It's The End of The [Paper] as We Know It

This video is a summarizes the details and theme of my final paper. I uploaded it to YouTube, and then posted the link to my Facebook wall. The post received several "likes" and I heard from several people personally that they watched it and enjoyed it. I hope you may say the same. Below, you will also find a link to the google doc of my paper.

Final Paper

The Long and Winding Road

In the early stages of conception for my paper I, like many people, had no idea what to write about. Even in the middle stages of conception when things we supposed to be more solidified and serious, I found myself wondering how I was going to put my ideas together. Everyone else was coming up with themes of feminism or some other interesting topic that tied their favorite book to Alice in Wonderland. I quickly chose the topic of a biographical comparison simply because I couldn't think of anything else. I always had the thought “I'll change it later when I think of something better.” After a while though, it didn't seem like I was going to think of anything better.

Out On The Tiles

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Last week I was able to aquire my final stage of social proof. I was feeling pretty confident with where my paper was going and at that point I was on page five. It seemed to me that I was nearing the home stretch. I only had a few more pages to go, and I only needed to go through one more round of social proof. For my "expert" level of social proof, I chose to speak to Dr. Westover, a professor here at BYU. Although he's not a specialist in the topic I am am writing on, he does have a Ph.D. in English, and as a result I found his insights very helpful. I sent him an email and presented my thesis to him and the direction I was going and he responded with several ideas. Here is what he wrote: 

Perpetual Change

As I was working on my paper, I feel like I lost a little of my new found enthusiasm. The task feels daunting once again. I realize that there is still much work ahead of me, but I do take comfort in one thing, and that is the two pages we were required to write and bring in for review a few weeks ago. Looking back at those two pages, I noticed that all of my ideas are very shallow and unfinished. One step I took for this assignment for the 4-5 page draft was to go back and flesh out all of those ideas. Although I have a tad bit of anxiety about how to pull of this paper as a whole, I do feel confident in the ideas I currently have. After they are developed a little more and expanded upon, I'll have a pretty solid portion of my paper. From there it should be easy to continue to develop on the theme of my thesis and keep the ideas flowing. I'm very interested to see where my paper ends up in its finished form.

To Do Lists Are My Favorite

TO DO:

-Re-read book and relax

-Annotate Sources

-Read Former Analyses

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For my paper right now, I need to spend some time reading my book a little closer. Specifically, I need to go to specific sections of my book that I am considering using and read those sections from a more analytical standpoint. And I don't know if I need to just read my book for fun, but it would be therapeutic and relaxing for me to do so, and it  might also contribute to my paper.

The main thing on my to do list, however, in terms of my paper would be to digest the sources I have. I actually have most of the sources that I need, and I may need to do more research, but the sources I have are varied enough to help me make the connections I need. What I really need to do is go through my sources and annotate them. 

Another thing I have to do is read my former papers. I want to go through the literary analyses I wrote earlier this semester and make sure to incorporate the things I didwell as well as improve upon the things I did not do as well on in my last papers. 

Let's See How I'm Doing

From Wikipedia

Well, we're in the homestretch now. I feel like I have a fairly clear idea about what I want to write. I still have a little way to go. Basically, I am going to focus on the Lost Generation in Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises and relate that in some way to Carroll's Alice. At this point, I still need to do some deeper analyzing of my primary text. 

I have a lot of different sources that I need to digest. I feel like I have all of this information, but nowhere to put it. I need to organize my information and probably throw some of it out. Once I get more into the writing process, I think I'll do some more research, but we'll see. At this point, I think I have a lot of what I'll need already.

I've received some good feedback from different people, and I feel like it is enough for now. I'm trying to think of a good question to ask my "expert." I'm also trying to figure out how to get in touch with him. Hopefully, I'll have a more developed idea of what I want to ask by the time I've finished my rough draft on Friday. Once I get writing, I'll get on a roll and then everything will fall into place. I'm excited to get going and I feel more prepared than I have felt before writing previous papers. This week is important and will determine the ultimate tone and direction of my final paper. 

Tally-Ho! A Writing We Will Go

What's next? As we are heading into the end of this week where we have to produce 4-5 more pages of our draft, I am feeling okay. Normally I would be panicking and avoiding my paper, but its really helped that we have done little bits of preparation for this paper these past couple weeks. I really like my thesis right now, and while I'm sure it will get tweaked, I feel very good about what I am going to be writing. What I need to to this week, is to spend some more time with  my sources, and really pick out quotes and evidence to use in my paper. Tori encouraged me to use the Chat with a Librarian thing to find the French Encyclopedia in English that I so desperately want, so I'm definitely going to do that this week. And then I just need to write! And, dare I say it, I'm actually looking forward to writing.

Dazed and Confused

As the time for writing my paper draws near, I find myself reverting back to a state of anxiety and confusion as to how I'm going to pull this task off. I still have a good framework in mind of how I'm going to structure my paper, and what I want to write about, but I know there is a lot lacking. Since I'm doing a biographical comparison of Adams and Carroll based on similarities in their writing, I decided to check out biographies on both of them last week. I've been putting it off, but I know the next step is to start investing serious time to peruse through them and solidify the material I plan on using for my paper. I think I have just about all the feedback I need. More feedback is never a bad thing, but I've been noticing a lot of repetition in the suggestions I've been receiving, so it's apparent to me that I need to just quit stalling and dive right in. The time is now.

What's the next step?

What's next for my paper? Honestly, I think the next step that I need to take is to just start writing. I think I have enough analysis from The Book Thief, I think I have sufficient research (I may need some more specific details with certain myths, but those can be done as I go), and I think I have enough feedback (however, I am going to talk to a librarian specializing in Young Adult literature this week). Other than those few steps that I’m already planning on taking I think I've got a pretty good handle on this paper.

Go for the goals.

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There comes a time, when writing a literary analysis paper, when one must stop and appreciate the progress that has been made, as well as assess what still needs to be done. I have a pretty good handle on what I would like to address in the novel Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine, but now that I have included Fairest (by the same author) in my paper, I feel the need to do some close reading with it. I have only read Fairest once all the way through and so I think I need to take some time to really study it in context of my topic. Also, I think I have several sources that aren't as relevant any more now that I have shifted the direction of my topic. I'd like to replace some of those with fresh sources that are more applicable.

My goals for the rest of this week:

• Complete a close-reading of Fairest by Gail Carson Levine.
• Look again at the sources I have now and incorporate them into my working paper.
• Find which sources that I have already complied aren't working for me with my revised thesis, and replace them with new ones.
• Organize the ordering and structure of my paper in preparation for Friday's half-draft.

Process of Perks Paper

We've come a long way folks. We are getting closer to our goal which a well written and supported paper. It's incredible how all of these steps we have taken toward writing this final draft have really improved our process. With all the feedback, revisions, and suggestions, it has made it a lot easier to finalize my argument. I have a few things left to do. First, I plan to talk to an expert about my paper. Professor Cutchins, also known as Kate's dad, is an instructor here at BYU. He knows a lot about adaptation theory and he even wrote a book about it! I will be contacting him and sharing how far along I am. I think he could really enhance my paper in many ways. Another thing I plan to do is incorporate the primary text more. I have been rereading The Perks of Being a Wallflower to become more familiar with what I had read before. I'm almost done with it again and I have been taking notes on what passages are strong enough to use as evidence. This will definitley help me sort out my sources as well and see which I can incorporate more. Of course, I also want to give way more time to this paper and really focus on developing everything I have been working on. The more time I give, the better this paper will turn out. I can do this! 

What's Up Next For Morrie and Kate

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Credit to ToniVC

For the first time in a while since writing this paper, I know exactly what need to do next. Actually, there are two things.

1. I need to set aside some time to really work on this paper. I have tiny little sessions with it, and I get little specks of work done, but I need to feel like I'm making some progress, and in order to do that, I need to put in the time. Finding it will be the hard part, because this week is going to be absolutely crazy (I can already tell), but it needs to happen.

2. Next, I need to sit down and read some Tuesdays with Morrie. Partially because it relaxes me and re-centers me, which I need, and partially because now that my ideas are starting to gel and become a semi-cohesive argument, it's time to settle in and find some hard evidence in the text. It's time to dig into the primary text again and find what I need.

It's good to have a game plan. Go team!

What Walt Disney Never Told Us

J. Howard Miller's "We Can Do It!" poster from 1943

My favorite way to find enthusiasts is by contacting the authors of articles that have been helpful in my writing process. I wrote an email to one such author expressing my appreciation for her work and explaining how it has enhanced my own paper. Her article explores the male-directed film adaptation of Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine arguing that the film eliminates the feminism that is present in the novel, and also explores feminist fairy tale media in general. I have been researching feminism in Gail Carson Levine's fairy tale adaptations Ella Enchanted and Fairest. This article has inspired me look more closely at why in some parts of the novels, feminism makes way for the sake of the fairy tale. The article's bibliography also led me to several more helpful sources.  I explained to the author I would be citing her article in my paper.

The reply was enthusiastic to say the least. She offered me links to even more related sources, and advice for how to keep things organized. I again expressed my appreciation for the time and effort she was exerting on my behalf. We messaged back and forth on Goodreads until I felt comfortable asking her if she would be interested in reading a few pages from a draft of my paper. Her reply, "I'd love to see a draft of your paper. Thank you again for reaching out."  She often thanks me for "reaching out" and continually mentions how much she appreciates that I found her article, read it, enjoyed it, used it, and asked her questions about it.

deviantart.com

deviantart.com

As a result, she feels a desire, rather than an obligation, to read my paper too and give meaningful feedback. It's amazing what happens when we take the time to care about someone else's work.

The most exciting discovery that I have made recently is an article in The Journal of American Folklore called "Things Walt Disney Never Told Us". This article is the reason I have decided to include Fairest by Gail Carson Levine in my paper about Ella Enchanted because it directly addresses Cinderella and Snow White and the messages they teach society. This is exciting because I have a direction and can really feel the momentum now.

The article explains how the two princesses really aren't people at all when their characters are analyzed. This is going to help support my claim that these two fairy tales oversimplify women and in both cases, Levine restores feminine balance and reality to these stories. 

The Song Remains The Same

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For this week's build to enthusiasts, I went the route of posting on another blog about Watership Down. Fortunately, I did get a response in short amount of time, but unfortunately the author who responded didn't know anything about Lewis Carroll and really had nothing to offer me that I didn't already know. No worries though! It was nice to get a reply. It furthered my faith in the probability of getting feedback through blogging. Here's the conversation:

Robbie

Hi, I just read your post and I admire your enthusiasm for Watership Down. I really liked the insights and quotes from the author your provided from the introduction to the 2005 edition. This book has been among my favorites since a high school teacher first recommended it to me several years ago. Currently I’m working on comparing Watership down to Alice and Wonderland, and I've found several comparisons between the two and they’re a lot more similar than I would have thought. In addition to literary comparisons, I’m doing biographical comparisons between the authors. However, I don’t know how to tie the two parts together to make it an interesting topic. I’m thinking about arguing that the similarities between the two authors is responsible for the similarities of their writing, but I don’t know if it’s strong enough. Do you have an suggestions for an angle I could take, or an interesting way to tie biographical comparisons with literary comparisons? I would appreciate any feedback, or ideas you may have.

Thanks for writing your blog. I’m excited to see what new discoveries I can make here.

Reply

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  March 24, 2014
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  Thanks for your kind comments about my blog and the Watership Down post. I am intrigued by your work on comparing the book with Alice in Wonderland and investigating the common themes of the authors’ lives. I know next to nothing about Lewis Carroll, so I can’t help at all there! Richard Adams, however, has given many interviews and, of course, there is his autobiography for research sources. Please check back in to let me know about your progress!
Fortunately, I still had a lot of time left to find feedback so I posted on another blog that was comparing Tolkien's Lord of the Rings with Watership Down. Perfect! I explained how I was also doing a literary comparison and asked specific questions about how my thesis and topic could be improved. Unfortunately, I received no rely and seem to be in about the same position as I was before. However, I remain optimistic that I will get some good feedback in the next few days (hopefully also from my peers who have yet to comment and give feedback on my previous post *cough *cough.)

Thank Goodness for Encyclopedias!

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Before I get to my research and my new-found love for encyclopedias, my new working thesis deserves an introduction. Recently I was introduced to several other ideas about how I could possibly compare The Book Thief to Alice in Wonderland. One of them led to me an article one of those Sparknotes-type websites, where I found a comparison that changed how I thought about my comparison to the two novels. This article described the Queen of Hearts as the Goddess of Death. That made me wonder if there would be some way to compare the Queen of Hearts in the same way that I’m comparing the narrator Death. Could the Queen of Hearts be compared to past interpretations if I portrayed her as a Goddess of Death? Could she be compared to the female representations of death found throughout the world? If I could do that, how would she then compare to Death, the narrator? What type of contrast would that include?

Over The Hills And Far Away

Expedition of Columbus

I had a very productive day at the library doing further research for new sources to incorporate into my topic. While spending two hours in the library searching for new biographical sources I could use to support my thesis, I not only felt like Christopher Columbus sailing around the world, I came up with the idea to include the literary movements of each author as part of my analysis. This led me to books on Modernism and the Victorian Era which characterize Adams and Carroll respectively. Here is the latest version of my thesis statement included in my introductory paragraph:

"Everyday, individuals all over the world are experiencing new things. These experiences shape the way these individuals think, and contribute largely to who they are. The same is especially true of writers. A writer's environment plays a major role in the perspective he takes when writing a novel. As seen in the examples of Richard Adams and Lewis Carroll, the similarity in their country of origin, family background, and social status all play a significant role in the similar themes and ideas these writers convey to their audiences, as evident throughout each of their texts."

The following is a list comprising my annotated bibliography:

Dancing In The Dark

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This is my working thesis and a two page draft of my thoughts up to this point. It's much less of a draft and more of my pre-write. I like to think of it as my thoughts and outline in paragraph form, which has made it very easy to start conceptualizing my paper. These ideas are all incomplete and are to be fleshed out in greater detail, but they should provide enough direction to know where I'm going with my topic. That being said, I'd like to get some more direction and feedback. I have a lot of good comparison to make, but does my paper really offer anything to the academic community? To find the answer to that question, I want ask a couple more.

1. What other direction/angle could I take in addition to the biographical approach?

2. How can I present the literary comparison based on biographical background in such a way as to make it interesting to my audience and provide real stakes of argumentation?

Welcome to the Real World.

Logo from goodreads.com

I have been on Goodreads exploring different reviews that members have written about the YA novel Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine. I stumbled upon an extensive review with a link to a whole article on feminism in Ella Enchanted. I was pretty excited, because it relates really well to the ideas I have been exploring for my literary analysis paper. I messaged the author of the article (a college student from Pace University) to thank her for her helpful article and asked her if she had any thoughts about feminism in Young Adult Literature specifically in fairy tales. She responded to me in literally 20 minutes:

"Hi Tori! Thanks for getting in touch. It's so nice to know people still find that review on here and actually read the article..."

She went on to give me links to several more articles and her thoughts about my topic. Wow. That was so helpful and it happened so fast. Plus, it was so easy. People really do wan
t to talk to me about my little paper! I was blown away by her eagerness.

I also have an old Facebook group from a class last fall semester and we have kept it going this semester even though we are all in different classes now. I don't know the people very well, all I know is that that are a little bit nerdy and have a lot of great thoughts about my ideas. This Facebook group I have quite honestly ignored for the past few months has become a great resource. 

I have also been looking for ways I can get my paper out to people who might care about reading it after I finish writing it. I had no idea that there were so many ways to publish undergrad essays online! I am very grateful for this informative blog post about how to find authentic audiences for my work, even while I am still a student. It has been very motivating.

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First of all, I am definitely going to submit my work to the BYU repository called the ScholarsArchive because it accepts any kind of student research. It would be a cool place to be published since I am attending school at BYU and I'd feel like I was leaving my mark here. 

I would also love to submit to the International Student Journal because I love the variety of topics and the range of research that they accept. People from all over the world can submit to this journal. I think my paper about YA literature, feminism, and gender roles will find a home there.

This blog: Interesting Literature is calling for any papers on literary analysis which is exactly the kind of paper I'm working on right now. This is one of my favorite options becuase I feel like guest blogging is more low-key. I feel pressure to write something worth reading, but I am not overwhelmed by the formal elements of a journal submission.

Chris on Flickr: shutterhacks

This blog: PURM is more geared toward bloggers who want to discuss the process of undergrad research. This isn't one that I could submit my paper to but it is something that is beginning to interest me. It makes so much sense for us to be looking for authentic audiences now while I am a student, and yet, I have never done it before. Why haven't I? I've decided it comes down to two things: fear and ignorance. I'm afraid of an authentic audience and I haven't bothered to learn how to find them. It's much more comfortable to settle for a contrived audience.

But no more. 

Real life is beginning. Undergrad researchers of the universe, are you with me?!

Regaining Composure

Things are getting out of control.

There is way too much going on in my brain. There was more going on than I even realized. Mapping it out was so simple, but so helpful for me because I didn't realize how separate some of my ideas were. I know that I need to eliminate the thoughts that aren't helping my ideas multiply. Also, I realize there were a lot of ideas that did connect that I didn't realize were connected. 

It's easy to see that I have too much going on.

I think I've narrowed it down to the main themes of control and feminism and how they are connected. I am steering away from Alice in Wonderland and will focus more on Ella's world using general examples from other texts.

So here is my shell of a paper.

Death - Past and Present

I've had all of these ideas about Death (in The Book Thief) and how the past/present representation of death led up to the creation of Death and how both of them have contributed to our more recent representations of death. So, I decided to create a web with as many representations as I could think of off the top of my head.

My chaotic web

I started by finding the basic traits or actions of each of the outside representations and then I tried to see if they connected at all with Death, the narrator. I found that all of them fit fairly well, with the exception of two. The horseman, Death, from the book of Revelations and the Grim Reaper portrayed on The Simpsons. They were too emotionless, too cruel. Death as a narrator is neither. However, I would like to include the horseman, simply because it brings in a religious aspect and it would be another common example that is well-known, rather than Thanatos, who is not as well-known.

This web also solidified my use of present representations. Before I was unsure of how to insert them into my ideas, but now I could use them to explain how the past representations and the narrator, Death have contributed to our current ideas about death as a character. It’s a chaotic web, but it was very useful.

I've got a lot of research materials that can help me find more representations of death to use. They are listed at the bottom of my paper shell.