RUNNING HEAD: Genre Analysis-Police Brutality on Women

Police Brutality against Women: Genre Analysis on a Professional Research Report

and a News Article from a Website
Sebastian Chaparro
University of Texas at El Paso

Introduction

Police Brutality is an issue that is affecting different communities and becoming more
trending every time. Media has significantly involved and contributed to make the American
society put their eyes on this controversial topic. Frequent incidents that involve a law
enforcement officer excessive use of force or authoritarian and disrespectful behavior towards a
citizen, either being a criminal or not; have generated controversy and different points of view
among society towards this topic to the point that an individual can easily find information on
this issue in different genres. The purpose of this paper is to analyze two different genres about
the previously mentioned topic by comparing and contrasting their audience and purpose,
rhetorical elements; and structure and delivery. The first genre is a news article from an event
recently happened in Boston, MA. It is called Woman Says Transit Officers Brutalized Her for
Calling Cops on Them redacted by Adam Vaccaro and it can be found on the webpage
www.boston.com. The second genre, is a professional-written research report article by 2 experts
on the field of criminology explaining significant terms, factors that causes these particular
problem, and present solutions to solve it. The report is called A Criminological Assessment of
Police Brutality and Criminality against Women in Custody in South Africa by Doctors Anni
Hesselink and Benjamin Hefele.
Audience and Purpose
The intended audience of the article Woman Says Transit Officers Brutalized Her for
Calling Cops on Them by Adam Viccario, is mainly the American community as a whole, but
specifically, people who gets informed everyday about what is going on in their community. The
purpose of this article is to inform readers about an event that happened in the city of Boston,
MA that involves police brutality on women. It is a news article, the audience tie with this genre
because it is a problem that is affecting the society, so a main purpose of this article is also to
Genre Analysis

encourage general awareness because everyone can be a victim of police brutality. The audience
will most likely retain the information presented on this article on a long term. Besides the visual
(video clip) used in the article, it is easy to process the information because the author redacted it
with only the main points of the event with a formal language but with vocabulary that is easy to
understand.
Scholars persuing a higher education in the field of sociology, or in any career related to
this particular topic, are the audience that authors intended to have. Since this article is on a nonpublic database, not everybody can have access to it. Only university students. The porpuse of
this report is to inform the reader about researches done about police brutality against women in
a particular region of the planet. The author besides trying to inform and educate, the authors are
trying to encourage general awareness in the community by evidencing that this is a problem
affecting everybody everywhere, not only men in the United States.
Since it is a long and complex professional research report, the language is very formal but it is
the adequate for the intended audience, although readers will probably have to reread some parts
of the report, it contains information that will be very helpful for further education purposes
causing the reader to retain this message for a long time.
These two genres are moderately similar because both of them have the same topic which
is police brutality. Both of them deliver their message in a written form, and both of them can be
founded online.
The differences are the details of the similarities. The first genre is a news report of an event; it
contains visuals (a video clip) as evidence, while the second one is a research report with actual
researches, investigations and interviews used as evidence to present a point of view. Also,
although both genres are in written form, one contains more formal language and complex
Genre Analysis

vocabulary than the other because of the contrast in the intended audience of each genre. Another
factor that differentiates this two genres is the specific website they can be founded. The first
genre is on a public news website, so everybody has acces to it. Meanwhile, one has to have
access granted by a particular higher education institution, such as a university, to reach this
source of information.

References

Genre Analysis

Hesselink, A., & Hefele, B. (2015). A criminological assessment of police brutality and
criminality against women in custody in South Africa. Police Practice & Research

Vaccaro, A. (2015). Woman says transit officers brutalized her for calling cops on them
(website news article). www.boston.com

Genre Analysis