I'm finding this research paper to be a lot harder than I expected. Unlike other research papers I've done in the past, this one actually requires that I make a new contribution to the topic and to develop my own ideas. My question was: Why has Marietta Holley's name disappeared while Mark Twain's name remains immortal for generations to come? Is there a difference between the humor they wrote that may have contributed to ones rise and the other's downfall? My thesis was that Gender is the dominant factor in determining the reputation of a literary humorist for so and so reasons. Surprisingly, there were many secondary sources that have already this question in great detail. Nancy Walker has even written a book on it: A Very Serious Thing Women's Humor in American Culture. Charlotte Templin even goes into detail the differences between Twain and Holley in Marietta Holley and Mark Twain: Cultural-Gender Politics and Literary Reputation.
The problem was not finding sources to support my argument, but I couldn't think of anything new that I could add to their arguments. I felt like everything had been said and in great detail. In the words of Kristin Fujie, "[I found] the secondary sources a little too helpful, such that they hijack your thought process completely, turning your paper into a rehash of their arguments." The kind of research papers I'm used is to the kind where you research a topic and reaffirm the information in a paper.
I started to panic, because I didn't want to just throw all my research away. I frantically tried to think of a new fresh thesis that would still find my sources helpful. This was hard since my thoughts kept coming back to information that I already knew. Well after dinner with friends, a long casual talk with my mom, and a long shower, I finally found a working thesis: Though Holley's popularity reached heights comparable to Twain's, I propose that her humorous writings were simply not taken seriously because she was a woman. Though women and men alike enjoyed her writing and found her novels amusing, they were simply laughing at her and not necessarily with her. Sure she's witty, but how far can we take literature written by a woman?
I'm not sure my sources would agree with me, but this is the contribution I'm making and I'm sticking to it! Well hopefully you guys didn't run into the same problem I did.
*Fugie, Kristin. "Navigating Secondary Sources Basic Maneuvers." UC Berkeley English N1B. 2008.
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2 comments:
I had the same problem you did. When I was reading my sources and writing the annotated bibliography, I was also trying to formulate a thesis. Perhaps as a side effect of reading my sources and thinking about my thesis at the same time, I kept coming back to arguments very close to what were discussed in the sources I read. Fortunately now that I've had more time to think things over I've come up with something more interesting than what I imagined while writing the bibliography.
I also had the same problem you did, because at first, every source I read I agreed with! Once I started to look closely, I began to agree with some arguments more than others. But I still ran into the problem of how to incorporate an argument I agreed with into my own unique argument. I have ended up using my secondary sources' arguments as just more evidence for my own argument. Thus, my argument is an extension of theirs.
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