PROV-122 Saud Alanazi 1/13/14 ALA paper Twitter: Microphone for the masses The academic writing separates

to many forms, and each form takes a specific method of writing. For example, the social media and social science writing are different from several aspects of the language, structure, textual tone etc. In order to distinguish and know what method of writing is this article? Why does this article take this style? How is the article organized? These are some kind of the questions that need to be considered, and we should have the answers in order to be able to differentiate between the kinds of the academic writing. The humanities writing are often specialized in the community affairs and the social issues or so, and Twitter, Facebook are examples for the humanities writing. The article Twitter: Microphone for the masses by Dhiraj Murthy in 2011 which is Examining citizen journalism and Twitter page1. The author discusses the link between the social media website Twitter and journalism and the role of Twitter in citizen journalism. When we look at the authors discussion and arguments, we will find out that the article is humanities. I am going to analyze the structure of this humanity article which includes introduction, headings that give a background of the paragraphs and look cleaner, and the references page. Also, I will talk about the linguistic pattern of the article like clauses, direct quotations, active voices and neutral vocabularies. Sometimes when people want to take a newspaper or an article to read it, they are usually used to look at the structure of the article or the organization because some people can determine if the article is boring, difficult or is not of their favorite. The structure is one of the most important element that thorough it the reader can specify the type of the article. The structure of

this humanity article consists of introduction that gives an overview of the article or is like a hint of the article contents, many paragraphs, five headings which is very good from the author because the headings will give a little background of what the reader will read, so the headings make the article look nice and well-organized. The author intentionally has decided to make his article in this particular order for one essential reason which is most of the audience of his article might be the general public in other word, they are not like the scientists or intellectuals, so that is why the author kept the language of this article tend to be simple . The headings introduce the points or the ideas of the author and attract the reader to read more about it those are another features as well. Furthermore, if we notice over the references page, we will figure out that the author uses APA style in his research which prove the credibility and reliability of the information that the author found because good research writer uses evidence from reliable sources. This article may be clear for most readers to understand even if they are non-expert. Every field or major has its own language and method for example, the scientific language is using complex conception, and super advance terms which are so tricky and need expert person to be able to get the comprehension of the points. The language of this article tend to be very smooth and eloquent. During my reading and what I found of data collection I realized that there are more independent clauses than dependent clauses and he insomuch utilize seven ICs in one paragraph, so the question that brainstorms itself is why did the author use the independent clauses more than dependent clauses? He may use the independent clauses which is a clause that can stand alone as a complete sentence according to Longman Dictionary, because they are a complete thought what characterize these clauses can be understandable without adding further explanation, so this point is considered a smart choice from the author because that makes it easy for the reader to get the whole idea as well as this is likely might be the purpose of using them. In

contrast, the author uses in some paragraphs the dependent clause which is a clause that cannot stand by itself and it need to be completed. Furthermore, there was a simple sentences which is a sentence consisting of only one clause, with a single subject and predicate also the simple sentences function as the independent clause does. Moreover, the author tries to make the article sounds more professional and credible, so he uses complex sentence which is a sentence containing a subordinate clause or clauses according to Longman Dictionary. On the other hand, the direct quotes have been used in more than spots in this article by the author. The authors get more focused on the quotes because there are some quotes need an accurate words or explanation. Some authors face difficulties to explain them or they will be afraid to interpret them incorrectly. If readers are unlikely to be familiar with words or ideas important to the topic, they will have to explain them or paraphrase them a source in accessible language. Another point worth noting is the active voice which means the voice used to indicate that the grammatical subject of the verb is performing the action or causing the happening denoted by the verb and the passive voice which means the voice used to indicate that the grammatical subject of the verb is the recipient (not the source) of the action denoted by the verb according to The Free Dictionary. The author seems to prefer using the active because I have noticed that based on my data collection in one of the paragraphs. He utilizes the active voice eight times and the passive voice has been used only one time by the author, so to analyze the authors choices we should know, what are the features of the active voice that the author used many times? The active voice is vigorous and clear and makes the reader aware of who is responsible for the action as well as it is concise. All the previous features could cause the author to prefer using the active voice more than the passive.

Not only that what I found but also the author looks very accurate by selecting certain verbs in his article, as we know the verbs has a specific degrees which are strong, neutral and weak. However, the authors choices tend to be with the neutral side because there are almost nine neutral verbs in one of the paragraph and these are some of them illustrate, percolates, distribute and be. The author prefers these kind of verbs for some reasons, he knows very well that choosing the degree of the verb is very essential in order to describe or picture something correctly without embellishing in the description. Therefore, the approach of the humanities articles rely more on the structural organization and a specific linguistic patterns. The structure of the humanities article usually consist of introduction, section headings, reference page and the language of this type of article use clauses, direct quotations, active voices and the degree of the strength words is important to suit the explanation of the situation or issue that the author describe but they often go with the neutral vocabularies.

Reference Murthy, D. (2011). Twitter: Microphone for the masses. (pp. 780). Brunswick, ME: SAGE.