Junior Olivieri

Writing Project 2
Writing 2: Zack De Piero

Discipline Shapes Framework

Through the use of simple stylistic choices and tools, writers and authors can
frame their work to focus the attention to the aspects that most interests them and their
field of study. Drug abuse is a topic that many people throughout the world have an
interests in, although many may choose this topic to write about, each one could focus on
separate aspects of the topic. Through the use of two academic sources from JSTOR.com
and one non-academic source form Vice.com, I will show how an academic discipline

Commented [1]: Junior, this opening isn't "hooking"

me. How can you get me, your reader, revved up
about what you've found out here and what you're
trying to convince me of?
Commented [2]: This sentence took me a couple of
read-throughs to understand. I'd like you to try to reTetris it to see if you can get more flow going.

effects the writers structure, concepts and data as well as the readers perception of it. By
using a non-academic source as well, it will show how the two types of sources can
accomplish different things.
The first scholarly reference that I found was Stress, Motivation, and Drug
Addiction by Nick Goeders. Since the article was published in a psychological journal,
Goeders formatted in in APA style which included an abstract to get you in the correct
mindset, keywords for easy search results, and in text citations with footnotes in order to

Commented [3]: I need more of a specific, driving

thesis statement, Junior. What, exactly, are you going
to be arguing here? And what specific points are you
going to use to make that case? What about the
conventions within this genre will you be emphasizing?
And what about moves? Also: do you think itd help
your reader (technically, me) to lay out which specific
sources youll be using to make your case?
The introductory paragraph is so crucial *for readers*
because it provides them with the expectations for your
whole piece. The more direction you give me, the
more focused *my reading* will be --- and the more I'll
be able to take away from your piece.

give credit and allow access to background information if desired. Focusing on the
psychiatric aspect of drug addiction, the paper discusses those who are most at risk for
addiction, why they are more susceptible to addiction, and how they experiment with the
idea without abandoning research ethics in terms of human subjects. Throughout the
length of the research paper, Goeders uses elaborate language such as, The CRH
receptor blocker CP-154,526 also attenuates cue-induced reinstatement (Goeders), that

Commented [4]: Nice parallelism!

emphasizes that this is in fact a research paper written by professionals in their field.
Simpler moves or conventions of this paper included the department name on the top near
the paper title in order to somewhat tell the reader what the dimensions of drug addiction
will be focused on. There were also recommended reading at the bottom in order to give

Commented [5]: What do you mean here?

other researchers the opportunity to double check and do their own research.
The overall purpose of Goeders paper seemed to be to provide the general
population with new information regarding how stress can potentially be a cause of drug
use and eventually addiction. Likely, the audience would mostly be other researchers who
are interested in this area of study, those who support it and those who do not support it
in order to find counter claims for their own work. Being a scholarly article, the
expectations from the reader are generally easy and clear, to be clear, informative,
unbiased, and as accurate as possible.

Commented [6]: I need you to give me some textual

evidence/support here, Junior. Help me *see* what
you want me to see.

For my second scholarly reference, I downloaded an article titled Drug

Enforcement and Crime: Recent Evidence from New York State that focused primarily
on the implications of laws and regulations pertaining to drugs and drug abuse.
Throughout this article the two authors, Shepard and Blackley used academic language
consisting of primarily large words mixed with abbreviations of various drug and other
government agencies. Since it is an academic article pertaining to legal activities the
author chose, or was rather forced, to write in APA style. This style includes in text
citations as well as footnotes which references others work in their own in order to add to
their own credibility as experts in legal studies and social sciences. Academic sources
should primarily be unbiased, and this article clearly exemplifies credibility by listing
definitions exactly as they are and not elaborating based on personal feelings. When

Commented [7]: Is this really that important to your

argument? Is APA style a crucial factor in
understanding how different fields
conceptualize/research this same topic from different
disciplinary angles? Is this *that* important for
understanding the main differences between academic
and non-academic sources?
I personally don't think so (at least not within the
confines of a 5-6 page paper), but if you do --- OK, but
why?
Commented [8]: OK, this is important -- is this a major
part of your argument? Do personal feelings tend to be
the focus of one of your other sources?
(It's hard for me to tell b/c the way you've structured
your paper, it goes from Source 1 to Source 2 to
Source 3. However, if you went from Idea 1 to Idea 2...
I might be able to tell how the sources different *in their
use/analysis of* each specific idea.)

discussing the data, the authors write, Time effects are also included by means of yearly
dummies that control for statewide changes affecting crime rates from 1996 to 2000.
Failure to include significant cross-section and time-series effects would yield biased
coefficient estimates. (Edward Shepard) Without implying personal beliefs on the topic,
they simply report what the states do and why they do it leaving it up to the reader to
make an informed decision on what they wish to think about it. Toward the end of the
academic article, the authors identified the research gap by stating that The findings also
suggest possible directions for further research (Edward Shepard). The move is essential
to any research in the social science field in order to provide other researchers
opportunities to build upon your ideas.
As my second scholarly article, the purpose of this paper as well is meant to
inform and provide information regarding drugs and drug addiction. The framework for
this piece however is focused on the legal aspect and is meant for those who are currently
trying to uphold or overturn certain laws pertaining to substances. When first reading the

Commented [9]: What do you mean by this? I saw

that you put "Framework" in your title -- is this a major
part of your argument? If so, why? (It could probably
be the main thread if you wanted it to be -- but to be the
main thread, it's got to be threaded *consistently
throughout* your whole paper.)

title, audiences expectations, or mine at least, was that the author would not only go into
specific laws and regulations but also specific statistics for the state of New York.
Vice is a Mainstream media news outlet that reports on things that are often go
unreported form regular media outlets. The very first thing I noticed different from the
academic sources were the use of academic and colloquial language, particularly in the
title. Not only does Vice use words and phrases that are more easy to understand and
typically heard around day to day conversations, but it also uses vulgar language, which
is very divergent from typical new sources as well as academic sources. For example, in
the arguable most important aspect of the article, the title, This Neuroscientist Argues

Commented [10]: This is a super-interesting topic

sentence, but *is it tied to your argument?* Each topic
sentence provides an overview of each paragraph, and
each paragraph needs to directly tie back to your thesis
in some kind of meaningful way.
Commented [11]: My advice: steer clear of things in
academic writing (maybe even all writing!). Its
suuuuuuper vague. Academic writing requires
precision and specificitybe direct and tell me exactly
what youre talking about.

That Addiction Is Not a Disease and Rehab Is Bullshit. Neil Sharma uses the word
bullshit when words such as irrational or simply dumb would have sufficed.
Furthermore, this article was styled in a question & answer format, interview style, rather
than just a normal article. For the questions, Sharma has bolded them followed by the
Dr.s answers in normal text right underneath. The questions asked by the Vice author are
seemed to be written in order to trigger a specific response in order to get the point across
as soon as possible. For almost all questions however Sharma gave a little bit of
background at first, I've never been to rehab, so I don't know much about the ways in
which they treat patients (Sharma). This aspect of the vice article I feel is particularly
important because it lets the Dr. make a more informed reply, and also gives us a stronger
insight to the author. Lastly, different from the two academic sources, Vice uses a
different type of font that gives readers a more informative and less informal type of
mood while reading.
The primary target audience for the vice article I say would be those who are
interested in the issue of drug abuse but not generally experts in the field. Based simply
on the website Vice itself, finding information on a news website is generally not what
expects normally do. Furthermore, I do not believe that experts would be willing site this
article because of the language used. Though the article may have some valid points, by
using vulgar language in the title of all things may capture the attention of everyday
people who like to see the norm challenged, but it takes away from the professionalism.
One main difference that I found between the scholarly articles versus the
mainstream vice article is the use of hedged language that we talked about in lecture.
Defined by my group during our activity, hedged language is Hedged language is a way

Commented [12]: Alright, great -- so this author

creates more of a conversation? It's more readercentric?

for writers to show readers that they dont know everything about a given phenomenon. It
gives the reader some leeway on what they are saying. (Class Discussion). The scholarly
articles, in order to gain and keep their credibility, will often use statements such as
These animal studies typically investigate (Goeders) or There are numerous
potential links between drugs, drug enforcement, and crime (Edward Shepard).
Compared to the vice article in which the doctor blatantly addresses things as improbable,
Treatment is inadequate. Opiate substitution doses are wrong (Sharma)The differences
between these two types of genres are evident throughout the entire paper and by simply
adding one or two words, the scholarly articles are definitely more reliable. Another
difference between the two types of articles is how relatable they are to the reader.
Although the scholarly articles do offer more information and better analysis of data and
comparison of theories, the Vice article is relatively easier to ready and flows better
based on the font and sentence structure. The length of paper has a big impact on how
relatable it is. Based on the nature of research papers, they generally need to be longer
containing lots of technical information to provide other researchers the opportunity to
reproduce their experiments. However, the Vice article is essentially an opinion piece
about drug addiction so all the author has to do is express the doctors view on the subject
with no extra technical experimental information.
Structure along with writing concepts all depend upon the area of study a writer is trained
in. Whether it be an academic discipline like legal studies or psychiatric studies or a nonacademic study such as the Vice article, the writer accomplishes their goals of getting
information out and expressing their viewpoint. In respect to their individual field, a

Commented [13]: Nice observation here. This is a

super-solid paragraph on how these pieces differ.

writer can shape the audiences viewpoint of a topic and potentially shape their frame of
thinking as well.

References
Edward Shepard, Paul Blackley. "Drug Enforcment and Crime: Recent Evidence from
New York State." Social Science Quarterly (2005): 323-344.
Goeders, Nick. "Stress, Motivation, and Drug Addiction." Current Directions in
Psychological sciences (2004): 32-35.
Sharma, Niel. "This Nuuroscientist Argues that Addiction is Not a Disease and Rehab is
Bullshit ." 4th December 2015. VIce.com. <https://www.vice.com/read/this-

neuroscientist-argues-that-addiction-is-not-a-disease-and-the-rehab-industry-isbullshit>

Writing 2 Feedback Matrix for WP2

Table of Textual Features and Qualities

Thesis Statement
Use of Textual Evidence from Genres
Use of Course Readings
Analysis
Organization/Structure
Attention to Genre/Conventions and
Rhetorical Factors
Attention to Moves
Sentence-level Clarity, Mechanics,
Flow
Comments and Grade

Did Not Meet

Expectations
X

Met
Expectations

Exceeded
Expectations

XXX
X
X
X
X

Junior,
Back from our first intro day in Writing 2
together, I think I remember you saying you
were interested in becoming a drug/substance
abuse counselor. If my memory serves me
correctly, Im really happy that you chose a
topic that means something to you. :)
OK, so to improve this paper for your portfolio,
my #1 suggestion is to tell me more about these
pieces -- what specific data did they collect?
Whatd they find? Whats going to be done
with their work? I dont feel like I learned
anything new about drug addiction from an
pychiatric or legal perspective -- help me
understand what theyre trying to teach us about
this issue. Get into the data. Get into their
RQs. What does it seem like each perspective
values with regard to understanding this topic?

Id also like you to consider: how can you lay

out your argument 1 (small) piece at a time so
your reader can best understand how your
argument plays out? Think to yourself: OK,
what are some ways (plural) to lay out this
paper, and which way (singular) would be the
best for me and my readers?
Im also pretty sure your paper was set to 1.25
margins, which eans that if it were at 1, your
whole paper length might be less than 5 pages
(the minimum).
Z
6.5/10