Reading Journal (Lula Brown)

The characterization of Paul Wagner in “The Kindest Cut” is excellent. She tells what he does, his age, the space he lives in, and his physique and skin tone. By simply stating the facts, Larissa MacFarquhar presents us with a clear image of this person at the base level. Michael Lewis in “The No-Stats All-Star” demonstrates an example of a first person perspective used effectively. Lewis’ tone is effective because it allows us inside the head of Shane Battier, setting the mood for a story that could otherwise feel impersonal and inaccessible. Not everyone is in tune with sports, and opening in the first person allows anyone to relate to Battier’s feeling of pretentiousness in his field of work. In “This Is Your Brain on Football,” Jeanne Marie Laskas characterize Bennet Omalu, forensic scientist by utilizing honesty in her writing. She admits right away that Omalu had no interest in or appreciation for American football. Ironically, he was performing an autopsy on the body of Mike Webster, who was a professional football player. Being honest about Omalu’s personality, including his distaste for many components of American life, gains the readers trust. The first person perspective used in “Vanish” by Evan Ratliff is effective because he writes so much detailed information concerning himself that writing in any other style would seem laborious, and the reader would be left wondering how he knew such minute details. The first person voice in this story makes it exhilarating and similar to a novel or memoir. I had the strongest emotional response to “The Kindest Cut” because I felt like individuals who wanted to become donors and help a great cause were being stereotyped because of their past. This was extremely frustrating for me, but the journalist really conveyed their pain effectively. If the writing style was not as strong, direct and penetrating I do not think I would have had the same emotional, frustrated response. I thought these features were very compelling because of the varied structure of each one. There were many points in all the stories where I did not know where the story was going, in a positive way. This made them suspenseful and much more engaging than hard news stories.