Reviewer Feedback (WP)

From the Editor:

In general, the reviewers and I feel that your paper is promising but can benefit from further development.

It is important to carefully consider the reviewers' input, which suggests the need to expand your paper and perhaps also refocus it somewhat, in addition to my editorial input, in making your revisions.

From Reviewer 1:

1. It is also more important than you claim: it not only illuminates the writing challenges of adults struggling to construct an academic identity, but, since the academic identity must be constructed by all writers in the academy, it illuminates the writing challenges of nearly all writers in higher education. (And you can say this without abandoning your assertion that adult writers returning to the academy have special needs.)

2. Depend a bit less on Ivanic. Her theory is important but does not need to be explained for its own sake. Your analysis of Tony’s shifts in identity is the heart of this paper.

3. After you present the artifact, analyze it immediately, NOT with reference to identity but with reference to apparent features of coherence and consistency. The main suggestion I am making is to analyze the artifact without reference to identity issues right after it is presented, including a brief explanation of the article (by Levine) with which it engages, making plain the apparent contradictions in tone and thought that will then become illuminated later by your explanation of how the author’s discoursal moves reflect different constructions of self as his essay proceeds.

In other words, go over the contradictions in ideas/positions first—then, after they are clearly in our minds, you can explain that the reason for those contradictions lies in the adopting of different selves at different points in the writing. You want to do this because the power in your analysis come from being able to look beyond the surface illogic and explain the reasons for it. It will also be more effective for readers if you explain the stance of the original article (Levine’s) to which Tony is responding. Is this a report or an argument? Is there anything about the Levine text that might shape the way Tony’s adoption of selves changes?

If you have a word-limit constraint, I would suggest condensing, re-arranging or even dropping the section “Possibilities for Self-Hood” and, in general, avoiding a mechanical rehearsal of all aspects of Ivanic’s theory. As you say, quite rightly, the really interesting heart of your paper is your ability to explain as shifting selves what most writing teachers would consider to be uncompleted or poorly resolved thinking on Tony’s part (the contradictory ideas about Gen Y employees that his essay reveals): “The central point I would like to make about the Entitlement Generation is that the discoursal moves that Tony makes in the essay construct a workplace as opposed to an academic identity. But this workplace identity is, itself, not wholly coherent or cohesive.“

4. The central insight your paper offers is that when writers seem to be “unable to think clearly,” that is, to write from contradictory standpoints in a paper, they may well be doing so because their sense of self shifts during the act of composition. In other words, in terms of emphasis and subordination, your last point in the sentences I quoted above is really your most important point. You could put it like this:

The central point I would like to make is that a writer’s inability to achieve a coherent or cohesive stance in writing may well be a refection of the writer’s multiple selves, which have yet to coalesce into a single, controlled voice. In Tony’s case, these various selves reflect an attempt to construct a workplace rather than an academic identity.

This emphasis shift makes your paper more directly relevant to all writers, not just adult writers, struggling to construct an academic self.

So, as I say, there’s really no compelling need here to explain Ivanic’s ideas in full—for example, her distinctions among kinds of selves (autobiographical, discoursal, authorial). You can certainly use her most relevant ideas, but use them to set up your very interesting explanation of Tony’s case, not for the sake of explaining Ivanic per se.

Think about the section divisions. Here are some ideas:

1. Ivanic seems central to your paper—why not include her in the theoretical framework? Maybe you could distil her most important ideas here so that you don’t have to explain more of her theory than you really need.

2. The discussion section is quite short relative to the results (findings) and sounds like a conclusion. In effect, the paper seems to end twice. (Conclusions often step out of the paper to take a larger view of what has been presented, which is exactly what your discussion section does.)

I would suggest combining the discussion section with the results (Findings and Discussion)—which to all intents and purposes you are doing already—and dropping the discussion section as a section. The material that is there may find its place into the combined section or it may not. (Is it necessary to your case?) Alternately, you might try combining your discussion and your conclusion sections—combining and narrowing to a tighter single conclusion. Either way, the discussion will properly occur as you explain your findings, which, as I say, you are doing already.

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To Move/Change:

1. The analysis must move up closer to Tony's paper. Two options here:

a. Move the section called "Possibilities for Selfhood" to before Tony's essay and right after the assignment from the teacher (makes sense).

b. Take "Possibilities for Selfhood" out or condense it or just move it to after the actual analysis. (worth looking at...what would this look like--to first do the analysis and then step back and see what can be taken from the "Possibilities for Selfhood" section).

I kind of like option A.

The reviewer writes: "there’s really no compelling need here to explain Ivanic’s ideas in full—for example, her distinctions among kinds of selves (autobiographical, discoursal, authorial)." Perhaps what she's suggesting here is that, both in the theoretical framework section and later in the Findings/Discussion, I move away from what she calls at another point a "mechanistic" or "mechanical" interpretation, using Ivanic (the very thing I thought I was SUPPOSED to do). This advice asks me to reconsider the sub-headings I am using in the Findings/Discussion section and to NOT organize the second part of that section around Ivanic's key terms. What other sub-headings, I wonder, might I create?

2. The ending. One thing for sure. The Findings section needs to be renamed "Findings and Discussion." From there, though...

a. Combine Discussion and Conclusion?

b. Leave Discussion and ditch Conclusion altogether (or vice versa)?

c. If I refocus the whole essay on identity, will I need to fundamentally change the end of the essay to return to the larger issue of identity (and not adult students--as the Discussion section does)?

3. I have a section called "Theoretical Framework" and one called "Approach To Analysis." I think the second should be cut and the framework from Ivanic should be/could be folded into the Theoretical Framework section, as the reviewer suggests.

To Add:

1. Small: A section in which I analyze Tony's essay for coherence, etc. and a section in which I briefly summarize the Levine article.

2. Large: The focus of the article is more on identity issues and ALL writers and secondarily on identity issues and adult student writers. (?) Or is this just a smaller point I want to go to at the end of the article, but keeping the focus mostly on adult students (yes).

IMPORTANT THINGS TO REMEMBER:

• Your analysis of Tony’s shifts in identity is the heart of this paper.
• ... the power in your analysis come from being able to look beyond the surface illogic and explain the reasons for it.
• ...the really interesting heart of your paper is your ability to explain as shifting selves what most writing teachers would consider to be uncompleted or poorly resolved thinking on Tony’s part...
• The central insight your paper offers is that when writers seem to be “unable to think clearly,” that is, to write from contradictory standpoints in a paper, they may well be doing so because their sense of self shifts during the act of composition.

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From Reviewer 2:

There is room for more extensive discussion of the content of the essay and of the instructor's reponse, to make the paper more substantial. This can be done by making more explicit analysis of the data and including more of that in the paper itself. My version did not include the instructor's comments, though this was supposed to be attached. Even if it were, it is part of the author's job to analyze that data explicitly in the paper itself.