Exercise 2

Left Page Stuff:

Favorite Line:

• It's hard not to admire these traits that give the birds such biological success, and yet somehow these evolutionary gifts seem unfair and unearned.

Outside Research Line:
     Like:

• Virginia Woolf compared the movement of the great flocks of starlings in the fall to the throwing of a net with "Thousands of black knots" expanding and then contracting as the birds settle on the tops of trees (Woolf 5).

   Dislike

• Most of the tactics recomended against pigeons, however, are intended to simply make life uncompfortable for them, methods that are more likely , as one combatant put it, to create "a good public relations Image" (Loven 3).

Main Idea:
To me the main idea was basically learning about the pros and cons of pigeons. What people like and dislike about them.  However, the way that it was written almost felt more like a narrative rather than a research paper, which I enjoyed.  By the end of the essay I feel as though I actually have learned more about pigeons including their lifestyle, intelligence, and eating habits.  Although, I was slightly confused in the beging, just because of the style, but it then grew on me.

Right Page Stuff:


I really like the way that they wrote the research paper as more of a narrative as I said before. It didn't seem like a boring old research paper.  A way that I can keep my paper more interesting is by not having a boring format such as a five paragraph essay.  If I keep the format different from a normal research paper then people will want to read my essay, I hope.

It definitely kept me more interested by the format that the author used, however, I did find it to be somewhat confusing.  The intro confused me because I thought that the pigeon was supposed to stand for something, like "To Kill A Mockingbird".  However, it then got into the information about the actual pigeons.  I also thought that there was some information that was irrelevant.

I learned some new things about pigeons, but I didn't really learn anything about myself.  I could relate in one way though.  My sophomore year of football a pigeon actually pooped on my head.  It was really embarrassing.