Reading Respones 3

Tianxing Wang (Ethan)

Reading Response

English

Mrs. Asaeli


I read “The Coffee Shop” by Casassa and “The Dope on Head Shops” by Dudley; both essays are very impressive. These two writers are following the feature of the form, which are from chapter 10 of The Curious Writer. An ethnography writer needs to spend enough time to observe and survey one’s culture. Even though Casassa and Dudley are both ethnography writer, they used different methods to describe a small subsets of a large group.
In “The Coffee Shop”, the author showed a harmony coffee shop before us, the lively pictures of a traditional England coffee shop made a very good impression on me. Why could the author move the readers? I think this is due to her three years work experience in Hopkinton Gourmet in England. Like The Curious Writing instructs: “your informational survey will likely be more convincing than anecdotal evidence or your personal observation, particularly if it’s thoughtfully developed.”(Ballenger 524) She worked in the coffee shop, and she observed the customers’ behaviors and listened to their conversation because she knew the coffee shop very well. She puts the special languages in her essay to help us know that she engaged this culture a lot. For example she writes about the customers’ words: “Small cup, one cream, one sugar, little ‘drop’ of water, ice if you have it.” It is pretty funny, and also we could know more about the Hopkinton Gourmet. As I learned from the chapter 10, “Ethnography depends on close observation over time.”(Ballenger 373) In this essay the author makes the essay as the time progress, and she tries to talk about the coffee shop in many details, so we could know more about the specific things of the coffee shop. According to the chapter 10, “Ethnography looks closely at the few to get hints of the big pictures.” (Ballenger 374) This feature was also used by Dudley.
In the “The Dope on Head Shops” Dudley talked about the history of the hemp shops, which was a sub-culture of America. The author did many surveys from the books, in order to relate an exact history of hemp. As Ballenger suggests, “A survey is a useful source of information when you’re making some kind of claim regarding ‘what people think’ about something.”(Ballenger 524) On the other hand, he used the way which Ballenger suggest in chapter 12, which states: “the interviewee is the main subject of your piece, as in a profile, and the interviewee is a source of information about another subjects.” (Ballenger 521)The author interviewed others. For example, he did an interview with Jon Napoli who is an expert because he could knew more about the hemp business.
I still think about my topic, and I think this topic is easier for me because it is something I had experienced before. Like Casassa, I can talk about many interesting things which happened around me, and I can interview with people I already know, such as some of my friends. Also like Dudley, I can do a topic which I haven’t experienced. I should do many surveys in the library or from website and interview some people who are experts in the area of my topic. However, I won’t forget put the details in my essay as “the hints of the big pictures.” The author of “The Coffee Shop” puts the words of customers in the essay. And the author of “The Dope on Head Shops” put some specific information in the essay. I will use both authors’ methods to describe some small subset of a large group.

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.

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.