PB1B

          I couldn’t get the computer science generator to generate more than one paper, but I was able to identify some conventions that I think would carry over into other generated papers. Most clearly, there is a pattern of a very structured, outline style of writing. The reader’s eyes are first drawn into the large, bolded title. The goal of making this font larger and darker than the rest of the paper’s font is to grab the reader’s attention and to inform them, in a handful of words, of what the paper is about. Beneath the title, smaller in size but also bolded, is the list of authors. Computer science papers seem to have more than one author, as usually more than one person works on the research that is explored in the paper. The next thing that the reader notices is the bolded headings of the different sections of the paper. The paper is structured in a clear, outlined format that is easy to follow. Each heading is clear and short, usually one word, so that the reader knows exactly what to expect from each section of the paper. The first section is the abstract, which is a fairly short description of what the paper discusses. Six headings follow the abstract, some of which have subheadings that go into further detail about that particular subject. The general tone of the paper is formal and academic. It is obvious that the audience is intended to be other academics in the field, as can be seen by the use of technical and complex terms that the average person would not understand such as “exploring lambda calculus” and “we can easily visualize pseudorandom epistemologies”. Though they are filled with complex terminology, the sentence structure is generally simple, without unnecessary flourishes or complexities.

            The next generator I looked at was the comic strip generator. The conventions for this genre were a little harder to pin down, though there were a few common things that stood out. First, there were always the same two characters telling some kind of short story over the course of three panels. The characters were depicted fairly consistently with most panels showing them in a full body with speech bubbles coming from one of the characters. Occasionally, another object was put into the panels to add a visual effect to the words spoken by the characters. For example, in one panel the character says, “Your cat is dead”. That character is also seen holding a dead cat in that panel. The characters were also set against a very plain backdrop, which forces the reader to focus solely on the characters and what they are doing instead of anything in the background. Another convention that was common in the comic strips was cursing. Some people find cursing to be funny, which is the goal of comic strips. The comic strip panels also made a few references to current trends like dubstep, iPads, and Instagram to bring a genre that used to be primarily found in newspapers to seem more modern on the Internet.

            Looking at these websites can really help someone understand genre if they pay attention to what makes each site unique. By discovering what the common themes are of the comic strip generator, it is easy to make the connections to what the conventions of these comic strips are. Comic strips are visual, and the goal is to make the reader laugh. That becomes obvious by looking at even just one or two examples of the comic strip by seeing the visual aspect of the comics, and realizing that the textual content is not addressing any serious topics. As stated in the prompt, these are “plug and chug” websites and if someone takes the time to understand the general format of the “equation” that these websites use; it is much easier to begin to understand the concept of genre.