Boktips från biblioteket: En kvalitativ textanalys utifrån Boktips.net

Abstract

In this Master's Thesis a rhetorical analysis is applied to reading suggestions in the database Boktips.net. Boktips.net utilize the Internet for readers advisory by offering public libraries in Sweden to use and participate to its contents. The aim is to examine how library staff writes about literature in Boktips.net. The empirical material is delimited to reading suggestions on fiction for adults. Areas in focus of the analysis are rhetorical context, disposition, style and components from the point of view of content: summary, evaluation on portrayal of characters and setting, narrative, language use, genre and themes, entertainment, insights and external information. The writers generally use a well-reasoned disposition of the texts and several of them apply diverse stylistic devises that make for the intelligibility and aesthetic qualities of the texts. A width of aspects of the books is frequently covered. In rhetorical perspective nonetheless some texts contain problems of covering only few aspects of the books, lacking in argumentation or not completing the lines of arguments. It is concluded that reading suggestions are of help to library users if made well known. Research showing that readers choose books based on sought after reading experience, together with rhetorical techniques, are used to draw a picture of what the reading suggestions might include and in what way, with emphasize given on writing both personally and professionally. Argumentation is conducted for providing recommendations on writing and opportunity for discussion among the writers to help them improve.