I analyzed two articles on the discovery of the Huntington’s disease protein, one a popular press article in the New York Times by Natalie Angier, and the other the primary research paper written by the Huntington’s Disease Research Group.  The two articles present substantially different viewpoints on the discovery of the HD protein.  The scientific article, which comes directly from the researchers, provides a detailed, methodical description of the steps taken to discover the gene.  The popular press article describes the discovery broadly, in the context of Huntington ’s disease as a whole and with the actual methods secondary.  The two papers, of course, target different audiences and serve different purposes.  Here, I will analyze the how the papers differed in achieving these goals and how the Huntington’s disease research is presented differently in each.

            The most glaring difference in the two papers is the treatment of the data relevant to the discovery of IT15 functioning in Huntington’s disease.

            The popular press article emphatically outlines the difficulty in which researchers came to discover the IT15 gene.  Most of the paper devotes to describing the arduous task of discovery.  In this sense, while the popular press article substantially describes the overall result of the experiment, the reader loses a sense of the methodical, scientific process involved and the relevance of the IT15 gene as a step in the overall research efforts toward treating Huntington’s disease.  This notion contrasts sharply with the research article.  The research paper does indicate the search for the Huntington’s disease gene taxed researchers greatly over a long period of time, but the relative focus never deviates from the relevant findings.  Thus, the reader is presented with a more comprehensive and informative description of the research involved. 

            The difference in the presentation of the data coincides with the target audiences and the general goals for each writing style.  The popular press article is directed toward the general population; generally, people with scientific knowledge of the subject extending up to high school biology or possibly a college science course.  The primary goal of the popular press article is to both inform the reader and, in a sense, entertain them, at least so much as to maintain their attention long enough to read the full article.  The scientific paper, in contrast, does not necessarily need to maintain the audience’s attention throughout the paper with interesting quips about Huntington’s disease or the “race” to discover the gene.  The audience of the scientific paper is generally scientists, likely without specific expertise in Huntington’s disease, or even genetics, but with a good background on the nature of disease and a capacity to understand the relevance of the results based upon the data obtained. 

            The underlying issue between the differences in the papers is determining what exactly the public gains from reading the popular press article compared to what the researchers actually present in the scientific article.