PB1B

The SCIgen website is one that creates science based research papers instantly. With the click of a button, any student can have a seemingly intellectual, scholarly research paper. Key word in the last sentence being “seemingly”. Each paper generated, appears to be knowledgeable and well constructed, until one takes a deeper look at the paper. First, each of the research papers included a rather long title, hinting that the paper is about something complex. For example, some of the titles were “Towards the Understanding of Lambda Calculus that Made Exploring and Possibly Improving Courseware a Reality” and “Constant-Time, Ubiquitous Configurations for Linked Lists.” More conventions I noticed was the use of advanced vocabulary and very clearly labeled titles and subtitles.  Words such as “ambimorphic”, “heuristic”, and “ubiquitous” lead readers to believe that the author is intelligent, therefore readers may be impressed, rather than fooled. The structure of each paper, specifically the titles and subtitles show that the paper is well organized and put together in an intricate manner. Next, I observed the use of graphs and visual displays. Each paper that I explored had multiple visuals included within them which makes the reader think that the author is very involved and interactive in his work. Lastly, the convention that I believe has the biggest impact with convincing readers that these papers are real/factually correct, is the use of in text citations and the references. Each paper had a very long list of references and used numerous in text citations. All of these conventions make each SCIgen created research paper appear credible and logical, although none of it may in fact be true.

While clicking through multiple comics on the pandyland website, I noticed that I struggled a bit with finding conventions. Because it was not a piece of writing, I was forced to think of more “outside the box” conventions. Because comics are limited to pictures and small text boxes, I noticed most of the actions are expressed through facial expression and the type of text box used. Each box in the comic strip has vivid facial expressions to help emphasize what cannot be said in the small text box. Along with that, the type of text box being used also helps to accentuate the emotion of the characters. Although most of the text boxes are regular circle/oval shaped, I noticed a jagged circle looking thing was used to convey shouting or yelling. Also, the texts themselves tended to be short and simple, which I think broadens the audience. A more obvious convention includes animations, usually consisting of the two men and a simple action.

The last site, memegenerator, does exactly what you’d think it does, which is generate memes. These often include a popular picture or cartoon, along with a funny, creative caption or pun. The captions are short and easy to read, attracting as many readers as possible. These are usually intended to create laughter and humor.

Although I’m not sure if this ties in, a website I found was http://passwordsgenerator.net. I don’t entirely understand if “passwords” are a genre, but I did notice that there are more conventions to them then you’d think. For example, many passwords must include over 8 characters, use an upper and lowercase letter, include a symbol, and include a number.

While exploring the different genre generator websites, I noticed many interesting things. Each different website had a similar concept, yet was so different in its content. While the SCIgen website constructed random research papers, the pandyland website created short comics, and the memgenerator created several different memes. One thing looking at these websites made me realize, was the relationship between genres and their audience. Each genre has a different intended audience. For example, the audience of a research paper would be a teacher or professor, where the audience of a comic or a meme would be more broad, expanding to kids, teens, or really anyone looking for a laugh. Because each website followed a different format and consisted of different context, they helped me see genres from multiple perspectives, all which helped better my understanding of genre.