Gajjela 1

Sindhu Gajjela

19 April 2023

Lopatko

WRIT 2

Test-taking 101: Gaslighting Yourself into Excitement

The academic article that I chose to translate was “Get Excited: Reappraising

Pre-Performance Anxiety as Excitement” by Alison Wood Brooks. This article, written in 2014,

is about a study Brooks conducted in which she investigated what would happen if people were

to reappraise pre-performance anxiety as excitement. Pre-performance anxiety is anxiety that

people feel before a task that measures performance, such as taking a test or giving a

presentation. In this study, Brooks compares the effects of the participants trying to calm down

before a performance task with the participants actively telling themselves they are excited

before the task (Brooks 1146). It was found that when participants tricked themselves into

thinking they were excited, they ended up performing better than participants who tried to calm

themselves down (1153-1154).

I chose to translate this article into an Instagram post targeted at middle and high school

students since that is the age when most people start having to give presentations during school

as well as take difficult tests in their classes. Since middle and high school students are just

getting used to public speaking and taking difficult exams, they tend to have more anxiety

regarding these performance-based tasks than older individuals, who have much more experience

with such tasks and have a better idea of what to expect and how to manage their stress. As such,

this post is meant to help middle and high school students manage their pre-performance anxiety.

Most people in the younger generations have some form of social media, and since Instagram is
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one of the more popular social media apps, I created an Instagram account geared towards giving

middle and high schoolers helpful study tips for their classes and posted my translated piece of

writing.

Something as content-heavy as an academic article is quite different from a quick,

informational Instagram post. Academic articles—especially scientific ones—are filled with

scientific jargon, graphs, and statistical analysis that only an expert would understand; most

people would not even feel the need to read academic articles in the first place considering their

immense length. Conversely, informational Instagram posts are meant to be brief and concise,

and are usually targeted at a much broader audience since the language used tends to be much

simpler. As such, in order to translate the academic article into an Instagram post, I had to only

keep the information that was relevant to my audience and simplify the language to make it

easier to understand. For example, I refrained from including any of the charts or graphs in my

Instagram post, since middle and high schoolers may not be able to decipher them. I also defined

any terms that I thought a middle or high-schooler may not already know. Additionally, I ried to

make my Instagram post more visually appealing in order to catch the attention of my younger

audience. To do this, I made the post colorful, had a consistent theme throughout the post, and

used varying fonts depending on the text. For example, I used one font for the title and

concluding slide, another font for the headings on each slide, and a third font for the main text.

Overall, there were a lot of changes I had to make in order to translate a formal academic article

into a more informal Instagram post.

There were many challenges I encountered along the way of attempting to translate my

academic article into an Instagram post. The first thing I struggled with was trying to determine

what subtopics I should divide my post into in a way that is both coherent and organized while
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also keeping my audience engaged. In order to engage with my audience immediately, I started

my title slide with a question aimed at students who are anxious during tests and presentations.

Then, I immediately got to the point of the post and told my audience what to do to curb their

anxiety before presentations and tests. I made sure that this information was one of the first

things they read so that the post is still helpful to them in case they do not want to learn anything

about the study and just want the study tip. I then added an explanation for why reappraising

pre-performance anxiety as excitement works in case any of the students want to learn about it.

Later on, I realized that the concept might sound a bit confusing so I used an analogy on a later

slide to help explain it in something the students might be more familiar with, exercising. A big

challenge I had was that I kept wanting to add more information about the study itself but I had

to actively remind myself that this was targeted at middle and high school students who might

not understand the science and concepts behind it; however, I did still include some information

about the study while taking extra care to make sure it was easy to understand. Overall, the

hardest part about this entire process for me was figuring out how to get started and coming up

with a solid plan for what to do, but once I did that, the rest was fairly easy.

I learned a great deal about genre and rhetoric throughout this genre translation process.

One of the most important things I learned is that “writing is contingent” and “depends upon the

context” (Wardle 16). This is not something that I had really thought about prior to this class, but

I realized its significance, and surprisingly found that it is actually rather difficult to implement. I

had to keep actively reminding myself throughout the genre translation process that I needed to

keep my language as simple as possible and clarify everything that may be the slightest bit

confusing to my audience. It was also extremely helpful to find examples of my intended genre

and “[look] for common features,” such as “the style that was prevalent” in each example (Dirk
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250). In the past, I would usually attempt to write without much planning, and I would struggle

throughout the writing process if I had not written in a particular style before; however, I have

now learned that analyzing examples of writing that is similar to what I want to write is a helpful

way of gaining a new perspective on how to approach my writing. That way, I can “carefully

consider the choices the author made and the techniques that he or she used, and then decide

whether [I] want to make those same choices or use those same techniques in [my] own writing”

(Bunn 73). I definitely think I will be able to apply this knowledge in any future writing or

English classes I may take, as well as in papers for any other classes I might take. I am a

pre-biopsychology major, so I will definitely have to do a great deal of writing in the future, and

although the genre of writing (i.e. research proposals, academic papers) may be different, the

fundamental concepts of how to approach writing will remain the same. Thus, the skills I have

gained through this writing process will remain with me throughout my career.
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Works Cited

Brooks, Alison Wood. “Get Excited: Reappraising Pre-Performance Anxiety As Excitement.”

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, vol. 143, no. 3, 2014, pp. 1144–1158.,

https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035325, Accessed 19 April 2023.

Bunn, Mike. “How to Read Like a Writer.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 2,

Parlor Press LLC, 2011.

Dirk, Kerry. “Navigating Genres.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 1, Parlor Press

LLC, 2010.

Wardle, Elizabeth, and Doug Downs. Writing about Writing, University of California Santa

Barbara, Fourth Edition. Bedford/St. Martin's, Macmillan Learning, 2020.