Discovery Essay

1. Social Stature

2. What makes designer clothing "cool" to wear?

3. I have never understood why someone would want to pay twice as much to advertise for someone else. Does having the design of a company on your shirt make you a better person than the person your standing next to. I want to discover what compels people to wear this type of clothing as well as what society thinks of it. 

Hilarious?

A man has just gone through a hectic divorce with his wife, in which he lost every last cent he owned, to her. He goes back to his home, that is now his wife's home, and walks outside. He begins to angrily kick around some dirt in the area he had been planning on putting in a new swimming pool, and stumbles across a magic lamp. As soon as he kicks it a magic genie pops out of the bottle. The genie explains to the man, that as a reward for freeing him from his magic lamp, he will grant the man three wishes. However; the genie goes on to explain to the man that he is a special type of genie, and whatever the man wishes for his ex-wife will get double. The man not even thinking decides that now that his wife has taken everything he will need money, so he ask the genie for a million dollars. The genie tells him it shall be done, and *poof* the man has one million dollars, then *poof**poof* the wife has two million dollars. The man thinks to himself, well thats no good, I'm just helping my ex-wife more and more, i have to be more careful. For his next wish the man decides that in order to get away from his fie, he is going to need a yacht so he can sail far away. The genie tells him it shall be done and instantaneously *poof* the man has a yacht, then *poof**poof* his wife has two yachts. Well thats not good, now she can follow me. The genie tells the man he only has one wish now and he better use it carefully. The man determined to not help his ex-wife any more thinks extremely hard about his last wish, almost until the genie grows impatient. Then the man excited turns to the genie, and exclaims, for my last wish genie, I would like you to scare me half to death!

Reading Response: Numero Two!

According to Ballanger, there are two types of research papers, those that are research papers, and those that are research essays, more commonly known as discovery essays. Ballanger states, “The motive for writing a research essay, at least initially, is not to prove but to discover.” (430) Both Holmquist and Garrett-Brown do this in their essays. They are researching to discover something, rather than to tell the reader about something important to them. Take Garret-Brown for example where she states, “…I’ve managed to up a decent tan this summer myself, not via lightbulb technology, but the old fashioned way, by playing in the sun. Hmmm… am I a hypocrite?” (459). She is trying to discover the importance of tans, and their effect on society; she is not researching tans to tell the reader the good and bad things about it. In this example her paper is driven by questions rather than answers. She is trying to discover if she is a hypocrite because she is conforming to society. This is also one of Ballanger’s “features of the form” for writing research essays, which differentiates it from a research paper. “Academic research is driven by questions, not answers.” (Ballanger 432) This is why she opens with a question and continues to ask, and then answer her questions as she goes through her essay. Holmquist does the same thing in his discovery essay that Garrett-Brown does. “Is something that the government finds harmful, yet so many people say is harmless, really that bad for you?” (Holmquist B24) Much like Garrett-Brown, Holmquist, after a short introduction, opens with a question, that he continues on to answer. This is the main reason his essay leans towards a discovery essay rather than a research paper.

            Ballanger goes on to state, “The question is put into context of what has already been said.” (433) This is one of the ideas that Ballanger supports to separate a research paper, from a discovery essay, and both writers fulfilled this extremely well. Garrett-Brown says, “In a survey conducted by Seventeen magazine, “2/3 of the teens say they look better with a tan and feel healthier, more sophisticated and 50% say they looked more athletic”” (460). She then goes on to add her own twist to this, discussing what she knows a tan to be. This fully supports Ballanger’s idea because she is putting the problem into the context of what has already been discovered and stated, then putting her own twist and discoveries on top of that. While she supports Ballanger’s idea, I feel that Holmquist does a much better job of this. Holmquist begins by giving us what has been said before, take the LSD example. He gives us the scientific idea of what is supposed to happen when you take LSD and cites the studies. He then proceeds to give what he knows about LSD from personal experience on top of what is already known. “I’ve been known to dance uncontrollably as I stop hearing the music in my ears but instead I hear it through my whole body.” (Holmquist B25) This idea of incorporating their own discovery, or questions about the thesis, on top of what is already known about the subject, is exactly what makes both Holmquist and Garrett-Brown essays, discovery essays.

            The “so what” of both essays is very clear and supported by the text. The “so what” or controlling idea in Garrett-Brown’s essay, is the idea that a stupid ritual like getting a spray on tan, could replace the real thing, and no one would feel any different. She explores this idea, through questions of hypocrisy in herself, as well as by defining the long term effects of getting a fake tan, and the differences between getting the real thing or the fake one. “But somehow the message isn’t translating. People still feel healthy with a bastardized tan?” (Garrett-Brown 460) She supports her question, which also serves as her main idea, by exploring the bad effects of a fake tan. Holmquist does something similar, because his “so what” is that these seemingly harmless drugs are actually dangerous, and possibly life ruining. They support this very successfully by doing what Ballanger stated above. Taking what has already been said, and expanding on that, by use of personal experience.

            This helps me get a better idea on how to write my essay, as before I thought writing a boring research paper, now I can incorporate things I have learned from personal experience and use them to explore a subject. With these examples it is much easier to see how to ask a question in a research paper, and then continue on to answer that question, while at the same time incorporating research, and other information.

Citations
Garrett-Brown, Amy. “Why Do People Tan?.” 
Ballanger, Bruce. The Curious Reader: Exploring Personal and Academic Inquiry, Second Edition.
Holmquist, Jay. “An Experience in Acronyms.”

A laugh to get you through the day...

A friend is watching TV and in the middle of his show there is breaking news! Highway 110 is being closed off because some crazy person is driving the wrong way on the highway. The friend thinks about it for a second, then realizes thats the way his friend is going to get to the airport. He decides it would be a good idea to call him, and warn him, or to tell him to take another route. He calls, and his friend picks up. He tells him exactly what he heard on the news, and the friend replies, "Yea someones driving the wrong way on the highway, but its not just one person, its hundreds of them!"

Reading Response #1

In the personal essay from Hogg and Black, both demonstrate the features of form Ballanger discusses. They also stray away from these features as well. Right off the bat for both essays you can see that they are written in the first person. The ”I” gives that away, and that is the first feature of form from Ballanger, but it makes sense, because without the first person, you do not get the personal effect.
The second feature of form is where the two differ a little. This feature is the humbleness of the topic. Black does demonstrate this form, seeing as how the topic boils down to the title itself, “The Joy of Mud”, and mud is quite the humble topic. On the other hand you have Hogg who gets imbedded in a forbidden or distant love, and comes to a greater realization from it. The essay may be about the Monkees, Davy specifically, but it is more about love, between the author, and the unknowing Davy. Love is not the humblest of topics.
After this both authors get back to the basics and follow Ballanger’s ideas almost exactly. For both of the essays the thesis is nowhere to be found at the beginning of the essay. In fact I would argue that the thesis from Hogg does not show up until the last or second to last sentence. “I accept, finally, that this person I know so well I don’t really know at all…” (Hogg 10) It is here where we get the main idea, that, we don’t really know people as well as we think we do. This thesis is not until the second to last sentence. For Black it is the same way. Both essays just skip the thesis and jump straight into narratives about the past.
According to Ballanger on page 94, “…the writer often reports what has happened to her as means to account for what happens.” This is Ballanger’s fifth feature and both essays display this very well. An example of this is almost the entire Hogg essay. She writes the whole time about her experiences seeing Davy, but when the time comes, she realizes that all the events she experienced, so did everyone else, and Davy, had to repeat the process over and over. That is why she is able to understand at the end why he smiles for everyone, but is not the person she thinks she knows. Black is the same way. What happens to Black is she does many things, from Working at a Mexican restaurant, to climbing the O’ahu mountains, to following old Hawaiian traditions. She uses these accounts of her past, to get to where she wanted to be, in the mud. Along the lines of this same feature Ballanger, discusses how the authors of the personal essay relies on memory and observation most of all. This is fairly obvious in both, as they are telling stories of their past, and those are stories only they could know, or have in their memory. Hogg, delves deeper into this idea on page 4, “As, my infatuation grew, I culled any information i could find about the Monkees.” This is pretty much Hogg telling us she used her observational skills to get the point across.
The last feature from Ballager is probably the most frequent, aside from the first person of course. That feature of form is, the author shifts back and forth between then and now. You can see how this could be frequent as both authors are telling stories from the past, however; they do differ a little. Hogg Starts from the way back, progresses to the past, then close to the present, then recent events, or even the present. Aside from a few exceptions, Hogg mainly stays on this path, and does not really “jump” from time slot to time slot. Black is a little different. Black does jump around a little more than Hogg. “I spent two years waiting tables at a Mexican restaurant…” (Black 4) With spent being the key word, then on the very next page from Black, “As the afternoon cools down…” You can tell she has gone back to the present time. Black does this quite frequently. Each essay has a controlling idea, or “so what” you could say. Hogg’s idea is, like before, we don’t really know people as well as we think we do, as her whole essay is her discovering that Davy is not the man of her dreams. Black’s so what, is that we should get back to our roots, in this case, getting back into the mud. I felt both essays got their point across very well and followed Ballanger’s ideas very closely.

Citations
Hogg, Charlotte. “I’m a Believer.” Clackmas Literary Review 4.1 (Spring 2000): 83-89
Ballanger, Bruce. The Curious Reader: Exploring Personal and Academic Inquiry, Second Edition.
Black, Catherine. “The Joy of Mud.”

Introduction

My name is Adam Riddell, obviously, I hail from both Connecticut, and Louisiana, as i have lived half my life in both states, thats kind of random, but i am a random guy. I major in business, probably finance, but who knows, and I am a sophomore at the great school that is TCU. I enjoy many things from any sport there is, to video games, to watching chick flicks. I would like to say I dabble in everything. Also I enjoy telling jokes and have often aspired to be a stand-up comedian.