Writing About Writing: On Using Sources to Support my Argument

One very important thing which I have learned in other English classes, but have really brought home in this class, is efficiently using my sources to support my argument in a paper. This idea was introduced to me long ago, but I've always struggled with finding the right balance between my voice and the source's voice. I often would allow my sources to be the main voice in my argument, rather than my voice leading the conversation while my sources exist in my paper just to back that voice up. I'd always get very overwhelmed when looking for sources because I'd find journals or essays which made such excellent points which I'd like to make in my paper, but this always ended in me being overwhelmed because I couldn't find a way to use all of the wonderful sources I'd found. I'd even cite some sources that I never directly quoted in my paper just because they helped me to formulate my argument even if I didn't use them to support my argument. With my final project, and with many of the response papers I've written for this class, I think I finally found the right way to balance my voice with my sources. My voice is leading the argument in these papers, with the source just existing in the paper to support my voice.

 The most difficult part of accomplishing this was trying to figure out exactly what the focus of my argument actually was. I had an idea which was very inspirational to me, but figuring out how to get what was in my head onto the paper was a little bit difficult initially. This made it hard to give proper exposition to the quotes which I used in my paper, but I found that once I finally just got started, then my argument started to come together. The stronger my argument got, the easier it was to find supportive quotes for my paper and the exposition of them came to me easily once I found that I was simply supporting an argument which I have kind of been making in papers and blog comments since the beginning of this class.

I definitely think that my final project was a culmination of ideas I've had since about the second week of class that have only grown and become stronger through all of the materials we've read. I definitely owe much of my argument to many of our readings from this class. The argument I made was ultimately my idea and many of my main points came from things I've learned from my 6 years of being an "official" feminist, but the materials we've read throughout this class have only further cemented those ideas. I think this is apparent in my final paper. It has been very interesting to watch these ideas grow throughout this class and turn into piece of work of which I am very proud.