Introduction

We all have experienced reading newspaper articles or academic writing either in our
daily life or in school, and we can easily see the differences when we are reading writings from
different genres or contexts. The differences between the two kinds of writing might cause
academic writing to not be featured or published in newspapers directly. But why is academic
writing not published in the newspaper? If academic writing wants to be published in a
newspaper, what changes should be made?
In this genre study, I will explore the reasons why academic writing cannot be published
in the newspaper directly, and what changes need to be considered in order for it to be
published in a newspaper by comparing the examples I chose from both academic writing and
newspaper articles. What I mean by academic writing here is typically referring to the
composition writing in English 110, which is a mandatory class for every college student.
Students in this class are usually required to write about certain topics with certain rules of
writing given by professors, such as the format, lengthetc.
The academic writing I chose comes from an assignment I did for English 110, a
composition writing class, which I took last semester, 2014. It was a persuasive essay that
aimed to convince people to stop using plastic bags. I will also select two environmental articles
from different newspapers that both attempt to convince people to stop using plastic bags. The
target audience of the environmental sections is the general public, environmental experts, or
teachers and students in the environmental project or major.

In order to answer the questions, I did some research online, for example, I read several
environmental section of different newspapers and I selected two of them. The first one was
Plastic bags are killing us, written by Katharine Mieszkowski from Salon, a journalist in the
environmental section. Salon is a news website that was created by David Talbot in 1995.
Another one is Ocean plastic is likely disappearing into the food chain, new study indicates,
written by Andreas Merkl, the CEO of the Ocean Conservancy. Published in The Guardian, a
British national daily newspaper, founded in 1821. I also tried to search for academic writings,
particularly composition class writing that has been published in a newspaper. I compared the
style of my composition class writing and the two newspaper articles I chose. I also did some
research that referred to the style guide that newspapers usually use. Apart from online
researches, I also did a phone interview with a member of the staff of The Guardian to ask them
if there is any style that they require their writers to use.
Similarities
After I did some comparisons between my own composition class writing and the two
environmental articles I selected, I found some similarities and differences between them.
Environmental articles usually apply a lot of examples, by narrating stories or using metaphors
and analogies while addressing the environmental problem. For example, We have a lot of
animals that live on the bottom: shrimp, shellfish, sponges . . . Its like youre eating at your
dinner table and somebody comes along and throws a plastic tarp over your dinner table and
you (Mieszkowski 2007). Mieszkowski uses an example and an analogy that can relate to the
audiences situation and feeling, this is what we called pathos in academic writing. In
composition class writing, a persuasive paper needs to have the investigation of the opponents

argument, take their argument into consideration, and apply pathos, ethos and logos when the
writer is arguing against the opponents opinion. This was similar to my composition class
writing because I also needed to use a lot of examples, metaphors and analogies in order to
carry out my argument. For example,
For instance, we brush our teeth everyday no matter how inconvenient it is and how sleepy we
are, because we know that is good for our health. If we dont brush our teeth every day, gum diseases
and tooth decay develop slowly, and without the ability to eat we compromise our health and could even
die before our time. This means we will have many more inconveniences as we age, like the pain, the foul
smell in our mouths, and dentist bills. This is comparable to using the plastic bags. Plastic bags are like
those gum diseases and tooth decay, the earth is like our teeth. If we keep using plastic bags every day
because of convenience, we will ruin our planet. Who can benefit from your little convenience? The
answer is no one, because nobody wants their children to live in worse circumstances and pay for their
own convenience bill (Song 2014).

For instance and like are the signs of Exemplum, in order words, the use of
examples, which aims to give examples thats relevant to the audiences situation in order to
relate to them. The analogies I used were brush our teeth and stop using plastic bags, gum
diseases and tooth decay and the environmental problem, tooth and earth as well as
dentist bill and convenience bill, which had the same effect as the newspaper article I chose
and thus aimed to convince the audience.
I also found out that environmental articles commonly use statistics as evidence in order
to draw the general publics attention or show their credibility. For example, in the article
Ocean plastic is likely disappearing into the food chain, new study indicates, it says, the

findings show that between 5 to 12m tons of plastics enter our ocean every year. This is on top
of the 100 to 150m tons likely already in the ocean (Merkl 2015). The numbers that were
provided in these sentences are called ethos in academic writing. In my persuasive paper, I
also used statistics to strengthen the credibility of the writing so that people can be convinced.
For example,
According to Chinese Economy Report, in China, the consumption of plastic shopping bags per
day is up to 1 billion or more. Together with a variety of other disposable plastic packaging bags, up to 3
billion plastic bags are used each day nationwide. According to bake.com, among the plastic bag wastes
in Beijing, plastic bags wastes for everyday life occupied the largest proportion of total plastic wastes, up
to 330,000 tons per year, which accounted for 49% of the total plastic wastes (Song 2014).

Differences
Apart from the similarities that were shared by my composition class writing and the
newspaper articles, there were many differences between them. First of all, the audiences were
different. The target audience of the former one was the professor while the latter one was
targeting the general public. Target audience is a very important element that can determine
writings direction or destination. Writing wouldnt be welcomed if the audience didnt like it.
Another difference is the purpose and the length. In composition class writing, some
professors might require their students to have at least five sentences in the body paragraph
and use some certain sentence structures or other mandatory strategies in order to train the
students writings skills. I was required to add footnotes to clarify the investigation of my
opponents argument. I was also required to use Procatalepsis, which can strengthen my

argument by addressing possible counter-arguments before my audience can raise them. For
example, a possible objection here is that not using plastic bags is inconvenient in daily lives. I
freely admit this is true, but we cannot ruin the environment that we are living in just because
of convenience (Song 2014). By learning how to use Procatalepsis, I know how to effectively
argue my opponents argument in any writing in the future. However, the purpose of the
environmental articles newspaper is merely about telling people the facts and to call on
peoples action rather than teaching the general public writing skills.
The length of the sentences and paragraphs are also different. Some paragraphs in the
two articles I selected only have one, two or three lines, which, compared to my paper, looks
more conversational and informal. For example, I wish this was the full extent of the problem.
It is not (Merkl 2015). We are afraid that a good bit of the missing plastic is actually inside the
animals. We dont yet know what this means for humans, but for me personally, this is very
disturbing (Merkl 2015). These are the second and the middle paragraphs in the article, which
are quite short and the arguments are quite personal. However, in my persuasive paper, the
body paragraphs have a least 200 words.
Fourthly, the languages are different. The reason why I couldnt find any composition
class writing in the environmental section was because newspapers are a place for the general
public to get any kind of information. Since the average reading level of the general public in
America is seventh grade, the language of the articles used in the newspaper must be easy
enough for different reading levels to read. Newspaper articles contain plain styles features
such as a quick sentence opening, a conversational tone, active voice, clear subjects, simpler
sentencesetc. For instance, it has tons of first and second points of view such as I, we,

you and your to lower the levels of formality of the articles in order to reach as large of an
audience as possible. Environmental articles also commonly use first and the second point of
view in the title for the purpose of grabbing the audiences attention. For example, one of the
articles I selected has a title called Plastic bags are Killing Us, and there are a lot of similar
titles like this, such as No More Plastic Bags and Keep Plastic Out of the Pacific. These titles
use straightforward language and short sentences, and most of the titles contain certain actions,
which might create some emotional effect on the audience. Although some newspaper articles
contain few complex sentences structures, most of the sentences are short and made of the
simplest sentence structurethe subject, verb and object put together as close as possible.
Composition class writing is often written in official style, as the readers of academic
writing usually have a higher reading level than the average reading level. Official style contains
a lot of professional phrases, rhetorical devices, complex sentences and jargon in order to make
the writing sound or look authentic and believable. Also, composition class writing is about
certain topics with certain writing rules or requirements that might be provided by professors.
For example, a student might be required to apply APA style or MLA style, complete a paper of
a certain length, or have to use pathos, logos or ethos in papers. In contrast, newspaper articles
have more freedom in choosing topics. Although newspapers also have certain rules to follow,
they are only constrained in the writing style, not in the frame, thus they are more flexible
compared to the composition class writing.
Last but not least, the styles are different. Through my research on several newspaper
publishers, I couldnt find any academic papers or composition class papers that have been
published in the environmental section in any newspaper. However, I found out that the styles

and format in newspapers are different than the styles of composition class writing.
Newspapers have a certain style and most newspapers use Associated Press (AP) Style, just as
composition class writing often uses Modern Language Association (MLA) Style or American
Psychological Association (APA) Style. There was an interesting point that I found during my
phone call interview with the The Guardians staff, when I asked them if there is any style that
their writers need to follow, they told me they do have a certain style in British, but since the
article that I found was published in the U.S, it might have been written in AP style or a style
that is similar to AP style. Therefore, I came to a conclusion that although different newspapers
use different style in their articles, they would not consider using MLA or APA in their articles,
which means most newspapers wouldnt consider publishing composition class writing directly.
Conclusion:
Based on these researches, I came to a conclusion that even though composition class
writing and newspaper articles share a lot of similarities, they still have differences such as the
target audience, language, style, format, and length...etc. This is to say that although the
writing is almost the same, they can be quite different according to different situations and
different readers. These differences are reasons why composition class writing cannot be
published in newspapers directly and are also the reason for the diversity of the writing world
and the genre.
Therefore, a composition class paper would need revision before it could be accepted
into the newspaper as an environmental article. In order to publish my paper to newspapers, I
would need to make some adjustments to my essay. For example, I should change my APA or

MLA style into AP style or another newspaper publishers style according to the newspaper I
wanted to publish in. Moreover, the language used in the sentences would need to be
simplified, which would lower its reading level according to the audiences reading level.
Furthermore, I would need to change the format and perhaps add some pictures to the article,
to make it look more like a newspaper article. I would also need to reduce the amount of pages
and cut down the words in each paragraph by combining or revising sentences. This would
make them shorter and easier to read, as the physical space in a newspaper is limited. Similarly,
if any academic paper wanted to be published into the newspaper, other writers would have to
consider these steps.
However, there are still a lot of questions in this study that I didnt have time or
resources to explore and answer. For example, if it is not a newspaper, where is the best place
for students to publish their academic articles? If they publish these in a journal rather than a
newspaper, then how does that limit the audience? Is there a difference between the
environmental section of the newspaper and other sections? Does academic writing fit into
other sections such as scholarly or research categories? Is there any way that academic writing
can also reach a large audience like newspapers without changing anything?

Work Cited
Merkl, Andreas. "Ocean Plastic Is Likely Disappearing into the Food Chain, New Study
Indicates." The Guardian. N.p., 12 Feb. 2015. Web. 15 May 2015.
Mieszkowski, Katharine. "Plastic Bags Are Killing Us." Saloncom RSS. N.p., 10 Aug. 2007. Web.
15 May 2015.