Over the
past week we have learned about genres and I have come to learn that genres can
be examined in several ways. A genre is made up of conventions, or several
elements that are unique to that category, and by analyzing something based on
those conventions, one can assess whether something belongs to a genre or not. I
will be examining a few websites to see what their conventions are that make
them each their own genre. Because of these conventions, there are processes
called genre generators that are able to make productions that fall into a
category of a specific genre by simply following their specific conventions.
SCIGen is a
website that generates different research papers in the computer science field.
A context-free grammar is the process that helps form each paper. Every paper
formulated by the website is different but they all share some similarities.
Each article that is created has a distinguished title with extravagant
language. The title insinuates that the article is extremely intelligent and
well written with many scientific facts. This is what initially drew me into
the article. Taking a closer look, it is obvious how these articles are created
with a genre generator. Each article’s structure has the same layout. They
start with an abstract and end with a list of references. The design
intimidates the reader into believing someone distinguished wrote down all of
his or her most novel scientific thoughts but in actuality, the structure of
the paper is the only scientific part about it. The genre generator was able to
dissect the conventions of these papers and create a structure for
reproduction.
Pandyland
is another genre generator that I reviewed. Comic strips have many conventions
that are specific to the genre. I think that this genre is easier to review
than many others because its conventions are mostly visual elements. Boxed
pictures, cartoons, and a story line are all crucial elements to a comic strip.
This website incorporates all of these elements to create a new comic each time
that they are generated. Words to create a story line are also supplemented
with each picture to create a story. This website does a great job staying true
to the genre and coming up with witty and interesting comics.
Memes have
been used throughout pop culture for amusement and entertainment purposes. The
memegenerator provides an emporium of popular memes. Memes have been used
throughout social media to refer to pop culture references and different common
and relatable issues. Although some have similar qualities, they are all
unique. Some important conventions of memes are the focal point in the middle,
usually a singular picture, and then a background image. These images are
accompanied by a few words to give more depth to the images. The words on the meme
tell the story of the picture and usually, but not always, are not in complete
sentences. An attribute of memes that are specific to the genre is the font
that is used on all of the memes. Another genre-specific element is the shape
of the meme, which is a square picture that is always the same size.
An
additonal genre generator that I evaluated was the Fantasy Name Generators.
This website helps in generating different book titles for various different
fantasy genres. From a list including adventure, drama, and romance, users can
choose which fantasy track they want to pick. With each category, a description
is included as to what the conventions are for each category. For my
evaluation, I chose the romance category. One convention of these titles was the
inclusion of love or a love related theme. Understanding that romance is about
love helps in understanding why this convention is so important to this
specific genre. Other conventions of these titles include themes of pain
associated with love, hope for finding love and the association of significant
others.
After
evaluating these websites, I am able to better understand genres. Conventions
are what make up genres; they are like a formula or checklist that you can use
in order to create something that is going to fit your intended category. Each
website had their own set of qualifications that they needed to fulfill in
order to meet the expectations of their viewers and as long as they met those
requirements, they had the freedom to take their projects in any direction that
they wanted. Having this mindset to understand genres helped me tie in all of
the lessons from this week and I will be watching for patterns now of who is
being fully creative and who is following in the steps of a genre generator.
You did a good job analysing the conventions of those different genres in terms of their formats, languages, and purposes. One thing you that I could not agree more on is that the conventions of different genres must be vary due to the different expectations from their different targeting groups. I checked out the website you mentioned above and it is sort of fun. The book titles do follow a set of rules depending on which genre of book you chose. Personally, I think the most interesting element of that website is the name generator where you can create random names for individuals from both fantasy and real worlds depending on their races, nations and careers.
ReplyDeleteHi Jessica,
ReplyDeleteSo I first noticed your use of visual aids to your literature which I thought was a really great idea. It helped the reader to connect the writing to the pictures as well as give them some examples of exactly what you are talking about. I liked what you said about the SCIgen. You had a good point that each title had very elegant language which drew you in. I wrote the same thing in my pba so it's definitely an important convention that makes it a good genre generator. I enjoyed your use of the fantasy name generator. I found it really cool that a convention was related to love. Very interesting and awesome job :)
Dear Jessica, your analysis of the generators is very well written, and I enjoy the fact that you utilized a style that is short, simple, and concise for the readers to understand. In addition, your visual aid supplemented for the analysis is an excellent component as well for providing more clarity. I agree with your SCIgen analysis very much. When I first read some of the titles, they seem very convincing because I did not understand more than half of the titles generated and that got my curiosity. On another note, while I agree that for the most part, most of these genres have some generic format that almost every paper follows, there is always some degree of variation that may detract from what we would call a “formula” for that genre but still somehow manage to fit itself into that category. Nonetheless, excellent job on this analysis!
ReplyDeleteJessica,
ReplyDeleteI really appreciated the comic strip you chose to start your writing off with. It's one of the funnier ones that the Pandyland website produced. I also really enjoyed the way you started off the piece by carefully explaining the different ways of delving into the topic of genres. Your writing is very reader friendly and clear which made it a delight to read.
Best,
Dan