AERA: research feedback

I met with a fabulous editor at AERA who gave me more thorough feedback than I've had since peer edits in my MA in English. He's a Comp & Rhet person, so I suppose...

• you write well, but you over-write. Strive for much greater economy and precision and a more direct writing style. Speak to your readers, rather than trying to impress them.
• Avoid cluttering your argument with others' ideas. At the moment, this piece reads a little like a connect-the-quotes essay -- your text merely serves to carry the reader from one quote to another. And by using so many other voices, you've introduced far too many vague or abstract terms and concepts.
• Set yourself a clear goal -- and write it out: I want to convince readers that AR games.... Or whatever. But be explicit, and then consider your plan -- that is, how you're going to achieve your goal. What will be first, second, etc. How will each section be linked?
• I think you need a clear detailed description of an AR game. Without that, readers won't know what you are talking about.

As it is, the paper is all over the place, packed with too many ideas, full of others' voices, and lacking in focus and direction.But I think you have the makings of something here. Once you set a clear and achievable goal, you will have a better sense of what you need to keep, change, or expand. In other words, you need to be more rhetorical: determine your purpose, reader, arrange it in the patterns that will support your purpose, and then write and revise until the piece is polished and sharply focused.

So, there you have it. some good advice -- sharply applied. I love it.