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Sophia Mendoza

Project Builder 4

Writing 2

Feb 4, 2024

Reflective Essay

The podcast I wrote was very thorough with the points it was trying to get across and

upon review from others it was stated that I did really well showing what genre I chose to write

its form in. The conventions of the academic journal is that it uses an active voice and is in first

person when it is appropriate. The speakers did their research thoroughly and found statistics to

support what they are stating which is very reliable. The host and special guest were also very

concise with their arguments and topics they brought to attention. The host found different

studies to support themselves with and also did their own research to prove they are correct.

When writing a type of genre you have to hit most of the criteria on point and I did this by

researching what I needed to include.

The conventions of my chosen non academic genre, which was a podcast, was a podcast

name, a host, a specific audience, oftentimes a special guest, a specific subject, content design,

and authentic content. I really enjoyed writing this piece and being able to act like I'm doing

something I've never done was pretty entertaining. Being able to write a piece of writing in

another genre rather than just an ordinary essay was very fun and it helped me be able to

communicate my argument a lot better. In the writing, “Writing Spaces 1” it asserts, “genres have

the power to help or hurt human interaction, to ease communication or to deceive, to enable

someone to speak or to discourage someone from saying something different. People learn how

to do small talk to ease the social discomfort of large group gatherings and meeting new people,
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but advertisers learn how to disguise sales letters as winning sweepstakes entries. (Writing 1).”

This proves that even when you are out in the real world it shows that we automatically use a

genre in a sense to help us talk to people around us. By being able to adjust to others it shows

that it could help the communication we are trying to get to.

I accomplished my translation by listening to a bunch of different podcasts that had

different genres so I could incorporate it into mine. Also I have my roommate help me act like I

was in an actual podcast so I could get as close as possible to my goal of my writing. I knew I

wanted a special guest to act like they were in the study I read in the journal piece of writing so

that part of it could be incorporated and I think it blended in very well, much of what I had

expected. I worked to make it into my own little podcast and included things that I would one

hundred percent do in a real podcast. As I have watched podcasts in the past for my own

entertainment I had a little bit of background knowledge to help it feel like an actual podcast. I

also did some research on what listeners like to hear in podcasts so I was able to reach those

needs. I think the most challenging thing was trying not to include extra verbiage that didn’t need

to be in there. I didn’t want the podcast too professional but just enough because of the topic I

chose. I was acting like an older sister and personally I would want to be talked to casually just

because it would make me more comfortable to open up to others. I also think I struggle a lot

when it comes to the first draft because I want it to be perfect the first time rather than work on it

a few times. In the reading, “Shitty First Drafts” it asserts, “Now, Practically even better news

than that of short assignments is the idea of shitty first drafts. All good writers write them. This is

how these writers end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts. People tend to look at

successful writers, writers who are getting their books published and maybe even doing well

financially, and think that they sit down at their desks every morning feeling like a million
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dollars, feeling great about who they are and how much talent they have and what a great story

they have to tell…” I am one of those people that believes that it has to be good on the first

round rather than later on. This journal really helped me stray away from this idea, it explains

how most good writers write many drafts before actually submitting their final writing and I

think this is a very good idea. I based my podcast on trying not to be perfect the first time and

being able to let my ideas flow onto the page with not too much thought of wanting to fix it

immediately.

I tailored my translation to the expectations of my non academic audience by making sure

it was very similar, even almost the exact same, as a podcast. I wanted to make it seem like my

audience was actually listening to a podcast rather than reading it. I re-read my writing a lot of

times so I made sure it felt like that. I wanted it as close to that as possible and I wanted to make

sure the audience I was aiming towards was specific and known. I'm going to add a little bit

more of some small talk in between some evidence so it's a bit more smooth to read and so the

reader isn’t bombarded with a bunch of information. I didn’t change any conventions. I pretty

much just left them alone because I think the conventions for a podcast are very specific and you

have to use them in order for it to seem like a podcast, for instance having a host. Without a host

you don’t have a podcast and that is the main thing you have to have. I did not break any of my

non academic genre’s Writing Conventions. Overall I think I wrote a pretty solid first draft. It

does need some tweaking but I did reach my genre of it being a podcast.
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Works Cited

Lamott, A. (2020). Bird by bird: Instructions on Writing and Life. Canongate Books.

Lowe, C., & Zemliansky, P. (2010). Writing Spaces 1: Readings on Writing. Parlor Press LLC.