My Thinking of Wrting A Discovery Essay (Rhetorical Response 2)

At first, I should say that I feel fortunate of having read these two essays before I begin my own essay 2. Obviously, these two essays are both discovery essays. The two articles have a lot in common which I should learn from.

When we first read an article, we always read its title first to see whether it is attractive or interesting. Also, it should leave some questions for the readers so that they will be happy to continue reading.
On seeing “Tattoo Crazy”, I learned that the author is going to tell us about something about the tattoo, then I could not help asking “Why is tattoo crazy?” That’s the question which led me to go on reading it.
Like Lori Gangi, Ellen Parker also did a good job in making a good name of his article, “We Proudly Brew Starbucks Coffee” is a common sentence in every Starbucks, however, readers will ask why the author use this sentence as its title.

Also, I learned that a good discovery essay should have a opening paragraph which contains the main material of the whole essay.
Lori Gangi’s “Tattoo Crazy” tells us about what he find and think about the current problem of tattoo or people get tattooed. Nevertheless, Ellen did a better job, he described the scene that he drank the coffee in the Starbucks with his father when he was very young. Ellen used a lot of details to tell the reader about the coffee, the dessert, and the feeling of drinking a hot coffee in the childhood. We can sense a lot from the description.

Both of the two authors told us the origin of what they were writing about. Lori Gangi at first told us that the tattoo came from Europe, and when the tattoo culture came to the U.S, it first landed on New York. He also described what kind of people got tattooed as a pioneer. Unlike Lori, Ellen told us when the phenomenon of Starbucks coffer began and how the Starbucks Company proceeded to become a big company which sells their coffer world wide. However, just telling something can not prove anything; the two of the authors also did a good job in telling things with statistics. Lori used the percentage of people who got tattooed and the percentage of people who were or likely to be prejudiced because their ink on their body to prove that it has been a big social problem about the discrimination of the tattooed people. Ellen also used the number of the Starbucks’ consumers to tell us that how popular the Starbucks coffee is amongst people. In my opinion, in a discovery essay, we maybe don’t have to prove something that we are not sure about. However, if there is something from the library or the internet that we didn’t know at first, maybe it is the best way to give some statistics to the readers.


A discovery essay needs resources and method. Maybe it is not necessary for us to express our own opinion of the problem because we do not know much about them. However, we still have a chance to share our feelings. I think to make a connection between the topic and us is the best way to make the readers feel touched.

When Lori was in high school, he thought that an individual with tattoo is more likely to be a bad person. I think it is just what some people think even in current society. Then, he found that to get tattooed is just a choice to express one’s personality and there is no certain connection between tattoo and bad people. In the end, Lori himself decided to get tattooed. The process of his change makes us think, just like him. Sometimes we learn a lot from books, internet and the professors, nevertheless, Lori had given us a good example telling that “Life is best teacher for everyone”

I think we should contain our personal feeling in our essay. That will make our article more impressive and moving. If you can not touch yourself, who else are you expecting to touch?

All of the above is what I think about the two essays in the reading packet, I hope that will help me with my second essay.