When I started my research work about the afterlife topic, at the end of unit 2, I thought my audience would be at fist my classmates and every human being. I considered such a big audience since life and death concerns everybody, and I thought it would appeal to everyone. I felt an introduction to major religions and their teaching of the afterlife would be perfect for my vast audience.
So far, so good, until in Unit 3, I used a different genre that addressed the afterlife question from a different perspective. This material provided more scientific and medical data. When I read the Ben Brumfield CNN article “Afterlife feels even more real than real researchers say,” it was an eyeopener for me. I never before heard of the Near-Death Experience, even more interesting what happens to the human brain during this state, and what stories people who had this tell. This material shed a lot of light on me and helped me answer many questions that I had before about the afterlife.
Therefore I decided to narrow my research down and now aim more at a more specific audience. Since my genre is more rational, scientific, and medical, it should appeal more to the category of people who are possibly non-believers, agnostics, or atheists. This task, I already try to fulfill in unit 3. The afterlife question’s research project was a tremendous academic writing experience that helped me think differently now of death. I hope this will help people at death differently.