Henrietta Skloot

What I have noticed in further reading Skloot’s work, is that she is not afraid to carry the story where it needs to go and deal with complexities that at first glance seem nebulous to her actual research question. In telling Henrietta’s story, Skloot could have easily overlooked the details of her family’s and extended family’s life. Yet, by incorporating them, she weaves a larger narrative, but also a more precise one that brings the myriad complexities of the human aspect of Henrietta’s life to the forefront and gives her research a credibility to the audience built in its very ethical treatment of Henrietta. This very much contrasts with how Henrietta was being portrayed by journalist prior to the extensive research that Skloot completed on her.
Take for example the chapter
In undergraduate, we spoke a lot about “person-first language” when referring to students in special education, whether they were gifted and talented or cognitively impaired. They were still David, Elisa, Naim, or Henrietta first and foremost. I think in my own research, I want to go back and revise to try to make the human side of my story more apparent. While I certainly want to keep confidentially of students, I also what to ensure that my reader understands that these are alive individualizes that I am dealing with and not just an abstract idea. I think it can be very easy, and natural given how we think, to categorize and group-things to make sense out of what can seem nebulous. However, it is important that any human research accurately reflects the “real-ness” of the participants involved and that the reader takes away the humility that is the root of the research rather than just a technical sounding approach to solving