Clandinin and Connelly provided interesting examples in "Narrative Inquiry-Experience and Story in Qualitative Research" to persuade writers, and everyone for that matter to use narrative inquiry when they write, and really throughout the whole writing process. They explained how different our points of view can be at different times of our lives and in different situations by using characters and examples throughout their piece.
    The first quote/passage that struck and kind of explained narrative inquiry was:
        "With this sense of Dewey's foundational place in our thinking
        about narrative inquiry, our terms are personal and social (interaction);
        past, present, and future (continuity); combined with the notion
        of place (situation). This set of terms creates a metaphorical three dimensional
        narrative inquiry space, with temporality along one dimension,
        the personal and the social along a second dimension, and
        place along a third" (50).
In this thought, Clandinin and Connelly stressed the importance of writers thinking along these three lines. Any situation researched has to consider the interaction the writer has with it and the past, present, and future of that interaction. In other words, research can not really remain in one place forever. Outside variables are going to effect it and change it, and that is OK. Research should be in fact, re-researched by others to confirm its validity, and also to place its relevance in a new time period.
    Another point that I liked was found in one of quoted sections. Clandinin and Connelly talked about writing and remembering from a "place within a place". A group of educators met and Karen Whelan talked about how she struggled with always marking a kid as "failing" (57). When another researcher, Jean, in her group heard her remarks again via tape-recoder, she was instantly reminded of her childhood classroom and childhood struggles. By recounting her own past, Jean was better able to connect with the difficulties that present students were having. Both situations were situated in the same place--school, but the times and contexts were different. Even still, Jean was able to mentally go through her narrative and use it to her advantage. And that is exactly what narrative inquiry is supposed to do.
    The last quote I liked was, "Narrative inquiry is a relational inquiry as we work in the field, move from field to field text, and from field text to research text" (60). Infusing narrative into all of these steps is important. I think of narrative as a relationship, and that relationship must grow and develop through all of these stages in order to be effective.

     Throughout my elementary and secondary schooling, at least through County College, I was told to keep my thoughts, my feelings, and me (as in the word I) out of my writing. My academic writing and research could have nothing to do with what I thought.
    WHAT? WHAT SENSE DOES THAT ACTUALLY MAKE? In the words of one of my professors, "Hang out with that for while."
    Been long enought yet? You'll come to see and understand that it really makes no sense. Ask a writer, or a student for that matter, to write and tell them it can't be personal.  WHAT EXACTLY IS IT SUPPOSED TO BE THEN?
    It wasn't until I started my Writing Arts classes that I was encouraged to literally infuse my thoughts, feelings, and opinions into my own papers. At first it was a foreign, difficult concept for me, but through the semesters I have become better with it.
       One teacher in particular that I have this semester, encourages us during each class period to make sure we are writing about our own stories, experiences, and opinions in our papers. He wants to read more of our reasoning and ideas. Recently, he even suggested that I start one of my papers with a personal story that was embedded later in the paper. He believed it was strong, and that it would pull any reader in. This emphasized the value he placed on narrative. He even goes so far as to argue that "All writing is narrative", and I would say that is true.
    While reading "Situating Narrative Inquiry" by Clandinin I was continually reaffirmed that narrative needs to be included in all writing, and I don't believe there is any way around it. Consider the following quote/passage from Clandinin,
        "Narrative researchers use narrative in some way in their research. Narrative
        inquiry embraces narrative as both the method and phenomena of study. Through
        the attention to methods for analyzing and understanding stories lived and told, it
        can be connected and placed under the label of qualitative research methodology.
        Narrative inquiry begins in experience as expressed in lived and told stories" (5).
To me, this quote is saying, why should researches leave out details about their journey through the research process? Why not tell about the struggles, the joys, and the opportunities. Not only would this engage the reader, but it may inspire them to take the same kind of journey for their own writing. Is that not what good writing is supposed to do? Inspire it's readers. There is so much that strict, academic writing hinders, and the professional educational society needs to be more aware of it.
    Another thought from Clandinin that stuck out to me was the following:
        "As researchers begin to embrace those
        they research as humans rather than as objects of study and as they struggle to make
        sense of the narratives that such interactions produce, they begin to embrace other
        ideas about how to make data interpretable and how to provide interpretations of
        data that are coherent, that resonate with the data, and that are true to them" (14).
To my understanding, Clandinin was trying to express the importance of treating humans like, well, humans. Humans are imperfect. Humans are unreliable. Humans are naive. Humans are selfish. Humans are ________ (etc.) Everyone has a story, and it is that story that readers will relate to. In addition, by situating any type of research in a narrative form, the information will be more understandable and also more teachable to another group of researchers or readers yet to come. Good, solid writing stands the test of time, just like certain accounts of history, which happen to be told in story form, do. Perhaps academia should read some more and take some cues from historia? (yea, that's not a word, but it sounded good).
    Another quote/passage that I liked from Clandinin was found in his conclusion. It was kind of like a disclaimer for the whole chapter. He summed up the importance of more narrative in the academic discourse community, but also acknowledged that the practiced, drilled "positivism" will never leave or allow narrative to fully take over--
        "This chapter does not argue for an academy-wide move to narrative. Nor, in contrast
        to positivist social science, does it assume that there should be unanimity
        among narrative practitioners on key points of philosophy, method, or argument.
        This is both a strength and weakness of the movement toward narrative—a
        strength because multiple views make for closer attention to a wider variety of
        human experience; a weakness because it seems unlikely that narrative will
        ever come to dominate the academy in the way that positivism has done since the
        beginning of the 20th century" (28).
Honestly, I don't think narrative needs to fully take over institutions, but I do think educators need to practice it themselves and allow their students to do the same. In a world that is moving so fast, why not slow down with a personal connection? Let the reader feel closer to the writer if only through words on a page.