RC Question 4 Explanation
DISCUSSION: The author is introducing their own text. They’ve done extensive research on Tucker – this passage describes their research methods as a prelude to presenting the research itself.
The first paragraph describes Tucker’s importance. An interesting man in his own right, he also collected much evidence about an important part of US entertainment history.
Paragraph 1’s first sentence and last three lines show that Tucker and early 20th century African-American film and theatre have not been well studied. The author’s biography attempts to fix this.
___________
- The author is an academic, he’s very concerned about research methods. If anything, the author would argue that the material is appropriate for an academic publisher but not a popular publisher.
- Paragraphs 3 and 4 show that the author hasn’t developed any new methods. The author uses standard methods to assess Tucker’s oral testimony.
- CORRECT. See the explanation above, and the first paragraph. The author’s study is groundbreaking. Few have studied Tucker or the period of entertainment history he took part in.
- It’s not clear why the author would say this. They are providing a history of Tucker’s life and role, so the biography will include this information, at least. The author never says how we should interpret the study.
- This misses the point. The study is about Tucker, and also his collection. It’s not a general guide to identifying trinkets.
how can you tell the author is an academic?
There are two major clues, though I agree we can’t say the author is an academic for certain:
(1) (This one’s the weaker of the two) The author refers to their work on Tucker as a “study” (1) and a “biographical study” (34) — this is a term often used by academics and not necessarily general writers when describing their work.
(2) The author hopes that the study will shed light on an area that has so far received “insufficient scholarship” (18), suggesting that the study is itself scholarly in some way.