PB1B- The Little GG Helpers

There are a lot of layers of genres that are not as clear at first. Many important aspects that makes a genre a genre are almost neglected, such as exigence, which allows the rhetor to get a certain reaction form the audience. Another example would be the rhetor being aware of any constraints based on whom they are speaking with. Furthermore, when considering visual literacy, the writer needs to be sure that the visuals –photos, charts, or graphs - correlate with what they are trying to prove.

A prominent part of genre is that the audience is reacting the way the rhetoric wants them to be reacting, if this process is happening successfully then that means the audience agrees upon the genre. Genre generators are a very helpful way of utterly understanding genres, because the websites demonstrate how important it is to make a clear exigence, a reasonable discourse –if needed, having knowledge of the existing constraints, and having a full understanding of the rhetorical situation and context.

            Scigen is a bit of joke, it helps people get into some bogus science conferences, but this does help people understand that exigence, which according to Laura Bolin Carroll “is the circumstance or condition that invites a response.” If some even bogus conferences are acceptation these reports they must be doing something right. These reports are giving the reviewers what they want to here, by using appropriate jargon. Also they know the way the structure of a science report is suppose to look like and what kind of topics these “conferences” are looking for. However, personally it seemed rather difficult to read through and even difficult to follow, seeing that purpose of this genre generator is to create nonsense articles for fake conferences it shouldn’t be easy to follow or even interesting, so it makes sense. It helps people understand the way jargon and looks, like the way this is structured it is like it wants to be a satirical lab report.

           

The Comic Strips were quite interesting and they could be a little hard to see the genre, but they joke with genres. However, it does allow the reader to see the chaos that comes from not having any constraints, the conversations would take turns that didn’t even really make sense with the conversation because there were no norms on what to say or do. Furthermore, there is a lack of exigence, neither of the characters seems to be able to fully make their points clear to the other, because both fail to analyze what the other is saying. This is seen by the way they respond and how it doesn’t make very much sense. In a comical way, these articles demonstrate how the failure of the audience understanding what the rhetor is trying to say can cause the audience to give a reaction the rhetor does not want, also showing a failure of topic, and rhetoric it woud be a fail in genre.

The comic also exemplifies how important it is to rhetorically analyze a situation, because, for the most part, neither character was appropriately answering the other. They were not analyzing what they were hearing, they were just speaking about whatever they wanted to talk about or gave a response that seemed a little too dramatic or extreme. This allows someone to understand that to fully experience what the rhetoric is trying to say it is critical to analyze it correctly, to have an appropriate response to it, most likely the response that the rhetoric –based on its genre- is suppose to give the audience.

The meme generator website really helps with understanding visual literacy. When it comes to memes you want the picture to speak for the image, and match what the caption says as well. For example, if it’s a picture of a doctor the caption probably shouldn’t be a joke about Donald Trump. Another way it helps with visual literacy is facial expressions, the person in the picture may look sarcastic, like the old Willy Wonka meme, so the caption will also be sarcastic. Memes also tend to be sarcastic and hopefully comical, they may also follow a joke within pop culture, therefore memes do have conventions, that are not always followed, but that are just common patterns. The genre of memes has gained a lot of popularity because they are meant to be funny and for the most part have been getting just that response.

Genre generators allow people what it is about a genre that makes a genre, much beyond just their conventions. They allow people to see the importance of concepts such as audience and rhetor interaction, constraints of what can be said in what context, and the exigence of the rhetor.