Articles by Daniel A Messier

by Emma Kennedy

Emma is a Latin American and Iberian Studies major with a minor in Secondary Education from Ipswich, MA. She has always been intrigued by languages, language barriers, and language learning throughout her studies. She was intrigued to “read about people who have the opposite perspective, who oppose multilingual education, and want their children to focus on perfecting their English.” Emma wants to be a teacher, focusing on multilingual students. She feels that her paper’s connection to her career “made the researching and writing process feel more interesting and relevant to her real life.” Emma enjoys reading and uses it as a way to practice Spanish — she is now using the same tactic for French. She loves to try new foods from all over the world and bake sweets from different countries. In her spare time, she likes origami and has made several thousand origami cranes throughout the years.

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Education has always aroused great passions and debate. As one of the fundamental pillars upon which our society is built, a system to which each and every one of us must dedicate more than a decade of our lives, it is impossible for it not to take a central role in our country’s discourse. And yet, sometimes it feels like we have lost sight of the bigger picture and turned education into the battleground for a culture war. From what to teach, to who to allow in, all aspects of American public education are up for debate, and language education is no exception. Across the country, millions of students are learning English as a second language, and millions more students are studying languages other than English. Language education has always been a part of American education, but, as the cliché goes, in today’s increasingly globalized world, it is more important than ever. I, for one, went to a monolingual school and never had the opportunity to study a second language until I was much older, and I’ve always regretted this. Now, as I am studying education and hoping to become a public-school teacher, I have come in contact with the other side of the issue – which is that many non-English speaking students are underserved by our education system. It is society’s responsibility to ensure that our students, all our students, are given the tools they need to be successful in today’s globalized world, and it seems to me that we are failing in this essential mission. Despite a general consensus that language education is essential, there is quite a lot of disagreement about who should receive what instruction, and how it should be given. These are questions we need to answer in order to begin addressing the problems in our society.

When we discuss language education in the United States, we usually sort students into two categories: children from immigrant families who are learning English, and children from native English-speaking families learning other languages. While both groups are language learners, their circumstances are vastly different, and consequently they have very different needs. First, let’s look at English language learners (ELLs). ELLs can be classified in many different ways, but they are usually immigrants, or the children of immigrants, who learned a language other than English prior to entering the American school system and are not considered ‘proficient’ or ‘at grade level’ in English. Legislation dating back to the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s requires that schools provide support for ELLs, which usually takes the form of some type of ‘bilingual education,’ but the exact approach, and the reported success or failure, varies widely depending on the district or even the individual school.

But what, exactly, is bilingual education? Well, the answer depends on who you ask. Ellen Bialystok, a researcher in the field of bilingual education, gets to the essence of the issue in her article titled “Bilingual Education for Young Children: Review of the Effects and Consequences.” This article, published in the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, synthesizes a multitude of previous studies to discuss the pros and cons of bilingual education, as well as the factors that interfere with its study. She points out that, for one researcher whose work she reviewed, bilingual education means “education that aims to promote bilingual (or multilingual) competence by using both (or all) languages as media of instruction for significant portions of the academic curriculum” (Genesee qtd. in Bialystok 667). But for another, it means “teaching non-English-speaking students to read and write in their native tongue, teaching them content in their native tongue, and gradually transitioning them to English over a period of several years” (Rossell and Baker qtd. in Bialystok 667). According to the latter definition, the goal is fluency in English, while according to the former, the goal is fluency in English and another language. These are two very different goals, and they imply very different approaches, to the extent that I would argue we need to be using two different terms, lest we get confused. For this reason, I propose the use of two different terms, dual language education for the former (when the goal is fluency in multiple languages) and transitional language education for the latter (when the goal is fluency in English), with bilingual education being the umbrella term used to refer to the education of anyone who speaks, or would like to speak, two languages. While both “dual language education” and “transitional language education” are both terms already in use, this use is very limited, and I think it would be appropriate for everyone to adopt them. This way, we can be precise in what we are referring to, which will help avoid harmful misunderstandings resulting from ambiguous and confusing terminology.

Because, people do get confused! In an anonymous survey on K-12 educational experiences that I conducted in April 2022, of 44 undergraduate students at UMass Boston, 17 of 44 said that there were “multiple languages of instruction” at their school, meaning that non-language curriculum was taught in more than one language. This is what most people, regardless of what they believe the goal of bilingual education should be, would consider a bi/multilingual school. However, when these same 17 were asked: “What was the percentage of classes delivered in English versus another language?” and given a scale (from 1 to 5, with 1 being “all English” and 5 being “all another language”), 9 respondents selected 1 (“all English”) and 1 selected 5 (“all another language”). Only 3 of the 17 selected 3, which would represent an equal split between two languages (Kennedy 2022). These respondents considered their schools bilingual schools, and yet, under the official definition of bilingual education that is used by federal, state, and local governments to make policy and allocate funding, there is usually a requirement that the split between languages of instruction be something along the lines of 50%/50% or 40%/60%. These percentages acknowledge that the exact terminology and phrasing varies, just like all other aspects of this topic seem to. Further complicating this discussion, I find it very interesting that people’s understanding of what is or is not considered bilingual education is so variable. The survey participants come from one small group of college students, and yet even within these 17 people there is a wide variety of understanding about what ‘bilingual education’ is. As someone who would like to work in bilingual or language education in the future, I would like to know exactly what type of school I am applying to before I show up on the first day – since clearly ‘bilingual’ doesn’t tell me much. This is why I propose the widespread and standardized usage of different terms, such as dual language education and transitional language education, for different approaches and goals.

It is my belief that this ambiguity regarding what the term ‘bilingual education’ means, and what its goals are, is a main reason that the research on bilingual education is so full of contradictions. For instance, I saw firsthand how the discrepancy in understanding what bilingual education means can affect research when I made my survey. To me, bilingual education means dual language education, with students who are actively taught two languages, and then these two languages are used to teach non-language curriculum, such as history or math. In my mind, being ‘bilingual’ also implies a measure of equality between the two languages, meaning that similar amounts of time and energy and prestige are dedicated to each…although, now that I think about it, I’m actually not sure why I feel this way, since when I think of a bilingual person, I don’t necessarily think of someone who carries out exactly half their day in one language and half in another—it’s just someone who is able to use both but may choose not to. This makes me wonder, should we have yet another term to describe education that is equally split between two languages, since bilingual education in itself doesn’t necessarily mean this? Or is simply adding “50/50” or “40/60” to the name sufficient? I don’t have a definitive answer for this question, there is such a thing as having too much jargon after all, but I think it is something for researchers, educators, and other stakeholders to explore further. In any event, there is no doubt that the definition of bilingual education that I have in my head affected the way I organized and worded my survey, which undoubtedly affected the results I got. For example, I neglected to define what I meant by ‘bilingual,’ and ‘multilingual,’ and so people responded according to what their definitions were, which may be different than mine. I assume this was why I got such confusing responses, such as the aforementioned group that said they went to a bilingual school but had all their classes in English. Perhaps if society had already adopted different terms for the different models, I would not have had this issue.

In any case, while some of the issues with my survey are no doubt due to my inexpertise in research and survey creating, I have good reason to believe that misunderstandings related to what bilingual education is, and what it should do, are a common plague in research and discourse relating to the topic. Indeed, when writing in the journal Educational Review, Yoon Kyong Kim, Lindsey A. Hutchison, and Adam Winsler, who have done extensive research in the field of bilingual education, include a sort of ‘disclaimer’ in the introduction to their article, titled “Bilingual Education in the United States: An Historical Overview and Examination of Two-Way Immersion,” which provides a review of the history and effectiveness of two-way immersion (a type of dual language education). They state that “wide variability in educational services for ELLs creates difficulty for researchers and practitioners attempting to assess the effectiveness of these services” and point out that “programs in which ELL children are mainstreamed into all-English classrooms, programs where ELLs receive instruction in both English and Spanish, and programs in which all students (both ELLs and native speakers of English) are instructed in both English and Spanish, are all described as ‘bilingual education’” (Kim, et al. 237). These authors capture in words what so many other studies dance around or only hint at, perhaps fearing that admitting uncertainty or ambiguity would lessen their credibility or the validity of their research. Although I would argue the opposite: that not admitting the presence of ambiguity and/or uncertainty hurts their study far more, since the result is that we end up with a bunch of studies that claim to have studied ‘bilingual education’ (whatever that’s supposed to mean) and that all have totally different, and often contradictory, conclusions about the effectiveness of the practice which arises from the fact that neither the definition nor the goal is clearly and universally defined. This type of inconclusive research, resulting from issues with terminology, is, at best, a waste of money, and at worst, harmful, as it leads people to draw incorrect conclusions about the best way to educate people.

So, if our inability to agree upon an exact definition for bilingual education affects the way we do research and the purported outcomes of that research, now we must wonder, does it affect anything else? The answer is, without a doubt, yes. One observation of particular interest is the inconsistency between what the researchers and educators say and what the parents and politicians say. Of course, these groups are not homogenous, and there is crossover and differences of opinion between them, especially in the case of parents. Nevertheless, overall, there seems to be a tendency for researchers to favor dual language education, while many parents, particularly Latinx and Asian parents, prefer more of an emphasis on education in English or transitional language education only (Pedalino Porter). This is a complex issue and there are undoubtedly multiple factors at play, but at the heart is the years-old debate over whether learning another language hinders students’ development in English. The research tends to say no, at least when separated from other confounding factors such as socioeconomic status, but parents are still worried. As Arthur Vasquez, a parent of two, puts it, ”I don’t deny my heritage as a Mexican-American, but the reason that we have achieved what we have in this country is that we speak English” (Fiske). Vasquez, and parents like him, believe that English is the key to success in this country, and therefore they worry that studying a heritage language is a waste of time that could otherwise be used to improve their children’s English. However, researchers reject this conclusion. Bialystok, for example, refutes this idea quite strongly in her meta-analysis of a multitude of studies regarding outcomes for students in monolingual and bilingual programs, finding that:

Scores on the English proficiency test were higher for both ELL and EP students who were in the bilingual programs than they were for children in the mainstream English programs. Similar results were found for scores on the mathematics test. Overall, students in the dual language program in this low socioeconomic status (SES) community achieved at least as well and in some cases better in both English and mathematics than did comparable students in a program in which all instruction was in English. Students in the bilingual programs also made more rapid progress across the grades in these tests than did students in the English program and, therefore, were more advanced in their trajectory to close the achievement gap with statewide norms for these tests. (Bialystok 668)

In other words, students’ English did not suffer as a result of being educated bilingually, and the cognitive and educational benefits of bilingual programs were actually greater than those of monolingual programs.

In light of this, both Vasquez and Bialystok’s points are valid. As Vasquez points out, there is no doubt that English, as the majority language, is an important tool for success in the US—and researchers agree on this point; certainly no one is arguing against the teaching of English. Instead, what the researchers are arguing is that, since dual language education in itself, when separated from socioeconomic status or years in school, does not harm, and may actually support, students’ abilities in English in the long run. The fear of weaker English proficiency is not a valid reason to oppose it. On the contrary, seeing as dual language programs lead to equal amounts of learning in math and English as monolingual programs, students in these programs end up with the advantage of being fluent in multiple languages, a coveted ability in our multicultural country and world. Therefore, researchers stress that, while not perfect, one could argue that nothing in our current education system is perfect, dual language education provides a net benefit over monolingual education. This conclusion is substantiated by every research study and scholarly article I have reviewed.

And yet, parents still worry and, as a result, politicians still claim that dual language education is harmful. I would argue that these concerns are not the result of an actual failure or inherent fault of dual language education, but rather a collection of problems in implementation that generates the appearance that dual language education is harmful, when in fact it in itself is not the culprit. For instance, Edward Fiske, while arguing against bilingual education in a New York Times Op-Ed titled “The Controversy over Bilingual Education in America’s Schools; One Language or Two?,” mentions cases of “Vietnamese immigrants being put into classes where the teaching language was Spanish” and “English-speaking students whose real need is remedial help in their native language [which is English] being forced to learn in a strange tongue” in a dual language program. Fiske, as well as Rosalie Pedalino Porter, a writer for The Atlantic who penned another article opposing bilingual education called “The Case Against Bilingual Education,” cite a multitude of instances of school administrators forcing all students from Spanish-speaking families into dual language programs and even refusing to teach reading and writing in English until they had ‘mastered’ Spanish in late elementary school, even if the students were native English speakers and their parents wanted them in the monolingual program. These types of occurrences, from bungling student placement to deliberately and obstinately going against parents’ wishes, simply do not endear schools, and the programs they implement, to parents, and so it makes sense that parents oppose them. In cases like this, it is not what is actually happening that is important, but rather what people think is happening. Education is a topic that brings out people’s passions, and in this case, it seems that people’s passionate concern for their children’s education may in fact be getting in the way of that education.

In short, there is no doubt that we, as a society, must make the effort to educate all of our students equitably. What is up for debate is how we should educate our students, especially language minority and ELL students, who face additional barriers to receiving an adequate American public education. It is the how we must figure out if we wish to keep moving our society forward into the 21st century and give our students the tools they need to succeed in our world. One way we can do this is by bringing some form of bilingual education to them. As a person who grew up monolingual and feels very regretful about that fact, it is my hope that one day all students will have the opportunity to access the benefits of dual language education, no matter if they come from an English-speaking background or another language background.

Works Cited
Bialystok, Ellen. “Bilingual Education for Young Children: Review of the Effects and Consequences.” International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, vol. 21, no. 6, Routledge, 2018, pp. 666–79.

Fiske, Edward B. “The Controversy Over Bilingual Education in America’s Schools; One Language or Two?” New York Times, 10 Nov 1985.

Kennedy, Emma. “Multilingual Education.” Student Questionnaire. April 2022.

Kim, Yoon Kyong, et al. “Bilingual Education in the United States: An Historical Overview and Examination of Two-Way Immersion.” Educational Review (Birmingham), vol. 67, no. 2, Routledge, 2015, pp. 236–52.

Pedalino Porter, Rosalie. “The Case Against Bilingual Education.” The Atlantic, 1 May 1998.

by Alex Der-Kazaryan
Alex is a management major with a concentration in accounting from Belmont, MA. While writing this essay, Alex wanted to investigate “how our writing has evolved over the last thirty years or so.” Noticing a “retraction of socialization from other people,” since we introduced ourselves to new technologies, Alex focused this essay on the common complaint that “texting has only done damage to formal writing.” Alex has also come to enjoy writing as a way of self-expression and writes that it “can now be used in a way that benefits me.” Alex is also a huge history buff and has recently gotten into woodworking.

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Before the cell phone, communication was fairly limited in that you couldn’t just pick up a phone and get to whomever you wanted to talk to. You could leave a message for them to call you back, or you’d call their pager and leave your number so they know who to call back, and maybe if you were really smart, you’d make a collect call to your parent and instead of saying your name you would tell them as fast as possible where they could pick you up from. These limited communication issues were essentially solved with the advent of the cell phone. Calling anyone you wanted, at any time and anywhere, became possible instantaneously.

With the advent of cell phones came the phenomenon of texting, a short messaging style similar to email. Early texting wasn’t what it is today, early flip phones had an alphabet embedded in the dial numbers, but there was a little problem – to get 26 letters onto 12 buttons was a challenge. This was remedied by putting 3-4 letters on each button, excluding a few. To get the letter C, you would have to press the number 2 button three times, and for the letter U, it would be the number 8 button twice.

This poor design flaw led to what is now known as “textism.” People prefer convenience over most other things and when it comes to texting, pressing 10 different buttons a total of 40 times isn’t exactly the best form of convenience. Instead of writing out words in full, people would instead abbreviate them, allowing them to send messages faster than typing out words completely. ‘You’ became ‘U’ and ‘are’ became ‘R’. It seems that nowadays, everybody uses some form of textism when sending messages to one another, whether it’s a simple ‘lol’ (laugh out loud) or a full sentence such as ‘c u tmrw @ 8’ (See you tomorrow at eight). These word adaptations and abbreviations are really easy to type up, especially when you are in a rush, and oftentimes it feels like second nature. Sometimes we even just type them because we are too lazy to move our fingers the extra inch. Textisms are often created and used by adolescents, and today it seems that sometimes the best answer you can get out of someone young is ‘k’ (OK).

Because of young people’s perpetual use of textism, many people think that students’ writing abilities have been slowly eroding, as younger and younger generations become more involved in technology use. Jean Parrella, Holli Leggette, and Tobin Redwine note that “75% of high school teachers believed texting negatively impacts students’ writing skills,” and who would blame them for thinking that (Parella et. al 2)? How could spelling words incorrectly, word adaptations, and other transmutations help students in the slightest? But according to some researchers, it does help. Beverly Plester, Clare Wood, and Puja Joshi found a positive correlation between students’ use of texting and their reading and writing abilities, highlighting that texting may have its advantages when it comes to helping students learn how to write (Plester et. al 155). In contrast, Drew Cingel and Shyam Sundar found a negative correlation between texting and adolescent grammar skills in their study, showing us that there may be circumstances where texting and social media could provide both a positive and negative when it comes to writing (Cingel and Sundar 1316). Common sense tells us that practicing something the wrong way will not help us but harm us by creating a ‘bad’ habit, but what we see here is that there may be some exceptions to that rule.

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One area where textism may influence writing skills is in the practice of informal writing. Early in school, we learned that there are certain assignments where we can be less formal in our approach, especially when it comes to writing. This clicked with me when my teachers would make us buy a journal for daily writing but then, they never checked to see what we wrote. At first, I kept to the assignments but after a while, my writing looked completely different, it was filled with misspellings and abbreviations. However, the formal assignments that I turned in never saw a single one of those misspellings or abbreviations. This logical separation of formal and informal writing is very important in life and for many of us, it helps in our future careers.

Parella and her colleagues studied the separation of formal and informal writing and learned that “college students could differentiate appropriate and inappropriate instances of textisms in their writing” furthermore the “students knew which language to use for formal and informal contexts” (Parella et. al 3). Seemingly, we can see that textism has no effect on the differentiation between formal and informal writing. This I found interesting because there is evidence to show that textism can affect writing abilities negatively, and because of that I expected that students’ differentiation between formal and informal would become more blended, resulting in the deterioration of the distinction between the two types of writing. BUT…

Certainly, I didn’t think that writing formally would disappear altogether but rather that the constraints in formal writing would become loosened. With a further investigation, I found that Cingel’s and Sundar’s study of textism’s effect on adolescents exposed that 60% of adolescents don’t view online writing as “real writing,” and a further 64% of adolescents say they use informal writing online (Cingel, and Sundar 1306-1307). This told me that, though adolescents did not view online writing with the use of textism as “real writing,” they did differentiate it from a formal type of writing which provided an interesting contrast in thought process. This differentiation shows that in Cingel’s and Sundar’s study most adolescents viewed informal writing as not real, making me believe that possibly texting and social media could have a positive effect on how students learn to differentiate between formal and informal assignments.

Interestingly though, Cingel and Sundar come to the conclusion that, for the most part, adolescents were not able to switch between writing text messages and using correct English grammar for assignments (Cingel and Sundar1316). The findings from Parella, and others, tend to match what Cingel and Sundar conclude when they write, “Students who did incorporate textisms into their work, however, lacked proficiency in the English language and had extensive spelling errors, suggesting that the carelessness for the proper spelling of TM [text messaging] may negatively influence students’ ability to recall proper spelling when necessary” (Parella et. al 3). From what we see here I think it’s fair to say that the differentiation between the two styles of writing doesn’t play a large part in helping students with grammar skills though there may be some benefits to linguistic flexibility.

Some things that I found interesting, based on the studies I observed here, is that students can make the differentiation between informal and formal writing, but at the same time their grammar and basic English writing skills remain the same throughout. This can mean two things, either textism has negative effects on students’ grammar and basic writing abilities, or the way English grammar and basic writing skills are taught in early elementary schools is not sufficient enough for students to hold on to that information. If the latter is true then teachers will need to find new ways to help teach students proper English grammar and basic writing skills, if it’s not true then we should figure out how to limit the effects of textism on students’ grammar and basic writing skills. Either way, there is plenty of work on educators’ part in the ways of incorporating this new form of writing into classroom education. This incorporation of texting and social media use in the classroom is important because as there are more and more adolescents using this type of communication, engaging them becomes harder if teachers don’t have the correct tools to do so.

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Texting and social media are often frowned upon in the classroom, however, it seems that these two mediums for communication are much more effective in drawing students’ attention. Something that is overlooked far too often as a teaching tool is texting and social media. These can be used in a variety of ways to help students engage with about a multitude of topics that they are interested in. If students become interested in the things that they write about, then surely there will be an increase in the quality of their writing because they won’t be dreading the assignments that they are tasked with. The platform used to engage students shouldn’t matter because students by themselves determine what interests them and teachers should use methods that students engage in rather than following a curriculum that doesn’t have student interests in mind.

While I was in high school, I always felt that my English assignments never piqued my interest. We would be asked to write about movies, books, stories, poems, and articles, but even though we were given a variety in the type of media I never felt that the topics of these media forms were interesting to me at the time. As a student, I would complete the assignment for the grade and I never considered myself to be improving my writing, I was just writing for the sake of the assignment. Though this may have given me lots of practice composing, it never sparked my interest in writing, I never felt like this was something I wanted to further immerse myself into.

This is where texting and social media come in. When texting, and on social media, you can not only find forums about any topic imaginable, but you can also create forums for topics that you think are interesting. Social media is one of the places where a lot of these forums reside. Twitter is one of the biggest melting pots for ideas and a lot of different discussions can be held at once between members. You can talk about religion, politics, sports, cars, general news, and even the weather if you wanted to. Lots of students, including myself, think of texting and social media as one of the best ways to explore topics that are interesting to us and to write about things that we enjoy writing about.

Sarah Galvin and Christine Greenhow explored how social media helps engage writers and found that teens felt that social media was less restrictive than their classroom composition and that the open expression and social interaction afforded to them by social media made writing more enjoyable (Galvin and Greenhow 57). This contrast of how teens feel about writing on social media, versus classroom composition, provides us with an idea of how writing online can be used to help get students interested in the topics they write about. Sheelah Sweeny agrees when she writes, “Texting or IM [instant messaging] can be used to create a community of writers where their ideas and writing struggles are shared…” (Sweeny 128). Galvin, Greenhow, and Sweeny all note how technology, specifically in the forms of social media and texting, can be useful in engaging young people with writing. Sweeny also notes that writing in the form of texting is a really important part of teenagers’ day-to-day lives. I believe that if there is something that encourages and engages someone to do something then there’s a good reason for it, and if texting and social media are what encourage teens and adolescents to engage in writing then I think teachers should take more advantage of something that is already part of students’ lives. If students are willing to spend hours outside of school texting and using social media, who says they won’t jump at the chance to do it in school?

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We face many issues when it comes to how texting and social media affect writing. However, I think that the main problems are that the style of writing portrayed in informal writing has been slowly bleeding into formal writing in the form of bad grammar and poor basic writing skill, and at the same time, we see that students prefer their writing to be more informal because it allows them to be more confident in their writing. I think that fixing the grammar in the context of formal writing will be an easier issue to fix in that there are multiple solutions that are available for educators to try, like more grammar and basic writing skills being taught in the early elementary years. The bigger issue I see for the future of writing is that students feel more comfortable and more confident in their informal writing, which is not a bad thing, but when we compare that to how informal writing affects formal writing we might first need to reverse the effects of textism on formal writing, before we can find solutions.

Texting and social media are great places for informal writing, and as we’ve seen, those forms of communication are much more preferred by adolescents. But how can we ensure that their use of informal writing doesn’t bleed into their attempts at formal writing? Adolescents will only continue to use texting and social media, so it is important that we can figure out how we can make sure that students’ English writing abilities do not erode, while at the same time making them feel comfortable in their writing.

Works Cited
Cingel, Drew P., and S. Shyam Sundar. “Texting, Techspeak, and Tweens: The Relationship Between Text Messaging and English Grammar Skills.” New Media & Society, vol. 14, no. 8, 2012, pp. 1304–20.

Galvin, Sarah, and Christine Greenhow. “Writing on Social Media: a Review of Research in the High School Classroom.” TechTrends, vol. 64, no. 1, 2019, pp. 57–69.

Parrella, Jean, et al. “Measuring the Correlation Between Digital Media Usage and Students’ Perceived Writing Ability: Are They Related?” Research in Learning Technology, vol. 29, 2021, pp. 1–14.

Plester, Beverly, et al. “Exploring the Relationship Between Children’s Knowledge of Text Message Abbreviations and School Literacy Outcomes.” British Journal of Developmental Psychology, Received 27 June 2007; revised version received 8 May 2008, vol. 27, no. 1, 2009, pp. 145–61.

Sweeny, Sheelah M. “Writing for the Instant Messaging and Text Messaging Generation: Using New Literacies to Support Writing Instruction.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, vol. 54, no. 2, 2010, pp. 121–30.

by Quinn Gabrielle Cantor

Quinn is a mathematics major living in Jamaica Plain, MA, but born in the Philippines. Quinn rhetorically analyzes Linda Villarosa’s essay from the 1619 Project by The New York Times by investigating how Villarosa’s “intended audience and purpose ultimately culminated into her published essay.” Quinn says her analysis is supported both by the rhetorical knowledge gained in her Composition I course and by a history class she took in high school that investigated race relations and discrimination. Quinn’s experiences as a student in both the Philippines and the United States has made her “deeply care about the importance of a high-quality and affordable education.” She writes that the quality of any education “should not be determined by the amount of money that people can afford to spend” as it allows us “to have a good job, create a better life, and even improve our community as a whole.”

Quinn’s reflection written in class to accompany this essay is available at this link.

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The 1619 Project is a project from The New York Times dedicated to examining the legacy of slavery in the United States. The New York Times Magazine states: “The 1619 Project is an ongoing initiative from The New York Times Magazine that began in August 2019, the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.” Most of the writers for the project who were carefully selected to write about a specific topic are black—a deliberate choice as part of the project’s goal to put black voices and culture at the center of American history. Linda Villarosa, one of the first selected writers for The 1619 Project, wrote an essay entitled “How False Beliefs in Physical Racial Difference Still Live in Medicine Today.” In the essay, Villarosa delves into the medical abuse black enslaved people suffered from white doctors who experimented on them to study the “racial myths” that black people have a higher tolerance for pain, have weaker lungs, have thicker skin and many more. Villarosa explains the connections between these medical abuses and the justification by slave owners to cruelly mistreat their black enslaved people, as well as how these racial myths still exist in our modern American healthcare system, thus creating further racial inequality. However, one of the problems that The 1619 Project, as a whole, faces is that slavery is a highly divisive topic – particularly in the context of a country such as the United States where political, racial, and economic divisions are growing and deepening. Thus, Villarosa’s main challenge becomes: How can she persuade her audience that the legacy of slavery still exists in our societal structures and systems using the least divisive language? In this essay, I am going to discuss how Villarosa’s audience creates rhetorical constraints, as well as how her audience contributes to her purpose.

Establishing the Audience
First things first, who is the audience? According to Halevi, the audience is “the intended recipient of your rhetoric.” In other words, they are who the rhetor is trying to persuade. Some people might immediately think that Villarosa’s audience could be black people—after all, The 1619 Project is about the connections between slavery and modern racial inequalities. Others might think that the audience are people who are not on the conservative end: liberals, progressives, independents, and non-partisans. Since the goal of The 1619 Project is to “reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative,” which directly challenges the notion many conservatives hold that the history of our country began with the signing of The Declaration of Independence in 1776, or perhaps the arrival of the European settlers in 1492, thus it might not cater to Americans who are politically aligned with the right.

However, in determining Villarosa’s audience, we must consider that one critical connection with the audience is the rhetor’s purpose, or the “intended goal of your communication” (Halevi). As Halevi further defines, the audience “has to be someone who is capable of helping you accomplish your purpose.” Villarosa’s essay clearly intends to inform the audience that racist ideologies still exist with the healthcare system, and that these racist ideologies were rooted in slavery. Keeping these purposes in mind, the audience are most likely not black people because compared to any other racial groups, they have the most connection with slavery and the perpetuating racial inequalities that arose from it. In other words, most black people are already aware of racism within healthcare.

On the other hand, white people, regardless of their political alignment, are likely to have the biggest disconnect with experiencing racism. Villarosa provides an example of this in her essay: “A 2016 survey of 222 white medical students and residents published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that half of them endorsed at least one myth about physiological differences between black people and white people, including that black people’s nerve endings are less sensitive than white people’s.” The results of this survey establish that many white medical students still believe myths about black people’s health and physiology. It is clear that this racial myth, in which black people have a higher pain tolerance than white people, is racist, as it implies that black people’s skin is inherently different than white people’s, and it falsely leads to the assumption that black patients don’t need as much help managing pain as white patients since black people are “less sensitive.” Although healthcare is only one sector of our society, Villarosa’s point shows that black people, compared to white people, experience more racism in our country generally. And although American society has become much more progressive over time, many white people are still unaware about the true extent of slavery and, by extension, the racism black people still face today.

Furthermore, historically, white people were often the perpetrators of racist acts in our country, exhibited by things such as owning black enslaved people, convict leasing, lynching black people, and many others. In fact, Villarosa provides examples of people in her essay who were enslavers and doctors—such as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Moseley, and J. Marion Sims—all of whom were white, and all of whom believed in racial myths and used those myths to justify mistreating black people. Villarosa’s purpose then, is to not just inform white audiences about the racism black people faced during the time of slavery and still face in modern-day healthcare, but also to make them understand that they are significant players in the history of racism in our country. This gives her white audience a direct responsibility to acknowledge and confront the racist legacies of white people and their very own racial myths—a chance to help Villarosa “accomplish her purpose” (Halevi). Thus, I believe that Villarosa’s audience members are most likely white people.

Villarosa’s Rhetorical Strategy: “White” Omission
Now that the audience is defined, Villarosa’s biggest challenge has yet to be addressed: How does Villarosa discuss the topics of racism within healthcare and slavery to inform her white audience without offending them? In order to do so, Villarosa understands and makes use of multiple rhetorical constraints, or the “guidelines or limits on language that shape your language when you deliver your rhetoric” (Halevi). In other words, these rhetorical constraints determine the rhetoric, or “persuasive language,” and are used according to things such as the audience or the context. In Villarosa’s case, her white audience creates the constraints of her essay. One rhetorical constraint Villarosa uses is she does not directly mention white people as perpetrators of racist acts and ideologies. In Villarosa’s introduction of a white enslaver owner named Dr. Thomas Hamilton, who used his enslaved person, John Brown, for his abusive medical experiments, Villarosa writes:

Hamilton was a courtly Southern gentleman, a respected physician and a trustee of the Medical Academy of Georgia. And like many other doctors of the era in the South, he was also a wealthy plantation owner who tried to use science to prove that differences between black people and white people went beyond culture and were more than skin deep, insisting that black bodies were composed and functioned differently than white bodies.

Villarosa noticeably fails to mention that Hamilton was a white man, although the audience can assume he is from his status. This lack of a direct statement of his race is no coincidence. Villarosa is most likely aware that any clear mention of enslavers as being white would implicate white people in general, as being racist and abusive, no matter how unrelated they are to Hamilton or his ideologies. Villarosa has a strong understanding of her audience and their possible reactions to her main ideas—a key component in using rhetorical strategies. Halevi writes, “We adjust our language according to who our audience is as well as the nature of our relationship with them”. Because Villarosa intends to reach white audiences as part of her purpose, she “adjusts” the rhetoric of her essay by eliminating any overt mention of white people as racists despite the significant role white people played in black people’s slavery and current racial inequalities.

Villarosa uses the same rhetorical strategy throughout the essay, usually by simply mentioning the white person’s profession as an indicator they are white without saying so overtly. For example, Villarosa writes that J. Marion Sims used “misconceptions about pain tolerance…to use black women as subjects in experiments that would be unconscionable today, practicing painful operations (at a time before anesthesia was in use) on enslaved women in Montgomery, Ala., between 1845 and 1849.” Just like Dr. Hamilton, Villarosa only introduces Sims by describing his job and beliefs; as a “pro-slavery advocate… physician…father of modern gynecology”—not once mentioning that he is white. This is true for every other figure Villarosa mentions in her essay, whom she would describe by simply explaining their relation to the misconceptions about black people’s physiologies, whether that be by being a doctor, a physician, or someone who wrote medical “myths” about black people’s health (Villarosa).

In fact, the only time Villarosa ever mentions white people as perpetrators of racist ideologies/acts was with the mention of a scientific study: “A 2016 survey of 222 white medical students and residents published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that half of them endorsed at least one myth about physiological differences between black people and white people, including that black people’s nerve endings are less sensitive than white people’s.” Here, Villarosa directly implies that a lot of white doctors-to-be still hold notions about black people’s pain tolerance that are clearly false and rooted in racist myths. However, although Villarosa is directly calling the students out as being white, she presents it as a statistic from a study, as evidence that the implication that white people are racist is not directly coming from her, but rather from an academic survey.

Villarosa’s Rhetorical Strategy: Scientific Objectivity
Another rhetorical strategy that Villarosa uses to not alienate white audiences is through the lack of personal connection within her essay. Villarosa does this by not using any “I” within her essay. This might be understandable, considering that the genre of the essay is scientific writing. However, I believe that Villarosa is actually using the essay’s genre to create the “appearance of objectivity” to appear more credible to the white audience (Allen 94). Allen discusses this strategy in which, combined with the general assumption that scientific writing is an “unbiased vessel for transmitting truth”, scientific writers themselves use “rhetorical strategies that contribute to the appearance of objectivity.” Allen defines one rhetorical strategy scientific writers use, which is the lack of any active agents. He writes, “The editors of Merriam Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage point out that while the active voice is generally preferable, ‘a few [usage] commentators find the passive useful in scientific writing (one even believes it to be necessary) because of the tone of detachment and impersonality that it helps establish’” (Allen 98).

Villarosa similarly creates a sense of “detachment” by not using any personal “I” and simply reporting scientific studies. In effect, this creates the appearance that 1) Villarosa’s essay is credible because it is entirely objective, and 2) Villarosa is not personally attacking a white audience that might get offended or feel guilty because of her essay. In the previous example, of the 2016 survey, Villarosa uses a strategy of impersonality and the appearance of objective reporting – allowing her to get away with mentioning white people because it is in accordance with the genre of scientific writing. Thus, even though the survey clearly implies that many white medical students still hold racist notions, white audiences are less likely to be offended or feel attacked because Villarosa masks it with scientific objectivity. As Dirk writes, “knowing what a genre is used for can help people to accomplish goals” (253). Villarosa uses her awareness of the genre of scientific writing, as well as her knowledge of the white audience, to successfully accomplish her purpose of informing white audiences about racial myths in healthcare without offending or alienating them.

Villarosa’s Rhetorical Strategy: The Collective “We”
Interestingly, at the very end of the essay, Villarosa suddenly changes rhetorical strategies, going from objective scientific writing to making an overt persuasive statement: “Rather than conceptualizing race as a risk factor that predicts disease or disability because of a fixed susceptibility conceived on shaky grounds centuries ago, we would do better to understand race as a proxy for bias, disadvantage and ill treatment.” What is interesting here is that despite the use of “we”, which directly opposes the expectations of objective scientific writing, Villarosa still tries to avoid offending white audiences. The first statement in the sentence clearly refers to the white doctors today and of the past: “Rather than conceptualizing race as a risk factor that predicts disease or disability [referring to white medical students] because of a fixed susceptibility conceived on shaky grounds centuries ago [referring to the white doctors of enslaved people and white enslavers]…” (Villarosa). The sentence is a direct call-out to the white medical students who still believe in racial myths about black people’s physiologies that were falsely established by white doctors and enslavers, all of which Villarosa has presented previously in the essay as evidence. And yet, the sentence does not seem like a call-out because Villarosa does not directly refer to white people anywhere in the sentence.

Moreover, the second half of the sentence, in which Villarosa uses the personal language: “we would do better to understand race as a proxy for bias, disadvantage, and ill treatment” actually helps the entire sentence appear less directed at white people. Now, with the added language of “we”, the entire sentence reads as: “Rather than conceptualizing race as a risk factor that predicts disease or disability [referring to the collective “we”] because of a fixed susceptibility conceived on shaky grounds centuries ago [still referring to white doctors of enslaved people], we would do better to understand race as a proxy for bias, disadvantage, and ill treatment” (Villarosa). In this new meaning of the sentence, Villarosa is calling out to all of us, regardless of race, to examine our own notions about black people’s health and to look deeper into how racial bias in healthcare came about and how it still lives on today. This effectively gets Villarosa’s message across, despite venturing from scientific objectivity, as white people are less likely to feel implicated and guilty, and thus more likely to believe in Villarosa’s final message.

Conclusion
Although writing for a target racial demographic in a context where people are still heavily racially divided is tricky, Villarosa effectively gets her message across through the use of multiple rhetorical strategies determined by the constraints her white audience creates. Villarosa uses her knowledge of the audience to determine what rhetoric is the most appropriate, the least offensive or alienating, and the most likely to get her message across. In this case, Villarosa avoids referring to white figures as being white when discussing them as people who held racist notions, effectively putting fewer implications on the white audience as a whole. Villarosa also uses genre awareness by becoming as impersonal as possible and mostly reporting scientific evidence, to appear more objective and thus more credible to the white audience. Finally, Villarosa’s message calls out to all of the audience, regardless of race or political alignment, as a way to create less of a targeted responsibility for white people. Villarosa’s strategy allows her to not only inform white audiences about intentional and unintentional racial notions they might have, but it also gets the message across to the white audience. As Halevi writes, “understanding the rhetorical constraints of a given situation can also give us a lot of power and opportunity for creativity to shape our language in pursuit of our purposes.” Villarosa shapes her rhetoric so that she does not end up alienating white people but her message is strong enough to imply that white people have a responsibility to challenge systemic racism. In this way, Villarosa ends up fulfilling her purpose without sacrificing her audience.

Quinn’s reflection written in class to accompany this essay is available at this link.

Works Cited
Allen, M. C. “The Rhetorical Situation of the Scientific Paper and the ‘Appearance’ of Objectivity.” Young Scholars in Writing, Vol. 2, Sept. 2015, pp. 94-102.

Dirk, Kerry. “Navigating Genres.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. E-book, Parlor Press, 2010, pp 249-262.

Halevi, Itai. “Rhetorical Situations: An Introduction.” Google Classroom, University of Massachusetts Boston. Accessed 16 September 2021.

Silverstein, Jake. “Editor’s Note.” 1619 Project, a special issue of New York Times Magazine, 18 Aug 2019, pp. 4-5.

Villarosa, Linda. “How False Beliefs in Physical Racial Difference Still Live in Medicine Today.”1619 Project, a special issue of New York Times Magazine, 18 Aug 2019, pp. 56-57.

“The 1619 Project.” New York Times Magazine, 18 Aug 2019.

As I draft this introduction on a mid-pandemic August afternoon, from a small corner of the small room that, in just a few days, will become the backdrop of my virtual university classroom, Louisiana residents recover from a Category 4 hurricane; Californians inhale smoky air from wildfires; and Jacob Blake, a Black man in Wisconsin, lies handcuffed in a hospital bed, despite being paralyzed from the seven shots fired into his back by a White police officer. We like to remark on this as an “unprecedented” time, but to call it so is to willfully ignore the many, many precedents that bring us precisely to this moment. This issue of Undercurrents captures undergraduate students’ efforts to use writing and inquiry to do otherwise, as these authors pay close attention the conditions of their social and, especially, academic worlds. A small but visible spark of hope, the work of the eight students in this 2020 issue of Undercurrents provides striking examples of how writing and inquiry, with true openness and curiosity, may yet lead the way toward better futures.

Several contributors to this issue see the possibilities for a more just and equitable future through a robust education in language and rhetoric that is sensitive to culture and identity. Callia Chow’s experiences in a multilingual household, in which she learned to appreciate that “every single language has its own beautiful story,” led her to a conclusion that captures essence of this 2020 issue of Undercurrents: “Language can influence and shape the way we look at things, how we connect with others, and make our experiences in life more fulfilling.” Hoping to use language to make a world that is not only fulfilling, but truly accessible, Aneika Robinson traces a scholarly debate about code switching in the English classroom, and urges literacy and language educators not to teach students to “switch” varieties of English between home and school. Doing so, she argues, effectively tells African American students, “your dialect does not belong here.” Instead, students should learn “how language functions within and from various cultural perspectives.”

Similarly championing the study of rhetoric for educational equity, Whitney Posada reflects on how her lack of rhetorical awareness may have disadvantaged her college application essays. As a first-generation college student, she notes that she lacked rhetorical awareness of the “academic game” of college applications, putting her at a distinct disadvantage—a limitation she hopes early rhetorical education can change for future applicants. Making up for his own lack of rhetorical knowledge about a common genre in his discipline of chemistry, Cooper Wilkinson narrates his efforts to understand—and ultimately question—the conventional use of third-person passive voice in chemistry lab reports. While initially coming to realize that the passive voice can, in some circumstances, make abstract knowledge more legible, he also notices that this convention presents a disadvantage to global English speakers and writers, for whom grammatical and stylistic variation can be interpreted as lack of scientific merit.

Other students see a need for change in something even closer to home: the mind. Sarah Dickinson notes that, in the age of standardized testing, early childhood education has severely reduced opportunities for play in its core curriculum. She argues that the consequences of this loss are serious, as children miss out on crucial opportunities to reach cognitive and social milestones. Similarly concerned about the limitations that environments have placed on developing minds, two authors consider the impact of digital media on their lives as writers and thinkers. Adil Shahid uses survey data to explore the challenges students face when they are “consumed” by the digital mediascape, which—he hypothesizes—leaves no room for the pleasures of sustained reading and writing activity. Similarly concerned about the interference of digital life, research by another student author (who prefers to remain Anonymous) comes to the bleak conclusion that, as a storehouse of information, the Internet makes memory “obsolete”—echoing a similar complaint by Socrates, who lamented that writing would “introduce forgetfulness into the soul of those who learn it.”

How, then, during a time in which these students perceive the systemic exclusion of their languages and identities alongside the erosion of their agency and access, do we resist social “forgetfulness”? How do we move from a sense of loss and exclusion to positive change? Michael O’Shaughnessy offers a radical proposal: “it is our civic and societal duty to be offensive.” Taking offensive to mean challenging the status quo rather than seeking to harm others, he makes the impassioned plea that we speak up and, perhaps more importantly, that we listen. The Undercurrents staff is, perhaps now more than ever, grateful for these students’ efforts to “be offensive” and to share with us these lessons about how they see the world, both as it is today, and as it might yet be.

-Lauren M. Bowen, Editor-in-Chief of Undercurrents and Director of the Composition Program

The works below were written by first-year students in the Composition Program at the University of Massachusetts Boston, selected for publication by Composition Program faculty serving on the Undercurrents editorial board. Please see our Editor’s Introduction to learn more about our 2020 issue, click About the Journal to learn more about Undercurrents, or click the links below to enjoy our 2020 selections.

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Callia Chow’s Getaway

“As I was starting to get caught up in the busyness of life, reading brought me to a world that only I was in and it provided me a space where I felt relaxed and calm.”

 

 

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Sarah Dickinson’s Play-Based Learning in Early Education

“The benefits of play-based learning, especially in regards to writing and basic literacy skills, outweigh the difficulties of implementing a play-based curriculum.”

 

 

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Michael O’Shaughnessey’s Being Civilly Offensive

“The greatest periods of change in our society are able to happen when there are ideas that contradict the status quo, but these changes could progress a lot more smoothly if we just listened to each other.”

 

 

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Aneika Robinson’s The Marginalization of African Americans in Educational Institutions Through Race and Language

“Instead of instructing students how they should speak or write, we should instead teach how language functions within and from various cultural perspectives.”

 

 

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Whitney Posada’s Reading Between the Lines of the College Essay Prompt

“I can use Warren’s essay to help my siblings play the “academic game” that students who Warren calls “more traditionally qualified” and who I assume come from more affluent families than me have been playing for years”

 

 

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Adil Shahid’s The Writing Process in the Modern Digital Age: A College Student’s Perspective

“All of the data seems to be pointing in one direction: we as students are slowly becoming disconnected from the joys reading and writing can bring while being further connected to our smartphones.”

 

 

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Cooper Wilkinson’s The Language of Science is Questioned

“While initially I was preoccupied by my own struggles in using the technical voice, I have discovered that the real issue lies where I hadn’t thought to look before. The same selfish mindset is what fuels this homogenization of the sciences.”

 

 

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Anonymous: I’m Too Lazy to Come Up With a Good Title: How the Internet Makes Your Brain Lazy

“Disappointed in my pursuit to understand why the Internet was hacking at my already meager cognitive functions, I needed to understand more. What is it about the Internet that makes my brain rot?”

by Sarah Islam

Sarah is a Psychology major from Merrimack, NH. In her work with the archives, Sarah examined the work of archival storyteller Saidiya Hartman, who “points out a fundamental flaw in the development of the archive —  the lack of narratives of the oppressed.” Sarah was very interested in discovering different solutions to this injustice, and “wanted to understand some of the ethical dilemmas that can arise when working with archival materials.” Though the idea of writing about such a heavy topic was daunting at first, Sarah found herself becoming increasingly passionate about the injustices in the archives and the various ways we can provide reparations to the oppressed and missing voices. Crafting this essay was an important milestone for her, and she “gained confidence in [her] work and discovered a passion for English.” Sarah is a middle child with two sisters, and two parents, that support her dreams. She has watched both of her parents work extremely hard her entire life to “make sure that she, and her sisters, live comfortably and happily,” and they have taught her that she can “always pursue her passions, so long as she works hard.”

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What Are the Archives?
Archives are a collection of primary source documents, dated throughout history. They can be considered the rawest form of history, waiting to be organized and interpreted by the hand of the archivist. Archives include all sorts of primary sources, such as photographs, diaries, letters, legal documents, etc. These documents are typically donated by individuals who find themselves in possession of potentially important primary sources. Once donated, the archives are preserved with the original documents they were donated with, and they are not altered even if they are related to other documents living in the archives. Archivists work with the material provided in the archives in many different ways. Some archivists may deal exclusively in organizing, preserving, and filing the documents, while others may use the archives to tell stories or document an organized account of history. Though the work of an archivist may vary, there are a number of ethical issues that arise in the archives.

Ethics in Storytelling
The archives are brimming with primary source materials spanning throughout history. When diving into the world of the archives, one must decide what to do with the priceless information that is discovered. One path a researcher may choose to take is the path of storytelling. Stories can be relayed in a plethora of ways, in the form of a poem, a book, an essay, a short story, a novel etc. Each story is unique, and each scholar applies different writing techniques. Some prefer to stay true to history, working with exactly what was provided through the archives, while others like to “fill the gaps” and fabricate parts of a story based on what is provided and what is missing. Following the latter path, there are many ethical issues that arise concerning missing voices.

Archival documents tell the stories of real people throughout history, however there are many who are left out of the archives. In the past, documentation tools have only been available to those with the resources — which are those in power. Often, the oppressed are left out of the archives, and if they are included, it is only in brief glimpses through the biased stories of the oppressors. In her writing about the fate of a slave girl, called “Venus in Two Acts,” Saidiya Hartman explains this issue perfectly. She writes, “We only know what can be extrapolated from an analysis of the ledger or borrowed from the world of her captors and masters and applied to her” (Hartman 2). As is the case for many slaves and victims, Venus had no voice, and all Hartman could discover of Venus was a brief discussion about her murder through the eyes of the oppressor. It is this injustice and voicelessness that presents us with an ethical dilemma in the archives—Do we have a right to fabricate a voice where one did not previously exist?

There is no doubt that we have an ethical obligation to inform the public of the stories of the oppressed, but to what end? Do we have an obligation to the oppressed to create a story for them based on a brief, unsubstantial appearance in the archives? In a writing about acting as an ethical archivist, Mark A. Greene proposes that “to be an ethical archivist, one must pursue ‘social justice’” (Greene 303). Part of this pursuit is to provide the historically abused with a voice and a platform, and to provide them with reparations. This often entails creating a story where there wasn’t one before. In her writing, Hartman touches upon the lack of African narratives of captivity and enslavement, and she states “… in these circumstances, it would not be far-fetched to consider stories as a form of compensation or even as reparations…” (Hartman 4). Taking the lack of African narratives of oppression into consideration, it creates an obligation for the archivist/researcher to take liberties and create the tale of the oppressed as accurately as possible, so as to shed light and provide the public with a point of view that was lost to history. Hence, we can view this issue from a utilitarian point of view, it would provide the most benefit to the largest number of people. The oppressed would be provided with representation as well as reparations, and the public would become more informed and empathetic.

Holes in the Archives
In assessing the ethics of “filling the holes of history,” it is vital to acknowledge why these gaps exist. It is largely due to the structural racism that exists within the archives. This structural racism is not intentional, but the result of a history of white male domination. The archives were historically created by the hand of the white man, who was normally well-off and held some sort of power in society. A large reason for the systemic racism in the archives is that historically, white men have been the only literate individuals, holding positions of power in society as well as the government. In an article about constructing archives for the sole purpose of documenting experiences of the oppressed, Melissa A. Hubbard writes, “Knowing who selected, organized, described, and preserved those records, and why, helps explain their full context” (Hubbard). White men historically decided what to preserve and heavily influenced the narrative, nearly eliminating the voices of the oppressed. These men decided what was documented and what was ignored, which in turn created a biased record of events. This advantage enabled them to dictate history under their power and create the narrative that best suited them.

We can still see the results of this supremacy in the archives, and it is our job to rectify this imbalance of power. The stories of the oppressed have been buried and pushed aside in the archives, and it is our duty to uncover them and bring them to the spotlight. These stories can be uncovered bit by bit through the stories of the oppressors. In “Venus in Two Acts”, Hartman states “The archive is inseparable from the play of power that murdered Venus and her shipmate and exonerated the captain” (Hartman 7). What Hartman is alluding to in this segment is that the archives are not immune to the same white domination faced by Venus. In fact, the two go hand in hand, for the oppressors are the ones documenting history. Venus is only one of many victims who lost a voice in the archives, but we can also use her as an example of how to uncover the stories hidden within the archives. We can and must closely examine the documented history of the white man to uncover the whispers of the stories of the oppressed.

Solutions
Once we understand the ethical issues and the unjust holes in history, we must decide how to proceed to rectify the injustice in the archives. In a writing about the need for archivists to become activists, Anna Robinson-Sweet quotes Tonia Sutherland, stating that “For truth and reconciliation to occur the nation would be compelled to tell a version of history from slavery to lynchings to the New Civil Rights Movement that includes the voices and experiences of Black Americans and other communities silenced by archival amnesty” (Robinson-Sweet 36). Individuals like Saidiya Hartman are doing just that, by diving into the archives to uncover the true history buried among the documents and using their platform to spread the experiences and stories of those silenced in the archives. We must follow Hartman’s lead to uncover the truths hidden in the archives and make them known to the world. But along with providing the voiceless with a platform, we must strive to fix the system that allowed for the silencing of oppressed communities.

Structural reform is necessary in rectifying the archives. This starts with reducing the faith we have in the white male narrative throughout the archives and elevating the voices of the missing and oppressed. It is also necessary for all to acknowledge that the archives were built on structural racism, and to keep that in mind when working with archival material. We must encourage the narrative of the oppressed and find ways to incorporate it into archives to provide equal representation. In fact, multiple organizations have started working together to do just that. For example, one site is creating a digital archive centered around firsthand accounts of police brutality in Cleveland. In her writing about the archival resistance to structural racism and the construction of this digital archive, Melissa A. Hubbard says, “…archives can be deliberately constructed to enable the creation of counter-stories that serve to challenge, disrupt, or complicate dominant narratives in productive ways” (Hubbard). Creating new archives and platforms, specifically for the documentation of under-represented voices, is an amazing place to start in challenging the systemic racism of the archives. It is imperative that we continue to provide the oppressed with a place to document their stories, and to encourage them to contribute to the archives.

Going forward, we must ensure that all stories are accounted for. It is much easier to do so now with the technological and academic advancements the 21st century has provided us with. But it is vital to ensure that there is equal and sufficient representation of all groups in the archives. With the work being done by archival scholars like Saidiya Hartman, and digital archives like A People’s Archive of Police Violence in Cleveland (PAPVC), we are on our way to creating a better future and rectifying our failings in the representation of the missing and oppressed.

Works Cited
Greene, Mark A. “A Critique of Social Justice as an Archival Imperative: What Is It We’re Doing That’s All That Important?” The American Archivist, vol. 76, no. 2, The Society of American Archivists, 2013, pp. 302–34.

Hartman, Saidiya. “Venus in Two Acts.” Small Axe : a Journal of Criticism, vol. 12, no. 2, Duke University Press, 2008, pp. 1–14.

Hubbard, Melissa A. “Archival Resistance to Structural Racism: A People’s Archive of Police Violence in Cleveland.” Digital Community Engagement: Partnering Communities with the Academy, by Rebecca S. Wingo et al., University of Cincinnati Press, 2020.

Robinson-Sweet, Anna. “Truth and Reconciliation: Archivists as Reparations Activists.” The American Archivist, vol. 81, no. 1, 2018, pp. 23-37.

Williams, Stacie M. and Jarrett M. Drake. “Power to the People: Documenting Police Violence in Cleveland,” in “Critical Archival Studies,” eds. Michelle Caswell, Ricardo Punzalan, and T-Kay Sangwand. Special issue, Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies 1, no. 2 (2017).

by Tyler Tran

Tyler is an Accounting and Finance major from Stoughton, MA. Tyler felt a personal connection to the topic of his essay as he “has always been conscious of my voice in previous writing assignments, but it wasn’t until English 101 and 102 that I purposefully used my own voice in my essays.” This made Tyler want to explore the topic of “self-censorship” of students when writing. He admits that “undergoing the writing process in a remote setting was very new, but I think it helped emphasize the importance of really writing with my own voice.” While writing this essay, Tyler appreciated that he was allowed to freely choose his own topic and decide how he wanted to compose. He states that “this is one essay where I was given the most freedom.” Tyler says that he has always had a real passion for writing, but is also very interested in subjects like math and science. Outside of school, Tyler loves working on cars — a lifelong hobby that comes from his dad.

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When we see any kind of censorship in our lives, we are quick to address it and make the necessary changes. But, why do we not maintain the same reaction towards self-censorship of students within the academy? The answer to this question is very complex. Self-censorship is a broad term, and it would be helpful if we defined it before exploring its involvement with students. For the purposes of this paper, self-censorship in writing is the act of students replacing their true voice, with a voice that is not entirely their own. An example of self-censorship would be a student writing specifically what they think their audience wants to hear, instead of expressing their own thoughts and ideas. Before we can determine why students do this, we must first familiarize ourselves with a fundamental concept of writing. Intertextuality, a concept developed by James Porter, is the idea that all texts are somehow and some way related to each other. There can be “traces” of previous texts in all writing, which are ideas developed from writers that influence other writers and students (Porter 34). With Porter’s idea of intertextuality and “traces,” this causes students to alter, and sometimes completely censor their voices in their own writing. Since all texts are related and contain traces of others, there are often other voices within writing, and it has come to the point where students omit their own voice from their writing and simply reword or restate what other people have already said.

Because of intertextuality, it is logical that there can only be a limited amount of originality when writing. This lack of originality will be discussed later on, but for right now intertextuality is a reason why it may be difficult for students to write using their own voice. Rebecca M. Howard touches upon this idea with a clever metaphor, where she relates students and authors to dwarves and giants. The dwarves in this situation are current readers and writers, and the giants are those of the past. We as students are always learning new information and building upon it by adding our own opinions and thoughts, so Howard points out that “‘A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself’” (Howard 789). But, in the case of self-censorship within writing, students can run into the issue of getting lost within the presence of “giants.” It is difficult for a student to understand these complex ideas and texts, but when they are tasked to add their own thinking, it is ever more daunting. This then could lead students to feel almost insignificant and “dwarfed” in their own writing. Within the academy, students are taught that they must use evidence from other authors to support their ideas, but this makes it much harder for students to find and use their own voice in their writing. Because texts and writing are so closely interwoven with each other, students are susceptible to writing with a voice that echoes others’ rather than using their own.

Intertextuality is not the only factor that plays a role in the self-censorship of students, there is another fundamental characteristic of writing that contributes to student self-censorship: the conversational model of writing. Kenneth Burke developed this metaphor that writing is similar to a conversation. He compares writing to a conversation because they share the aspect of everyone voicing their own opinions and ideas, while listening and building upon the opinions and ideas of others. In a regular conversation, someone had to start it with a fairly original idea using their own voice, and others have since then contributed their own thoughts using their own voice. Writing is no different. When one author writes down an idea and starts a “conversation,” other authors take that idea and contribute their own thoughts. But, an issue arises when students/young authors begin using a voice that isn’t theirs in the conversation/their writing. Howard brings up the idea “If there is no originality, there is no basis for literary property.” (792). Literary property is a particular person’s unique thinking that belongs to that particular person. But as we have discussed before, the concept of intertextuality makes it extremely difficult for students to write with their own voices, in turn making originality scarce. When students write with a voice that is not their true voice, it leads to a lack of originality, which then leads to a lack of literary property, as brought up by Howard. In terms of the conversation model mentioned earlier, without originality and literary property, everyone is simply restating what others have said. The issue has now expanded to students believing that they themselves as writers are unoriginal and possess no ownership over their writing. Not only do they feel insignificant and small compared to other writers, they feel as though they can only reword what writers of the past have already said in order to fit in the conversation. As this continues from one generation of writers to the next, the cycle continues and the conversation begins to sound redundant.

The most common place where we see people censor themselves is in writing. In the case of many people, we alter the language we use depending on who we are communicating with. We see this specific kind of self-censorship very frequently within the academy, especially with students. Students from all over write with voices that are not their own for assignments. Instead of inserting their personal ideas and opinions into their writing, they adopt a detached voice and write what they think people want to hear. The current pedagogical strategies used in the academy are the main reason for this problem of self-censorship, but there has been extensive research done to find possible solutions to help students struggling to write with their own voice. Rebecca Gemmell, a high school English teacher, also discusses this lack of personal voice in her students’ writing, “[Jacob] did what I call ‘robot writing’ in which he, like many students, parroted back everything I had said… I wanted to hear what Jacob had to say, but I wasn’t hearing his voice or ideas in his writing” (Gemmell 64). She also notices that this is the case for all of her students, not just Jacob. She explains “They all sounded the same, not at all like the lively, diverse group of students I enjoyed working with in my classroom” (64). A lot of students are doing essentially the same thing Jacob is: removing their voice from their own writing, and simply regurgitating information in place of it. This kind of censorship can be found in students’ writing from all grade levels. The existence of this phenomenon is backed by scholars, students, and especially teachers like Gemmell who are actively trying to mend students’ approaches in writing. The current teaching strategies that are being used in the classroom are the cause of this detached style of writing from students, which we will further inspect.

The current pedagogical strategies that teachers use in schools now are largely responsible for students removing themselves from their writing, and instead substituting in a voice that is not entirely their own. This issue of students’ detachment from their writing stems from the idea that there is a “right” or “correct” way to write. Strict guidelines and rubrics create a very rigid environment that allows little to no freedom when it comes to writing. Valerie Kinlock takes a closer look at this constructed concept that students must use “Standard English” when writing in the classroom, making it the “correct communicative form” (Kinloch 84). This communicative form that Kinlock mentions is the way most students are taught to write. They must use formal language (no slang and proper sentence structure) and always support their claims with strong and appropriate evidence. Students are taught that this is the correct way to write their essays, and methods other than that specific way are considered “nonstandard practices.” Since students are graded upon their execution of these Standard practices, it encourages them to write with a voice that is not entirely their own. Classifying anything but Standard English in writing nonstandard practices reinforces the feeling that students’ voices have no place whatsoever in their own writing. So, when students are forced to follow the practices of Standard English, it leaves them little room to voice and express their own ideas and opinions. As they continue to do this assignment after assignment, essay after essay, it becomes the only way they know how to write. In order to counter this, Kinloch also offers insight on a solution that includes “upholding the need to affirm the rights of students to their own language varieties” (90). Kinloch touches upon the idea that students should not be forced to conform to “Standard English” because it goes against their right to their own language. In my opinion, teachers should instruct their students in adapting their own “language varieties” instead of completely abandoning it. By modifying students’ own language instead of forcing them to totally adopt Standard English, they can write with their own voice and style, while also following the necessary conventions of Standard English practices. This approach to mending student’s way of writing is one of many that teachers should be utilizing instead of the current pedagogical strategies in place in order to promote students’ use of their own voice in their writing.

Since students are taught to believe that there is only one correct way to write from the beginning as Kinloch mentioned, it is difficult for them to break this habit. When a criminal is released from jail, it takes a certain amount of time for them to adjust to living in the free world. While this seems like an extreme comparison, there are similarities between a recently freed convict, and a recently liberated writer. If a student is suddenly told to write an essay that includes their own voice and opinions, there is bound to be confusion and hesitation. Gemmell, who wrote about her students’ own experiences with this, observed that “many students resisted this new focus” (Gemmell 65). It is surprising that these students were not openly joyous about being able to write with their own voice, but it is understandable. For years and years they have been taught to write from a detached, evidence-based position. Now, suddenly they are being required to do the complete opposite. The students hesitated because “they didn’t want to think that hard” and wanted to be told exactly what to do because it was easier and what they were used to. It shocked me to read that the students “didn’t believe it was OK to express their opinions in an ‘academic’ essay” (65). Like Howard, I presupposed that students would jump at the opportunity to write with their own voice finally, but they actually had the opposite reaction. This goes to show that students’ voices have been academically imprisoned, and when presented with freedom they are unsure what to do with it.

As students slowly regain their freedom and get the hang of using their voice again in their writing, there are some methods that assist during the process. One activity that is especially helpful is creating a writer’s notebook or journal. By allowing students to write without the pressure of being graded, it lets them exercise their newly attained freedom. We can see this in effect in a real classroom setting through Gemmell’s execution of it. She believes that “writing OPs and sharing them aloud helped create a sense of community and sparked discussion in their classrooms, exactly the kind of ‘social, conversational act’ academic writing is meant to generate in the college class” (Gemmell 66). The reference to writing as a conversational act is an idea developed by Burke, which we discussed earlier. The importance of writing in a conversational manner allows students to write with their own voice, which makes it more natural for them to build upon the ideas of others. Besides using their own voice, a writer’s notebook and similar activities make it easier for students to explore new ideas. This creates a writing environment where students can become more familiar with their newly acquired freedom and contribute to the “conversation.” When students are allowed to engage in writing as a conversational act, they can more easily find and use their own voice in their writing.

Only recently have I personally found my voice in my writing. Like most students, I had removed my own voice from my essays because of how my teachers in the past have taught writing. It wasn’t until I took English 101 in the fall did I realize the importance of my own voice in my writing. Something that helped me learn how to really write was finally being able to use “I” again. This is a very direct yet effective approach to teaching students the importance of our voices. It helps us regain our confidence in our own opinions and ideas. The biggest reason for students no longer using “I” in their writing is because we were taught that we must use “strong” evidence from other authors to support their claims. The issue with this method is that it shows students that their ideas are not good enough even for their own writing. Students are encouraged to incorporate their own voice in their writing when they are given the ability to simply use “I” in their writing again.

Student self-censorship in their own writing is an ongoing issue that we must all actively try to prevent. The evidence that supports the existence of this problem are ideas such as intertextuality, as well as the current way in which students are taught how to write “academic” essays. Teachers tell students that their ideas should be backed with evidence from other authors because personal anecdotes may not be sufficient. But, the methods teachers utilize to accomplish this teaching moment are more counterproductive than they are effective. Implementing rules such as the restriction of using “I” is something that, along with intertextuality, makes student writers feel insignificant. This leads to teachers like Gemmell noticing a robotic and almost parrot-like style of writing. Thankfully, there are many different solutions for this issue. Allowing students to use “I” in their writing, while stressing the importance of appropriate evidence provides the best of both worlds. Also, letting students write their ideas freely without the pressure of being graded through the use of a writer’s notebook or something similar assists them in finding their own voice. When students are able to write with their own voice and express their own ideas, it benefits the entire writing community as a whole. If students continue to write with a voice that is not their own, the “conversation” will inevitably become redundant and eventually die off. But, by supporting students’ efforts to write with our own voices, it continues the flow of original ideas, allowing the conversation to thrive and continue, and the positive cycle of writing lives on.

Works Cited
Gemmell, Rebecca. “Encouraging Student Voice in Academic Writing.” The English Journal, vol. 98, no. 2, 2008, pp. 64–68.

Howard, Rebecca Moore. “Plagiarisms, Authorships, and the Academic Death Penalty.” College English 57.7 (1995): 788.

Kinloch, Valerie Felita. “Revisiting the Promise of Students’ Right to their Own Language: Pedagogical Strategies.” College Composition and Communication 57.1 (2005): 83-113.

Porter, James E. “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community.” Rhetoric Review, vol. 5 no. 1, 1986, pp. 34-47.

by Navasz Hansotia

Navasz is a Political Science major and Philosophy and Law minor from Mumbai, India. As a freshman, her inspiration for writing this essay was her recent experience with the college application process. Navasz says that “coming from a high school in India, multiple factors in the application process were not in my favor and would have been different if I had received my high school education from the United States.” This essay was special because she “learned how to inculcate the art of actively responding with my own voice in terms of academic writing rather than merely agreeing or disagreeing with the writer.” Navasz is passionate about equality and she cares deeply about women’s rights and animal rights. She says that “as a firm believer of equality in every sphere, be it gender, race, economic background. I felt empowered responding to Warren’s work and highlighting the issues faced by international students during the college application process.” Her passion for equality is what has inspired her to study law.

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James Warren’s essay “The Rhetoric of College Application Essays: Removing Obstacles for Low Income and Minority Students,” is certainly insightful as it highlights a series of unconventional claims on something the majority of us have distinctively experienced — the college application essay. Warren’s project examines colleges’ deceptive approach towards the college application essay that lacks transparency and ‘widens the achievement gap’ between low-income, ethnic minority students and middle-income White students. Warren supports his causational and relational claims with evidence from his study to persuade his audience. However, is his study missing something?

Warren’s study, based on low-income, ethnic minority students and middle-income White students with regards to the achievement gap in college application essays, successfully persuades his audience with pieces of evidence to support his claims. However, his study is certainly confined. Warren fails to highlight the struggles faced by international applicants with regards to the college application essay. According to ‘Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange,’ International students make up 5.5 percent of the total U.S. higher education population and contribute 44.7 billion dollars to the U.S. economy (“Number of International Students…”). Being an integral part of the system and economy, international students are often paid no heed. Being an international applicant is exceedingly arduous, especially if the student’s origin is a developing country with a lack of opportunities and resources, even more so than a low performing U.S. high school.

Growing up in Mumbai, India, where I have completed my school, I found the entire application experience to be overwhelming due to the lack of familiarity from the disparate education system. Fortunately, English is my first language and medium of instruction, but in India and many other developing nations, students who want to gain acceptance into universities would not be able to regardless of the intellect, talent and perseverance they possess due to highly competitive English writing being a determining factor of their worthiness. I believe familiarity is a key to comfort and confidence. Warren claims, “…They may unintentionally continue to favor applicants who are academically socialized over those of similar aptitude who are simply less familiar with academic culture” (13). However, he failed to highlight the emotional and mental aspect behind his effective claim. Students are familiar with certain concepts or systems, they mechanically develop a positive attitude towards it. Humans innately find comfort in familiarity. Hence when faced with situations or concepts that are alien to us, we experience discomfort, lack of confidence and develop a negative attitude towards it before even attempting to approach it. Studying in India, I have not been familiar with various key aspects of the American educational system — GPA was never a concept for our system, neither were ‘honors’ courses, prerequisites, significant topics of the rhetorical situation model, college application essays, persuasive arguments and so much more were never even briefly introduced to us in class. I felt like I could never compete with or be at par with those who are familiar with the mechanisms of the American educational system. Due to the lack of familiarity and experience, my confidence was shattered. I already harbored a negative approach towards the college application process, including the college application essay which impacted my writing.

Warren highlights the counsel’s façade of wanting to know a student better beyond their academics, whereas the true intent is to create a high stakes competitive writing task. He states, “The true nature of the college essay is not an invitation to write for someone who really wants to know a student better. It is, rather, a high-stakes competitive writing task that can make the difference between college acceptance or rejection” (Warren 2). While I support Warren’s claim of the counsel’s facade, he does not highlight why it exists. Essentially, this could be looked as a ‘game’ as Graff states (2). This game is put up by the colleges, with no manual for the players — the applicants. Getting past the first level would be to understand the implicit purpose and the rhetorical situation, the second level would be comparing the students’ writing abilities on the basis of effective rhetoric, logical reasoning, and persuasive argumentation, and the final would be gaining acceptance. The students who lack the resources to infer the implicit purpose and instruction are instantly eliminated at the first level of this ‘game.’ Very often, as international applicants do not have the opportunity of their schools explaining to them the implicit nature of the prompt and the counsel’s expectations, they are eliminated at the first level of the ‘game.’ The deceptive nature serves as a tool to intentionally facilitate the university’s ease and convenience with regards to the tedious innumerable applications they receive.

Warren effectively highlights the lack of transparency within the prompt through his rhetoric. I perceive the universities’ lack of transparency as a system to evaluate and search for a particular race or class within the social and economic hierarchy, but not explicitly ask for it under apprehension of fierce backlash and moral misconduct. He states, “Universities in a powerful position to evaluate whatever it is they are looking, but perhaps not clearly asking, for” (Warren 3). Race and class discrimination has been so deep seeded in our economy and society; it could be subtly ingrained in the college admissions process as well. Warren also strongly claims that the admissions counselors actually misguide and discourage students from observing the rhetorical situation of the essay. Warren supports his claim with evidence from the Hints & Tips” page of the University of Texas at Austin’s admissions website which read “Don’t tell us what you think we want to hear” (Warren 3). This ‘tip’ actively misleads the student rather than providing guidance. It dismisses the very foundation of the rhetorical situation — to gauge the audience, evaluate and think deeper to gain a better understanding, and ultimately achieve your purpose. This especially misleads international students, who are desperately turning to guidance and tips available online as they do not receive them in their respective schools. This could be perceived as intentional segregation, without explicitly asking for what the truly want — the university receives their target applicants and eliminates those who are not.

Warren also highlights how the universities mislead students through their open-ended prompts. They have a facade of providing liberty, whereas its true nature is highly contradictory. He states, “…Such prompts appear to offer students greater freedom, but this freedom is only as good as admissions officers’ openness to textual diversity” (Warren 13). The liberty provided is actually delivered with several constraints. The lack of objectivity and transparency of the rhetorical situation of the essay makes the drafting process exceedingly arduous. It also misleads students to get overwhelmed with the liberty of such open-ended prompts. There should be set standards to expect with regards to the style, diction and dialects in writing, made easily available online for all applicants across the globe. This would increase the likelihood of even international applicants unfamiliar with the system to deliver a successful essay as per the explicit expectations of their audience — the admission officers.

As an international student, I was extremely disoriented while working with my college application essay as I was unfamiliar with the implicit expectations of the university and the concept of a rhetorical situation model. The prompt, misleadingly titled as “Personal Insight Questions,” provided by the University of California was: “Describe how you express your creative side” (“Personal Insight Questions”). The lack of transparency with such an open-ended prompt would lead anyone to think they have to write about their favorite hobby passionately, a personal narrative. As Warren claims, “Most prompts ask applicants for personal narratives, but the essays actually function as arguments that make a case for the applicant’s potential as a college student” (Warren 2). If a student’s creative side was singing and wrote that for the essay, they would be more likely to be dismissed by the counsel than a student who wrote about creative writing as their creative side. The hobby of singing would not be able to demonstrate the student’s intellect or academic potential that the admission counsel is seeking, but not explicitly asking for. Hence, universities should refrain from such prompts without explicit instruction, as a student cannot deliver as per the expectations if the expectations are not projected onto the prompt.

DeCosta-Smith observes that students from underrepresented groups scarcely enroll in for-profit preparatory courses that provide specialized instruction that clarify the implicit details and elements to be familiar with (Warren 2). Warren states that this is the embodiment that Graff termed, “undemocratic curriculum” (2). I found this term describing the U.S. academic curriculum rather fascinating as Warren aptly represents it. However, he fails to explicitly mention elements of the curriculum that would make it “undemocratic.” I believe the few key features of American democracy come into perspective — equality, liberty, and the American dream. The college application and essay process lack equality due the achievement gap existing within the low-income minority and international students who lack resources to succeed with no fault of theirs, and the students placed with opportunities they did not earn on merit. Liberty is the freedom from the authority’s repression. Not only does the counsel place restrictions, but also actively lacks transparency with regards to those restrictions. This in turn demolishes the very foundation of the American Dream — the equal opportunity to success and pursuit of happiness. The ‘American Dream’ was the foundation for several immigrants across the world, fleeing to the United States — the land of hope and opportunity for success through hard work. However, international students are often denied this opportunity, regardless of their efforts due to the ‘undemocratic’ nature of the curriculum.

However, I believe democracy can be restored in the curriculum. There can be solutions implemented to battle the façade put up by colleges. Warren makes an effective policy claim, “Demystifying the college essay is a small but important step toward increasing access to desirable four-year institutions for students who do not understand how ‘the academic game’ is played” (3). I believe this demystifying can be achieved through making college essay prompts transparent and more objective with explicit instructions and set standards to meet through a rubric. I also believe the rhetorical situation model and persuasive argument should be introduced as mandatory courses in all high schools within America and other countries as well. The rhetorical situation model and elements of persuasive arguments provide long term gains of the likelihood of securing a good post-secondary education and in turn a satisfactory job. The domino effect of high school students’ familiarity with post-secondary academic culture produces a cumulative chain reaction determining the likelihood of a student’s success or failure according to standards set by the economy and society.

Works Cited

“Number of International Students in the United States Hits All-Time High.” The Power of International Education, 18 Nov. 2019. www.iie.org/Why-IIE/Announcements/2019/11/Number-of-International-Students-in-the-United-States-Hits-All-Time-High.

“Personal Insight Questions.” University of California. Personal Insight Questions UC Admissions. https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/how-to-apply/applying-as-a-freshman/personal-insight-questions.html

Warren, James. “The Rhetoric of College Application Essays: Removing Obstacles for Low Income and Minority Students.” American Secondary Education, vol. 42, no. 1, 2013.

by Alex Quadros

Alex is an undecided major from Chelmsford, MA, who is interested in International Relations, English, and Economics. Alex said this topic “thoroughly piqued my curiosity” and he “wondered whether my recurrent frustrations with procrastination of writing assignments was a symptom of ‘thinker’s block,’ or rather the usual culprit of ‘writer’s block.’ This distinction became important to him as he realized “utilizing orality could spur the composition process.” Alex is a very family-oriented person and is passionate about helping others. His ideal day would be hiking with friends while listening to the Rolling Stones and then playing basketball all night long. He says that “whatever career I decide on, I hope it is one where the main goal is not making money but instead making others’ lives better; I recognize that an education is currently a privilege not available to all, so I want to make the most of it.”

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Orality is the quality of being spoken or verbally communicated, as opposed to textuality, the quality or use of language characteristic of written works. Although the composition process merely refers to the creation of something new, student writers or professionals would naturally use ‘composition’ interchangeably with ‘writing,’ thereby insinuating textuality and ignoring orality. These two modes of language use do not need to be segregated though. English poet John Milton was blind when he ‘wrote’ his famous Paradise Lost. For that reason, he didn’t write the text at all, rather he spoke it into existence, dictating it to scribes. Similarly, Henry James developed rheumatism, or arthritis of the hands, in his fifties and as a result, his later works were products of dictation. James commented, “It all seems to be so much more effectively and unceasingly pulled out of me in speech than in writing” (qtd. in Campbell 164). Scholars note that James’ change in media from longhand to dictation did correspond to a change in style, with his oral texts characterized by longer sentences, alliteration (signaling more awareness of sound) and more abstract ideas (Campbell 164). Milton and James demonstrate a traditional view of orality being solely a tool to assist writers with disabilities. In addition to physical disabilities such as those Milton and James had, orality is often invoked due to learning difficulties; educator Roanne Brice explains that “students with language learning disabilities (LLD) often find it difficult to express their thoughts in written format” (38). I think that the perception of orality being primarily appropriate for those with disabilities implicitly suggests that the written format is inherently more valuable or advanced as compared to orality, which is a last resort. Although the majority of research on orality in the composition process does focus on writers with disabilities, I see no logical reason for the role of orality to be reserved for a select few if it could benefit writers en masse. I therefore set out to discover if, and how, the composition process could profit from orality.

From the examples of Milton and James, I understand two critical ideas. Most fundamentally, it is evident that orality and textuality are in fact compatible, in the sense that words spoken can become text on a page, and that this is true even for very advanced compositions. Next, it is clear that this compatibility does not signal interchangeability; through James it is evident that his spoken language was distinct from his written language. Therefore, I propose a way of thinking about these two different modalities within the composition process as harnessing one’s “oral composition mind” and one’s “written composition mind.” I think these terms are useful because they illustrate that, while the writer or speaker might not recognize it, there is a unique mindset employed depending on the modality, which leads to distinct results within the composition process. The dichotomy between the oral composition mind and the written composition might appear dramatic, but modern neuroscience suggests that it is a useful distinction.

I think that the misconception most necessary to dispel in order for writers to take seriously the role of orality is the idea that the words we write are the words we would have otherwise spoken. Modern neuroscience helps refute this myth. Dr. Michael Gassaniga and Dr. Kathleen Baynes conducted a study on split brain patients, those who have had their brains surgically bifurcated to control seizures. Gazzaniga and Baynes found that after this procedure, a patient could engage in fluent spoken language with ease, but had absolutely no ability to write. While the majority of people have both language abilities (speaking and writing) grounded in the left hemisphere of the brain, this patient had speaking ability grounded in the left hemisphere but writing in the right (Blakeslee). Linguist Steven Pinker “suggests that reading and writing arose separately from spoken language and may be wired up in the brain wherever there are ‘spare areas’” (cited in Blakeslee). This separation of spoken and written language in the brain suggests that orality and written language should not be treated as two sides of the same coin. Rather, I think a conceptual framework using the terms “oral composition mind” and “written composition mind” will allow speakers/writers to view these two modalities as cognitively differentiated so that both will be validated for their own merits.

Oral and written language are first distinguished based on their respective characteristics and the best uses of each. Michael Halliday, a linguist, observed that “spoken language is characterized by complex sentence structures with low lexical density (more clauses, but fewer high content words per clause); written language by simple sentence structures with high lexical density (more high content words per clause, but fewer clauses)” (qtd. in Chafe and Tannen 388). This means that spoken language utilizes longer and more varied sentence structure with simpler words, while written language uses more digestible sentences but more advanced vocabulary. This makes intuitive sense, as people are not concerned with individual sentences or punctuation when speaking, but rather with the ideas themselves. Halliday’s observation about the length of spoken sentences is in fact supported by “those athletically long sentences” that Henry James dictated (Campbell 164). Van Woerkum builds from Halliday’s idea with his characterization of speech reflecting a creative mood while writing employs the “rational-analytic mood” (194). I would identify the creative mood with spontaneity and insight; the rational-analytic would be meticulous and detail-oriented. I find that even research writing requires creativity in the synthesis and production of ideas. But, during research writing I often struggle with writer’s block, and I think this results from my tendency to obsess over sentence structure and word choice (rational-analytic) when I should still be focusing on ideas. Van Woerkum proposes that writer’s block occurs from a conflation of these two moods, with the recommendation being not to “merge these creative and analytic parts of writing” and in fact to “separate them as far as possible” (Van Woerkum 194). Therefore, the oral composition mind identifies with the creative mood, whereas the written composition mind is comparatively more rational-analytic in nature, and the recommendation is to separate the utilization of these two minds in the composition process. I then recognize the value of invoking the creativity of the oral composition mind, through speech recognition technology or other means, in the drafting stages of composition. Lauren Fine investigated drafting with SR technology, by having three first year composition students compose aloud and then reflect on the process. For Shannon, the most skilled writer in the group,“composing aloud helped her explore her ideas more; rather than taking the first idea she came up with and running with it, as she normally does, she said she was able to dig deeper because when speaking ‘nothing was super permanent’” (Fine 6). For Shannon, (and again confluent with James’ more abstract ideas) the seeming impermanence of orality freed her from the rational analytic and her oral composition mind allowed for a greater depth of ideas.

Another avenue for orality is to promote the authority of a writer within their composition. Many researchers have noted that using the oral composition mind makes one more cognizant of one’s self as being an active participant in the discourse. In a study involving Australian college students, researchers Poole and Field found that spoken language resulted in more personal pronouns (cited in Chafe and Tannen 387) and on the other side, Van Woerkum notes that written compositions contain “more attributive and fewer personal pronouns” (185). Personal pronouns include ‘I, ‘you,’ ‘he,’ ‘she,’ etc. and attributive pronouns include ‘everybody,’ ‘everyone,’ etc. This means that the speaker recognizes themself as an active participant shaping the composition along with other distinct individuals, or authors. I think that students having difficulty with seeing themselves as authors constructing knowledge in academic writing could benefit from orality in this regard. For example, Janet, a college freshman who recorded her thoughts in a talk-aloud procedure as she composed an essay on paternalism, frequently joined the academic conversation by voicing her opinion. She said, “that the Gert Culver definition number two…that paternalism is qualified…is a bunch of baloney…I don’t think that a child could do anything for a parent without the parent’s consent…I think that critique is not good” (Penrose and Geisler 512). Despite Janet’s strong vocalized feelings, “these responses did not become central to her work and do not appear in her paper. Not even when her examples clearly ‘disproved’ another author’s position did she step into the conversation to say so” (Penrose and Geisler 514). I think that validating Janet’s spoken practices through oral drafting with SR technology or other means could have allowed her to play a more active role in the composition of her report. The personal pronouns and authority resulting from the oral composition mind may in fact be correlated with the impermanence with which Shannon, from Fine’s study, viewed her orality. Janet might have voiced her opinions as a result of the impermanence of orality, whereas it is clear she did not include her opinions in her report because she viewed the written format of her intertext as something permanent, “the book” as she put it (Penrose and Geisler 513). Therefore, validating the authority of the oral composition mind could provide developing writers with a way to include themselves in academic discourse.

It is also relevant to note the role that orality could serve in helping writers compose to meet audience needs. Van Woerkum points out that texts which “adopt elements of the orality of the group of readers are more attractive and therefore…[are] better understood” (189). Further, psychologist J.C. Turner found that “texts that are clearly related to the oral communication of readers are labeled as stemming from a we-group rather than a they group” (qtd. in Van Woerkum 189). This means that not only are texts easier to comprehend if they align with the spoken language the audience is used to, but also that the audience is able to identify with the author, forming a solid foundation for meaningful reading. This has implications for all writers, but particularly those who, consciously or inadvertently, use an overly formal or convoluted style. Lindsey, a freshman composition student from Fine’s study, used speech recognition to draft, but then edited heavily, resulting in convoluted phrases such as “‘provided me with some of the hardest laughing’” and “‘resulting in further dislike and annoyance” (Fine 4). Students often mistake formality for intelligence or clarity when formality can in fact obscure meaning. I certainly wouldn’t identify Lindsey within a we-group based on those phrasings. In contrast to Lindsey, Catherine remarked that composing aloud with speech recognition software “helped her write more naturally because she had to consider what her writing actually ‘sounds like to a person’” (Fine 6). Therefore, even in the absence of composing aloud, as a result of Turner and Fine’s work, I see value in writers reading their texts aloud, to measure their written work against the orality of readers. Peter Elbow, a pioneer of freewriting, makes this same recommendation. Writing about his article in “Vernacular Eloquence: What Speech Can Bring to Writing,” Hoerman and Enos say that for the later stages of writing, “especially revising…the practice of reading one’s writing aloud is an aid in revising and proofreading because speaking slowly slows the writer down, letting her or him hear errors more readily than one might see them, while also giving papers a more acoustic quality” (168). By “acoustic,” Hoerman and Enos mean the naturalness that Fine’s student, Catherine describes, which in turn corresponds to the “elements of the orality of the group of readers” that produces the we-group identification that Turner discusses. It is clear that harnessing the oral composition mind is a cornerstone of writer-audience interaction.

Many researchers have concluded that conversation could play a key role in textual production. In fact, linguist J.C. Schafer concluded that “for teachers of composition, the distinction between dialogue and monologue is more useful than the distinction between speaking and writing” (qtd. in Chafe and Tannen 388). This means that independent versus assisted text production yields a greater gap in quality than oral v written production. Since negotiating meaning in dialogue is the most common use of language, it should be no surprise that monologue, even for skilled writers, can be unnatural. Van Woerkum adds that a writer “cannot see his receiver and is deprived of the use of (often non-verbal) signals that tell him how his message is being interpreted” (186). For example, if any sentence in this paper is confusing, I would be unaware as a writer, but would likely receive visual feedback if I were expressing the same ideas in conversation with another person. Recognizing this phenomenon, Melody Denny proposes an oral-revision space, where a writer can revise a text orally with the help of a peer or instructor. The oral-revision space is not merely talking about writing, but uses conversation analysis to write what is spoken. A student, in conversation with a peer, said, “‘I don’t know if that was necessary or not. ‘Depending on the product being advertised, the ad that goes with it?’ That doesn’t make sense. So never mind” (Denny 38). The underlined section represents a student speaking, trying out a different formulation. The delineation of the oral composition mind being creative and the written composition mind being comparatively analytical prompts me to propose that an oral-drafting space would work as well as Denny’s oral-revision space. It appears that the creativity and abstract ideas associated with orality, in tandem with the benefits of conversation, could promote successful preliminary drafting. Then, the written modality is best suited for the early stages of revision, harnessing the rational-analytic side of the written composition mind. Finally, in the later stages of revision, Denny’s oral drafting space, with the support of Elbow’s idea of revising for acoustics, could best utilize the merits of one’s oral composition mind.

Speech recognition software, or SR software, such as Dragon, allows for the most immediate meshing of orality and textuality. Studies on the effectiveness of SR software are varied in their findings. Lauren Fine found that drafting with SR software helped one student generate more complex ideas, and one student write more naturally, but the aforementioned Lindsey produced a draft that was “plagued by convoluted phrasings” (4). But, Fine later found out that Lindsey “edited heavily and kept very little of what she originally spoke” (5). This need for extensive editing was also reported by Williams, Hartley, and Pittard in a study of 12 writers of varying skill levels. Every writer in the study disagreed with the claim that SR makes editing easier (Willaims et. al. 275). Williams et. al. also concluded that “planners are more positive about SR than discoverers” ( 277). This means that those who already know what they want to say have a better experience with SR than those who are using it to generate ideas. This conflicts with Van Woerkum’s emphasis on orality being used for the creative process, and suggests that writing is in fact a technology useful for planning. However, Van Woerkum then distinguishes between the drafting phase and the preparation phase, suggesting that preparation requires both creative and rational-analytic abilities. After this preparation phase, drafting is creative and revising is rational analytic (Van Woerkum 196-7). I take the recommendation to then be that planning could involve written practices like diagramming and oral practices such as speak-aloud or conversation. Only then should orality be used to draft. Next, the written composition mind is utilized for the structural phase of revision, and the oral composition mind can be invoked again in later revisions, through conversation and reading aloud.

I now see that accessing one’s oral composition mind could have many benefits within the composition process, not just for writers with disabilities, but for all writers. As a result, I think it is important for writers to be aware of the role orality plays in the composition process, because if writers are ignoring orality, they are ignoring a valuable tool at their disposal. I think pedagogical considerations should shift to educate writers on the relationship between writing and orality, and how to use each modality most efficiently in the composition process. Before my research, I rarely, if ever, thought about orality relating to composition. I had never used SR technology or a talk-aloud procedure, and seldom ever read my papers aloud. I look forward to experimenting with the oral composition mind and I recommend further research on SR technology with larger sample sizes and different levels of writing experience.

Works Cited

Blakeslee, Sandra. “Workings of Split Brain Challenge Notions of How Language Evolved.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 26 Nov. 1996, p. 43.

Brice, Roanne G. “Connecting Oral and Written Language through Applied Writing Strategies.” Intervention in School and Clinic, vol. 40, no. 1, 2004, pp. 38-47.

Campbell, Sarah. “The Man Who Talked Like A Book, Wrote Like He Spoke.” Interval(le)s, Fall 2008/Winter 2009, pp.164–173.

Chafe, Wallace, and Deborah Tannen. “The Relation between Written and Spoken Language.” Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 16, 1987, pp. 383–407.

Denny, Melody. “The Oral Writing-Revision Space: Identifying a New and Common Discourse Feature of Writing Center Consultations.” The Writing Center Journal, vol. 37, no. 1, 2018, pp. 35–66.

Fine, Lauren, “The Power of Speech: Speech-Recognition Software in the Writing Process.” BYU Scholars Archive, 2015, pp. 1-13.

Hoermann, Jacquelyn E., and Richard Leo Enos. “Vernacular Eloquence: What Speech Can Bring to Writing.” Composition Studies, vol. 42, no. 2, 2014, pp. 163–170.

Penrose, Anne M. and Cheryl Geisler. “Reading and Writing Without Authority.” College Composition and Communication Vol. 45, no 4, Dec. 1994, pp. 505-520.

Williams, Noel, et al. “Talking to Write: Investigating the Practical Impact and Theoretical Implications of Speech Recognition (SR) Software on Real Writing Tasks.” Writing and Cognition: Research and Applications, edited by Mark Torrance et al., Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2010.

Van Woerkum, C M J. “Orality and the Process of Writing.” Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, vol. 37, no. 2, 2007, pp. 183-201.

by Maggie Buyuk

Maggie Buyuk is a Nursing major from Bolton, MA. She wanted to focus her essay on the scientific discourse community because she feels as though it is often unapproachable: “As a nursing major, I know that I want information to be easily accessible for both myself and my patients. Unfortunately, the scientific rhetoric is not publically friendly because of the jargon and format of the scientific paper standard.” Maggie believes that there is a middle ground where the scientific community and the public can meet in order to better understand each other. This essay is special to her because, as a student, she has felt left out of the scientific community because of the jargon. “I don’t think that knowledge and understanding of the scientific community should be a privilege, but the strict scientific paper format makes it a privilege for people within the community.” In her personal life, Maggie enjoys being able to help people in their times of need; she became an EMT at the age of 16 and “absolutely loves it!” She says “when I see people in the back of the ambulance, I know that they are having a horrible day, so I like to be able to ease some of the stress and pain that they are experiencing. It makes me happy to hear them say that I helped them in any way, whether it be emotionally or physically.”

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Science plays a role in the daily life of everyone; unfortunately, embracing the scientific world is a challenge for most of the general public because of the language and structure used by scientific rhetors. But is the challenge because of disinterest or misunderstanding, and if so, where does that stem from? I believe it is because of the relationship between the writing styles of the general public and the scientific community. Unfortunately, most scientific research papers are not friendly for the general public. How does the relationship between the scientific community and the general public complicate the writing process? Can scientific rhetors ease the confusion and frustration that scientific research causes the general public? In order to resolve the problems within scientific writing for the public, there needs to be an understanding about the relationship between the two groups and their standards for what makes a valid and accessible research paper.

In order to discuss scientific writing for the general public in greater depth, first I will talk about the idea of “discourse communities” and how they pertain to writing. James Porter claims that all texts are influenced by the audience, or discourse community. He defines a discourse community as “a group of individuals bound by a common interest who communicate through approved channels and whose discourse is regulated” (Porter 38-39). Discourse communities can be broad or specific. For example, the scientific discourse community encompasses many different fields, but it can be narrowed down to focus on the medical community, which can be further narrowed to epidemiology, which in turn can be narrowed to epidemiologists who study the spread of COVID-19. For the purposes of my essay, when I mention discourse community I mean the scientific discourse community that provides information to the general public, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also known as the CDC.

It is important to understand writing expectations in the scientific discourse community in order to appreciate why it may be difficult for the public to comprehend science writing. Porter explains that discourse communities decide what is “appropriate for examination and discussion, what operating functions are performed on those objects, what constitutes ‘evidence’ and ‘validity,’ and what formal conventions are followed” (39). In the scientific community, all research papers follow a specific formula. Matthew Allen explains that the formula for scientific papers is “Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion… IMRD” (99). This formula is used because it has been accepted and come to be expected by a majority of scientists for centuries. Another practice that Allen mentions is that the majority, if not the entirety, of a science paper is written in a passive voice in order to appear objective (958-9). Allen also suggests that appearing objective is one of the key criteria to being accepted by the scientific discourse community because subjectivity suggests bias. When bias appears in a scientific paper, other scientists within the discourse community may be led to believe that the study was conducted in order to affirm a preconceived belief, therefore making the writing invalid. If the study is deemed invalid then it will be rejected within the discourse community and may not be published.

If a study is not published in a well-established, peer reviewed journal, then the public will most likely distrust the study. In other words, a scientific paper must be accepted by the scientific discourse community before it becomes a valid source for the public. Once a scientific paper has been accepted by the scientific community, it must be revised in order to fit the general public discourse community guidelines before it is published in a newspaper, on a website, or in a scientific journal written for the public. Porter states that the writing “expectations, conventions, and attitudes of this discourse community – the readers, writers, and publishers” change when moving into different discourse communities (40). So, the question remains, how can authors conform to the general public discourse community, while adhering to the expectations set by the scientific discourse community?

There is a very fine line when writing about science for the masses because the jargon has to be understood by a majority of the population, while still giving sufficient and effective information. Unfortunately, most scientific research is not friendly for the eyes of the general public. Scientific papers are tailored for the scientific discourse community and can be very bland, unengaging, and difficult to understand. Scientific rhetors have vocabulary that is considered “common” or “basic” for their field of study. However, that does not mean that the vocabulary is well known by everyday people, so it can make reading scientific articles a chore and lead to confusion and mis-translation of the information. Marcin Kozak and James Hartley’ suggestions about making scientific writing friendlier for scientists of different disciplines can also apply to writing for the general public. They seem to agree with Rebecca Gowers’ claim that scientific writing should be written “in clear, plain English” (Kozak and Hartley 70). Simplicity in writing through use of clear, plain English makes writing straight-forward and engaging in order to grab and maintain the attention of the audience. To further this idea, I propose that uncommon and essential scientific key terms should be defined in order to help clarify scientific jargon for everyday people. Despite key terms being distinguished in the scientific community, they are not always well-known by the public. An essential term should be explained in a concise manner. Writing in this style does not degrade one’s intelligence, but ensures that there is an explicit understanding. For example, I have used the term “discourse community” throughout my paper, but I included Porter’s simple definition for anyone unfamiliar with the idea of discourse communities. No one, including myself, wants to have to refer to a dictionary every other sentence in order to understand a paper.

I also advocate that in order to make scientific writing more reader friendly, the structure should change from IMRD to something more linear and story-like. The IMRD structure Allen discusses is not the best writing structure for the general public because it can be hard to follow. Instead, the information should be shared in a story-like structure. The information should be organized as events that occurred and their outcomes in chronological order, otherwise known as cause and effect. This builds trust because it allows the audience to assess the information in a linear structure, rather than misunderstanding the information because the connection between methods and results could be missed. Objectivity does not rely on the IMRD structure. It can still be achieved while simplifying jargon, defining scientific key terms, and writing in a linear cause-and-effect organization. This way the writing conforms to the standards of the scientific discourse community while still being accessible and understandable to the general public.

Why is writing in plain English important in order to make research more accessible? It can be summed up in a simple word: trust. Trust between the author and their audience is essential with scientific papers. If a scientific concept is thoroughly explained and easily understood by the general public, then there will be less distrust and hesitancy between science and the public. K.P Whyte and R.P. Crease argue that cooperation between scientists and the public “contributes to better understanding and resolving public controversies where issues of trust and distrust impede deliberative decision making and limit the public benefits that can be provided by scientists and scientific research activities” (412). This means that distrust can prevent advantageous progress within the scientific discourse community because the public will not cooperate with the scientific findings. It is important to build trust between the scientific community and the general public because distrust can lead to miscommunication, misunderstanding, and conflict when trying to resolve problems. Distrust causes a separation between scientists and the public, when both groups need to work together in order to instill change. Scientific findings, especially medical studies, mean nothing if the public refuses to believe the research. Simply put: scientists share their findings and if the audience (the general public) trusts the research, then people are more likely to make progressive decisions or follow the guidelines that scientists suggest.

In order to clarify the guidelines about writing for the general public, I will analyze the CDC website about COVID-19 vaccinations. As of late, understanding how vaccinations work has piqued the public’s interest. Everyone wants life to return to normal, but many people are still unsure about the reliability of the COVID-19 vaccinations that are available. Uncertainty leads to research, which results in many people going to the CDC website for answers. The CDC is considered a reliable source and it is geared towards the general public as an audience.

One of the first articles that appears on the CDC page is titled “Understanding How COVID-19 Vaccines Work.” The article describes in plain English certain factors in the immune system that play an important role in immunity. For example, they state that “Macrophages are white blood cells that swallow up and digest germs and dead or dying cells” (“Understanding How COVID-19 Vaccines Work”). The language being used is clear and easy to understand. The terms “swallow up” and “digest” are part of everyday vocabulary, so it is easily understood by any audience. By using clear and plain English, as suggested by Kozak and Hartley, and defining key terms, the CDC starts to build the general public’s trust. The CDC assumes that people will need background information before they are able to understand how the vaccines actually function. By providing clear background information, the general public will be able to make better assessments of the research and have more reasonable opinions based on the information. Once the background information is described, the CDC explains how three different types of vaccines work. They explain the mRNA vaccine as follows:

mRNA vaccines contain material from the virus that causes COVID-19 that gives our cells instructions for how to make a harmless protein that is unique to the virus. After our cells make copies of the protein, they destroy the genetic material from the vaccine. Our bodies recognize that the protein should not be there and build T-lymphocytes and B-lymphocytes that will remember how to fight the virus that causes COVID-19 if we are infected in the future (“Understanding How COVID-19 Vaccines Work”)

This is a clear, simple, and engaging explanation of how the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines work. Using terms like “instructions” and “harmless protein” allows anyone to understand the basic concept of how vaccines work, without having to study the biology behind the immune system. The CDC organizes the information in a story-like, linear fashion, which allows the reader to follow the sequence of events more easily. Interestingly, they also use terms such as “our” and “we” to connect with the public. They are building trust by pulling the public into the “story” to help them understand and relate to the information provided. However, even after reading that, some readers may still have concerns that the live virus is being injected into them or that they will develop mutations, so the CDC provides more resources and answers.

The article “Understanding MRNA COVID-19 Vaccines” is hyperlinked to the page about COVID-19 vaccines, in case anyone seeks more information. On this page of the CDC website they really drive the point home that mRNA vaccines “cannot give someone COVID-19. mRNA vaccines do not use the live virus that causes COVID-19… They do not affect or interact with our DNA in any way” (“Understanding MRNA COVID-19 Vaccines.”). Those statements are extremely explicit, objective (as required by the scientific discourse community), in plain English, and engaging. The CDC articles ensure that their readers are able to access and understand the text because they want to gain the general public’s trust. Once the public trusts the CDC, they are more likely to go get vaccinated. Getting vaccinated is a decision the general public can make in order to return to “normalcy,” but they must trust the science behind the vaccines first.

There is a fine line between standards of scientific writing and writing for the public, but it is achievable, as can be seen through the use of the CDC website. I believe clear language and structure build a trusting relationship with the public and scientific discourse community, while still adhering to the standard rules and regulations of scientific research writing. Writing effectively for a broad, general audience can be daunting, but it is important because it is the most successful way to widely broadcast accurate information.

Works Cited

Allen, M. C. “The Rhetorical Situation of the Scientific Paper and the ‘Appearance’ of Objectivity”. Young Scholars in Writing, Vol. 2, Sept. 2015, pp. 94-102.

Kozak, Marcin, and James Hartley. “Academic Science Writing: an Inconsiderate Genre?” European Science Editing, vol. 45, no. 3, Aug. 2019, pp. 69–71.

Porter, James E. “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community.” Rhetoric Review, vol. 5, no. 1, 1986, pp. 34–47.

“Understanding How COVID-19 Vaccines Work.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 9 Mar. 2021.

“Understanding MRNA COVID-19 Vaccines.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4 Mar. 2021.

Whyte, K.P., Crease, R.P. “Trust, Expertise, and the Philosophy of Science. Synthese, vol. 177, 2010, pp. 411–42.