Alfred Hitchcock, the great mystery and suspense movie director, extensively used a plot device in his films that he referred to as “the McGuffin.” It was usually something like a diamond necklace or a briefcase full of papers, but in actuality, the object itself was of no real importance; what was important was the actions and reactions that the McGuffin caused for the characters. It was the device on which the plot revolved. Within the borderland between creative non-fiction and persuasive academic writing lives a genre that uses personal experience as the impetus for an essay that intends to persuade readers that your definition of a term or abstract concept is true, or at least understandable. In this genre, the story, that personal story, is the object on which the argument revolves a non-fictive McGuffin.