Signed, Sealed, Delivered

Remember those TED talks we used to watch in classes, and still sometimes do. Those were some of the most interesting and effective speeches and presentations that I have seen. I decided to watch some TED talks and try to make my presentation as interesting as theirs.

Ken Robinson's TED talk "Do Schools Kill Creativity?" is regarded as one of the best speeches ever given on TED.

What I realized is that their speeches are a series of stories. Now, I can’t simply tell stories, because the College Board will destroy me for that (see title of Ken Robinson’s speech above). So I decided to convert my literature review into a story, but keep the basic structure of the other parts of my paper the same. I had to rewrite and reorganize my entire literature review in a way that I could show the academic gap and context around the question, while still “tying evidence to claims” as the College Board’s rubric wants.

Like I said, my literature review was the only part of my paper that really needed to be modified for my presentation. The other three sections in my paper followed a similar structure in my speech. But, in order to satisfy Rubric Row 3, I decided to add an entire section talking about my original hypothesis/ideas and how they were changed/challenged by my results. Another thing that I added was a terrible story at the beginning of the presentation which I am hoping to use to hook my audience. It is supposed to be funny, but if you don’t find it funny, please just say so—it is not really a necessary part of my presentation, I was just hoping to add some flavor to my presentation (for Rubric Row 4).

My biggest concerns for my script is its length. I currently have around 2800 words, which I think is too much for 15 minutes, so please feel free to point out any places that are unnecessary or too wordy. Also, I am worried that because I know so much about my topic, that my speech could be too confusing. So again, if you feel like I am missing some parts or claims, just point it out and I will try my best to fix it.

Overall, I am very happy that we have moved on from our paper. Although my paper is not perfect, I think my paper is still a lot better than it was two weeks ago, thanks to all the feedback I got from my peers. Although I am extremely nervous for the presentation, I can’t wait for that day to come so it can all be over!

Word Count: 444

Papers and Cars Getting Wrecked

Last week was bitter-sweet: bitter in that I realized there my paper is terrible, sweet in that I have hopefully fixed most of the holes. My paper was destroyed and completely wrecked, like this car:

As I had expected, most of the biggest concerns were with my results and discussion. My results section was too wordy, repetitive, and confusing. I had tried to explain every single nuance that I found with my thematic analysis. However, after talking with Mrs. Haag and reading my feedback, I found that it was not necessary that I talk about every single nuance of every single theme. Now, I have condensed my results section to less than half the length of the original. Now that my results section is much more concise, hopefully my results will be easier to understand, and hopefully they don’t look like this:

My discussion section also faced a lot of backlash last week. A lot of the feedback focused on a paragraph where I made unsubstantiated claims and conclusions about the complexity of anime. I moved that paragraph and integrated it into the future research section of my discussion, because I realized that part was out of the scope of this paper. Instead, I replaced that part of my discussion with connections back to the literature review. I connected (or at least I tried to) my results to the studies of previous researchers and to the significance of the overall academic research. I’m just hoping that they are not in as bad of a shape as this:

I think that I have a pretty good handle on the first 3-4 rows of the rubric. These parts of my rubric pertain more to the literature review and the methods, which have been looked over and revised several times, and I am confident that these parts are a lot more solid and well written. It is the last few rows of the rubric that I need to work on. I included only one picture in my paper, and row 7 requires that there be multiple diagrams to enhance credibility of the author. So I will probably add at least one more diagram—a thematic flow chart—to my paper.  Row 5 and 6 deal with my methods and discussion, and I am afraid that since I have only had them read once, that they are still quite raw. I am mostly not sure about how I have showed the significance in my discussion section. The purpose of my question was to find WHAT the thematic changes between American and Japanese anime are, and this question was easily answered in the results section because all it required was a list of the thematic changes. However, in my discussion section, I try to explore the significance of the themes I find and their importance to the academic field as well as other significance. This is the part where I still need to work on.

Regarding the presentation, I don’t feel to bad about the content and slides of it, I am confident that I will have a decent script and slideshow. What I am more nervous about is the actual presentation, but again, we will have plenty of time to practice it, so I should not fear. There is nothing about the presentation that I am really unclear about, I really just want to get that daunting presentation over with. We are so close to finishing, I can’t wait!

Word Count: 573

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

BOOM! 4,996 words of pure perfection. 4,996 words of brilliance. 4,996 words of sleepless nights. 4,996 words of blood and tears. Ok—maybe not the last one—but the other three are definitely spot on. Anyways, my paper is so beautiful, so perfect, that I really don’t see any point in writing this blogpost. But, if I don’t write a blogpost, Mrs. Haag would kill me. I am still young and have a bright future ahead, so, I guess I just have to find something wrong with my paper. Well that’ll be hard.

I like to start with the bad news first. It took me a very long time to find the following flaws and weaknesses in my paper, so please bear with me here. I believe my biggest flaws to be in my results and discussion. I have included a lot of information into my results section, detailing every single manifestation of the different overall thematic differences between dubbed and subtitled anime. I fear that the amount of information that I included is overwhelming and confusing. If I were to provide a visual representation in my results, it would most likely be a table consisting of the different themes and their sub-themes/manifestations. But I do not even know if the table will be useful or more hurtful if I include it in my paper.

Regarding my discussion section, I am not sure if I properly answered my question. It is not that I didn’t answer my question, it's more whether or not the way I answered my question in my discussion section is actually easy to understand. I especially need feedback on my “Answering the Question” section of my discussion section.

So close yet so far.

Now onto the parts of my paper that are good: all the parts that are not bad. Jk. Jk. Jk. I’ll take this seriously now. I think that the strongest parts of my paper are in my literature review and my methods. Obviously these parts of my paper are the strongest because they are the ones that I have been working on the longest and I have edited the most. My strong parts in my literature review are in how I introduce my academic gap for my question and also how I provide the context for the academic gap.

In all seriousness, my paper definitely needs a lot of workshopping—especially our two more recent sections. These next few weeks editing the paper will be a critical and hard task. But, we are almost there and only one more month until we are done.

Word count: 428

"I Missed on Purpose"

So, we lost the Seniors v. Teachers (more like the Seniors/Juniors v. Teachers + Mr. Haag) basketball game. But at least it was fun…I guess…. Never fear, there’s always next year…oh wait.

Can we make it best to three?

On the bright side, I finished my results section, but it was just toooooooo loooooooong. 1425 words?!?!?! My entire paper is already at 4800 words. Please kill me. Good news is that I know some places in my methods and literature review where I can cut down my word count by around 400-500 words. I’ll probably find some way to cut down my results too. Bad news? I have no idea how long my discussion section is going to be. But it will all work out at the end, right? (I’m really sorry if you like your bad news before your good news).

Anyways, let's start with my (VERY) basic overview of my discussion section. I will be referencing the following three sources:

1. Donald, Ralph R. “Antiwar Themes In Narrative War Films: Soldiers' Experiences As Social Comment.” Studies in Popular Culture, vol. 13, no. 2, 1991, pp. 77–92.
2. Weakland, John H. “Themes in Chinese Communist Films.” American Anthropologist, vol. 68, no. 2, 1966, pp. 477–484. New Series
3. Bongjin Cho et al. “Cultural Values Reflected in Theme and Execution: A Comparative Study of U.S. and Korean Television Commercials.” Journal of Advertising, vol. 28, no. 4, 1999, pp. 59–73.

The first two sources, I will use to discuss the basic layout and guidelines of a typical discussion section of a thematic analysis paper. The third source will be used for my conclusions.

In his paper, Ralph Donald’s conclusion is simple, but lacks lots of connections. Donald found 4 different antiwar themes through his thematic analysis. But in his discussion he only explains why these antiwar themes exist but not how they correlate with each other. John Weakland, on the other hand, does not give the same broad conclusion that Donald had. However, Weakland does give a very detailed explanation of the contradictions and the connections between all of his themes. Obviously, I want to synthesize the structure of the two sources in my discussion section. So the following is the outline of the overall flow and content of my discussion section:

1. I will first discuss any interesting connections that I find within my themes
1. I will provide a visual aid in the form of a thematic map
2. My conclusion based on my results
1. First I will compare my results to Cho Bongjin et al. to show that the thematic changes follow common cultural differences between America and Japan
1. However there is no loss in complexity, these changes are too insignificant, minute, or small to significantly impact the overall thematic structure/content of the anime
2. Then I will compare my results to previous studies that hypothesized that anime lost its complexity and thematic properties during the dubbing process
3. Significance
1. These themes re-emphasize and shed new light on the cultural differences between American and Japanese values
1. Individualism v. Collectivism
2. Also, these themes show the inherent/basic values in collectivist and individualistic societies
3. Perhaps the most important is that these themes can be used with future research studies to give more specific examples of the thematic differences between a dubbed and original/subtitled anime.
4. Limitations
1. Even if the themes listed here were changed, it does not mean that every aspect of these themes themselves were changed during the dubbing process
2. The thematic analysis was subjective, so the thematic differences can be subject to change
3. The three anime used, although culturally important in America, don’t necessarily represent all of the anime that has been brought to America
5. Future Research
1. My literature review was organized in a way where I posed a broader question: Why do American audiences find anime to be appealing because of its themes, even after there are thematic changes during the dubbing process?
1. My research was posed as the first step of answering the overall question, so the next step would be to find what themes are kept when anime is brought to the United States
2. Another possible research opportunity is using another sample size to find the thematic changes

So that is my basic outline of my discussion section. There are still a few holes that I might need to fill here and there. Also it does not have much detail, but hopefully it will be as complex as my literature review.

Word Count: 724