Introduction: Writing articles and essays requires creativity to make work interesting and easy for the reader to read and understand. Authors during their writing do things in a certain way to enable the reader to figure out what they are trying to communicate. Therefore, the authors’ in-corporate conventions in their work which include structure, language, and reference to improve its clarity and make it more understandable hence the reader does not have to struggle to figure out what was the intended message. For instance, under language conventions, there are no spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and punctuation mistakes. Also, understructure convention, how ideas are organized, and how they flow. I will be analyzing these conventions in the article; Willingness to pay for more by Bernard et al.
Methods: There are two methods of analyzing data that is qualitative and quantitative. In this paper, I will use a qualitative method of analyzing the article whereby I will get to read the content of the article and where I don’t understand, I will research further. I will take notes to summarize what’s in the article then formulate my own opinion which i will discuss in this paper.
Goals: My goal is to read, understand, summarize and analyze the article ‘Willingness to pay for more,’ through understanding the structure, language, and reference conventions that were followed during its writing. I want to understand why the author chose the conventions they used during their writing. For instance, how they have grammatically structured their sentences and their punctuation too. Also, why they chose the referencing style they used.
Body
Structure: Ideas in articles are organized and presented in different ways. Organization in article writing is the arrangement of ideas, and their evidence or details in a clear order. In this article, the author has started their introduction paragraph with a thesis statement that makes a unique and specific observation about the topic of their research. For instance, in the first paragraph, they say that “consumers face food choices resulting from a variety of production techniques” (Bernard et al, pg. 501, 2009). As it proceeds, they provide pieces of evidence to support the thesis statement, for example, explaining the reasons why there are many food products in the market which is due to the expansion of genetically modified foods to cater to different needs of consumers and farmers too.
Of the two research methods that are available, quantitative and qualitative, it’s evident that the study of “willingness to pay for more” used qualitative methods to analyze data. This is because they collected their data through a survey of students of Delaware University and Wesley College. Students represented upcoming consumers of genetically modified foods. The survey that was given to these students had three sections. According to ” (Bernard et al, pg. 501, (2009), “two of them were asking about the willingness to pay for various attributes compared to the version of the product with unknown genetically modified qualities and the third one involved demographic information”. The author followed IMRAD format where they started with the introduction part, followed by the methods they used to collect data which was surveying, the results they obtained from the research, and finally, discussion of the results in detail. IMRAD format of writing is neatly organized that it allows findings to have clarity and are easily understood not forgetting easy to locate too. Despite IMRAD having good qualities, it has its shortcomings abstract in this research study fails to provide a clear statement of the results that were found after conducting the study. They just argued that consumers were willing to pay more for organic food compared to genetically modified food products without giving reasons. Also, they did not give the exact percentages of those who prefer organic food over GM foods.
Language: As authors write, they use different combinations of ways to manipulate language to give the reader information uniquely what is referred to as language conventions. Good writing requires good grammar, punctuation, and spelling so that the readers can easily read and understand texts. Authors have a variety of choices to choose from as they compose their work. The way they bring words together to form sentences, the kind of sentences they construct, the vocabulary they use, the type and the length of the sentences is among the language choices they have to choose from.
The author of the article, Willingness to pay for more used different types of sentences. For example; “the survey was constrained to three pages” (Bernard et al, pg. 504, 2009) is a simple sentence that was used while “for the second set, it was hypothesized that general WTP for GM to improve production would be lower, while WTP for GM version to improve nutrition and organic would be higher”, (Bernard et al, pg. 506, 2009) is a complex sentence because it has conjunction. The use of different types of sentences was important as it allowed the author to communicate clearly and created interest to the reader. Also, they used active vocabulary which is readily used words and are clearly understood by the reader for instance, “dependent variables and genetically modified”, are some of the vocabularies that were used. Sentences used were average sentences (neither too long nor too short) which are important because they convey meaning in a balanced way hence the reader does not struggle to understand the article. Additionally, the author used adjectives in their writing which portrayed facts.
The writer used active and passive voice in their writing. Mostly, they used active voice, For instance; “students had high confidence in government to ensure the safety of food supply” (Bernard et al, pg.507, (2009). The active voice made their research study article easier to follow and comprehend for the readers because it uses few words which makes it more efficient. Passive voice was also used for example; ‘it was found that 52 percent of the students were unsure if they had eaten G M products’ page 509). Quantifiers were also used in the results section of the research study for instance, ‘Lack of pesticides and fertilizers were considered the most important’ and ‘some limitations and corresponding possible ex- 45 tensions should be noted’. Most and some are some of the quantifiers that were used in the research article to indicate the amount of what they were referring to. They show that the research study was conducted on several students and they found a wide range of results hence the need for quantifiers.
References: Referencing refers to acknowledging the sources that were used to obtain information. It is acknowledging what other researchers and writers contributed to the article. Various citation styles are used to reference essays and articles which include APA, Havard, MLA among others. They vary in their format and are used differently depending on the disciplines that the articles belong to.
The article “Willingness to pay for food” being a science research study used CSE referencing format in its citation and referencing. Some citations are situated in the paragraphs which are referred to as in-text citations and are obtained from references where the work was obtained from. For instance; in the article “Willingness to pay for more”, Gruere and Rao (2007) and Onyango and Govindasamy (2005) is an example of the in-text citation which is in CSE format. Referencing used in the article; Willingness to pay for food is important as it has assured the reader that information obtained is factual because they provide evidence.
Audience; They are the intended recipients of the message. They are those people that the article is directed to for them to read. The audience is very important and must be put into consideration during writing. Authors of the article; Willingness to pay for food, were addressing a neutral audience as all people can read it and benefit from it. Farmers who produce organic foods, producers of genetically modified foods, and consumers of all these foods had something to learn from it. For instance, upon the survey that took place, farmers of organic foods were ranked high, (Willingness to pay for food para.2, 2009) hence once they read the research study findings, they would get encouraged.
Conclusion: Upon clearly analyzing the article Willingness to pay for foods, use of language, structure, and reference convention have been followed to the later. The authors have used the right vocabulary for their audience, clear and average sentences to make reading and comprehending of the message simple, both active and passive voices to focus on the meant subjects and a nice grammar. Also, the authors have used IMRAD format hence the reader can easily locate the section they are looking for. Generally, the article was written well and the intended audience was reached.
Reference: Bernard, J. C., Gifford, K., Santora, K., & Bernard, D. J. (2009). Willingness to pay for foods with varying production traits and levels of genetically modified content. Journal of Food Distribution Research, 40(856-2016-57838), 1-11.