Comments on drafts

Tom,

Although you say that your paper is very rough, I think you have a very strong draft here, even if it isn't quite complete. What you have is well-written and provides a lot of great evidence and attention to detail. I really liked the way you crafted each of your sentences to explain your argument, and how you used well-chosen details such as population statistics and quotes from ads to back up your points. I think the last two paragraphs are really going somewhere, and I think you could expand your explanation of how these two campaigns really spell out what was going on in terms of the conservative movement. Do you have any examples of ads or articles in Orange County papers? Though you haven't yet worked out the structure of your paper perfectly, I think you are on your way to figuring it out, and I think your current general structure - explaining your argument more generally, then talking about the elections, and then talking about the process of the housing act and prop 14 - will work really well to reach your conclusion.


Andrea,

I think your paper is going really well - you have a great grasp on your topic and you are using your sources well. I really enjoyed how clearly you set out your argument and explained it such that it was very fascinating, and I was interested in what you were saying from beginning to end. I think that your first few pages really lay out what you're going to talk about, but I also think, in some cases, you were repeating yourself a lot - this happened to me a lot too in my first draft, so I understand how it happens. You seem to really want to make sure the reader understands your points, which is great, but I also think if you read closely, there are a few sentences/paragraphs where you aren't really saying anything new (for instance, you list the "Components of a black marriage" twice, which isn't particularly useful), when you could be using that space to include more information about your primary sources or anecdotes, which I think are some of the strongest aspects of your paper. One thing that made me very curious was the statistic you include about the declining ratio of African American males to females throughout the last century - I've heard about this before, but I don't know the cause. While I understand that it may be outside the scope of your paper, I'm wondering why there are fewer African American males (is it attributed to earlier death rate? murder? drug use?), and how this CAUSE might be contributing to some of the problems in fulfilling the idealized black marriage. You also question in your paper "(I may or may not insert more cultural theories as to why this happened… if you guys think it’s necessary to complete the picture…)" and I think that, yes, that would be really important for the full picture. Also, I feel like you repeatedly point out how comedians in particular blame black women for failure in marriages, and I'm wondering what the cause of that is. Richard Pryor in particular seems like a total misogynist and I'm wondering what misogyny or general belittlement of black women - or, from these comedians' perspectives, the moral/social failures of black women - have to do with the decline of black marriage. I'm really looking forward to seeing your final draft and conclusion, I think your draft is really great!

Chris,

Your new sources have taken you in a very interesting direction. I think the comparisons you draw between domestic servants and workers in Chinatowns are really useful and informative, and the personal records you've dug up (such as Jane's will, Ariel Lathrop's letter, and Ah Wing's letter) are really fascinating and give your argument a lot of credibility. One question I have was whether or not you planned to explore if and how the Chinese Exclusion Act changed the way Chinese and Americans interacted - clearly there was racial prejudice there, but you're arguing that at least among wealthy families, it wasn't the dominant conception of the relationship. What about middle and lower class families? I understand this may be outside the scope of your paper, but you do say that Jane Stanford's experience may not have been the norm, so I think perhaps an explanation of what the norm was might be helpful. I think your intro/thesis is well on its way to being a very strong introduction to your argument, but I think it could also be a bit smoother in terms of word usage and transitions. The draft looks great all around, you have a lot of substantial evidence that makes your argument strong!