"At Home" Response

After reading a few examples of essays and excerpts about research and inquiry, I realized they all had one main thing in common. Despite their differences, all of them were able to fit both factual researched information, along with their own opinion into their work and make it flow. Without both of these two aspects, the reader would become less interested, because the writing would be harder to relate to. This is why I came to the conclusion that inquiry is really a somewhat open-ended, "do as the writer feels" type of writing. It's basically the gathering of information of a topic, meshing it together with the writer's own thoughts, and putting it on paper. Don't get me wrong, there obviously are some restrictions as to what a writer can do in a critical inquiry type paper, but there definitely aren't strict guidelines by any means. Whether the essay be argumentative or solely research, all inquiry has the same general background.

 In the excerpt of At Home that I read, most of the research and personal experience/opinion were separated. The "Introduction" being the personal part and  "Chapter IV" being the more factual part. I am under the impression, however the rest of the chapters were similar anyway. The importance of the intro when relating to length is quite deceiving, due to the fact it provides a reason for writing the book. Bryson's transition throughout the "Introduction" from thinking about churchyards/gravestones to archaeological finds to the history of normal human actions is all in the process of wanting to gain knowledge. The quote in his introduction, "So I thought it might be interesting, for the length of a book, to consider the ordinary things in life, to notice them for once and treat them as if they were important, too. (pg. 4)," is the origin of the book.

As I found out in Bryson's essay, even the most boring topics, like ice and cookbooks can actually turn into a good research paper. The idea of acquiring knowledge about "taken for granted" items throughout a house is actually kind of fascinating when reading the final product. This is a perfect example of what inquiry is; the gathering of knowledge about a topic and putting it on paper from the writer's own perspective. But really, who in their right mind would want to research the history of ice? No one. Now, if there is a reason to research it, such as the effect ice had on food preservation, some might want to know how it all started. If I didn't read this excerpt I would have never known the ice I now reach into a freezer for was once basically a delicacy in Europe, and sat in a store window. Bryson was even able to tie Mrs. Beeton and her apparent knowledge of cooking and food into the ice concept, she said: "The aged, the delicate and children should abstain from ices or cold beverages,... (pg. 77)."

I think Bryson's essay fits our academic model well and is exactly what inquiry is. He used his own want to learn about certain subjects and tied them altogether to explain their origins.