Phan 1

Shalla Phan
Writing 2
Wilson
December 1, 2016
WP3
For my WP3, I translated the academic journal The risk-benefit paradox of exercise
into a childrens book intended for four to five year olds. This was an appropriate genre for this
translation because exercise can be easily taught to children since they love being active. I chose
this new genre because we should educate children at early ages and prove to them that
exercising is important for a long, healthy life. Putting this information into a book to me was
the most effective because children read daily in school and most kids learn topics by reading
books. If we can successfully embed into the minds of children to have a routine exercise
throughout their lives it will benefit them. I effectively communicated with my intended
audience because I used the right conventions to successfully appeal to them.
This audience is different from my primary sources audience because they are scholars
in the medical field, while my translations intended audience are children ages 5-6. For
translating the benefits of exercising in the article it stated, Today irrefutable evidence indicates
that habitual physical activity reduces premature mortality and is an effective primary and
secondary prevention measure for more than 25 chronic medical conditions, including
cardiovascular disease (CVD). (Warburton, Taunton, Shannon, Bredin, Isserow, 210). I
translated this into my book by saying, Remember that everyone can benefit from exercising
and can live a long, healthy, and happy life. Also for habitual physical activity I stated
activities that kids commonly do like hula-hooping, basketball, soccer, and hopscotching that can

Phan 2
help them stay in shape. As for the risks the primary text uses medical terms like cardiovascular
disease to state what diseases you can get from not exercising (Warburton, Taunton, Shannon,
Bredin, Isserow, 210). Keeping in mind the age of my audience I did not incorporate this term
into my translation, but instead I took the concept of these disease and made health consequences
that would be appropriate and understandable to them. In my book I said, If you dont exercise
at least 2 hours a week your heart will get sick and can stop working over time which is my
version of cardiovascular disease. For an example of what the consequences look like I focused
on cardiovascular disease by including a child who was told by his doctor that he was a couch
potato and that if he didnt start exercising his heart would stop working. Things I had to leave
out was the mention of mortality due to the lack of exercise in ones life because it is
inappropriate to talk about death in a childrens book.
Things I had to add were characters and benefits of eating healthy. In the beginning of the
article they stated, The health benefits of physical activity have been documented since ancient
times, beginning more than 2000 years ago when Hippocrates highlighted the importance of
active living. I decided to use him as the character who plays the father of his two healthy
children. He stresses to them how important exercising is for them and makes sure they exercise
for 2 hours a day. I also incorporated that kids should avoid junk food and opt for fruits and
vegetables to maintain a healthy balanced diet.
I believe I was effective in translating to the new genre because I used conventions like
tone and adding characters that the children can relate to persuade the children that exercising is
very important. Although, doing this genre translation I came across many challenges such as not
knowing what I wanted to include and exclude from the article to make it appropriate for my

Phan 3
audience. I overcame these obstacles by rereading my excerpts and thinking about what I could
do to make it appealing and understandable for kids.
Concerns I kept in mind was Dirks Navigating Genre piece talking about how to
determine what action you are trying to accomplish, knowing what is the purpose, and knowing
who your audience is. The main action I wanted to accomplish was educating my audience,
children 5-6 years old about the importance of exercising and the purpose is so that kids maintain
a healthy lifestyle. You can see I did this in my book by including a character who solves his own
problem of being unhealthy, and then exercising to transform into a healthy boy showing that
exercising is important and life changing. In Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical
Analysis, by Carroll I focused on how the audience should be able to respond to the exigence.
In my book the audience responds to the problem by exercising together which leads to them not
only having fun, but also being healthy. Overall, the readings helped me translate the text into a
childrens book, and hopefully educate the youth about the importance of exercise.

Works Cited:
1. Darren E.R. Warburton, PhD, Jack Taunton, MD, Shannon S.D. Bredin, PhD, Saul
H. Isserow,. "The Risk-benefit Paradox of Exercise." (2016): 210-11. Web.

Phan 4