Reading Response 3

I read two discovery essays, both of them are very good example of the research writing, I learned so much from these essays. “An Experience in Acronyms” and “Why Do People Tan?” they both presented their ideas and motif plenteously, and also they both are very attractive subjects. When I read them, I identified with the authors, because they spurned the old method of the research writing, such as something like the research paper, “it involves using research to make an extended argument about something in an effort to prove a claim.” The research essay was introduced in The Curious Writing “it is much more likely to encourage genuine inquiry, including suspending judgment, beginning with questions not answer, and accepting ambiguity as a natural part of the process.” Authors of each essay were not only provided the information for their subjects and also they shared their own experiences and opinions. These were reason they rather than the traditional papers.
In “An Experience in Acronyms”, I was moved by the honesty of the author, he talked about his burg use experience in his essay, it was the powerful evidence for his topic, this was most like a personal story but it explored a specific theme---Drugs. The drug experience is the overall controlling idea in this essay. There was a very special beginning, it was the self-experience of the author, he described a feeling of him after used the drugs at the first, and he talked about so much story about he and his friends. “This was the beginning of a crazy year for me.” In his personal story we were able to know much information of drugs, such as what is the LSD, MDMA, and GHB. May be all of these types of drug are strange for many readers, but through instances of the author we would like to know more about drugs. The author always guided us to explore a topic, “To understand this completely I think we need to first understand why people even do these drugs” the essay was drove by questions. The personal statements in this essay was exerted a lot in this essay. For example the author said “For me personally it was an overwhelming curiosity…” “In my experience”…as a reader I was be shared the own opinions of the author and also I could learn so much from his subject. This is a good example to show the four sources of information which was introduce in the chapter 11 on the textbook. Especially, the “memory or experience” was used in the essay adequately.
In another essay—“Why Do People Tan?” the author Amy Garrett-Brown gave a title as a question, this was a good question, that we would curious and follow the author to explore this question, the research writing “is not to prove but to discover”(P 430). Like “An Experience in Acronyms” Amy also showed her own experiences and opinions, “am I a hypocrite?” she asked herself, because she had been tan. As she said “I’ve managed to build up a decent tan this summer myself, not via lightbulb technology, but the old fashioned way, by playing in the sun.” these were section in her essay. Her own experience made the reader laugh, and it gained the fun for the story.
Additionally, the author was not only sheared her own experience for us, also she read many books about her topic. The reading is an important resource for a good research essay. She referred to the point of many another authors to discover her topic, and I saw she had referred some point from magazines, these all good resources which could offer the specific information to us. Around a same question “Why Do People Tan?” the author researched a lot. At the end of the essay, we still didn’t know the answer of the question. May be in a research essay the answer was an fact, but a option of the author. “Less sun is better. No sun is best of all”. The author said: “I disagree. But I’m no expert…”
Both essays included author’s own voice and employed research. As my analysis in the upwards, they both are successful essays. I now still dig to find something about my question. I would like to borrow some method from both essays. I will add my own voice in my essay. After read the chapter 11, I realized a research essay is different from a research paper. Before I start to writing this essay, I will organize the information which I researched and combine my own experience.