While doing my annotated bibliography assignment (which can be seen here), I found one particular book that struck my interest more than any of the others. It was Printing and the Mind of Man: a Descriptive Catalogue Illustrating the Impact of Print on the Evolution of Western Civilization during Five Centuries. It was essentially an annotated bibliography of important printed works over the past five centuries. I thought it was interesting to see how much print impacted Western society so I decided to write my paper about it...I pondered on what I should argue in the paper and what my thesis statement should be. I wanted it to be something that would divide and educated audience as Dr. Burton said, but I also wanted it to be something I firmly believed in and could wholeheartedly argue myself. After browsing some sources on the internet, I came up with something that covered both of my criteria, and here it is:
Since its invention,
the printing press and its products, especially through its influence in the
areas of science, politics and religion, have had a greater impact on Western
society and its inhabitants than any other invention, person or event.
It is somewhat of a bold statement and could be considered loaded for a three-four page paper, but I thought it could be done. I went to the library and got a couple of books on the topic (once again by just asking the librarian) then went home to write the paper. I also found some helpful online sources including a few ebooks. Writing the paper itself continued to convince me more of my thesis and I thought some of my arguments were pretty good.
I posted a Google doc of it here if you want to read it and give me some feedback. Please don't edit it though! Thanks.
I really liked the amount of sources you have; I think that really builds up your paper. I think if you added in a counter-argument, maybe at the beginning having a paragraph mentioning other things that people might argue had a bigger impact, just to balance your argument. I'm not sure how the header is supposed to work; I thought it was your name and then the page number, but I could be wrong. I noticed a couple of grammar errors, but nothing big, and I like that your outline is directed by your thesis-science, politics, and religion.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the input! I agree, I was way one sided in my arguments and the peer editor in class mentioned the same thing. I can see how people would definitely argue with some of my positions so I'm going to try and qualify them some.
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