It all began with some constructive criticism on a. And many months—and many emails—later, I would take the criticism and construct my Project II.
THE MAKING OF PROJECT II
The Closing Comments on my Final Paper
(That would later serve as my original source for this Project II assignment)
"I’ll open with some criticism: I think this paper involves problems with both content and structure. There are places, flagged above, at which I think you misinterpret or misconstrue Kitcher’s points. And somewhere in the middle of the paper, your rather clear goal of arguing that WOS depends on a worked out account of purity and unity, seems to get lost in the shuffle. Instead, you find yourself arguing about the special importance of the tyranny of the ignorant.
However, this paper was ambitious, creative, and showed the sort of excited engagement with the content on which the very best philosophy depends. It was fun and refreshing to see someone try to bring some novel criticism to bear on the content of the course, rather than to read another paper that just regurgitated the same old stuff we’ve talked through in class. Good work. Of all the papers I received, this is the only one I think has enough meat to it to bother revising any further. I think if you wanted to make a project of it, you could refine this paper into something publishable in one of the many undergraduate journals of philosophy out there. There are, as I noted above, some serious problems here. But you also do original, substantive, creative work. That’s such a rarity. Well done."
-Damian Wassal, Graduate Student Instructor
THE EARLY
EMAILS
December 16th, 2015 at 8:33PM
Hi Damien,
I just wanted to tell you how much i appreciate you taking the time to make comments on my final paper. As I said before, i'm sill trying to get the hang of philosophy in general, though especially writing, and your constructive criticism has been immensely helpful. None of my instructors have ever given me such constructive criticism before, and it has really made me want to better myself. I sincerely appreciate the time you have taken to help me and truly feel like I cannot thank you enough. Anyways, I hope you have a wonderful break!
Best,
Danielle
Danielle,
You're more than welcome. Students like you are a pleasure to teach. Please reach out to me if there's any way I can help you in the future. Seriously, if you need someone to look over a draft or help you figure out a philosophical question, feel free to ask.
All the best,
Damian
December 18th, 2015 at 6:56PM
At this point I was already thinking of when I would have time to revise the paper. I was exceedingly excited that someone I found so bright saw promise in my work. Then, the below messages happened and I nearly cried of happiness...
December 20th, 2015 at 6:08PM
December 19th, 2015 at 4:22PM
December 19th, 2015 at 5:22PM
Danielle,
I'll be posting exam scores later today but I wanted to let you know that you received an A/A- grade of 93.75 (one of the best grades in my section.)
More importantly, I wanted to let you know that your exam was one of the most well organized, clearly written, carefully structured exams I've ever read. It displayed clear forethought, planning, and even a little bit of style.
I reiterate: You've got a good head for this philosophy thing. It's clear that you see the relationships between arguments, objections, and replies, and even more importantly, you grasp how these things fit into the larger picture of the paper/author/view we're discussing.
Have a lovely break. Keep up the good work.
-Damian Wassel
Actually, it was the BEST grade in my section. Well done.
-Damian Wassal
Hi Damien,
Wow. Well, firstly, THANK YOU. I am so unbelievably elated i do not even know how to express it. Believe it or not this time last year I thought I wanted to go to medical school, interning and doing research and so forth. I was simultaneously just scraping by in my calculus and chemistry courses, and while my struggles mainly stemmed from an overwhelming disinterest, I started to recognize that perhaps I ought to reconsider my studies.
So, I took a philosophy class and fell in love, but considering philosophy as a serious option has been difficult due to my family's lack of understanding and, thereby, lack of support. However, loving it so much lead me to take this 381 course, and I am so thankful I did. Your previous email means more to me than you may ever know. It has reaffirmed my choice to pursue my actual interests and for that I cannot thank you enough. Truly.
Anyways, I hope you have a great break! I definitely plan on keeping in touch and hope you will do the same! I'd love to chat anytime.
Best,
Danielle
P.S. I plan on revising that Final Paper at some point in the near future.
Needless to say, this project had been on my mind for months prior to recieving the Project II prompt in my writing class. But what I didn’t know is that the project would not be anywhere close to what I thought it would be. It would be far more complex.
But it would also be far more wonderful.
So what was the project exactly? Well, the prompt for this course was to revise an old, original piece to repurpose with a specific audience and publication venue in mind. The project parked in the back of my mind was virtually identical: to revise my final paper from an old philosophy class in order to publish it in an undergraduate philosophy journal. My GSI had told me that he found the ideas original and insightful, worthy of reworking for a larger purpose. So, I wrote a project PROPOSAL, ready to revise and repurpose.
What I was not ready to do was reimagine.
What did I find myself having to do? You guessed it: reimagine.
The entire project II quickly became something much more difficult than I had initially anticipated. When revisiting my ORIGINAL SOURCE, the old philosophy paper, I realized just how much work I had to do. The comments by GSI had made, which can be found at the top of this page, were inspiring but here’s the thing: I only focused on the second half, the praise. I took all of what he said and understood it to mean that I am brilliant and can just expand on my brilliance. Easy. However, I somehow ignored some important information.
You see, he was really, really serious when he said that the paper involves “problems with both content and structure.” My brain was all over the place in this paper. The ideas were there, but they were not entirely argued for as I had hoped, leaving me with much more work to be done than I thought. I was under the impression that most of my work to be done would be expansive rather than some serious editorial and investigative work. This realization led to more research; and resultantly, quite an extensive ANTICIPATED ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY.
But I took this as inspiration. I started seriously researching and investigating, and over spring break I managed to write 15 pages of what I believed was quality material. I decided to meet with my old professor to look at my paper with him as well as to simply discuss the material, to ensure I was on the right track.
Apparently I was not.
In a mere 20 minutes, my professor managed to derail half of my argument. He told me to cut out nearly 8 pages. About half of my paper was gone. Want to know the best part about all of this? The project was due in less than a week, and my aim was to half 15-20 pages in total so as to meet the requirements for most undergraduate journals. This is when I took T’s suggestion and made a serious and strict PRODUCTION PLAN.
In short, that week was full of late nights and lengthy periods of sitting. But I somehow I managed to draft a FINAL paper of which I could be proud. In the end it was all well worth it.