Journal 4: Research Experience

The most memorable piece of research that I’ve done and can recall would have to of been the author research project from my eleventh grade English Language and Composition class on Thomas Wolfe’s The Far and the Near. For this research project, I had to read Wolfe’s short story and stylistically analyze it to present to the class in a formal fifteen minute presentation. Analyzing the piece wasn’t hard at all, as I seemed to pick up Wolfe’s literary techniques without complication. What was difficult was putting this analyzing and research into a fifteen minute presentation as I was sitting at my desk with and empty open word document the night before it was due. Being a procrastinator back then, I put all this unnecessary stress on myself and had to start from scratch that evening. Having analyzed it and taken notes in the margins a week before, it started quite smoothly as I began to research the short story to find different perspectives upon the work to compare to my own. To my surprise, the research and writing went smoothly three Red Bulls later, of course, as I would only have the occasional trouble pause and wondering of which literary example to use and elaborate on in my paper. Luckily, I was able to finish the paper and present it without any run through to the class that very morning. I walked out of that class with a 92 on that presentation and I couldn’t have been more excited about that research paper and experience.