Wednesday, April 6, 2016

PB1B

As of now, we have learned that a genre is a broad category of literature, composition, etc, and that each genre has its own set of conventions. Using these genre generators helped me get a closer look at the uniqueness of each genre.
While using the computer science research paper genre generator, I noticed a particular pattern that resided with in all of my generated examples. All of the CS research papers I received, had similar formats. They all began with an introduction, had some sort of body, had a results paragraph, and had a conclusion as an ending. The topics discussed in the CS research papers, were also very similar. They all incorporated a relation to mathematics or science in their body or results paragraph. The majority also included a graph to further explain their research, or as evidence to support their research. Another common element displayed by the generator was a reference page. Each reference page had a list of the sources used on the research paper, to give the reader a better understanding of where the information came from, and to establish credibility for the author. Overall, this generator aids the user to establish their own conventions on CS research papers. By providing the user with multiple examples, the user is forced to produce their own patterns, and make their own analysis of what makes this generated example a CS research paper. However, not all generators had the same results.
The comic strip generator was a bit confusing to me at first. At the start, I thought that the purpose of this generator was going to be similar to the previous generator. I was expecting to see a lot of comic book examples, and then decipher the patterns I saw into conventions. However, there was a lack of variety in this generator. The only bits that actually changed were the positions of the comics. Which then made me think of visual literacy. Although, each comic section repeated multiple times, the positions of each did switch. The comic square that was first in the previous strip was now on the third, and so on. This helped me contemplate about the grand effect of each comic square, and how changing one square to a different side changes the entire story behind the strip. Even though, the main concept grabbed from this comic strip generator was the topic of visual literacy, I did find that because of the repetitiveness the user could still interpret a comic’s conventions. Based on the comic strips provided, it was easy to assume that the conventions of a comic strip rely on images and think bubbles. Each comic is highly represented by a cartoony effect as an image. The effect of a comic would change drastically if the images presented were more visually realistic. For the most part, no matter what the comic’s topic is about, the images and think bubbles are what makes a comic book an enjoyable literature.  
Another generator that I used was the meme generator. This meme generator was very similar to the CS research paper generator. They both focused on generated multiple examples of a specific genre, which assisted the user in deciphering its conventions. While I was reading the memes on this meme generator, I caught myself laughing at most of the memes. Which, made humor my first convention of memes. Most of the memes focused on something comical, sarcastic, or “punny.” All categories that result in a laughter, smirk, or giggle. This meme generator also depicted a majority of causal, laid back memes. Almost, nothing related to politics, research, school, or government. From this meme generator, I was also able to notice that like in comics image is everything. For every meme, there is a precise photo that goes perfectly with the text. Whether it is the facial expression on the photo, or what a media character represents in the image, both have a close relation to what the text is trying to communicate.
               For my own generator, I decided to use a mystery novel generator from generatorland.com. This generator is unique in itself, but most common with the comic strip generator. It did not provide the user with multiple examples of mystery novels, but instead it provided multiple examples of what a theme of a mystery novel could be based on. For example, one of them read “unfaithful spouse, December 26, Pipe wrench Anger.”  This sentence lets the user assume that the story in the mystery novel occurred December 26, and is focused on an unfaithful spouse that may have been hurt or may have hurt someone with a pipe wrench. Based on the multiple topics or storylines that are provided by this generator, the user could come up with some conventions. From this meme generator, I got that mystery novels have an unanswered question that readers solve while reading. They also rely on themes of murder, tragedy, kidnappings, and the supernatural. This meme generator shows that in a broad genre like mystery novels, there are mini genres within, that have their own conventions. For example, all the themes are a specific kind of mystery that have different conventions from each other.

               After playing around with all these generators, I noticed that each generator works in different ways depending on the genre. Each generator’s priority was to focus on the best way to get the user to understand the genre as a whole, and then they focused on how creating patterns within their examples to help with conventions. 

3 comments:

  1. Hey Susli! I thought you did a really good job with your PB1B. Your analysis of each generator was very thorough and you were able to come up with an impressive number of conventions for each genre. I also liked that your conventions were not always simply about the formatting of the genre; you also talked about the purpose of the genre and the types of responses that they typically evoke (memes result in laughter or a smirk). I also thought it was really impressive that you related the comic strip generator to visual literacy. It’s cool that you were able to tie in other things that we’ve been learning about in class, and it certainly shows that you have a clear understanding of not only the relationship between genres and conventions, but also between genres and rhetoric. Well done!

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  2. Susli,

    This is one of the most poetic things I’ve heard in a long time: “I love exploring new "parks" in hopes of finding a waterfall.” Wow! Good luck with that! (PS: I love dried mangos too—feel free to bring in a bunch wnenever you’d like!)
    Love letters are, for sure, their own type of genre. You pinpointed some of the common themes and general structural/tonal patterns. I like how you kinda/sorta got at textual evidence by mentioning what the letter-sender’s MIGHT say, but I want you to focus on what they DO say and HAVE said (and by “say,” I mean “write”). Another consideration which could help you dig even deeper into love-letters-as-genres is to consider when they differ from each other and how/why. Can there ever be tension within love letters? Are they ever typically longer? (Maybe in long-distance relationships?) These sorts of questions can help you squeeze out even more “genre juice” from analyzing this text from its many social angles. ☺

    Regarding PB1B, I thought you laid down a solid overview, but I want you to pinpoint specific conventions. Get specific. Make claims about the (textual) language being used. Providing direct textual evidence (i.e., quoting) can help you do that (and in order to do that, you need to reference specific examples—this could have added a stronger layer to your meme analysis). For instance, you mentioned that memes can be “punny,” which I totally agree with, but how/why? What, within them, can you call a reader’s attention to in order to support this claim?

    In Writing 2, we’re trying to train you to become super-observant so that you can get down to the nittiest of details and adhere (if that’s what you want to do) to the audience’s expectations. You’re well on our way. By gaining a deeper and more critical reading awareness, you’ll be able to adopt/adapt writer’s choices (their writing) into your own writing—we’re not quite there yet (that’s WP2!), but we’ve got a good start.

    One last thought: feel free to toss in some images if you think that’ll enhance your readers’ experience. I wanna be clear, though: all told, I think you’re off to a great start in the course, Susli.

    Z

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  3. Susli, I thought that you did a good job identifying some of the conventions for the genres you analyzed. The only problem I noticed with your PB1B was that you didn’t go into much depth about the conventions you mentioned; I think you should try explain what the purpose of some these conventions are and how they are they different when you start to get more specific, like the Russian doll example given in class. I thought your reaction to each genre was a good addition to make your writing, your writing, keep doing that, I enjoyed it. Great job.

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