Final Progress on Paper

I will admit that I was fearing the review of my rough draft and its return.  I fully expected to see my paper marked beyond recognition.  The truth is, it wasn't nearly as ugly as I anticipated.  I actually enjoyed the comments and corrections.  For me, the most fearful aspect of writing a paper is that I don't fully have the confidence to know if I am going about it correctly.  Having the opportunity to turn in the rough draft and get some much needed feedback is crucial for me.  I wish I had this opportunity with all my papers.

So, in order to finish my paper, I have a much better idea about what direction to go.  Without the dread of thinking I would need to start over, I can move forward and get it finished.  I truly appreciate the expertise we have been given about writing a paper.  Learning how to research, outline, and cite correctly has been the greatest help for me.  I realize I need to continue working on this.  The best advise so far has been to break the paper down into pieces I can handle and then schedule working on it. 

Progress on Paper

My topic of Medieval Europe definitely had to be narrowed down to something I could handle.  I became totally overwhelmed by the amount of information that was available about the Catholic church in the Middle Ages.  I really enjoyed reading what I had found, but soon realized I had spent way too much time on reading and not really making any progress on the paper.  Upon great advice, I decided to focus on the buying and selling of indulgences in the Catholic church during this time period.  This seems to be a much more manageable topic to research.

While I am pleased about narrowing the topic of this paper, the research is still a bit much for an amateur researcher and writer as myself.  I had really hoped to be much further along with the rough draft at this point, but I still get sidetracked with the research.  I have found the outline method to be incredibly helpful.  I realize most of my fellow students probably don't need this, but it was a great suggestion for me.  Thank goodness for the due dates on this project!  It certainly does help to take it smaller sections that I can manage.  I am looking forward to the getting the rough draft turned in and get some feedback on it.  

Paper Topic

I have selected the topic of Medieval Europe as research for my paper.  More specifically, I plan to explore corruption in the Catholic church and it's effects throughout Europe.  This is a very interesting topic to me and one I would like to become more familiar with, especially since I am a practicing Catholic.  I am often reminded of this period of time within the church and hope to be better informed about the real impacts this had on Europeans as well as the global community.

The paper so far has been a little slow while I attempted to narrow my topic and discover areas of research.  I do look forward to visiting the McCain Library and learning about accessing sources of information.  I am excited about learning new skills within the Cook Library as well and getting started on the outline of my paper.  The outline could prove to be very helpful to an amateur researcher and writer like myself.  Here's to a fun start!