GeneralCookingKnowledge

1. Cooking Blogs: A Genre Analysis Hypertext This text examines some of the unique features found in cooking blogs written by individuals. Feel free to explore the graphic below! GeneralCookingKnowledge Danielle Lockwood

2. Blog Examples

3. Content Recipes Personal Stories/writing: Many blogs act as a journal for their authors and food blogs are no exception. Most include either the author’s personal stories or act as a place for the author to display more artistic writing ability. Photographs of food: Many authors act as photographers for their recipes as well.

4. Structure Picture of recipe Introduction Recipe/Directions Conclusion sentence* Comments Section • Intros tend to be wordy and lengthy. In many cases, the authors of food blogs utilize the introduction section to talk about their personal lives as well as a place for more artistic writing. Recipes are concise, directions are fairly short and are not wordy. • --Thug Kitchen has wordy directions, but it utilizes them as a space for humor. • *Click info button again to close window • Generally the recipes are separated: one to a page. But some are more stereotypical blog style where all archives show up below the newest post. • *Click info button again to close window * Not all blogs utilize a conclusion sentence which generally gives extra advice for the recipe or an invitation to comment on the post.

5. Authors • Many authors of food blogs are women. For the purposes of this analysis I chose two blogs written by men (Thug Kitchen & Chasing Delicious) • Generally the authors are not culinary professionals– at the moment. But they have varying levels of professional training in the culinary arts. • The food they cook is for personal consumption (not a restaurant) • *Click info button again to close window • Readers of food blogs are a diverse group, but several assumptions are made by the authors of this genre: • The readers are cooking at home • The reader is a beginning chef (or at least does not have any professional training/equipment) • For most blogs there is either no assumption of the reader’s gender or a very mild assumption of the readers being female. • *Click info button again to close window Readers Why do people write food blogs?: To pass on successful (and sometimes unsuccessful) recipes and cooking techniques. Many times cooking blogs act as a personal journal for the author.

6. Linguistic Features • Conversational (including regional language) • The tone of cooking blogs is personal and friendly. The authors address the readers as if they are friends and have known each other for some time. This is partly due to the fact that the authors share personal stories on their blogs inviting the readers into their lives. • Generally stay away from jargon due to their audience • My New Roots is exception to convey health information (The author, Sarah is a Certified Nutritional Practitioner) • Individual food blogs are written in the first person • Verbs are active  Tell people how to make food, detail action. • All writers are helped out by their conversational tone. Make the cooking more accessible even if the recipes are relatively complicated for someone with little cooking experience. Thug Kitchen uses humor, Chasing Delicious uses artistically crafted imagery, the rest use personal stories to make themselves more accessible and ‘real’ seeming.

7. Design All use white background/black text Varied use of margins: Advertise to potential sponsors Advertise Author’s store Advertise Author’s book Photography is hugely important to the success of this genre Most authors take their own photographs The pictures are the source of most of the color on the blog. All have links to other pages (recipes, about author, store, faq, email, etc…) Large visual emphasis on the food, recipes are concise and often can be printed directly from the page.