RR - Getting Squirrelly

Overall I feel this to be a very strong essay. The author has brought to my attention that though I may encounter squirrels on a daily basis, I really do not know much about their behaviors. The follow are two things that particularly stood out in my mind about the piece.

I found the introduction to be very enticing. The details and early childhood reference really drew me in. I could easily find connections to my life as I too have been surrounded by squirrels from an early age. Though I agree with Tina in that it is unclear as to what the purpose of the paper is. Not until the end of the third paragraph was I really certain as to the topic of the paper. However, I wouldn't consider this a weakness. In fact, I think it's refreshing to be pulled into a research paper as the author has done here. The only weakness I find in the first three paragraphs is in the last sentence when she deliberately tells us what she is focused her research on. It is a pet peeve of mine, and maybe only because I was always taught it was bad, to blatantly tell us before hand what you are going to tell us later (or that which we should be able to infer).

I find her use of "I" in her paper to stand out from the way in which other authors seem to be using the pronoun. She uses it to explain why she was intrigued, what questions she was asking to lead to the research she conducted, rather than incorporating her opinion.