Cars Model Intro

Gonzo Journalism is a specific genre of writing that meshes fact and fiction with creative results. Hunter S. Thompson founded the style, and to many people’s opinion, he is the only one who will ever write in that particular style. However, I challenge that opinion. The research I have found on Gonzo Journalism unfortunately is so conflicted; it hasn’t even been able to assign a definition to encompass exactly what the term ‘Gonzo’ covers. In this paper I plan to begin with a brief review of the style, and how it came to be while consulting the other sources in the field. With that information I will create a working definition of what Gonzo Journalism is. Putting that definition into effect, I will give present day examples to support my hypothesis.

Thursday - 4-8-10

My paper on Gonzo Journalism is primarily a Definition paper. As stated in Chapter Eight of Lunsford’s book, Arguments of Definition are exactly that, a paper that sets out to give a definition to something. Most of the research that I found dealt with defining what exactly Gonzo Journalism even was – they debated whether or not it was fact or fiction or journalism or storytelling among many other things, just as in Selbers article Multiliteracies for a Digital Age where the sole purpose of the paper was do decide what exactly should be considered digital literacy. There is a lot of mystery as to what should and should not fit under this umbrella. Some say that only Hunter S. Thompsons writing should qualify, others are much more lenient. Towards the end of my paper it becomes more of a factual paper, such as described in Chapter Seven of Lunsford’s book – Arguments of Fact. The fact that I am proving is whether or not Gonzo Journalism is still around today. The reason the fact has to be argued is because not everybody is willing to see the truth of it, or maybe people aren’t ready to accept the operational definition that is used to establish the truth in question.

Research Review

My research on Gonzo Journalism has been very profitable to my research inquiry. There has not been much controversy in the discussion however, as I am only studying a literary style and not a high-importance issue. None of the people I have research have done any studies or crunched any number so there is nothing that I disagree with. I have learned quite some interesting things and am very glad that I took part in the research.