Jimmy's Reflection on Feedback

The combination of the class discussion and the feedback from the two teachers has provided me good guidance. I feel that I now I have structure for the remainder of my paper. Some of the written reviews of my first draft indicated that the draft started off slow and long-winded. There were a lot of individual sections that contained solid material. However, the aggregate of these sections lacked a clear direction. Or at the very least, the material left the reader wondering why they were included. Thus, I not only plan to edit out excess material, but I also added qualifying statements to the openings of certain paragraphs to clarify the purpose of the follow on section. For example, for my Hentsch material that looked at European fascination with the outside world, I plan to add in the following statement: “By virtue of the fact that someone who claimed to be T.S. was writing this account on a foreign land, we can ascertain that he had some sort of an audience in mind, which indicates that the imaginations of the English had become fascinated by stories of encounters with the outside world. In fact, during this time period, there was an “insatiable exploration of the planet” with many accounts of explorations of non-European lands”.

The second overarching critique I received was on the dual track nature of my paper. Most people recommended that I concentrate on either route. Due to both interest and ability to include primary source material, I decided to focus my efforts on the slave or captivity narrative. Because there were legitimate concerns about the validity of T.S., I plan to still include a quick assessment about his narrative. However, I intent to greatly shorten the section that details both justifications and motivations for false narratives in general. This material came from secondary sources, and so I want to edit it out. Instead, I plan to take Professor Kollmann’s advice and then just say that we cannot ever completely resolve this issue because it’s a captivity narrative and by definition they usually have fantastical elements.

I think that reading Billy’s first draft certainly contributed to my paper. Based off his articulation of the Baconian method for evaluating foreign lands, I even added a quip in contrasting that method and then T.S.’ style. Furthermore, the discussions on other topics also proved useful to me, because they provided me with necessary frameworks. For example, Alice’s topic included information on captivity narratives that I found useful as background context.

Amir - Revision reflection

After the discussion of my paper last Thursday, I realized just how much my topic has changed since the beginning of the quarter. Indeed, while I’m still morbidly intrigued by human sacrifice, I find myself more drawn to why the Spaniards were so focused on Aztec religion more than anything else. Thus, one of the most important revisions I realized I had to make was to change my introduction. When I first began the paper, I mainly reused what I had from my prospectus as my introduction, along with a few minor changes. However, as I developed my ideas more and more, I realized that this was inadequate since my argument had drastically changed since I had started. However, I do think it was a good idea to begin with the introduction, since this at least guided my efforts as I was writing. Nevertheless, towards the end it was imperative to change this section since it did not give the reader a correct impression of what I intended to analyze in my paper.

Additionally, I found it very helpful to prepare oral presentations on other people’s work since it forced me to consider what others might be thinking when they read my own paper. Once I had looked at other work with a critical eye, I realized that one of the most important things to do was to make sure every piece of evidence I used was relevant and connected to the argument I was trying to make. When I had started writing my paper, I tried to get all the information I had accumulated on paper, which inevitably led to too many superfluous details being included. Thus, it became evident to me that any paper requires repeated revision since ideas that could once seem central to an argument become tangential.

Reflections on Paper Comments--Mackenzie Tudor

Before I got the comments from the class I was feeling very stuck with my paper. The direction I had started taking my paper in wasn't working. I had found new elements concerning woman and his background that were compelling but I could not fit them into my present argument. The class helped me figure out what I had to do to make it work. I decided to alter my argument to be about John Dunton's decision to write the letters as a means to make money. With this in mind I reevaluted why he would make the connection between England's concerns about maintaining traditional roles and the Anglican religion and New England.

I also decided that I needed to restructure my paper. I felt that I needed to end with John Dunton's background and reiterate the proof that he had monetary aims in his construction of the paper. Furthermore, I tried to make the paper flow by removing the section and creating transitory sentences.

A big comment I got from the class and my professors was that I needed more actual quotes from the source. So, I reevaluated the source and pulled about three times the amount of quotes I had before. I was able to add some examples to the background information and simply get more direct quotes for all the points I made about John Dunton.

The section on woman was especially confusing for some. Therefore, I decided to elaborate on my points about English societies viewpoint on woman by expanding the quotes I used from Dunton. Even more so, I was able to pull comparisons from Dunton's depiction of ideal women to his depiction of not ideal woman. I also removed the personal information about Dunton and women because I did not think it fit what I was trying to say.

Lastly, I expanded on Dunton's past works and why is plagiarism is only relative because of the extent he used it to try to sell popular ideas to the English people. I did this by pulling more quotes from the introduction and from throughout Dunton.

The classes comments were very helpful. The last couple of weeks have been a lot of work for me because I did have to take my paper in such a different direction. However, the input I received from my classmates gave me a direction and eased my frustrations. The only thing I wish was that the class was longer because every time I reevaluate my source new sides to my argument arise and I wish I had more time to incorporate them.

Aysha, Week 9, Paper Revisions

The criticism I received on my (incomplete) first draft was extremely, extremely helpful – I’m hoping for most all of it to be incorporated in some way. The biggest piece of advice (which I think I received from everyone, especially Professor Kollmann) is to be a little bit more modest in the conclusions I try to draw from the limited amount of information I have on Catalina de Erauso and the little I know about how her book was written and with what precedent and aims in mind. I plan to be more open-ended and merely suggestive about possible interpretations of what her book reveals about her, her life, and her time. I also think it would be a better idea to take Professor Kollmann’s advice on splitting the paper into two or three sections, starting with background historical research on the time and circumstances that are highlighted in the memoir and then discussing the memoir in particular and what it might suggest about Catalina and the world in which she lived. Suzanne suggested reading literature on the carnival at that time, and I am leaning on drawing heavily on that to set the historical stage into which Catalina enters, though I may also include a heavy historical chunk talking about either other memoirs at the time or more general societal conditions (possibly splitting this historical section in two pieces). Basically: I plan to make the paper seem more historical, as it should be! And the other piece of advice that will definitely also be used: further entertaining quotes from Catalina herself! I'm planning to do serious work on this over the weekend (probably like a lot of us), and I'm hoping these ideas will both get solidified and teased out by Monday.

Also, I did find the process of reading and preparing a short presentation on Alice’s paper to be helpful, particularly because it forced me to engage with another student’s work, and seeing how much historical background she included in her paper helped me to see how my paper needed more of it!

Alice - Week 9 - Paper Revisions

I'm currently in the process of figuring out exactly how I do want to structure my paper - I got a few plans suggested from my readers and from Nancy and Suzanne, which were all really helpful. And talking about Aysha's paper structure definitely helped too - I say that I had also come up with good analytical points but was lacking a good structure or introduction. To help with it, I printed out my paper and marked out where the following sections were now - political background, typical French ideological treatment of the Ottoman Empire, and the religious background leading into how Chardin is different - and created a new word doc where I color coded them so I could easily move them around. I think the way I want to go is the way Suzanne suggested: After the expanded intro which now includes Chardin's bio and journey/publication timeline, I'll go into the French ideological imagination of the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century, and some examples of how Chardin is neither anti-French nor anti-oriental, though either prefacing or ending with some hints that he won't completely fit in with this. Then, the six pages that I have on political background, though I've been crossing out all the unnecessary parts that I can and hopefully it will now be four pages (three's too ambitious... I like that part). That sections ends with a paragraph explaining how Chardin was typical of his time, which is the same paragraph I ended the political section with initially (including the last line "But this isn't the whole story..."); it will be a little lengthened to bring in the ideological points on which Chardin agreed with his contemporaries (Europe as superior because of scientific advancements, the Orient as unchanging). The next three big steps before final edits are: 1) adding in the rest of my analysis of Chardin, then stepping back and maybe reordering all the little parts of that section to make them more coherent (especially since some of them were points of similarity, which will be moved to the beginning of the paper with the traditional French view); and 2) Working on my transitions throughout since I'm chopping it all up and reordering it, and 3) Getting a really good introduction, which mainly will be figuring out how much of my main point I want to betray up front. At this point I think I'm going to stick to a bare bones "But because he was a Huguenot, he didn't fully fall in with the traditional Catholic French treatment of the Orient, and therefore he was able to take a much more objective stance on the culture of the Ottomans and Persians" - and not really a big roadmap. My aim for before the weekend is to have all of the restructuring and analytical additions finished, and then before Wednesday to get in the transitions and good introduction, so I have two days to really make sure the argument is coming through and is well prefaced with the introduction, and to write a good conclusion for the whole piece.