Careful!

The good news is that several of you have made significant further progress. A few of you are genuinely on schedule through the first month and trio of assignments. A couple of you are actually well ahead of schedule. All of you are on your way and have posted at least an initial assignment.

This fine Superbowl Sunday, however, bears testimony to the dangers of losing ground. The majority of you have not posted since early last week. As of 2pm Sunday afternoon, none of the fine new posts have received any student comments. And so forth . . . .

If you want to gain traction on your thesis project, and we will assume that you do, forward motion and attention to what other students are doing around you is a big help.

When today's football game is over, or before, or at least before class tomorrow, take the time to read the latest posts and instructors' comments on the blogs of your peers, even if you have nothing to post of your own. Ideally, leave a reply here and there yourself. It never hurts to give someone else a boost.

In so doing, you may notice several references in the latest batch of comments encouraging students who have progressed on refining their thesis statement to start digging more deeply into their review of the relevant literature. That's a preview of Monday's class topic and next week's assignment: lit review.