Then and Now

So. Ya'll. I just want you to know that whenever I feel the urge to say that word, I really really wish I was from the South.  (That was so not relevant to this blog post at all.) Just so ya'll know.
But to get down to real business. Anyone out there ever been a college student? Or a high school student? Or written a research paper? Or any kind of paper? Well, I have been (or done) all of those things, and I have something to say:
IT IS TIME TO EVALUATE THE WAY WE WRITE PAPERS!! I am tired of the age old model- I want more than just to take an assigned topic, search for sufficient scholarly quotes to support my claim, and then chuck some words on a page. That is what I did all of winter semester, and it was painful. Luckily, I've learned a few things since then. Mostly that any terrible experience that I have is probably my fault. (After all, I am the one that decides just how I write my papers.) Aside from that, though, I really have seen a change in my perspective on the good ol' 10 pager. Let me explain just what I mean by sharing the following story:

I will never forget how that felt-- hunched at the kitchen table, staring at my laptop,  my roommates sprawled on living room couches with thick textbooks. It was getting late, and I was getting emotional... Every passing minute seemed to tell me how POINTLESS that paper was. There was no purpose, no passion, no applicable audience to which I could write a paper about dumb tone and voice in an old British play. And that is when I lost it. After rambling to my roomies about my disappointment in the English discipline and how I had begun to doubt my chosen major, I buckled down and wrote the paper. What else could I have done?

Her Here is the answer to my own question! Here is what I could have done:

• I probably could have started a bit earlier. Two or three days is really not enough time to write a good paper. Maybe if our teacher had given us more than a four day deadline, things would have been different.....
• I could have picked a more personal topic. With the most recent paper I wrote, called "Confession Spells P-O-W-E-R", I picked a topic that I considered relevant to me and the age in which we live. HELPFUL.
• I could have discussed that topic with my roommates, friends, family, etc. rather than just whining about it. I was able to do this on several different occasions during my term in English 295, whether in a lengthy discussion with my cousin or a short exchange between my little sister and I. I could even have asked for some written thoughts from classmates, like the brilliant insights I received from Sam Jenkins and MaKenna Phillips.
• When I started to feel numb from reading and writing so much, I could've poked around some topic-related multimedia. It may not change the academic direction of my paper, but then again, it just might! This also provides cultural ties to my topic and adds to my personal depth of understanding. Here is an example of how I did that for the Scarlet Letter.
• After doing some work on my own time, I could have contacted scholars and experts to ask for feedback on my ideas. This was CRUCIAL to my research about online confession and the Scarlet Letter. In fact, I was very surprised throughout the term about just how much this shaped and improved my ideas. Though I sometimes had to reconsider my topic altogether, it was really helpful to receive outside perspectives from intelligent contacts, such as my former English teacher, or a Swedish scholar like Magnus Ullen.
• Heck, I could've even started a blog about my research process! Why not? The blog I started this term, Go Placidly Amidst English 295, has been a good progress marker and helped me to work consistently rather than leaving all my research to the final hour. Yay blogs!

Yet, after all of those reformations in the writing process, I still prefer the 10 page paper as my end result. I blogged, discussed, asked for feedback, talked to scholars, messed with media, and had a great time, and that came together into a beautiful Word document not too unlike the one I hated so badly last semester. When it comes down to it, there is nothing like throwing yourself into a full-length paper. It's a love-hate thing, one that I'd like to keep around for a while longer. Next time I write a paper, I'll use the research processes that I learned this term to produce the most stellar paper that ever graced the eyes of a traditional scholar. Oh Yeah :)