Working on a Journal Article

Frustration and then maybe the light? Maybe?

I’m rewriting a journal article about Irish women who emigrated to Texas and took up land grants in 1834. There are eighteen women of Irish descent who fit this criteria and finding them in the census records has been a challenge.

But when I do find a clue, it’s like Christmas morning when you’re eight—gleeful and filled with promise.

When I found the signature of one of the women on a land petition, I was almost literally jumped with joy—it felt like a direct contact with the past.

But the digging seems like a distant memory now, all that frustration replaced with a new one—writing up the information in a way that makes sense, the argument moving logically from one point to the next.

I had a fellow historian review my first draft, and he offered valuable criticisms that I’ll be tackling today. He suggests a reordering of the information but he wasn’t sure what that would look like. I’ve been thinking about it since our conversation and believe I’ll move forward by cutting my paper up. Then I can physically move paragraphs around, see if they might make more sense in a different order.

Sometimes it takes getting out of my head and using my hands to make sense of the writing. At least, I hope it will make sense for that future reader.