Amberly Fancher
Professor Andrus
Eng 2989
10/24/12
The Influence of Genre
Genre is defined as a category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized
by a particular style, form, or content. (Merriam-Webster Inc.) A specific genre is placed upon a
group based on style, ideology, purpose, and more importantly the audience.
You might not know it, but everything has a genre, the music you listen to, television
shows, movies you watch, books you read, and even papers you write. Everything fits into some
categorical form of genre. Since there are so many genres and stipulations, genres can sometimes
fall into more than one category. Sometimes when genres fit into more than one category a sub
category that branches off of the original genre can be made to better categorize that piece.
The artifact I chose from our Alternate Reality game was a research document I made
about aliens. The reason for making this research documentation was to show the 1001 students
research that Minerva was working on. Since we live by the river I decided to use the Ohio River
as our local lore.
I thought that the 1001 students might believe that an anthropologist was interested in
coming to Cincinnati to study about the Ohio River. Using the Ohio River as the local lore
helped make it seem more realistic to the 1001 students. Making the ARG seem like it could
happen or is real is the whole point of making these games.
Upon doing research, I found many interesting articles on Ohio River Toxins. I found
that the Ohio River is one of the most highly polluted rivers in the country. That’s when I
decided to make a research article on the Ohio River Toxin’s. When I first started my paper I
made my paper mostly factual information. After rereading the information about ARG
documents that we were given, I found that a simple informative research paper would not be
beneficial in our Alternate Reality game or furthering the game in general.
Since Minerva’s degree in Anthropology was based upon the edge of belief, I decided to
add a supernatural twist on my research paper. I decided to keep all the factual information on
the Ohio River toxins, but incorporate Alien’s as the cause for our river pollutants. I said that
Aliens were going into the river overnight and harvesting these harmful toxins.
Since the Ohio toxins research was true it had to have a scientific genre. When I added a
supernatural cause to why our drinking water is polluted added the fictionist twist on the
document. Based on my audience, purpose, and the ideology, I believe this piece to fit into the
scientific fiction genre.
A good piece of Scientific Fiction encompasses these three things entertainment value,
sense of wonder and suspicion of disbelief. Entertainment just simply means you enjoy out of
this world things that happen in typical Science Fiction.
The sense of wonder means that you make your audience wonder about your topic of
choice. For example with my paper the audience might wonder if aliens really do exist or how
cool it would be to meet an alien or a living body other than humans? Making the target audience
think about your artifact shows you have a good Sci-Fi.
The suspicion of disbelief has to deal with the events being believable. The stuff you
come up to has to be semi believable to be enjoyed and considered science fiction.
Before I decided scientific fiction was the genre of my piece I looked up samples of the
scientific fiction, identified the Scene, described the situation in which scientific fiction was used
and analyzed what these patterns reveal about the situation and scene. (Reiff)
Science Fiction is defined as fiction set in a world that differs from our everyday world in
a way that importantly involves science or technology. (Richard Treitel) I believe this genre
perfectly suites my alien polluting drink water paper. Aliens fit as the fiction component of this
drama and the real Ohio River toxins plays the role of the science and technology.
The document I found most comparable to mine was a document I found online called
“Aliens mute”. (Cammock) Aliens mute is a story about soldiers fighting off Aliens. In the story
Alien’s had taken over earth and the soldiers were trying to fight off the invaders. (Cammock)
The soldiers had tried guns and bombs and nothing could stop these aliens from
continuous invasion. Then one day a very weak old soldier had a strange encounter with these
alien creatures. They began to come after him in attack mode. The man began screeching and
frantically running around in circles flailing his arms all around. (Cammock)
Strangely enough the aliens stopped almost as if they were being tortured by this human
sound. The aliens could not handle the pressure that the sound had caused. When the aliens heard
this continuous noise they simultaneously combusted. After all the hard work, the soldiers put in
to defeat the aliens it was something as simple as human voices that brought down the invaders.
(Cammock)
The Alien Mute document and my Aliens pollute Ohio River paper are very comparable.
Scientific Fiction typically has something to do with unknown creatures or civilizations. The
unknown creatures in both documents would be the Alien’s. Both use scientific facts to tell their
stories.
Dissociation is used in both papers. Dissociation is used in almost anything that that fits
into the Scientific Fiction Genre. Dissociation means that every science fiction story has some
element that is profoundly alien to the reality of its intended audience. Some stories use UFO’s,
big foot sightings, or even futuristic technological advances. (Edelman) The dissociation in both
of these papers would have to be the alien invasion of earth.
Another apparent part of science fiction is the focus of the scientific process. Yes, there
is a reason science plays a role in the artifact and is not just fiction. Every science fiction story
contains an understanding that there is such a thing as technological and scientific advancement,
and that the human race plays a huge role in it. (Edelman)
In my research document, I wrote a real research paper based off of the harmful toxins
that are dumped into the river each year. There were thousands of harmful chemicals released
into our waterway. I described most of these toxins. Some toxins that were dumped into the river
were even cancer causing agents.
The ways the two papers were different was that the Aliens Mute paper was more of a
scientific fiction short story (had beginning, middle, and ending). In my paper the Aliens
harvesting toxins in our waterways was just a research document with a paranormal twist on it to
fit the “edge of belief mechanism” we were looking for to further our Alternate Reality game.
At first I didn’t grasp the whole idea or concept of genre. I didn’t get how everything has
a genre or category. Growing up in the public school system were not taught to think critically
were just fed information. So before learning more about Genre’s in this class I thought genres
only consisted of fiction, nonfiction, horror, comedy, and science fiction. There are hundreds and
maybe thousands of genre categories especially if you factor in all the sub groupings. After
listening to lectures, reading and scrolling through the genre PowerPoint it has really opened my
eyes to what genre really is. Genre really does have a categorical place to fit each type of
artifacts.
Works Cited:
Cammock, Marie. Alien Technology. 1995. http://www.alien-technology.com/science-fictionstory/aliens-mute.shtml. 24 10 2012.
Edelman, David Louis. The Two Elements Common to All Science Fiction Stories. 4 8 2006.
http://www.deepgenre.com/wordpress/definitions/fantasy/two-sf-story-elements/. 24 10
2012.
Merriam-Webster Inc. genre. 2012. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/genre. 24 10 2012.
Reiff, Bawarshi and. "Rhetorical Genre Studies ." Reiff, Bawarshi and. n.d.
Richard Treitel. The literature of change. 1995. http://www.treitel.org/Richard/sf/sf.html. 24 10 2012.