Have you ever received a graded paper with the question “so what?” as a comment? This is a common problem when writing papers. I’ve run into the “so what?” problem a few times myself.
Here’s what instructors (and I) mean when we ask “so what?”: Basically, we mean the paper points out information (possibly very interesting and well written information) but it doesn’t “do” anything beyond that. It doesn’t prove or argue anything, and it doesn’t tell us why we should care. In other words, the paper really isn’t a paper: It’s an information dump or a summary.
To combat this, you need to make sure you address the questions how and why. These are questions of analysis. If you address these and have a clear,
debatable thesis, which you argue throughout your paper, you’ll never run into the “So what?” problem.
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