PB2A: Genre Conventions Matter

     Although the SCIgen generator and the scholarly academic paper have many similarities in their rhetorical features and conventions, they also have a considerable amount of differences. For example, both of the sources' papers include an abstract, introduction, results, diagrams, results, and references. This gives both the papers a sense of credibility, because they follow a format that conforms to the standards of a research paper. They include the overall purpose of the paper, go into the actual research and experiments or methods conducted, show images, make conclusions and draw a type of analysis, and give credit to other authors whose work they have used. A main difference between these two papers is the fact that the SCIgen genre generator always produced papers with titles that were straight to the point. For example, “On the Visualization of the Partition Table, Towards the Deployment of Wide-Area Networks.” This makes it easy for the audience to know what the paper will discuss, but it also reduces the audience down to those few people with an interest in this specialty. Looking at the scholarly paper I chose, the title is “Selfie and the City: A World-Wide, Large, and Ecologically Valid Database Reveals a Two- Pronged Side Bias in Naïve Self-Portraits. “Although the title also goes into the specifics of the paper, the clever first part of the title has already engaged more readers. With this bit of wittiness, the paper seems easier to understand and it is also relevant within many of our lives. The titles and subtitles of the papers are bold. It can be beneficial to break the long paper up with subtitles if someone needs to go back in the text to find a piece of evidence. The diagrams are more complex to understand through the SCIgen generator, while the diagrams for the scholarly paper are easier to read and understand. The way the actual research and experiments are broken up is different, yet still similar in style. The scholarly paper on selfies seems to have more credibility, because apart from the references, the paper also includes a section dedicated to acknowledgments and author contributions. Data was always included in diagrams and tables within the selfie paper, which made it easier to understand the results. The papers produced by the SCIgen generator would sometimes report the data within the actual text, which made it easy to get confused about the results. The scholarly paper is also easier to understand. The author does not focus on throwing around complex words to make the paper sound more mature, because the actual context within the paper is thorough enough to know it is a mature paper. The SCIgen papers focus too much on using a complex vocabulary in an attempt to sound more credible, but the word choice is usually too complex to follow, or the words will be used in the wrong context, therefore losing any sense of credibility the paper may have had.      

     Looking at the scholarly piece, the most important pieces seem to be the title, since it is the first way to grab the audience’s attention and the diagrams, because it is another way to allow the audience to process the information in a different light. Of course the actual introduction, methods, and conclusion are crucial in making the paper a scholarly one, but the way the information is presented is important in keeping the audience engaged. Although at first glance both papers seemed very similar, the subtle differences throughout made the scholarly paper stronger and more trustworthy. The format of a paper and what an author chooses to include in their paper can make the difference between a decent paper and a strong paper.