Works Cited
Content Research:
Albernaz, Ami. “Close Grandparent-Grandchild Relationships Have Healthy Benefits - The Boston Globe.” BostonGlobe.com, The Boston Globe, 14 Dec. 2015, www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/2015/12/13/close-grandparent-grandchild-relationships-have-healthy-benefits/kxL8AnugpVBKknDuzHZDKO/story.html.
This article looks at multiple recent studies on grandparent and grandchild relationships and examines how grandchildren can positively affect grandparents as well as how grandparents positively affect grandchildren. It provides some applicable statistics to my letter while not being overwhelmingly complicated. It also gave me insight into how I can look at how I positively affect my grandparents instead of only looking at how they have impacted me.
Jayson, Sharon. “More Grandparents Than Ever.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 20 Mar. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/03/20/health/grandparents-population-census.html.
This article gave me strong data to suggest the overwhelming relevance of the issue of grandparent and grandchild relationships. The data is here to show that there are way more grandparents today than ever before. This just sets the stage for how important the topic is.
Krogstad, Jens Manuel. “5 Facts about American Grandparents.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 13 Sept. 2015, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/09/13/5-facts-about-american-grandparents/
This research study builds on the idea of the baby boomers creating a lot of grandparents right now. It also looks specifically at American grandparents. Grandparents are a specific niche so it helpful to have facts like these about them. Looking for data on grandparents is different just looking up statistics on elderly people. The five facts given show increasing importance of understanding grandparents as a niche. All of my sources are on the lighter side in terms of content but this is because my paper is not meant to be a heavily statistics focused research paper. Instead it is meant to be more narrative based that lightly looks at research relevant to the narrative.
Genre Research:
Abrams, Lindsay. “The Evolutionary Importance of Grandmothers.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 17 July 2013, www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/10/the-evolutionary-importance-of-grandmothers/264039/.
This Atlantic article provides a good insight into my designated platform. It is not an open-letter, but it shows my chosen topic is relevant on this website. Along with that the way in which it makes a very narrative topic scientific helped me in my development of my open-letter. I thought this was too scientific based, it lacked personal closeness in my opinion. Of course this is coming from me someone who is writing about a similar topic, so it had a different purpose then what mine did. Overall though this provided a good look onto what the Atlantic is offering in terms of “grandparent” pieces.
Baker, Katie J.M. “Here's The Powerful Letter The Stanford Victim Read To Her Attacker.” BuzzFeed News, BuzzFeed News, 9 Nov. 2018, www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katiejmbaker/heres-the-powerful-letter-the-stanford-victim-read-to-her-ra.
When I first hear open-letter, this is the first thing that comes to mind. It is an extremely powerful and highly effective example of an open-letter. It has a obvious and clear direct audience. However it also rings a loud and clear message to anyone that is not this direct audience. It has the ability to be personal while also using the personal narrative to advance the issue being argued. While very different topics, this is what my goal is for my letter. Having a clear audience, but being able to impact many people around me.
Paton, Cassie. “An Open Letter To Anyone Thinking About Writing An Open Letter.” The Establishment, The Establishment, 12 Oct. 2018, theestablishment.co/an-open-letter-to-anyone-thinking-about-writing-an-open-letter-1551cdbee021/
The actual content of this open letter was helpful advice for writing an open letter. It gave me a good idea of what to try and do and what to try and avoid doing. It was also written in open-letter form which gave me good insight into typical form of the genre.
