Gender Gap Completed, Age Gap Next

    Earlier this week I completed my first senior project essay. It is an in-depth study on the gender gap - the voting divide between women and men. For the past thirty years, men have trended toward the Republican Party while women have moved toward the Democratic Party. I explain more on the history of the gender gap in last week's post. The first draft was over 11 pages altogether and I expect it to grow to at least 12 as a I edit and remember things I may have left out. I'm extremely excited to see my first paper complete, it is immensely rewarding. 

    Most of this week was spent struggling to get at least one person to answer an email to be my outside consultant. The list of people I hoped to maybe call my outside consultant included local politicians, journalists, bloggers, pollsters, and political strategists. Not a single reply as of yet, but I have some emails out there waiting to be replied to. I also worked on my rubric extensively, trying to figure out what I should be held accountable to complete. Initially I had hoped to complete six papers or more, that now seems pretty unrealistic. My current rubric shoots for between three and five papers by the time this is over. I had imagined at first my collection would be a series of shorter papers, now I plan on doing a few full-length ones instead. With all of this going on, I've barely had time to think about my next paper. Right now, it seems as if I'll be writing one on the Age Gap next, but it's also possible that I will write one on the presidential election of 2012. I have outlines almost ready for both. I hope to begin my next paper this weekend.