Daniel Vollaro
Research-based Writing
With a Ph.D, a successful publishing career in academia, and many years of teaching research skills to college students, I know that the quality and integrity of research matters. Good research is the backbone of so many writing projects. Encyclopedia articles, textbook content, peer-reviewed journal articles, and long-form narrative essays---I've learned how to build trust and reader engagement through good research. Here are some examples of my research-based writing.
Breaking the Wheel: Games of Thrones and the American Zeitgeist
I contributed this chapter to a collection of writing about the popular HBO series called Power and Subversion in Game of Thrones, published by McFarland Press. The research was extensive. For example, I examined most of the political references of the phrase "Game of Thrones" that appeared in popular culture after the first season. The article is a hybrid between academic prose and magazine writing.
ICCN Articles
I wrote these short articles on presentations at the16th International Conference on Cancer Nursing for a medical magazine called Oncology Nurse Advisor. The articles are just 300 words apiece, but they demonstrate my ability to do on-site reporting and quickly turn around content. I attended the conference, observed sessions, interviewed presenters, and then chose which sessions would best fit the magazine.
It's a M*A*S*H World Now
I wrote this piece for The Smart Set literary magazine for the 50th anniversary of the first episode of M*A*S*H, the popular, award-winning TV series about a surgical unit during the Korean War. To write the article, I researched behind-the-scenes accounts of how the series was created and details of how the show was received by audiences.
Utopian Communities
Even a short encyclopedia requires a lot of research because nearly every sentence delivers facts. I researched and wrote this entry on utopian communities in the 19th century for the Encyclopedia of American Literature and History. I had to construct a chronology of utopian thought in North America to fully understand how these communities influenced literature.
