Junior Theme: A Look Back

So now that I'm essentially done with Junior Theme, I thought I'd write a blog post documenting some of the things I took away from the experience. For simplicity purposes, I'll arrange them in a list so each point can be clearly distinguishable.

1. The real challenge behind the Junior Theme isn't what most people would think it is. It has to do with the way research is incorporated, or synthesized into the paper. For me, the research process went along great - with databases like JSTOR and proquest, and a library entirely full of books, I was able to find all the information I needed to satisfy the four arguments that compose my thesis. The real challenge was incorporating them all simultaneously. With so many sources, as soon as I read one, I forgot one of the old ones. And not only that, but I had to find the exact parts from each source that worked with one another and find a way to fluidly insert them into my paper. Once I did that, the writing/editing process was significantly easier.

2. The interview is very important. What happened with me was that after I had gathered all of my sources together, I still had a few areas that were unclear to me. Sometimes, it was just a discrepancy in the information, but other times I couldn't think of the missing link that connected one point to another. This is where the interview comes in. With the interview, I was able to formulate the questions myself, meaning I was able to ask questions that would fill in the dots where I needed it. Especially if the person you are interviewing is knowledgeable, he/she can be an enormous help in giving you the missing link or just suggestions for where to go with your paper. After my interview, I began to approach my paper completely differently, because he placed more emphasis and credibility on some areas than others, which steered me in the right direction.

3. And finally, I learned that getting my ideas on paper and formulating a rough draft is incredibly important. Usually when I write essays, I take forever to write the rough draft, and then I hardly make any changes for the final draft. This is what I started out doing in my paper, and for the first 3 and a half paragraphs I must have spent 6-7 hours. Fortunately, with the rough draft deadline approaching so quickly, I was forced to sit down and finish my paper in a relatively short amount of time. Instead of focusing on the details, I focused on the big picture ideas, my arguments, and how they related back to my thesis. As I was looking over it the next day, I realized how glad I was that I had finished the hard part. In my mind, editing is easier than writing from scratch, so it was a huge relief to get to the final stages of my paper.

What do you think? Did you come across any of the same ideas that I did while writing your paper?