What part of Acheson's chapter on social and historical contexts be most useful for your final project. This, of course, will vary widely depending on the time your text was created or is about.
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Introduction to English Studies
Instructor: Mat Wenzel, MFA, M.Ed.
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Acheson's most useful advice from her chapter 4 is when she goes over how you should go through your research and assess exactly what you want to use and give to your work. I know that I'm writing about music so it's usually hard to pick and choose what exactly to take from reviews or other things music based because there's just so much to things like that. She definitely taught me a solid way to pick and choose correctly what I will use and not use.
Acheson's emphasis on understanding other popular literary works throughout history as a tool to better research social and historical context is especially relevant to me as a Public Relations major. Language used in other texts that were published or popular at the time of my chosen text's creation, is helpful in understanding social attitude and behavior. My chosen text for the final project is the 2018 version of "A Star is Born". I will use the previous three versions of the film as well as popular texts during 2018 to point to celebrities' management of and society's response to their power.
In chapter 4, Acheson discussed the significance of literary movements that connect common ideas and styles between authors of a specific time period. As of right now, I haven't decided on what text I'll be using for the final project; however, I think that doing research on many texts/authors that are connected through the same literary movement will help me decide on a topic that has an extensive amount of information and perspectives to work with.
While reading chapter three I agreed with Acheson that reading or viewing other texts the author has written helps you understand what the author believes and their overall views. This can help when you are writing a literature review on a text because you can discuss reoccurring themes or beliefs in the authors works.
I think the part that will be most useful to me is the section on using your research findings. I don't usually have trouble finding things to use, but figuring out the most effective way of putting them in my writing is always difficult. It's intimidating but also reassuring that she suggests reading so much more than what you'll actually use in the paper itself, if you do that you'll really be an expert on the subject and that'll make your paper better! I've been enjoying Acheson a lot, I think she's really helpful and I like her writing style.