Writing to be Read

One way we've distinguished between a research essay and a conventional research paper is motive: In an essay, we want to find out, and in a paper, we aim to prove something.  (We'll talk soon about connecting the two).  But there's another difference as well.  We want to write something that will be interesting to read.

I'm not sure anyone ever required that a research paper be boring.  Why would they?  But in the formulaic versions of researched writing the writer (and reader's) attention is more focused on conventions:  Is the thesis in the introduction?  Are the citations correct?  Are there topic sentences in every paragraph?  The inevitable result is that very little attention is paid writing an essay that is engaging, that has interesting things to say.

There are two kinds of reading--extractive and sustained.  Extractive reading is the kind we do on the internet, dipping into and out of articles, web pages, Facebook posts. To some extent, that's the kind of reading we do when we research. Extractive reading doesn't have to be interesting.  It just has to be useful  We experience sustained reading when we are being led somewhere and we want to follow.  Why?  We sense we're in the hands of a narrator who knows what she's doing.  We recognize that the topic overlaps--or might--with our own experience of the world; it's relevant somehow to the way we think or see. We also sense from the beginning that the narrator is making a promise about what follows that he will keep. An essay about the cult of perfection in beauty pageants doesn't drift away to a meditation on bad breath in dogs.  Sustained reading often also features elements of narrative: narrator, anecdote, character, scene, change over time.

You are attempting to write a researched essay that invites a sustained reading.  Don't let this intimidate you.  As readers who have some experience with sustained reading, you know what it takes to keep you interested.