph could be copied and placed in high traffic areas on campus, like the SRB, UCEN, or Arbor for
is really long
and
convoluted! i students to pick up as they pass through, and look at later. Kerry Dirk mentions in “Navigating
reworded a lot
of stuff, and Genres” that, when you write, you need to be aware of the freedom you have within your
condensed my
description of
a zine chosen genre, along with its purpose, audience, and context (Dirk 261). I had already

determined my purpose, audience, and context, so all I had to do was assess the limitations of

my genre and how much room I had to explore. Some zines only use images, while others are

much more word-heavy. This meant I had the freedom to decide what my zine would look like,

depending on what I wanted it to do. Mine ended up being a mix of the two styles, being a little

more on the wordy side because I wanted to include a lot of information.

added how i looked at science zines for their specific genre conventions
I started my translation process by breaking my article into it’s bare essentials to figure
added
sentence on
how my
out the most important takeaways. This helped me figure out what I needed to include. Because
annotating
helped me a large portion of the methods section focused on the building of their model, I decided to
work through
the article
exclude it entirely from my translation. I mostly looked at the introduction, results, discussion

sections of the article, because they contained the messages that I wanted to include. I

gathered statistics on groundwater usage during drought years compared to average years, the

impacts of different groundwater management systems, and a graph I felt illustrated those

impacts concisely.
ended paragraph, but it felt incomplete. added a finalizing sentence that ties it all together
 Robertson 3
I moved
this These details made it fairly directly into my zine. The comparison statistics were made
paragraph
to after my
next two large, and I chose to display them all together on one page. In my first draft, I initially struggled
on the
graphs,
but a lot with the organization of the first page of my zine. It’s a two-page spread instead of one
lessened described my initial issue and then what i ended up with in my final revision
its focus
on the image spanning two pages, so it looked cluttered, and I had these statistics separated from each
statistics,
and
emphasize
other. The feedback I received from peer review helped me figure out the best way to
d the
changes I restructure the elements on these pages in a way that supported the flow of the zine and
made
about the
format increased its readability.

For the graph illustrating the impacts of different groundwater management systems, I

chose to split it up into three separate graphs for each system. This was to show the separation elaborated
more on what
the graphs look
between each type, and clearly list the results of each. These results were compiled as a like in my zine

split this
paragraph summary of each type, taking information from the entire article, to get a full picture of each
into two: one
on how the
graph in my
kind. One detail I debated over was including the predicted amount of well failures from each
zine differs
from its type. This was because the rest of my zine doesn’t really talk about a specific location, while this
article
counterpart,
and one on data is based off of the Central Valley. I decided that including the numbers adds another level
the detail i
debated over
of comparison between the styles. Seeing that the Total Sustainability system leads to around

2,000 well failures in comparison to Business-as-Usual’s 10,500 is striking and makes the

difference comprehensible. explained why the numbers help, and how they connect to the rhetorical situation!!!
where the
paragraph i
moved went to One of the most challenging parts of this project was deciphering what I knew from
fully an incomplete thought LOL, fixed that

i had a what I could expect an average UCSB student. I tend to have a problem of assuming my friends
good point
here, but I
deleted teh know things about environmental studies that I learn in classes that they haven’t even heard of.
drawn out,
not
essential
This leads to me using jargon and abbreviations for things I assume are common knowledge,
stuff
which are actually specific to my area of interest. To me, it makes sense that an extended
 Robertson 4

drought, though many processes, leads to thousands of homes with dry wells. But when I sat

down, and started breaking my article into its basics, I noticed that the article did the same

thing as I had initially done. It did lead me through the process that leads to dry wells, but in a

drawn out way that was hard to follow without previous knowledge. Kara Taczak’s article helped
solidified the
key points of
this paragraph me figure out this problem the best. She writes that “each writing situation is unique and
- that the
article itself
isnt very clear requires its own individual and specific response” (Taczak 307). This is in relation to the idea
at times, and i
had to adapt
to that
that writing is not one size fits all. Knowledge is not one size fits all, either. I needed to curate a
(changed,
removed, and baseline of knowledge, before expanding on more complex ideas. This is why I included
reworded a
lot)
definitions of drought and groundwater and, most notably, the section titled “The Bottom Line”.

I broke my ideas and knowledge into bite sized chunks that followed a linear pathway. I also

thought the section title was funny because it shares its name with an on-campus newspaper,

which a UCSB student might notice.

Though translating “Domestic Well Vulnerability to Drought Duration and Unsustainable

Groundwater Management in California’s Central Valley” into a zine was a difficult task, I think I

handled it with some dignity. Knowing that I could combine two interests of mine, zines and merged these
sentences

groundwater, into one project, and have the outcome be something that I’m genuinely proud of

is reassuring. It helps me understand that academia isn’t fully out of reach, and that even
rhetorical situation!!!
complex things can be made simple when you understand their purpose and the goal. Things

like management systems can seem boring or scary, but adjusting the information for a different

audience, like UCSB students, and adding color and glitter pens makes it so much more
since my zine isnt on paper anymore, i didn't have glitter pens!! also changed to focus more on breaking down
complex things to their barest bones and building from there to make it accessible AND accurate
manageable.
 Robertson 5

Works Cited

Dirk, Kerry. “Navigating Genres.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, vol. 1, Edited by Charles

Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky, Parlor Press, 2010, pp. 249-262.

Pauloo, R A, et al. “Domestic Well Vulnerability to Drought Duration and Unsustainable

Groundwater Management in California’s Central Valley.” Environmental Research Letters, vol.

15, no. 4, 18 Mar. 2020, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab6f10.

Taczak, Kara. “The Importance of Transfer in Your First Year Writing Course.” Writing Spaces 4,

pp. 301-311.