PAMDISS: A Way to Reflect upon Your Own Prose

The Perception of Southern Culture in Cooking with the Neelys and Cooking With Paula Deen

Purpose: The purpose of this paper was to explore the difference in African-American cooking
and white-American cooking. By analyzing the two southern shows I was not only able to get a
cultural perspective, I was able to gain insight on the cultural differences. The audience that I
was writing to was colleagues and professors such that this paper spoke to them on a personal
and cultural level. These shows were excellent choices to depict southern culture and the
subculture of the African-Americans in the south as well.

Audience: My audience is colleagues and professors who are familiar with cooking shows will
understand the cultural implications that these television shows make. By no means is it
supposed to put any culture down but to beg the question of the differences within southern
culture as a whole.

Mode (exposition, argumentation, narration, or description): I use a descriptive mode solely

because the television shows that I was trying to showcase used a descriptive mode in how they
televise. Mimicking the cooking show by explaining to my readers who the characters and hobby
was I was able to describe the differences in their descriptiveness.

Diction: Generally, the word choice in Paper 1 was chosen is such a way to demean Paula
Deens actions. There is no specific word that I use more than others but the overall word choice
contributes to the overbearingly demeaning tone to the paper. I intentionally used choppy and
colloquial words to express my opinion on the matter without giving myself away too much.

Images/Concrete Details: Ironically, in describing a television show imagery is already being

played in the mind of the reader who is already assumed to be familiar with the show. Details

were not necessarily about the show but about the characters and their off-set lives so no one
knows the natty gritty details of what actually happened.

Syntax: Sentence structure was varied as to not sound choppy and I made sure to use quotations
because I wanted my readers to know that my information was credible. I tried to use at least
three quotes in every paragraph to show the ethos of my paper. I wanted to sound credible but
also have my own style. I would like to believe that my paper slowly ripped Paula Deen to
shreds without sounding so overbearingly biased that my credibility was questioned. One could
almost say she was slow cooked with quotes *giggles.

Structure: The structure of my paper rests on the average compare and contrast format. I go
from one show to the other usually within a few sentences. I use quotes and sentiments to ensure
my reader that I legitimately do watch these shows and am knowledgeable on what I am writing.