Jeff Ouyang

WRIT 2

March 5, 2020

Eating Date

Setting:

Your name is John. You’ve just finished your final exam for the spring quarter. You received an

invitation from Lisa, your high school crush, asking you to go to Mcdonald’s together to have a

tiny reunion. You have not seen her in six months, but you're still liking her. You want to

impress her from this date through ​eating​.

Story:

1. On the day of the reunion, you dressed nicely and arrived at Mcdonald’s. Lisa was

already sitting on a two-person table waiting for you. You nervously sat down on the seat

across her and said hi. You two are both hungry, so you guys decided to order food (to

#2)

2. When you arrived at the counter, you saw that you have three options: 1. A small size

fries(not enough for you) 2. A meal of medium size fries, cheeseburger and a soft

drink(just the right amount) 3. A combination of big mac, large fries, 20 pieces of

nuggets, large soft drink, vanilla ice cream cone, and six pieces of donut sticks(you may

have a hard time finishing the meal). You choose to order…

Option 1(to #3). Option 2(to #4) . Option 3(to #5)

*You are trying to impress her to through ​eating

*You may not order for a second time later.

 *You are ordering for yourself only

3. You’ve ordered a small size fries, and Lisa ordered a small size fries as well. She looked

at you weirdly and asked, “why are you eating so little food?” You answered:

a. “I ate earlier”(to #8)

b. “I don’t like Mcdonalds”(to #8)

c. “I don’t eat a lot”(to #8)

4. You ordered a meal of medium size fries, a cheeseburger and a soft drink. Lisa ordered a

small size of fries. You both received the food and sat back down to the table. She

finished her small fries very quickly; however, she does not seem full. You decide to…

a. Ignore her and keep eating(to #6)

b. Offer her food and tell her to eat more next time(to #9)

5. You’ve ordered the largest combination of meals. You sit back down to your table and

start eating. Lisa finished her fries very quickly and awkwardly staring at you while

you’re eating your super-sized meal. She asked, “Do you usually eat this much?” You

answer…

a. “Yes, I eat a lot(smile)” (to #10）

b. “No, I saw that you only eat so little so I ordered more just in case if you’re still

hungry” (to #9)

6. You’ve finished your food, and she asked if you want to go to the mall and shop. You

accepted her invitation. (to #7)

7. In the shopping mall, you saw a variety of food and snack shops. Knowing that she is still

hungry, you decide to…

 a. Buy food from different stores and share with her(to #12)

b. Ignore her(to #11)

8. Lisa thinks that you don’t really like the location of this date. She left you and went home

sadly(sad ending).

9. Lisa thinks that you found out she was trying to be feminist through eating, and left the

restuarant embarrassingly(sad ending)

10. One hour has passed; you are still eating your meal. She got bored and left(sad ending)

11. She passed out from hunger. She went to the hospital(sad ending)

12. You both ate a variety of food from the mall. Lisa is very satisfied with this date. You

two fell in love after this date.(happy ending❤）

Metacognitive Reflection

I remember when I was in middle school, my life science teacher played songs created by

artists around the world about cells. Compared to the tedious words in textbooks, it is always

easier for me to learn from these educational songs. There are many forms of presentation of an

idea: Music, movie, game, etc. In college, we encounter academic genres almost every day.

Texts that belong to the academic genre use a formal tone, jargon, and are structured formally.

Although formal presentations are the most effective way of informing an idea without bias, they

are sometimes tedious and hard to read. I translated a peer-reviewed article into a choose your

own adventure text. The convention of the two writings are completely different, yet they deliver

the same idea. During the process of translation, I referenced three different examples within the

choose your own adventure text genre and used my pre-existing knowledge that I learned from

this class to complete the work.

The original article of this non-academic genre is “Eating in groups: Do multiple social

influences affect intake in a fast-food restaurant” written by Emily Brindal et. al. The structure,

jargon, and citation depicted the feature of an academic writing piece. Because the article is an

article depicting an academic research project and findings, it contains a large amount of

information. The authors separated the article into different sections; each section has a heading

with a slightly bigger font than the normal text and is bolded. The article is structured this way so

that the audience can locate information more efficiently. The article also uses specific jargon

that belongs to the psychology discourse community. Terms such as “minimal eating norms,”

“matching norms,” and “social facilitation” were mentioned many times throughout the article,
yet no definition was given for these academic terms1. This means that the article’s intended

audience is the people who belong to the psychology discourse community who possess some

degree of psychological knowledge. At the end of the article, the author included page-long

references in the Chicago-style citation2. This is a feature of a formal research paper, which gives

credit to original authors and cites them in a formal style. By looking at the structure, use of

jargon, and forms of reference, we can see that the authors follow a set of rules which makes the

article presented in a formal way.

The choose your own adventure text that I translated from the article, on the other hand,

has a completely different set of structure and intended audience. This genre has a direct

interaction with its audience. There is no academic jargon used in the secondary text, and the

intended audience is everyone. To translate this piece of writing, I referenced three different

choose your own adventure texts. The first one was from the article “Literary Genre Translation”

written by Cirocco Dunlap. She translates the sentence “I ate a sandwich and looked out the

window” into

“You eat a sandwich. You are then compelled to do something so you:

- Look out the window and reflect (Turn to Page 65).

- Walk outside into a dark cave with piranhas and snakes (Turn to Page 27).

- Drink from a bottle marked poison and take a nap (Turn to Page 27)." 3

1
Emily, Brindal , Philip Mohr, Carlene Wilson, and Gary Wittert, “Eating in groups: Do multiple social
influences affect intake in a fast-food restaurant?” ​Journal of Health Psychology​. Vol. 20 no. 5 (2015):
483-489.
2
Brindal et.al, “Eating in groups”: 489.
3
Cirocco Dunlap, “Literary Genre Translations,” McSweeney's Internet Tendency, ​November 28, 2011,
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/literary-genre-translations
 Dunlap’s translation gave me the idea that I can be very creative in my work. She

generated a new storyline from the original text. For example, one of the options was to “walk

outside into a dark cave with piranhas and snakes,” which was not described in the original text.

As a result, I generated many plots in my choose your adventure text as well. The primary text

did not describe the relationship between customers who eat together, nor the conversation

between them. Since I am shifting the perspective from the researcher to target customers, I

created the loving relationships and the extra plot of going to the mall after eating.

Another material that I referenced was the children's book, Through the Forest, by Steffie

Brocoli and Catherine Bidet4. Compared to Dunlap’s translation, this book heavily uses drawings

and images. The author uses a mace to connect the whole book. The audience follows the mace,

and when encounters a bifurcation, the reader would have to answer a short and simple question

to choose their way. The author structured the book this way because the intended audience for

this book are children. Although the insertion of images and drawing can make the story more

vivid, I decided not to include any because drawing is not my strength, and online images are

often unclear on the origin. Additionally, My intended audience of this genre are not children,

thus having images in my choose your own adventure text is unnecessary. However, I did learn

that the presentation of choose your own adventure text can be diverse.

The last material that I referenced to was an online choose your own adventure game

called “Rogue” made by EndMaster5. The game is different from the classic video games we see

online; Rogue is a storyline game, meaning that game mainly focuses on the story of the game.

The player has to read a large amount of text. The mode of reading is similar to reading a novel,

4
Steffie Brocoli, Catherine Bidet. Through the Forest. Thames & Hudson; 1 edition: August 30, 2016
5
​EndMaster, “Rogues,” chooseyourstory.com: June 9, 2018. http://chooseyourstory.com/story/rogues
but the reader can choose the main character’s actions. By choosing different options, the ending

of the story will vary. By playing this game, I learned that I can create multiple endings in my

creation. As a result, I created five different endings based on how the audience interact with the

text.

The three materials that I made reference to gave me a lot of ideas on how to construct

my translation. Although all three of the materials are distinctively different, they all have one

thing in common—interaction with the audience. It is difficult to translate a formal academic

research article into a storyline game because the information that the primary covers is in an

informative style rather than a narrative style. I decided to eliminate the majority of the article

and only focus on the method of the research. The original article was to do research on the

correlation between eating and social interaction. The researcher goes into different fast-food

restaurants and observes random customers who eat with one or more others and record the

amount of food that they’ve consumed. During the process of translation, I decided to shift the

perspective of researchers to the target consumers. I have made the reader the customer who is

going to eat with an opposite-sex individual. The creation of the storyline is difficult because the

original text does not give a lot of information about the detail about what individuals do when

eating with an opposite-sex individual. The only information I have is the result of the study,

which is that men eat more when eating with the opposite sex to show masculinity, and women

eat less to show a lady-like figure. This is also a translation to the psychology discipline

exclusive jargons—eating norm, matching norm, and social facilitation—that were mentioned in

the primary text. I focused on the feature of the result and made the audience decide how much

food to eat and how that would lead to an ending.

 I changed the majority of the convention of the original text. For example, the structure

of the text. The original article was structured in a traditional writing style, which is written

paragraph by paragraph with complete sentences. In my translation, however, was structured in a

series of questions and options. Another convention that I changed from the original article is the

intended audience. The original article uses a series of jargon to show that the article is intended

for the people who belong to the psychology community who possess some degree of knowledge

in psychology. My translation, on the other hand, did not use any specific jargon. the intended

audience became everyone. Lastly, I changed the point of view of the primary article as well:

from the third person’s point of view to the second person point of view. I changed these three

conventions because they are the major characteristics of the primary text.

I utilized two skills that I learned from this class during the process of translation—genre

analysis and rhetorical thinking. By looking at the exigence, setting, and constraints of a genre,

the perspective of the author becomes clear. By understanding the convention of the genre, I can

shift different elements of the genre into a new genre, yet still possess the same meaning and

purpose. Kerry Dirk, the author of the article “Navigating Genres,” says that genre analysis is a

“knowledge that helps us to recognize and to determine appropriate responses to different

situations—that is, knowing what particular genre is called for in a particular situation.”6 As a

writer, it is important to figure out the response that I want the audience to have. When I was

making this choose your adventure text, I wanted the audience’s response to be fun and playful ,

so I exaggerated characters’ action to show some humor in my writing.

6
Janet Boyd, “Murder! (Rhetorically Speaking),” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 2(2011):
88
 Another skill that I used is rhetorical analysis. Generating new story plots from an article

is not easy; it requires a lot of creativity. However, by thinking rhetorically and asking rhetorical

questions, it is easier to guide through my thinking. Janet Boyd says, in her article “Murder!

(Rhetorically Speaking),” gave an example of translation. She gave five facts about a crime

scene and asked the audience to convert it into a different form of literary device. Boyd then

provided a couple of rhetorical questions to guide the reader: “How does it begin? Where does it

end? What types of details did you find yourself adding? Why? What details did you omit?

Why? What kind of words did you choose?”7 These rhetorical questions can generate a lot more

information than the simple facts that she provided about a crime scene. I ask myself a variety of

questions such as “what would be the appropriate response when a girl sees a guy eat very little

food?” These questions guide me through the process of creating different storylines.

By analyzing the convention of the primary text and referencing different material of my

intended non-academic writings, I translated an academic article into a choose your own

adventure text. I utilized the skills of genre analysis and rhetorical thinking that I learned from

Janet Boyd and Kerry Dirk to complete this task. The choose your own adventure text has

completely changed the structure of the primary text from traditional writing into a new form of

genre where the audience can interact with the text. The limitation of the audience was weaned

from the psychology discourse community to anyone. I enjoy translating the process of

translation, I believe that by switching from genre to genre can enhance audience attention from

different communities.

7
Kerry Dirk, “Navigating Genre,” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 1(2010): 259
Bibliography

Brocoli, Steffie, and Catherine Bidet. ​Through the Forest.​ London, England: Thames &
Hudson, 2016.

Cirocco Dunlap, “Literary Genre Translations,” ​McSweeney's Internet Tendency​,

November 28, ​2011,
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/literary-genre-translations

EndMaster, “Rogues,” chooseyourstory.com: June 9, 2018.

http://chooseyourstory.com/story/rogues

Janet Boyd, “Murder! (Rhetorically Speaking),” ​Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing,​

Volume 2(2011): 87-101

Kerry Dirk, “Navigating Genre,” ​Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing,​ Volume

1(2010): 249-262