Week 11: Using Research to Enter the Conversation
Considering the value of literary scholarship
You now have a working title and general idea for your working conference paper. Now you want to widen your net by further exploring what conversations are already taking place (or perhaps not taking place) regarding your chosen subject.
Joining Conversations About Literature
All literary scholarship is part of a larger conversation between scholars who use previous scholarship and theoretical frameworks to provide a different take or perspective on a literary text. The initial step to entering that conversation is first reading what others have written.
Your Prompt for Week 11
Use the scholarship we’ve read so far and any additional materials you may find to explore these questions. (And don’t forget to cite your sources! Substack has a very handy footnote tool just for that purpose.)
What has your research process been like so far regarding your working conference paper?
What sources have you found so far? What do you hope to find? What has the general conversation been like regarding your topic, and how (and what) can you contribute?
Let your writing and formatting reflect your personality and self presentation, but also make sure your readership can follow along. And once again, be sure to cite!
After you post, don’t forget to read your peers’ posts and comment on at least two of them during the week.
My process has been fairly smooth. I had an idea right out of the gate, and it has served as a great blueprint and starting point for my research. I have made a lot of different connections and tapped into a few different sources. I found a piece on how to write a sports memoir, as well as a few sports memoirs themselves. I have also tapped into both fictional and non-fiction sports writings as examples, and looked up a few different things about sequencing and storytelling.