Mar
23
Freshmen paper Analysis
Filed Under Final Papers
Freshmen Paper Analysis
While reading the freshmen paper drafts I mostly focused on content and whether or not the author used convincing arguments and evidence (over personal assumptions) to back their thesis. I know that this assignment was a very broad assignment so that they could choose anything as a topic, but I think that some should have thought more about their topics.
For example, the author of the Cater in the Rye paper says that “the youths’ connection with the book was cause for great concern with parents and school boards around the country due to the mature subject matter of the novel.” This is nice, but the author used no evidence to back this up, so it reads like an assumption or for the most part “hearsay.” Along with this comment, I felt the overall argument was interesting but not enough has been document to prove it. It was a conspiracy theory disguised as a freshmen seminar paper. I would have liked to see more data. Maybe some quotes from interviews with the killer or some quote from the defense lawyer.
Following the content theme I turned to the author of “Funny Girls.” This was an interesting piece but I thought it was full of options. I know that it was an option piece overall but I thought that going deeper into the material for specific examples would have helped the author build a stronger case. Overall, the author takes the stand that teenage girl novels use comedy to explain and share embarrassing rites of passages. Also this servers another function of helping girls through the pains of growing up knowing that other women have gone through the same things, a sort of therapy for young women. Even though the author discusses examples of these comedic “traumas” they do not give their personal relationship to that example. Maybe they didn’t have one, but it obviously had some lasting effect on them. I wanted the author to explore that deeper. Maybe include some examples they did relate too when they were younger.
The other two papers were better with their content. Both were well written and used sources to back claims. In the paper about escapism I would have liked to see more examples of the Harry Potter sections but that was my only comment other than grammar and sentence follow problems. The final paper I edited was the paper about the young adults and the absent of adults caused them to grow up faster. I think that this paper interesting because it presented a new topic that I had never really thought about. I never thought of motivations behind Harry Potter and other young characters being forced to grow up and take on adult roles. This used several different sources and it was well written and thought provoking.
Overall, the papers were good. They had interesting topics, some of which needed to be focused into a more specific thesis. But still the topics were imaginative and new. Stuff I had never thought about and with a little more evidence and less personal assumptions I think these papers could get excellent reviews.