User:Cdecristofaro/sandbox

Your bibliography has perfectly reasonable sources, but the annotations don't really offer a clear or full picture of the specific information you are drawing from each source. Rather, they offer an abstract description of that picture. This is not to your benefit. Your synthesis will benefit from a shift in focus: right now it treats the reviews as Unvarnished Truth and the job of the synthesis to pull the sources together uncritically. However, your want to keep the provenance clear here. The synthesis is an overview of _what critics say about Roach_ -- and therefore you should keep that idea, that you're describing a response/reception, always in sight. Edit accordingly. Jmdeane1 (talk) 22:50, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Mary Roach is an inspirational writer that writes in a comical yet informative way, presenting herself as a class clown who volunteers herself as a guinea pig for the benefit of her readers. While she writes in a humorous way she also appears to be just as light hearted and open in person. She is not afraid of being herself throughout interviews. For example on Light speed she replies in a lively and casual way while still making it known that she is intelligent and informed in things relating to space thanks to her active research for her novel, Packing for Mars. Writing Packing for Mars was not a random adventure that she decided to embark on however, she appears to have always had interest in things relating to space. Some of her favorite space movies include; THX 1138, Moon, and “The Veldt”. However she was not very knowledgeable on anything space related until she actually began researching the material, “I had no idea until I started this book that when you’re heading to the moon or to Mars, you’re essentially coasting. I thought it was like a car where you’d have your foot on the gas the entire time, and I used to think, “Jesus, that’s a lot of gas. How do they do that?””. She describes her books as, “…not really books; they're endless chains of distraction shoved inside a cover. Many of them begin at the search box of Pub Med, an Internet database of medical journal articles.” -Mary Roach.

On the brainy quote website there are a lot of useful quotes from Mary Roaches Packing for Mars that will allow me to more accurately portray the voice she uses throughout the novel.

Lights Speed is a science fiction website; on this website I found that they interviewed Mary roach on her novels, especially Packing for Mars. Throughout the interview they ask her specific questions relating to Packing for Mars and the information that she relays through it.

Firefly’s book blog provides a short summary of a Packing for Mars along with a detailed review of the novel.

Oregon live provides an interesting and playful review of Mary Roach and her writing in packing for mars. It compares her writing in packing for mars to her writing in her previous novels. It also goes into slight detail of what she talks about in her novel. |accessdate=10-28-13}}

Mary Roach, the author of Packing for Mars, writes in a comical yet informative way volunteering herself as a guinea pig for the benefit of her readers. An interview found on Light Speed expresses that Mary Roach’s comical writing voice and her personality are similar if not identical, allowing her to keep a conversational tone in her books. For example, she was asked to clarify certain moments in the book she was asked whether or not the astronauts she interviewed meant that the sunrise behind earth was beautiful or if they were referring to the sight of their crystallizing urine as beautiful, to which she replies, “Yeah, I read that description in at least two memoirs. When they eject the liquid urine it sublimates, and if the sun is hitting it it’s this beautiful—I mean, I haven’t seen it myself, but it sounded almost like fireworks or this sparkly beautiful thing, and they would remark on how beautiful this was”, portraying her intelligence and comfort with uncomfortable topics. Writing Packing for Mars however, was not a random adventure that Mary Roach decided to embark on, she was always interested in topics relating to space, and space travel itself, she was not however, always as knowledgeable on the subject, “I had no idea until I started this book that when you’re heading to the moon or to Mars, you’re essentially coasting. I thought it was like a car where you’d have your foot on the gas the entire time, and I used to think, “Jesus, that’s a lot of gas,”. By the end of Packing for Mars she is able to vividly describe the nitty-gritty details that are typically overlooked. Mary Roach uses potty humor to make Packing for Mars understandable to those not even remotely interested in anything space related. Mary Roach describes Packing for Mars and her works as a whole as, “…not really books; they're endless chains of distraction shoved inside a cover. Many of them begin at the search box of Pub Med, an Internet database of medical journal articles,", portraying that Mary Roach uses a sort of “real life” voice to write her best sellers in hopes to captivate humor and intrigue her audience while simultaneously educating them on topics that she feels strongly enough about. She does so by addressing and answering the more practical and technical questions that an audience member may have, such as, how the astronauts go to the bathroom, eat, and sleep, as well as, question the effects of zero gravity on the bodies of the space travelers.