A research paper on the Wheel of Time

[Surreal]

Hello all,

 

I'm slowly progressing through the Wheel of Time series. (I'm on book 6) It's something I got into about a year ago, but now going to college has decided that it wants to eat most of my leisure time. For my Comp 2 class, I have to write a research paper on anything to do with writing/literacy or rhetoric. It's a pretty wide open topic and I decided that in order to be focused I would do my paper on the setting in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. I've used every academic database I can think of and I can't find any academic articles on it. It's not just setting specific articles... I can't find any literary analyses or anything on the series or him as an author. Has anyone been lucky enough to find anything, and if so, where would I look? I really think I have an amazing topic (I know, I'm a bit biased) but if I can't find the research to support it, I'm going to have to scrap it and start over.

 

Thanks

[Demiandre]

Leigh Butler's reread is accompagnied by a little analysis for every chapter of all books (up to Winters Heart at the moment) you can find it on Tor.com, through the Wheel of Time reread bookmark on the left side of the site.

 

Brandon Sanderson made a recap of the books, I believe you should find it on his website.

 

And other than that, structured analysis of the book, I don't know. I have been thinking for a time to make an analysis of the three main protagonist and how they evolve comparatively to each others. Or other stuff. But would take too much time.

[Surreal]

Leigh Butler's reread is accompagnied by a little analysis for every chapter of all books (up to Winters Heart at the moment) you can find it on Tor.com, through the Wheel of Time reread bookmark on the left side of the site.

 

Brandon Sanderson made a recap of the books, I believe you should find it on his website.

 

And other than that, structured analysis of the book, I don't know. I have been thinking for a time to make an analysis of the three main protagonist and how they evolve comparatively to each others. Or other stuff. But would take too much time.

 

Thanks!

[Durinax]

may I ask for a copy of your paper once its finished

[A2597]

I did the same thing in my American Lit class, did an entire analysis of the Allfin Ellfinns, Morriane, Snakes and Foxes, and the lyrics of the song.

 

This was back when we still had no idea if Morriane was alive or not, I think book 8ish in the series.

 

Got an "A" BTW.

[Sid]

The Thirteenth Depository Has a lot of analysis, but much of it has spoilers to books after LoC and if you want to avoid that it might be treading dangerous waters.

[JenniferL]

The only academic I know of working on WoT is Dr. Michael Livingston at The Citadel in Charleston. I don't believe he's published anything on it yet, but I know he's given some lectures. You can probably find him in the faculty directory for that school.

[Corlock]

I wrote a paper on the Wheel of Time myself, finding similarities between it and works of Herodotus and Thucidies. If I can find the electronic version, I'll be happy to share it. Got an A on it as well.

[Surreal]

Thanks for the responses! And yes, I'll be sure to post it on here when I'm done with it!

 

I don't know why more academics don't research The Wheel of Time... I mean EVERYTHING I find is on Tolkien. Nothing against him, but seriously, I just want like 2 articles on Robert Jordan!

[JenniferL]

For some reason, Jordan hasn't broken through to the mainstream yet. So it's not on the radar of academics who study pop culture. And since it's genre lit, it's not on the radar of academics that study literature. It'll happen eventually though. There's far too much material to mine for the series to be ignored by academia forever.

[Elend]

Do you need to find outside sources?

 

If you don't, then don't bother. Just make sure you argue it all well and you'll be fine. Lean heavily on the books for any claims you make and get used to referencing exactly where anything you find may be at. IMO this is a stronger paper anyway, but your professor may believe differently.

 

If you need them, no can do :( I don't know of anything.

[FarShainMael]

Do you need to find outside sources?

 

If you don't, then don't bother. Just make sure you argue it all well and you'll be fine. Lean heavily on the books for any claims you make and get used to referencing exactly where anything you find may be at. IMO this is a stronger paper anyway, but your professor may believe differently.

 

If you need them, no can do :( I don't know of anything.

 

I second this.

 

I worked in a research facility for 12 years (engineering not literature, but never mind) and a frequent task was surveys of already published work, if only to check that we weren't going over the same ground, and to avoid the more frequent blind alleys. Nevertheless, the strongest thesis is always one you make, and defend, yourself.

[trashbird1240]

Leigh Butler's reread is accompagnied by a little analysis for every chapter of all books (up to Winters Heart at the moment) you can find it on Tor.com, through the Wheel of Time reread bookmark on the left side of the site.

 

Brandon Sanderson made a recap of the books, I believe you should find it on his website.

 

And other than that, structured analysis of the book, I don't know. I have been thinking for a time to make an analysis of the three main protagonist and how they evolve comparatively to each others. Or other stuff. But would take too much time.

 

I think the issue is that he would need peer-reviewed commentary or analysis of the books. For that you should contact Brandon Sanderson: he's a professor! Sure we all know of plenty of analysis, but it's been done on the internet, and by a mostly receptive, positive audience. We all know Usenet simulated peer-review, but it's not up to academic standards.

 

I think the only person that could come close to anything academic (if you haven't found anything else) is Brandon Sanderson. You could at least cite his read-throughs, although they didn't contain much criticism, mostly synopses.

[trashbird1240]

Leigh Butler's reread is accompagnied by a little analysis for every chapter of all books (up to Winters Heart at the moment) you can find it on Tor.com, through the Wheel of Time reread bookmark on the left side of the site.

[...]

 

I think the issue is that he would need peer-reviewed commentary or analysis of the books. For that you should contact Brandon Sanderson: he's a professor!

 

And yes, please make your paper available as we would surely all love to read it. Any of the rest of you that have written papers should contact Jason and see if you can have them published here on DM. I'd love to read all of them ;)

[Maji]

If you don't mind posting your paper after you finish it, I'd love to read it. It would be interesting!

[graendalzooescapee]

I wrote a paper on the Wheel of Time myself, finding similarities between it and works of Herodotus and Thucidies. If I can find the electronic version, I'll be happy to share it. Got an A on it as well.

 

Please tell me more about WOT and Greek historians! Cool!

[Corlock]

Well, I found the electronic version of my paper. Who wants it?

[Val Mickey]

@ Corlock - You're preaching to the crowd. Everyone wants to read it.

[Corlock]

Well then, for those of you who are interested, attached you will find my paper and bibliography. I think the file names are self explanatory. I kept the bibliography as a seperate file so I didn't have to worry about adding it to the paper, and could just print it out and modify it as needed. So, here you are.

Paper.doc

Bibliography.doc

[redarm]

Nice. I can see why you got the A.

[Maji]

Thanks for allowing us to read it. I enjoyed it. I think this is the first research paper I actually enjoyed reading and I studied History in college xD

[Corlock]

Thank you both for the positive feedback. Glad to know you both enjoyed it.

[Lynchgrinch]

Quality paper, Corlock. I read the whole thing, it's all realy interesting!

 

I can see why you got an "A" for this, thanks for posting.