Overly Documented Life

               The overly documented life is an essay about how people would react to a camera following them everywhere. AJ Jacobs wrote this inquiry through his own personal research. He wore a camera around everywhere to document his life and people’s reactions to his actions. This experiment was the basis for his research that he used to back up his claims. Jacobs based his story as a narrative, which is an effective way to write because he maintains continuity in his story and he has firsthand experience from which to tell. The author maintains authority throughout his paper by taking the work of an expert and replicating it in his own experiment. He takes the work of Gordon Bell, who has been tracking his life’s data for years and decides to perform a trial of this experiment in his own life. His decision to do that allows the authority of the expert to bring his own credibility as an author up. The author’s use of pictures in his article are very helpful because he has a lot of evidence to fall back on with his narrative and argument. In terms of Huxley’s three directions, Jacobs effectively follows the autobiographical arrow through his narrative. His objectivity is strong too, even in his narrative. The writing is not subjective even though he is writing from his own perspective. The author avoids bias through his use of pictures and his focus on the argument rather than his own opinion about the things going on around him. He uses concrete details to express his points, but also adds a touch of personality. An example of this is when he is caught on the camera staring at the woman’s boobs. Readers can sense his slight fear that his wife will find out and this represents the same phobia that anyone would feel if they found this result from experimentation.