Writer’s “moves” are used differently for every writer, but all for the same purpose.  The purpose of a move is to use your own decisions of writing to persuade the audience.  In the article “So What? Who Cares?” Birkenstein and Graff explain the importance of arguments using their own moves.  Similarly, in the article “Finding Evidence,” Lunsford describes how to find and use evidence effectively in one’s essay and why it is important.  Both writers use their own moves to attempt to get their opinions across.  Examining both articles, I believe Lunsford does a more professional and better job at picking effective moves because of his persuasive and applicable examples, serious tone, and useful guidelines. . 

            Birkenstein and Graff begin “So What? Who Cares?” with a casual and friendly tone that seems to be inviting.  This tone and style is continuous throughout the essay as they go on into using certain moves.  One move I discovered they used was using one specific, big example to help them uncover their argument.  They referenced Denise Grady’s article in the New York Times.  They did a good job at explaining the moves and arguments Grady used, but the only problem is they only used Grady’s article.  I believe Birkenstein and Graff would have been more effective if they had used more than this one source.  Another move I recognized was the addition of several questions asked at the end of paragraphs.   This was used quite a few times, reason being to get the reader thinking about what they are reading and maybe apply it their lives for a moment.  This was an effective move in order to get the audience thinking, but was a little bit over used.  An interesting move used by the authors was a lot of italicized words to emphasize the importance of the word or sentence.  This was used quite a bit throughout the article. Something I thought was interesting was the thesis statement was in the second paragraph.  I thought the authors did a nice job catching the reader’s attention in the very short first paragraph, and then beginning the real argument in the second. Finally, the last move I noticed was provided templates for establishing claims and a few exercises.  I think this move connects the reader to the article and allows them to test their own abilities and help them put what they read into context.

            In the second article, “Finding Evidence,” by Lunsford, I believe is more effective and used better moves than  “So What? Who Cares?” because it has a more academic tone, and uses better moves and sources. Contrary to the first article’s playful tone, this articles tone and style comes across as more sophisticated and educational.  Its purpose is to help you be more persuasive with the right evidence and facts, and I believe it does a great job explaining how to do that.  In the beginning of the article, many questions are listed that you should ask yourself while writing.  I think this move is more effective than the first articles questions at the end of paragraphs because the reader can continually ask themselves these questions throughout reading the rest of the article.  Another move I noticed was the author used was the use of specific examples of where do get recent, up-to-date evidence to use in one’s paper.  This was a more effective move because it showed exactly what resources are available and how to get them.  A short bold topic sentence was used for the introduction of each topic.  This move was extremely effective because it didn’t ramble on or make anything too complicated.  It consisted of a few key words that made it very clear what the next paragraph was going to be about.  Different than the first article, cartoons and images were used to help the reader better understand and also make the article more interesting.  I thought this was an interesting idea because the article itself was more educational than the first, but also had several cartoons throughout it.  Lastly, at the end of the article was a list of guidelines to help the reader gather their own evidence by surveying.  Overall, I thing “Finding Evidence” used better moves and was more helpful and persuasive because of its applicable examples, educational tone, and useful guidelines. 

            Moves are everywhere.  People use moves everyday, even if they don’t know it.  Moves can be tendencies that writers develop in making their arguments.  When moves are used correctly, they can make a good argument a great one.  

            Many components go into creating a scholarly academic publication.  The same conventions are used in writing this genre to identify a paper as an academic publication.  When comparing  “The Influence of Strength Training on Overhead Throwing Velocity of Elite Water Polo Players,” to the SCIgen generator, I was surprised to see how much the two articles looked alike at first glance.  Although the articles follow the same format, and general layout and the actual descriptions in the papers are different.  One might easily mistake a SCIgen article for an academic article if they don’t logically read through the SCIgen article and question what its really stating. 

            Although the SCigen generator’s article is made up of a lot of nonsense, when you break it down, it does share a few similarities to “The Influence of Strength Training on Overhead Throwing Velocity of Elite Water Polo Players” scholarly article.  Both articles begin with the title and underneath are the authors.  They then both have an abstract showing what is to come in the article.  Continuing on in the articles, both include the conventions of an introduction, charts and images, the body of the article, conclusions, and references.  When flipping through both articles, the SCIgen article follows the conventions of a real scholarly article so well that it is impossible to tell the difference unless you read the SCIgen article, and even then one might still believe its information to be accurate.  The fact is that SCIgen uses the conventions of a scholarly article so closely that when someone is reading this article, even a well-educated person could be deceived. 

            The SCIgen generator is able to create articles looking extremely similar to “The Influence of Strength Training on Overhead Throwing Velocity of Elite Water Polo Players,” although still leaving some crucial differences.  When reading the SCIgen article, very large words are used to create the allusion of a very knowledgeable person writing the article.  When taking a step back, and seeing the article for what it is, it actually does not make very much sense.  All the sentences in SCIgen are coherent and make compete sense, just as they are in the real scholarly article. 

            The SCIgen generated article may appear to be legitimate, but the real article “The Influence of Strength Training on Overhead Throwing Velocity of Elite Water Polo Players,” has a few important aspects that make it more consistent and accredited.  One specific part of the article that allows it to be credible is the experiments explained, and charts laying out all the collected data.  In the SCIgen charts, there is no real explanation that is reasonable to what the chart is explained.  On the contrary, inn the real article, arm velocity was tested by studying body mass, arm girth, body fat, and other variables in order to express the scientific reasoning behind the study.  The article also had an important piece of information that was thouroghly explained which were the administration of the tests they ran and a picture of the testing environment.  This was key to their argument and backed up their facts by explaining the background of the experiment and helping to walk the reader through step by step.  This approach was important because the SCIgen article used large words to make the reader believe it all made sense, instead of making sure the reader does understand and giving evidence to become credible.  

WP1

            Advice Columns are present in many media sources. Three of them are newspapers, blogs, and magazines.  Advice columns are present in today’s media to guide readers and provide answers to questions some can’t answer on their own.  Advice columns in newspapers, blogs, and magazines all have similar conventions, but also provide a few differences.  When comparing and contrasting the conventions used in three genres from different sources, it becomes easier to understand what makes up a genre. 

            Blogs tend to be a place where writers feel they have freedom to express themselves.  Advice column blogs follow this freedom of expression which makes them similar to newspaper and magazine blogs, with a few key differences.  All three types of blogs give advice to the person who has written in to the advice giver.  In the case of a blog, the set up of question and answer differs from that of a newspaper.  When visiting a blog, you will see a few headlines such as “Wait Management.” By clicking on the link the question and advice givers answer will appear on the page next. I believe the blogger does this to catch website visitor’s attention.  This is a similar technique used by magazine advice columns that might have a catchy title in the table of contents making the reader wanting to turn to that page.  The audience in a blog site is aimed viewers who are into technology and social media.  Therefore, being big on social media the audience is assumed to be younger, or middle aged viewers.  Since the audience is going to be a younger crowd, most blog advice columns are about more  adult topics.  There are some blogs for older men and women, but not as many as there are for younger audiences.  The tone of blog advice columns is relaxed and personal.  Unlike a newspaper advice column, or even a magazine advice column, a blog advice column has a more relaxed tone because it usually isn’t being overseen by a company; it is the writer’s free speech.  The purpose for a blog column, which is the same for a newspaper and magazine, is to provide advice.  In the blog “The Advice Goddess” by Amy Alkon, she states , “How long should you wait? Well, that depends on whether you're hoping to go on your first date with him in a flying car,” when a woman asks her if she should continue waiting for her ex boyfriend even though he broke up with her for being too overweight.  Alkon clearly is able to give more harsh criticism than other sources might.  In a blog, she cannot get fired like someone in a newspaper can because she has created it herself and it is her free space to state her opinion, whether people like it or not.  Her readers are also choosing to go to her site unlike a newspaper reader who comes across a column while browsing their daily paper. 

            Magazines are known for catching people’s attention in stores or on the street, and a magazine advice column follows similar pattern. In Elle magazine, the advice columns are full of almost shocking headlines enticing the reader to read it even if they don’t want advice.  Magazine advice columns are different than that of a newspaper or blog because the question being asked is almost more important than the answer being given.  In a blog or newspaper, everyone knows who is answering the question because they are usually a well-known writer and their picture is shown next to the article, or blog.  In a magazine the questions chosen to be published seem to be the most shocking or head turning things you can think of.  In Elle magazine one headline is “ I want to date, but I still live with my ex-husband.”  Even if a reader was just flipping through a magazine, they are probably going to stop and read that page when they see that line.  Similar to a blog, a magazine seems to appeal to a younger audience, although magazines are still appealing to older ages too.  Both are defiantly not aimed to appeal to children or young teens, because they mostly have some older-audience subjects. 

            Newspapers have regular readers that get it delivered everyday.  Having a newspaper as such a household item, their advice columns tend to be more family appropriate.  Their audience is also more broad than a blog or magazine.  A newspaper advice columns tone is more friendly and attempting to give advice, but also please the reader.  In a blog, the writer has a little more freedom of expression than a writer in a newspaper has. In The Washington Post Carolyn Hax, an advice column writer, responds to more appropriate questions from what seems like older readers.  Hax responds to a reader asking if she should spend money going to many of her friend’s weddings with,  “I’m well past my days of eight weddings in one summer, but in retrospect I am glad I rallied, even when it left me broke and tired. It’s a moment and it passes. If you can’t pay bills, then, okay, stay home.”  This quote follows a similar formula that blog and magazine advice column writers use which is giving the reader advice, as well as explaining why the other option would probably work as well.  This convention pleases the reader, making them believe that either option will work, when really they could have come up with that conclusion themselves. 

 Although all three sources of advice columns have differences, there is a similar formula all advice column writers use to create this genre.  Every advice column writer has to set up a page where is states the question from the writer and their advice giving response.  In some sources the writer has more freedom of expression, but all of them have to write in a somewhat friendly tone in order for people to want to ask them for advice.  Another technique all the sources use is making the reader feel like they know you and truely care.  When reading advice columns from a newspaper, blog, and magazine, all three writers first wrote about sympathizing with the advice seeker.  They then state their opinion of what the advice seeker should do.  They then state that the advice seeker could do what they are telling them, but often times state that the advice seeker should “follow their heart” and see what they think is write.  Leaving this a little open ended allows the readers to take advice, or thinking they are and really just do what they wanted to do all along.  Another thing that all three sources advice columns had in common was the response was a lot longer than question. 

After studying what genre really means and what conventions are in order to create a genre, I believe it is a very important topic for all people to learn.  Genre is important because genre could be anything. If someone knows what genre is, and knows that conventions make up genres than it will be easier for them to figure out what that specific genre is.  Genres are all around us and everyone should learn and practice genre in order to better their knowledge of different texts and even social media.  Genre is important for everyone because everyone is influenced by genre everyday even if they don’t know it.  Facebook, twitter, and instagram are all made up of conventions creating their own genres.  If everyone studied genre, people would be able to better understand what makes up everything we read and are influenced by everyday.  

PB1B Inspecting Genre Generators

            A genre is anything with a specific pattern to it.   In order to have a genre, that genre must have multiple conventions that apply to it and make it what it is.  When I experimented with genre generators, I learned that each image, or text generated was following a specific set of guidelines, creating all pieces of work under the same category.  I also realized that online genre generators would be a great way to explain genre to someone who doesn’t know what it is because you quickly realize that the generators are using s set of conventions to generate a new image. 

As I experimented with the comic strip genre generator, I began to notice the conventions used to generate the new images.  In all of the generated comics were pictures, and most with words. Usually the words were used in dialogue by the characters.  Another similarity was they almost all were making a joke or used sarcasm.  Whether a character said something sarcastic, or something bad happened to a character, almost all used this mechanism. They appeared to be hand drawn images and were displayed in sequence boxes, guiding you along the story.  All of these are examples of conventions used by the comic strip generator in order to generate a piece of work in the same genre.

            Looking at the meme generator, many conventions were also used in order to get a correct output.  All of the memes were pictures with captions on them.  They also all were making a joke or using sarcasm.  Another convention that applied to most generated memes was they were usually an image of a person or animal doing, or saying something stupid.  The wording on all of the memes was minimal, but to the point.  The images shown were not people looking nice or serious, but usually a goofy looking man or woman.  This list of conventions all put together makes up the genre of a meme

            The last genre generator was called SCIgen.  It was an interesting genre generator because it didn’t generate a popular genre such as a “comic strip” or “meme.” What SCIgen generated was a completely random paper report.  Although the report seemed extremely random, the genre generator was following and using a set of conventions.  Something they all had in common was they all had an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion.  They also all wrote your input words under the title of the report.  Every report also had a few graphs and charts used among the text.  Lastly, another convention was it ended with a long page of references.  I was surprised to see what I thought was random gibberish actually had conventions making up an actual genre.

            As I experimented with three genre generator websites, I began to understand how this might be able to help something who doesn’t understand genre, to understand.  If someone had no idea what genre was, and you asked them to sit down and experiment with these websites, they would hopefully begin to ask what makes these “memes” or “comic strips” what they are.  By using a generator, it would be easier to explain that all the images that are generated has a list of things, called conventions, that categorize them into that genre.   Simply asking a person to list the similarities between the generated “comic strips” would allow them to think about the rules, or conventions of that genre, and they would better understand. 

           

            Genre at first seems like an easy term to understand, but when applied to writing can be misunderstood.  Every genres list of conventions makes clear what that genre really is.  The genre generators were a great way to better understand genre, and what makes it its own genre.  

PBA1A: News Paper Advice Colum’s

            In today’s society, many people are looking to others to unload their problems on and seek advice.  One way to do this is to write in to a newspaper advice column.  Newspaper advice columns are a place where people can freely write into and get a published response to their question.  People will go to this source of advice if they have no one else to turn to, or regularly read and trust a certain advice giver. This post is going to explore the conventions of a newspaper advice column, and explain what makes it what it is. 

            Almost all advice columns follow a similar format, and share many conventions.  For example, they will have a question written in by a usually anonymous writer, followed by a response full of advice for that particular question. If the question asker does not leave out their name they will write something like “sincerely, sad and confused” as a clever way to not identify who they are.  The response comes from the author of the article who is usually a mother-like female who people feel confortable coming to with their problems. A convention that applies specifically to newspaper advice columns is that the issues/questions chosen are appropriate for most audiences.  In magazines, or on the Internet there tend to be more raunchy and adult audience questions. This is probably due to restrictions newspapers have on what they can and cannot write.   In some newspaper advice columns, the advice giver is anonymous.  Writer writes in with many different problems, but the most common is relationship problems.  It could be about trouble with a boyfriend/girlfriend, or even a mother-in-law.  The advice giver always attempts to make peace with the situation and give the most logical response, although still being biased with their own options of the situation. 

            Although all advice columnists have their own opinions and writing styles, a main convention of newspaper advice columns is a kind and respectful tone in their response.  You never read a columnist writing back ripping the writer because of their stupid questions, or problems.  No one would write to the columnist if they weren’t polite and helpful, therefore all advice columnists take on a similar tone and style of writing.  Most newspaper advice columnists, if not anonymous themselves, have a small picture next to their article that portrays them smiling, and looking friendly and approachable.  This picture provides writers with an idea of the person they are writing to, and making them believe that person is kind and trustworthy.  If there was no picture of the advice giver, writers may be more questionable about who they are really telling their problems to. Bringing together all the conventions of this textual genre helps the understanding of what makes it what it is.