The Academic Paper Saga: Episode 1

I knew after I went to class on Thursday that I needed to get started on this academic paper as soon as possible. Not only was an entire draft due by Tuesday, but I had no idea what direction I wanted to go in or even how to write a historic persuasive/argumentative essay. During class, I talked with Kody Wood who was in my group for Typography, and we bounced around ideas. We seriously considered doing a group collaborative paper because neither of us had done it before, and we thought it would a cool way to showcase this unit. However, after talking it out with Holland, our other group member, we decided with three busy schedules to accommodate and no definite direction for our paper, we would each embark upon our own paths. And this is the beginning of mine...
Step 1: Find a topic
Almost immediately after Dr. Burton and Dr. Petersen started explaining this project, I was running topic ideas through my head. I knew typography was a huge topic, so I tried to think back to when I did my annotated bibliography, to remember if any specific topics jumped out to me. I did remember one kind of obscure book entitled "Type Spaces: in-house norms in the typography of Aldus Manutius". I also remembered back to Skousen's lecture when he mentioned the work of Manutius in creating a more portable, legible book. His recurring name seemed to be a hint that his work was influential enough to write a paper on. And so, I had found my topic.

Step 2: Make an argument
This was a difficult process. I started by just researching as much as I could about Manutius. I read the bibliographies of all the other people in our class who did typography and looked up those sources in the library, along with mine, to try and find mention of Manutius's work. The two most helpful works were "Italian Printers: 1501-1520" by F. J. Norton and "Printing Types: Their History, Forms, and Use, vol. 1 and 2" by Daniel Berkeley Updike. The only available copy of Updike's work, however, was in Special Collections in the Rare Book Collection. This was entirely a new experience. If you've never done it before, here's how it works: you have to fill out a slip to request the book and they bring it to you in a room where you can only bring a pencil, paper, and a laptop. The most frustrating part was that I could only look at one book at a time. So after spending a few hours in Special Collections, I decided to copy the pages I needed (which take a day to make) for later use. I found a few other works on the 5th floor of the library that made mention of Manutius, so I checked them out, but I still had the hard part of the process in front of me. 
So, I knew I wanted to talk about Manutius and his advances in typography with regards to creating the 'pocketbook' and creating italic type (called the Aldine italic). I just didn't know how to make this an argument. It wasn't until I was just flipping pages through Norton's book, that I found a chronological list of Venetian printers. I then started to look up the other printers around the same time as Manutius and found that their presses were not nearly as successful or innovative. I realized that I could argue that Manutius was more influential than other Venetian printers at the time because of his works in typography that I had already studied. And so, I had an argument.

Step 3: Form a thesis
This is the step I am currently working through. My thesis needs to be qualitative and debatable. After many rewrites, I have created a thesis:

Despite the success of many Venetian printers at the turn of the 16^th century, early printer and publisher Aldus Manutius was the single most influential printer in Venice because of his advances in typography.

Now, this is where I need your help. I know this thesis is not perfect, so any input would be greatly appreciated. To me it seems wordy and I feel like I say printer and Venice too many times, so if you know of any way to improve it, please comment below.

TO BE CONTINUED...