Eitan Rashkovan WRIT2 1/19/2021

Analytical Essay on Changing Genres for Environmental Data Science

As a student at UCSB majoring in Data Science, I decided to look for a scientific paper in

the same field. “Environmental Data Science”​ ​ is an article that explains how the study and

analysis of data could help save the environment. The article starts off by providing a brief

historical background on Data Science in order to come up with a definition for the field of Data

Science which is largely accepted these days. The article follows that explanation by listing all

the benefits that could come out if Data Scientists started working with Environmentalists.

Finally the article finishes by listing some of the problems/reasons for why combining Data

Science and Environmental Studies is more complicated than it sounds. “Environmental Data

Science”​ ​is a persuasive article directed at students who are either finishing up high school or are

in their first year of college. Since I am currently a teacher at an after school program for

elementary school kids and I have a younger sister who is in the 3rd grade, I felt it would be best

if the genre I change the article into would be a children's book that could inspire kids of younger

ages to start thinking about data science, specifically the environmental aspect of it.

All the reading that we have done in class helped me draw conclusions about this article

as well as decide what key ideas I would like to incorporate in my own writing. The first reading

that we have done for the class, i.e., ​Writing about Writing​ by Elizabeth Wardle and Doug

Downs provided a broad overview of how we have been conditioned to write essays by

following a template. It also talks about how we could use books and any piece we read to take

our writing a step above what it currently is “What transfers is not how to write, but what to ask

and observe about writing” (6). Wardle and Downs argue that when we read other writings, it is

important to ask questions about the writing instead of blatantly accepting everything as a fact.

This idea helped me understand what are the main points that I need to incorporate in my

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children’s book. I couldn’t simply copy and paste the same words that the article used since that

article used terms that young kids wouldn’t understand, so just like ​Writing about Writing

suggested, I started asking and writing down the main ideas of the article so that I could use them

in my own writing.

It wasn’t enough to just understand the main ideas that the author of the scientific article

was trying to convey; I also had to recognize the audience and what kind of genre this article

would fit into, so that I could make a decision on what key parts needed to be kept in order to

maintain the same ideas between the two writings. As Kerry Dirk suggests in her writing

Navigating Genres​ “knowing what a genre is used for can help people to accomplish goals,

whether that goal be getting a job by knowing how to write a stellar resume, winning a person’s

heart by writing a romantic love letter, or getting into college by writing an effective personal

statement” (253). Understanding the genre of a writing can tell you about the audience, the goal

that the writing is trying to accomplish, and what the author did to achieve that goal. I used what

Dirk said in her essay when I was identifying the genre of the scientific article. I understood that

the author was trying to convince the reader that Environmental Data Science is the future and

even though there are a few obstacles which currently stop us from making this a popular major,

overcoming them should not take long and that with a little bit of effort it can be done.

After incorporating what I’ve learned from ​Writing about Writing ​and ​Navigating

Genres, t​ here was one more type of analysis that I needed to do before I was ready to start

writing my book. Using what Mike Bunn described in his essay on ​How to Read like a Writer I​

had to look at the article from a different point of view, instead of reading it as if I was reading a

fiction book in my free time, I needed to read this article and look at word choice, tone, and the

underlying message. According to Bunn, when reading like a writer, one must look past reading

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for content or trying to understand the main idea better, instead someone that reads like a writer

will try to “understand how the piece of writing was put together by the author and what [can

they] learn about writing by reading a particular text” (72). The idea behind reading like a writer

is to be able to look at a piece of writing as a source of inspiration. By analyzing a piece of

writing, the reader could learn new techniques and strategies that the author used to appeal to his

audience or to get a point across. For example, in my scientific article the author used many

quotes and examples of applications of Data Science in our current world, and following the

problems that he listed he called for new Data Scientists to start working on overcoming these

challenges. As Bunn suggested, someone who reads like a writer, will recognize such rhetorical

methods, and will be able to identify the purpose behind using them so as to better understand

the meaning behind a piece of writing.

In order to create the most convincing book I could, I used what Laura Bollin Carroll

described as rhetoric in her essay ​Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis​,

“Media is one of the most important places where this kind of analysis needs to happen.

Rhetoric—the way we use language and images to persuade—is what makes media work” (46).

Carroll relates rhetoric to something everyone has experience with, Social Media, to provide the

audience with a bridge between a concept that they are all familiar with and the idea of rhetoric.

She also mentions that all rhetoric arguments include at least one of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos to

convince the reader of something. While I was looking back at the scientific article which I was

translating, I realized that it also incorporated these rhetoric persuasions. For example, it

provided many quotes from established scientists to build credibility, it also used logic and facts

to make the audience understand all the benefits of Environmental Data Science. Since this was a

scientific paper, the author avoided Pathos (emotion), which ties back to the idea of following

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specific genre conventions. After I identified which parts of the article were rhetorical

conventions, I separated persuasive facts from main ideas. Because I was writing a children’s

book, the types of accepted rhetoric changed and so I had to leave out some of the quotes, facts,

as well as all the credible authors since most 3rd and 4th graders don’t feel persuaded by science

celebrities. Instead, I appealed to the young readers using emotion, common objects and words.

There were 3 main points that I had to get across: first, I had to define data science.

Second, I had to explain how Environmental Data Science could benefit all of us, and lastly, I

had to talk about some of the problems that Environmental Data Scientists currently face. With

all of these in mind I felt like I was ready to start writing my children's book. I looked at a few

books that my sister recently read and used them to get a broad understanding of what

components make a children’s book. Most of these books were relatively short, often dealt with a

young kid or an animal that was exploring and learning about life, I often included some kind of

conflict that the main character had to overcome using either his/her knowledge or people that

he/she would meet along the way. Since the scientific article that I was reading was a persuasive

essay trying to encourage college students to get involved in the field of Data Science I decided

to keep that theme in my book and to try to convince young kids to consider becoming

Environmental Data Scientists in the future. My book converted complex terms that young kids

wouldnt understand into common terms and items, all the while maintaining the theme of being a

persuasive essay but using different rhetoric methods that would better fit young kids instead of

young adults.

In conclusion, this project was a great example on how genre conventions affect the tone

and overall message of an article. It was especially difficult to figure out the adequate word that

would be understood by young kids but would still get the message across.The translation

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between a scientific paper and a kid’s book, although not simple, felt rewarding when I

completed it.

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Eitan Rashkovan WRIT2 1/19/2021

Works Cited

Bunn, Mike. “How to Read Like a Writer.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 2,
edited by Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky, Parlor Press, 2011, pp. 71-86.

Carroll, Laura Bolin. “Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis.” Writing
Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 1, edited by Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky,
Parlor Press, 2010, pp. 45-58.

Dirk, Kerry. “Navigating Genres.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 1, edited by
Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky, Parlor Press, 2010, pp. 249-262.

Downs, Elizabeth Wardle, D. ​Writing about Writing, University of California Santa Barbara,​
Fourth Edition​. Macmillan Higher Education, 2020. [VitalSource Bookshelf].

Gibert, Karina, et al., editors. “Environmental Data Science.” ​Environmental Modelling &
Software​, vol. 106, 2018, pp. 4–12., doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2018.04.005.