PB1B

Ting Pan

Writing 2 / MW 3PM

04/08/2015

PB1B

Inspecting Genre Generators

      If we want to analyze a genre, we need to find its rhetorical features, such as audience, purpose, context and tone. Also, each genre has unique conventions, which make it distinguishable from others. “Genre generator” websites randomly compose works of the specific genre, but features are applied to each piece. Therefore, we can explore genres by using these websites. 

      SCIgen is a computer program that uses context-free grammar to randomly generate computer science research papers. From this website, we can get rhetorical features and patterns of research papers. The audience of research papers can be a large academic crowd, but people who are interesting in the topic of the paper are more likely to read them. Researchers write these papers to explore, interpret and evaluate sources related to the specific topic and offer their own perspective on the issue. Also, they can attract more people to participate in the discussion about this topic. As a kind of academic paperwork, the tone of research papers is formal, unemotional, instructive and there are no ambiguities in language. Then, what are the conventions of research papers? First, they are truthful. All information gathered in paper must be based on facts. Secondly, these papers should be clear and understandable. We can find many figures in the papers generated, which are necessary to present results. Regardless of placement, each figure must be numbered consecutively and complete with caption. Thirdly, research papers are well-organized. We can find that they are arranged in order - abstract (short and concise summary), table of contents (include introduction, investigation, related work, implementation, evaluation and conclusion), and references. References is an important part in papers, and in this website, they are formed in alphabetical order by the first author. We can also observe that authoritative sources are listed instead of inappropriate websites, which makes paper truthful. Lastly, research papers are written in a mixture of present and past tenses. Researchers use present tense to report well accepted facts, like “GodGombo runs on hardened standard software”; they use past tense to describe specific results, such as “Bugs in our system caused the unstable behavior throughout the experiments.” 

      A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels or boxes. Pandyland is website to randomly generate comic strips. We can view comic strips there to find common rhetorical features and conventions of them. Nowadays, comics are no longer just for children, and some are designed for adult audience; so both younger and older crowd can be the audience of comic strips. The purpose of comic strips is displaying brief humor to make audience happy. Wording in comic strips is typically informal, humorous and emotional. First of all, we can notice that all letters in comic strips are capitalized and bolder than normal. The second feature is combining words and pictures. In visual story telling, text and images rely on each other, so they must be well-integrated and balanced. In most cases, there is not too much text in panels, ensuring the comic readable. Thirdly, the perspective of comic strips is subjective and covey the character’s opinion. For example, “I BLAME OBAMA FOR THIS” and “I LIKE BIG PUTTS AND I CANNOT LIE.” Fourthly, daily life is the origin of these comic strips, such as “I JUST BOUGHT THE NEW IPAD” and “YOUR CAT IS DEAD.” Additionally, speech bubbles are a vital part in comic strips. Speech bubbles are usually round or square shapes with a tail pointing to the character's mouth, indicating that the character is speaking out loud. A scream bubble indicates a character is screaming or shouting and has a jagged outline. Cloud-shaped word bubbles means that a character is thinking. 

      Meme is a popular and usually funny idea or concept that spread via the Internet. Most commonly, it is an image with witty text. We can analyze rhetorical features and conventions of them by meme generator. The audience of memes are all people on the Internet, but they seem more attractive to young people. People create memes to share their own jokes or funny captions, and also make others laugh. The tone of the sayings in memes is informal, casual and facetious. The first convention of memes is entertaining. Good memes are always related to the hot topics, and what makes people laugh the most can get the most hilarious responses. Secondly, with so many distractions online, memes spread rapidly and extensively. To let a meme get lots of online exposure, the creator tweets it, posts it on Facebook or personal websites, shares it on Reddit, emails it to family and friends. In addition, captions in memes must be short and simple. The most popular memes commonly have catchphrases that use simple and memorable language. 

      The last genre generator I want to analyze is business cards generator. We often share our business cards during formal introductions as a convenience. The purpose of business cards is to convey information about the giver. The style of the words in business cards is formal and introductory. Firstly, design of a business card is essential. An alluring and unique business help leave a good impression on others. Secondly, business cards are simple. They typically have a standard size, so there are not too much space to work on. Choosing information appear on business cards should be deliberate. Besides, we can observe that the logo and words are balanced in these cards, to make audience read comfortably.

      Typically, “genre generator” produces works which seem erudite but are actually nonsensical. Although most of them are fake and just for fun, they are quite helpful to let us know the specific genre. It is convenient and effective to collect works of a specific genre via such “genre generator” websites. Most importantly, rhetorical features and conventions are completely reflected in these random works.