Errol Morris focused on two photographs (almost identical) for his blog trying to figure out which one was taken first thanks to a line or two in a book he read. The photographs were by Roger Fenton. It was of a place called “Valley of the Shadow of Death” and in one photograph there were cannonballs along the road (ON) and in the other photograph the cannonballs were lined up along the side of the path (OFF).
On the other hand, David Foster Wallace (DFW) spent his time walking around the Maine Lobster Festival trying to figure out its appeal. Later in his article, he argued the lobster does in fact feel pain when you cook it (which many people think they don’t if you cook them a certain way).
So what could these two pieces have in common? I already mentioned that they rely on the Logos approach. That is, the logical, factual approach. Morris interviewed museum curators (who specialized in photography). Two believed the ON photo came second (which means it was posed for effect). Two believed ON came first (meaning that’s how the landscape was before they took the cannonballs off the road). One person said what he believes depends on what day it is: “RICHARD PARE: I go back and forth. Probably Fenton went out there or Sparling, his assistant, went out there and arranged the cannonballs, but I look at it again and there just doesn’t seem to be a logic for that conclusion.” Then he went to the ACTUAL site where the two photographs were taken (because someone who dabbles in the film industry tends to make a decent amount of money to do such things especially when they’ve won an Oscar). DFW went to the festival because it was around where he grew up. Then, he writes about what knows. Regarding the myth that lobsters don’t have the part in the brain that allows animals to feel pain, DFW states, “Besides the fact that it’s incorrect in about nine different ways, the main reason Dick’s statement is interesting is that its thesis is more or less echoed by the festival’s own pronouncement on lobsters and pain…”
Besides that similarity, both writings made me feel that research requires a whole lot more than going on the internet and searching on Google. Sure, that will fly for most papers we write in high school or college. Will it be enough one day when we’re trying to make an intellectual discovery where hands on research are glorified over Wikipedia pages? Let’s face it, if Morris just cited a list of webpages he researched I probably would say to myself “But how do THEY know?” If DFW wrote “I believe that lobsters do feel pain because they are alive when they go into the pot to be boiled in water,” my response would be “And what sources do you have to go on?”
Morris borrowed a Crimean War cannonball and measured the lighting to see which direction Fenton was facing when he took the photographs. DFW noted everything that went on, to the best of his ability, at the Maine Lobster Festival. They were there. They experienced it!
The feeling that I got from these articles was to look into everything when I do research. Never stop looking, reading, taking notes, interviewing, until I finally come up with the conclusion and not just one based on Pathos, but more so Logos.