Part of being a good writer is being able to translate your writing to the “language” of your perspective audience. It always makes me laugh when I think that my writing professor was at one point and elementary school teacher, but then I remember that she obviously didn’t speak the same or cover the same topics when she was teaching children more than half of my age. That being said, I am sure she was just as great of a teacher (not trying to kiss ass here) because she was able to translate what she meant into a language that her students can understand.
But, nothing is a direct translation. In languages, for example, there are so many small things that can matter so much to what you’re trying to say, tone of voice, dialect, accent, etc. that when you type something into google translate, or even translate by hand, it just doesn’t come out… quite right. However, you have to make the best of what you’ve got, even if it is a little funky, awkward, or not exactly what you meant.
My most recent assignment in my writing class was to translate my final research paper into a “multimedia” project. After writing about sex education for weeks I decided that my final research paper would be addressing the university’s role in sex education for its students. Long story short… sex education in the United States is almost non-existent and colleges need to do something about it so everyone can stop catching bad stuff and getting pregnant accidentally (and other things as well).
I recently attended a conference here at Santa Clara about looking at the LGBTQ community through Ignatian values, and I thought a similar lens would be the best way to hypothetically get a Jesuit university like Santa Clara University on-board with providing a comprehensive guide to sexual health education (as opposed to abstinence-only education) in hopes of improving student health and well-being. So, for my project I decided on a brochure with a conference schedule just like the one I saw at Ignatian Q, as well as a Facebook page to invite friends, faculty, and students. Obviously, this all for show, but maybe one day the university would get on board with an idea like mine.