Thank you for the opportunity to read your manuscript, xxxxx. As someone who began my career teaching junior high and then high school, I applaud your commitment to young people !  It is certainly a tremendously valuable goal to improve even one student’s likelihood of graduating from high school.  There is so much need for honesty, encouragement, support, and clear pathways to success.

AUDIENCE

Given that your audience is individuals of about fifteen or sixteen years old, what role are you taking in relation to them?  Are you writing in the voice of (A) a parent, counselor, or teacher?  Or are you writing in (B) the voice of someone who once faced the same choices?  Or even perhaps in (C) the voice of your father who did not complete high school?  

If (A) then I’m not sure how your message would be distinguished from any of these figures who might offer the same range of excellent advice on relevant topics.  Why would the youngster listen to you if he/she didn’t listen to parent, teacher, counselor or another adult?  If NO ONE is speaking to the youngster, then your book does present the full range of messages necessary to attempt this important conversion of a drop out into a high school graduate.

 (B) and (C) are more interesting voices, in my opinion, even though your father’s 8th grade education might be (in some ways) the equivalent of a high school education today.  Please consider telling your father’s story in more detail.  And your own story might also be of interest. Stories are often more compelling than directives to do this or that.

Another consideration regarding audience is about what media this age individual is likely to find appealing.  A printed book is often my first choice, but I’m not sixteen anymore!  If you are committed to a printed format, think about something that might look like a graphic novel (sort of comic book format).  It seems that this format is very popular. I’ve seen people use rap music, animation, video, and other media to convey a message to this age group. An interactive website would be another option.

COMPETITION

 As someone formerly in publishing, I always want to know what the competition is for a project.  What else is out there addressing this topic?  How is your book different (or the same)? I find that the process of reviewing the competing products will often help an author clarify what their purpose is and how they will achieve that purpose. What are the options that a school district would have when seeking materials on this topic? I don’t know what the competition is, but you might want to take a look as any publisher will ask you this question.

CONTENTS

In some ways this book is a primer of life skills, not just a book about why not drop out.  Even kids going to college should pay attention to nutrition, monthly expenses, and personal appearance, etc.   It is both too little and too much.  What is the essential purpose of the book? For the most part, the manuscript seems to step around the real, nitty-gritty economic and social causes for the drop out rate.  What are the resources for kids when it doesn’ t feel like a choice, but a necessity?  For a book focused specifically on persuading kids not to drop out, perhaps there is too much information, too many topics. I’m not persuaded that the discussion on socio-economic levels will help an individual student get motivated to stay in school.

If you stay with this format (printed book) I would encourage you to do more “information mapping.” Look for ways to represent the message as an illustration, flow chart, graph, decision tree graphic, or other designed way to make information more appealing to the eye.  It needs to be presented in bite-size chunks.  Even using boxes around some short paragraphs helps the reader see what he/she can grasp in a few minutes if that’s all the time they have for now. 

You are doing all the right things by asking for feedback from a variety of people!  Again, it is admirable that you have taken the time to create this guidebook for young people! We DO need to focus on this and try to figure out what all of us can do to change these lives so kids will stay in school and take advantage of all the wisdom you are offering them!

Many thanks for the opportunity to read your manuscript, xxxxx.  I enjoyed learning about the strategies of authors xxxxx , and I hope that my comments and suggestions are helpful as you prepare the manuscript for submission to publishers.

Most of my comments and suggestions are written directly on the manuscript.  Please consider these to be collegial suggestions rather than demands or mandates.  I often pose a suggestion as a question because I always feel I am working in dialogue with the writer.  I hope you will read these as sincere queries of, “What do you think about this possible alternative?”

I have read all of the manuscript carefully at least once, and many parts of it, twice or more to come full circle on concepts that span one or more chapters or the full work and to discern how all the parts come together.  

When we first met, I asked you about the audience for the book, and I fully agree that it is appropriate for an academic audience of scholars in an array of fields such as anthropology, literature, and history who have interests in the narrative uses of xxx.  In addition, I’m sure that specialists in xxx studies will also find your thesis illuminating.  The excerpts from texts, explanatory endnotes, and your vivid summaries make it possible for a non-specialist academic reader to follow the argument, along with your sources, quite easily.  

Even at this point, your manuscript displays a scholar’s mind at work along with great depth and breadth of knowledge.  Congratulations on achieving this stage in a valuable contribution to scholarship in your field!

I would welcome your comments, when you have had time to review my suggestions, on whether you found this process and my notes and report at all helpful.

General Comments :

1. Check for consistency of chapter titles throughout, including as stated in introduction, toc, and at beginning of chapters

2. Your endnotes are quite wonderful !  I looked forward to reading substantive notes and admired the depth and breadth of knowledge indicated by bibliographic notes.

3. “wc” refers to word choice; “sp” is for spelling

4. Use direct wording and words, noun form rather than adjective form of place names.  Wherever possible, use active verbs.

5. There are many places throughout the manuscript where you summarize xxx stories.  A key skill is how to keep the reader focused on the point you are making, and not simply absorbing the plot points and details of the story(also important!).  For example, pages 90+.  As you go back through the ms. consider adding a bit of interpretation or analysis every few paragraphs to keep the reader focused.  I’m sure there is no exact formula for the balance of descriptive, interpretive, analytic, historical, etc. elements of a scholarly manuscript.  I would say, just be aware that you want to keep your own discussion balanced among these elements in an intentional, deliberate way.

6. You do use many hints to help the reader keep straight when you mean, for example, xxx vs. xxx.  I may have noted a few places where you could add the distinction, but keep this in mind as you go back through the ms. yourself also.

7. You’ll see throughout the text, in some of my marginal comments, questions regarding whether certain concepts should be mentioned or discussed earlier in the book, perhaps in the introduction.  Of course, you can’t explain everything in the introduction!!  Just a point to keep in mind as you review the manuscript in preparing the final draft.  One possibility is to move the discussion of classical and medieval ghosts to Chapter 1 and use the gained space in introduction to introduce concepts or themes (rather than periods or examples).  You could have a very brief historical overview in the introduction and then devote most of your effort to thematic issues.  It seems to me that there are many fascinating issues surrounding your theme that could be discussed—showing the interrelationships among them—in the introduction.