For my translation, I am taking a scholarly paper about the prevalence of bioluminescence in marine life and translating it into a children's book. I am aiming for a slightly advanced picture book that is scientific in nature. The intended audience for it would be elementary school kids who have a basic understanding of biology and can recognize scientific terms and naming. The first few pages are dedicated to introducing the topic of bioluminescence, with the rest of the pages being dedicated to the types of bioluminescent creatures found off the Californian coast. The pages about the different creatures feature a brief amount of writing and a crude drawing of the animal. The writing will be much simpler than the information given in the paper, but will still feature a decent amount of scientific detail. Hard-to-pronounce words will be given pronunciation guides. My inspiration for this comes from the type of material I taught to second-graders, where the material was toned-down but still maintained a level of complexity, which compelled them to want to learn more about it.
In my draft, I am currently lacking the drawings and pronunciation guides, as well as a few of the organisms that need to be included. I couldn't figure out a way to get it into a book format so it's being hosted on Google Slides for now.
In my draft, I am currently lacking the drawings and pronunciation guides, as well as a few of the organisms that need to be included. I couldn't figure out a way to get it into a book format so it's being hosted on Google Slides for now.
Draft Link: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1iVrl6V9eAZJR4UcDO3wXD3_AxfTQ15JJnPwlgn_dngU/edit?usp=sharing
Hi Aliyah!
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your translation, I think your argument would have to be how important bioluminescent animals are to the ocean ecosystem. I was a bit unsure as to if this is correct because I couldn't find a spot where the argument was made really clear in your translation, so this is just an educated guess. The audience for your translation is younger children who are probably still attending elementary school, considering this is a children's book. I believe that the purpose of your translation is to reach this younger audience and teach them about bioluminescent animals in a way they would understand. I think that your academic article might be research on the different types of bioluminescent animals and how they play a part in their ecosystem.
From reading the abstract and headings of your article, I can say that my assumption of your argument from the translation is correct. The purpose of your primary source is to provide information on the different groups of bioluminescent animals and explain their importance to their ecosystem.
I believe your draft does effectively translate what you were intending to do, which is teaching children about bioluminescence. Once I read that you wanted the book to be a bit more advanced, I felt better about you having in a lot of complex words because they would be hard for me to pronounce. I do believe you could give more information as to why bioluminescent animals are so important because I think the book so far is lacking that information. I really enjoy how you are going to add pronunciations because this is a great way to help readers learn new words on their own from their previous knowledge of sounding out. I think your draft can definitely stand alone and does translate the article in a good way. Some conventions I can see in your translation are the use of pictures, the use of colorful words (as if they are bioluminescent themselves), pronunciation of difficult words so the readers know how to say them, and short yet effective sentences. I think your draft is very good but I would like to see more information provided as I already said above. I love the creative idea though! I can't wait to see the final product!