Slow Swimmers? Turn off the Tube!

“Semen quality appears to have declined over the past decades. . . The concurrent increase in sedentary behaviour may be a contributing factor.”

PURPOSERelates specific sports and exercise-related illnesses to physicians and health professionals. The target audience is so specialized, there is no extra engagement.

PURPOSETakes journal articles and other health-related information and condenses them into a way for the general public to understand. Health topics are arranged into multiple categories, such as “Men’s Health”, “Heart Disease”, and “sexual health.”

RESEARCHEvidence is based upon other experts in the respective field who were not involved in the original experiment. There was no numerical data, due to the wide range of the audience who are not familiar with statistics..

STYLELanguage is more personal and informal, to better communicate with a general audience, but does not go so far as to use figurative language.

STYLEUses technical language frequently. Has a very formal tone and uses no figurative language. This is due to the publication’s professional target audience.

RESEARCHEvidence based research. Statistics are used most often. This is due to the target audience’s scientific background.

Ex: Men with 15≥h of physical activity had 73% more sperm than those with less than 5 hours of activity.

--Audrey Gaskins, Harvard School of Public Health--Dr. Andrew Kramer, Urologist @ University of Maryland

“Guys may now have another reason to get off the couch: watching TV has been linked to lower sperm counts.”

AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENTAs stated above, the audience is specialized enough to not need engagement. This could also be a cultural aspect, as American papers usually do have some level of engagement. The journal may simply assume that anybody reading the paper does not need an extra incentive to continue reading.

AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENTThe article has a large picture to attract readers, as well as a title that is easily relatable to men, whom the article is directed towards.

APPEALSAppeals to logic. With only numerical data in the experiment, they say to the audience, “these numbers make sense, so our findings also make sense.” The audience is composed of scientists, so hard data is the only factor that matters.

APPEALSAppeals to common sense. With no hard data, they are saying, “Based on what you already know, this article makes sense.” This is an effective strategy for the general public. Instead of using data, which cannot be verified by non-scientists, the writers focus on making the information more relatable to normal people.