Thesis Statements
How to Generate a Thesis Statement if the Topic is AssignedAlmost all assignments, no matter how complicated, can be reduced to a single question. Your first step, then, is to distill the assignment into a specific question. For example, if your assignment is, “Write a report to the local school board explaining the potential benefits of using computers in a fourth-grade class,” turn the request into a question like, “What are the potential benefits of using computers in a fourth-grade class?” After you’ve chosen the question your essay will answer, compose one or two complete sentences answering that question.
Q: “What are the potential benefits of using computers in a fourth-grade class?”
A: “The potential benefits of using computers in a fourth-grade class are . . .”
OR
A: “Using computers in a fourth-grade class promises to improve . . .”
The answer to the question is the thesis statement for the essay.
[Back to top]
How to Generate a Thesis Statement if the Topic is not AssignedEven if your assignment doesn’t ask a specific question, your thesis statement still needs to answer a question about the issue you’d like to explore. In this situation, your job is to figure out what question you’d like to write about.
A good thesis statement will usually include the following four attributes:
What Is A Thesis Statement?A thesis statement:
How Do I Get A Thesis?A thesis is the result of a lengthy thinking process. Formulating a thesis is not the first thing you do after reading an essay assignment. Before you develop an argument on any topic, you have to collect and organize evidence, look for possible relationships between known facts (such as surprising contrasts or similarities), and think about the significance of these relationships. Once you do this thinking, you will probably have a "working thesis," a basic or main idea, an argument that you think you can support with evidence but that may needadjustment along the way.
Writers use all kinds of techniques to stimulate their thinking and to help them clarify relationships or comprehend the broader significance of a topic and arrive at a thesis statement. For more ideas on how to get started, see our handout on brainstorming.
How Do I Know If My Thesis Is Strong?If there's time, run it by your instructor or make an appointment at the Writing Center to get some feedback. Even if you do not have time to get advice elsewhere, you can do some thesis evaluation of your own. When reviewing your first draft and its working thesis, ask yourself the following:
Let's look at another example. Suppose your literature professor hands out the following assignment in a class on the American novel:Write an analysis of some aspect of Mark Twain's novel Huckleberry Finn. "This will be easy," you think. "I loved Huckleberry Finn!" You grab a pad of paper and write:
Let's pretend you are writing a paper for your given assignment on the documentary film For the Bible Tells Me So; here's a sample thesis:
Daniel G. Karslake's For the Bible Tells Me So is a compelling documentary that through the use of personal interviews, an analysis of scripture, and scientific study, provokes a deeper understanding of how the gay community has been stigmatized by prevailing biblical interpretation in America.
Parts: Director, Title, Evaluative Key Word (compelling), Points of Focus (interviews, scripture, science), Message.
Now, pretend our film is Gasland:
Joshua Fox's Gasland presents viewers with eye-opening information about the health and environmental risks of hydraulic fracking.
Parts: Director, Title, evaluative key word (eye-opening), points of focus (health, environment, fracking), Message (risks).
Q: “What are the potential benefits of using computers in a fourth-grade class?”
A: “The potential benefits of using computers in a fourth-grade class are . . .”
OR
A: “Using computers in a fourth-grade class promises to improve . . .”
The answer to the question is the thesis statement for the essay.
[Back to top]
How to Generate a Thesis Statement if the Topic is not AssignedEven if your assignment doesn’t ask a specific question, your thesis statement still needs to answer a question about the issue you’d like to explore. In this situation, your job is to figure out what question you’d like to write about.
A good thesis statement will usually include the following four attributes:
- take on a subject upon which reasonable people could disagree
- deal with a subject that can be adequately treated given the nature of the assignment
- express one main idea
- assert your conclusions about a subject
What Is A Thesis Statement?A thesis statement:
- tells the reader how you will interpret the significance of the subject matter under discussion.
- is a road map for the paper; in other words, it tells the reader what to expect from the rest of the paper.
- directly answers the question asked of you. A thesis is an interpretation of a question or subject, not the subject itself. The subject, or topic, of an essay might be World War II or Moby Dick; a thesis must then offer a way to understand the war or the novel.
- makes a claim that others might dispute.
- is usually a single sentence somewhere in your first paragraph that presents your argument to the reader. The rest of the paper, the body of the essay, gathers and organizes evidence that will persuade the reader of the logic of your interpretation.
How Do I Get A Thesis?A thesis is the result of a lengthy thinking process. Formulating a thesis is not the first thing you do after reading an essay assignment. Before you develop an argument on any topic, you have to collect and organize evidence, look for possible relationships between known facts (such as surprising contrasts or similarities), and think about the significance of these relationships. Once you do this thinking, you will probably have a "working thesis," a basic or main idea, an argument that you think you can support with evidence but that may needadjustment along the way.
Writers use all kinds of techniques to stimulate their thinking and to help them clarify relationships or comprehend the broader significance of a topic and arrive at a thesis statement. For more ideas on how to get started, see our handout on brainstorming.
How Do I Know If My Thesis Is Strong?If there's time, run it by your instructor or make an appointment at the Writing Center to get some feedback. Even if you do not have time to get advice elsewhere, you can do some thesis evaluation of your own. When reviewing your first draft and its working thesis, ask yourself the following:
- Do I answer the question? Re-reading the question prompt after constructing a working thesis can help you fix an argument that misses the focus of the question.
- Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose?If your thesis simply states facts that no one would, or even could, disagree with, it's possible that you are simply providing a summary, rather than making an argument.
- Is my thesis statement specific enough? Thesis statements that are too vague often do not have a strong argument. If your thesis contains words like "good" or "successful," see if you could be more specific: why is something "good"; what specifically makes something "successful"?
- Does my thesis pass the "So what?" test? If a reader's first response is, "So what?" then you need to clarify, to forge arelationship, or to connect to a larger issue.
- Does my essay support my thesis specifically and without wandering? If your thesis and the body of your essay do not seemto go together, one of them has to change. It's o.k. to change your working thesis to reflect things you have figured out in the course of writing your paper. Remember, always reassess and revise your writing as necessary.
- Does my thesis pass the "how and why?" test? If a reader's first response is "how?" or "why?" your thesis may be too open-ended and lack guidance for the reader. See what you can add to give the reader a better take on your position right from the beginning.
- The North and South fought the Civil War for many reasons, some of which were the same and some different.
- While both sides fought the Civil War over the issue of slavery, the North fought for moral reasons while the South foughtto preserve its own institutions.
- While both Northerners and Southerners believed they fought against tyranny and oppression, Northerners focused on the oppression of slaves while Southerners defended their own right to self-government.
Let's look at another example. Suppose your literature professor hands out the following assignment in a class on the American novel:Write an analysis of some aspect of Mark Twain's novel Huckleberry Finn. "This will be easy," you think. "I loved Huckleberry Finn!" You grab a pad of paper and write:
- Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn is a great American novel.
- In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain develops a contrast between life on the river and life on the shore.
- Through its contrasting river and shore scenes, Twain's Huckleberry Finn suggests that to find the true expression ofAmerican democratic ideals, one must leave "civilized" society and go back to nature.
Let's pretend you are writing a paper for your given assignment on the documentary film For the Bible Tells Me So; here's a sample thesis:
Daniel G. Karslake's For the Bible Tells Me So is a compelling documentary that through the use of personal interviews, an analysis of scripture, and scientific study, provokes a deeper understanding of how the gay community has been stigmatized by prevailing biblical interpretation in America.
Parts: Director, Title, Evaluative Key Word (compelling), Points of Focus (interviews, scripture, science), Message.
Now, pretend our film is Gasland:
Joshua Fox's Gasland presents viewers with eye-opening information about the health and environmental risks of hydraulic fracking.
Parts: Director, Title, evaluative key word (eye-opening), points of focus (health, environment, fracking), Message (risks).
Writing Expectations
Writing Essay Guide
An essay is a fully developed and organized set of paragraphs that develop and enlarge a central idea or argument. The central idea helps you control and shape your essay, just as it also provides guidance for your reader. Your thesis statement will organize and forecast the major topics you will treat in your essay.
Rather than thinking of these assignments in terms of "5 paragraphs" or an amount of words, I like to think of them as "25 sentences". When I look at it that way, I think, 25 sentences is not very many! How can I effectively convey my idea in so few sentences? This is my challenge: To say as much as possible as effectively as possible, implementing clarity and conciseness but still varying my sentence structure and making "strong", proper word choices.
Banned Phrases/Words List
**At teacher's discretion, additional words may be added.
"The reason is because. . ." "Hi, my name is Susie. . . "
"This paper is about. . ." "Thank you for reading my paper."
"I'm going to tell you about. . ."
** Do not use any other sentences of this type; they are bad examples of unacceptable writing.
Paragraph 1: Introduction
Restate your prompt [the prompt is the question asked by your assignment]: Always make it clear what your subject is. Allude to what you are being assigned without restating the assignment in an exact way. However, never restate the prompt as a question or exactly as it was asked; simply work it in with your own words.
· Topic Sentence (This includes but is not limited to the title and author’s name if the subject is art, literature, film, etc.)
· Background Information (Main aspects of the subject that are relevant to your central idea)
· Thesis (The thesis contains your central idea, your claim, or your argument. You can think of this as the “theme” of your essay, which often reflects a “theme” of the subject being discussed. It must be a complete idea. It should be clear enough that I know where you are headed but vague enough that I don’t know exactly where you are going. The 3-pronged thesis is okay, but varying your thesis technique is preferable.
One of the keys to successful writing is the use of KEY WORDS that you carry through each paragraph and the paper as a whole. Keep referencing those key words to stay focused and tie your essay together.
· Introductions often contain a “hook”… a statement that grabs the reader and places the discussion in some sort of context. It is very important to establish the context of your essay upfront. In addition, if you are writing about a text (art, literature, poetry, music, etc.), you should give a brief overview of the work in the introduction—enough that the reader has an understanding of the context of your essay. However, it is not necessary to go into detail. For example, if you are writing about a story, you should be able to summarize the main plot and characters in 1-2 sentences.
· A paragraph is NOT complete without a minimum of 5 complete sentences. Sentence structure should be varied (no short, choppy sentences, please… learn how to use the comma, semicolon, etc.) Say as much as you can in a sentence—do not be overly wordy or too general or vague. Be precise and concise.
· Information on the author does not belong in the introduction (or anywhere in the essay). Only use cited information if indicated by the assignment.
Tutorial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clPtbFT23Bs&feature=related
Paragraphs 2, 3, 4: Body Paragraphs
· Topic Sentence: This is the main idea of the paragraph. Each paragraph must contain a “sub-thesis” or sentence that explains the one big, overall idea being focused on in that individual paragraph. You will have 3 body paragraphs in 2-page essays, each focused around a main idea that in some way illuminates your overall idea or thesis sentence. You should have ONE topic or main idea per body paragraph.
· Supporting Points and Discussion: Your ideas about the subject.
· Specific examples with details: This is evidence from the “text” [the book, artwork, song, film, etc.] quotes or details from the “text” that illustrate your topic.
· Relate the examples to the supporting points and discussion.
· Concluding Sentence: This sentence brings the paragraph to a close and TRANSITIONS to the next paragraph. You should prepare your reader for the next point of discussion by linking it to the previous one.
Tutorial- Topic Statements [you do NOT always need the enumerator]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFwQJSZ2wJA&feature=related
Position + Linking Words + Scope Point = Topic
[You do not need a 3-pronged thesis] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1W6PQLNNic&feature=related
Conclusion:
· Do NOT start with “in conclusion”. Your writing style should clearly signal that this is the concluding paragraph.
· Restate the thesis and main points, but do not repeat them.
· Include general closing statements (this might mean relating the topic to an overall message that society can relate to currently).
You must end your essay effectively. Depending on the topic, it will be important to end with “social commentary”—how your ideas on the subject are relevant currently. The conclusion answers the question "so what"? Now that we have this information, what do we do with it? Depending on the topic, you might signal a "call to action" to your audience. You might explain why and how what you told us is important and can help us understand an issue, emotion, concept, etc. in a new or more in depth way. You are taking the specific information you gave in the essay and relating it to society in a more generalized, applicable way.
· A good technique is to signal your title at the end of the essay, thus bringing it full circle.
Tutorial: Writing Conclusions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iS7MYjYtoE&feature=related
Make sure to begin with a creative title that says something about your take on the subject matter. Do not make the title of your essay the title of the work you are discussing!
All essays should be written in Present Tense (unless told otherwise). All pieces of art, film, and literature are referred to in the present tense. All citations should be in MLA format.
MLA Format requires a header (upper left corner), title (centered), indented paragraphs (5 spaces), 1 inch margins, everything double-spaced, a Works Cited page when research is included in the essay, etc. For more requirements, see the MLA tab (462) in the Little Brown Handbook.
Emily Smith
English 1301, Section 407
MWF 11:00
Essay 1
Title Goes Here
About Titles:
Do not underline or add quotation marks.
Always capitalize the first and last words of any title. Do not capitalize articles,
conjunctions, or short prepositions (fewer than five letters) unless they are the first or
last words. Papers without titles or incorrect titles will be penalized at the teacher's
discretion.
Staple all papers that you are handing in for a grade!
REMEMBER YOUR PUGS: PUNCTUATION, USAGE, GRAMMAR, SPELLING: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CXCFl-2E54&feature=channel
Good Essay Writing Tips: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtP5Or78g9k&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWqMQ26Gqi4&feature=related
This is a good online GUIDE to writing an essay: http://lklivingston.tripod.com/essay/outline.html
STEPS for writing:
1. Planning: The planning stage includes reading over the assignment carefully, understanding the assignment, and jotting down ideas inspired by the prompt you are given. It is always a good idea to "sleep on it" if you get stuck; write down your ideas the next morning with a fresh perspective.
2. Outlining: After you plan out what you are going to say, start organizing your thoughts. Outlines, storyboards, and diagrams are all good ways to do this. There are many differnet outlines you can use; some are in your book, and there are many online. Here's a sample one: http://www.brighthub.com/education/k-12/articles/2999.aspx
3. Drafting: Now that you've organized your ideas, it is time to draft your essay. Make sure that each of your body paragraphs has a crystal clear topic statement and at least 3 supporting ideas. The topic statements must correlate with and advance the thesis. A rough draft should be a finished essay that may not have been edited yet. If you are incorporating quotes into an essay, then the rough draft should reflect that. Do not wait to include your quotes after peer editing day because I will not have time to check them to see if you are incorporating them correctly.
4. Peer Editing: The next step is handing your paper off to your peers to get feedback on your paper. It is very important that your peers actually provide feedback! We will be using the revision models in the "Bedford Guide" book during peer editing sessions. If you know someone marked something correct as a grammar error, then explain to them why you are right and they are wrong; if you are still in doubt, then ask me.
5. Line by Line Read: Read your paper line by line, sentence by sentence. Make sure each sentence makes sense on its own-- out of the context of the sentences surrounding it. All too often do students read what isn't there-- it makes sense in their brains but not on the paper they hand in to me. Reading aloud can alleviate some of these errors.
6. Use your tutoring tools: After your peer editing and line by line self edit, turn your paper into online tutors or sit with a tutor in the writing lab. Use them to help you with editing. They are also available to help you at the beginning of this process to organize properly, if you need that kind of help. Sometimes students need both.
7. Final Revision: Now you are ready to polish your paper! This is called the final revision. This is where you spice up your word choice, vary your sentence structure if it is too choppy, add content if you don't have enough detail, and format it to MLA.
Tutorial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezI42BqJ4d4&feature=related
8. Staple your paper.
Please note that on peer editing days, or anytime we work on essays in class, I will be going around and offering my feedback. Since we have such a short amount of time in class, I will not waste class time by pointing out what you are doing right-- I will spend my time helping you to pick up on errors so that you can correct them before your final revision! It is not my intention to come off as "mean" or "harsh", but in the frenzy of looking at 20+ papers in 45 minutes, please understand if it comes across that way. Your success in this class is important to me; I believe in you and WANT you not only to succeed, but also to excel!
An essay is a fully developed and organized set of paragraphs that develop and enlarge a central idea or argument. The central idea helps you control and shape your essay, just as it also provides guidance for your reader. Your thesis statement will organize and forecast the major topics you will treat in your essay.
Rather than thinking of these assignments in terms of "5 paragraphs" or an amount of words, I like to think of them as "25 sentences". When I look at it that way, I think, 25 sentences is not very many! How can I effectively convey my idea in so few sentences? This is my challenge: To say as much as possible as effectively as possible, implementing clarity and conciseness but still varying my sentence structure and making "strong", proper word choices.
Banned Phrases/Words List
**At teacher's discretion, additional words may be added.
"The reason is because. . ." "Hi, my name is Susie. . . "
"This paper is about. . ." "Thank you for reading my paper."
"I'm going to tell you about. . ."
** Do not use any other sentences of this type; they are bad examples of unacceptable writing.
Paragraph 1: Introduction
Restate your prompt [the prompt is the question asked by your assignment]: Always make it clear what your subject is. Allude to what you are being assigned without restating the assignment in an exact way. However, never restate the prompt as a question or exactly as it was asked; simply work it in with your own words.
· Topic Sentence (This includes but is not limited to the title and author’s name if the subject is art, literature, film, etc.)
· Background Information (Main aspects of the subject that are relevant to your central idea)
· Thesis (The thesis contains your central idea, your claim, or your argument. You can think of this as the “theme” of your essay, which often reflects a “theme” of the subject being discussed. It must be a complete idea. It should be clear enough that I know where you are headed but vague enough that I don’t know exactly where you are going. The 3-pronged thesis is okay, but varying your thesis technique is preferable.
One of the keys to successful writing is the use of KEY WORDS that you carry through each paragraph and the paper as a whole. Keep referencing those key words to stay focused and tie your essay together.
· Introductions often contain a “hook”… a statement that grabs the reader and places the discussion in some sort of context. It is very important to establish the context of your essay upfront. In addition, if you are writing about a text (art, literature, poetry, music, etc.), you should give a brief overview of the work in the introduction—enough that the reader has an understanding of the context of your essay. However, it is not necessary to go into detail. For example, if you are writing about a story, you should be able to summarize the main plot and characters in 1-2 sentences.
· A paragraph is NOT complete without a minimum of 5 complete sentences. Sentence structure should be varied (no short, choppy sentences, please… learn how to use the comma, semicolon, etc.) Say as much as you can in a sentence—do not be overly wordy or too general or vague. Be precise and concise.
· Information on the author does not belong in the introduction (or anywhere in the essay). Only use cited information if indicated by the assignment.
Tutorial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clPtbFT23Bs&feature=related
Paragraphs 2, 3, 4: Body Paragraphs
· Topic Sentence: This is the main idea of the paragraph. Each paragraph must contain a “sub-thesis” or sentence that explains the one big, overall idea being focused on in that individual paragraph. You will have 3 body paragraphs in 2-page essays, each focused around a main idea that in some way illuminates your overall idea or thesis sentence. You should have ONE topic or main idea per body paragraph.
· Supporting Points and Discussion: Your ideas about the subject.
· Specific examples with details: This is evidence from the “text” [the book, artwork, song, film, etc.] quotes or details from the “text” that illustrate your topic.
· Relate the examples to the supporting points and discussion.
· Concluding Sentence: This sentence brings the paragraph to a close and TRANSITIONS to the next paragraph. You should prepare your reader for the next point of discussion by linking it to the previous one.
Tutorial- Topic Statements [you do NOT always need the enumerator]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFwQJSZ2wJA&feature=related
Position + Linking Words + Scope Point = Topic
[You do not need a 3-pronged thesis] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1W6PQLNNic&feature=related
Conclusion:
· Do NOT start with “in conclusion”. Your writing style should clearly signal that this is the concluding paragraph.
· Restate the thesis and main points, but do not repeat them.
· Include general closing statements (this might mean relating the topic to an overall message that society can relate to currently).
You must end your essay effectively. Depending on the topic, it will be important to end with “social commentary”—how your ideas on the subject are relevant currently. The conclusion answers the question "so what"? Now that we have this information, what do we do with it? Depending on the topic, you might signal a "call to action" to your audience. You might explain why and how what you told us is important and can help us understand an issue, emotion, concept, etc. in a new or more in depth way. You are taking the specific information you gave in the essay and relating it to society in a more generalized, applicable way.
· A good technique is to signal your title at the end of the essay, thus bringing it full circle.
Tutorial: Writing Conclusions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iS7MYjYtoE&feature=related
Make sure to begin with a creative title that says something about your take on the subject matter. Do not make the title of your essay the title of the work you are discussing!
All essays should be written in Present Tense (unless told otherwise). All pieces of art, film, and literature are referred to in the present tense. All citations should be in MLA format.
MLA Format requires a header (upper left corner), title (centered), indented paragraphs (5 spaces), 1 inch margins, everything double-spaced, a Works Cited page when research is included in the essay, etc. For more requirements, see the MLA tab (462) in the Little Brown Handbook.
Emily Smith
English 1301, Section 407
MWF 11:00
Essay 1
Title Goes Here
About Titles:
Do not underline or add quotation marks.
Always capitalize the first and last words of any title. Do not capitalize articles,
conjunctions, or short prepositions (fewer than five letters) unless they are the first or
last words. Papers without titles or incorrect titles will be penalized at the teacher's
discretion.
Staple all papers that you are handing in for a grade!
REMEMBER YOUR PUGS: PUNCTUATION, USAGE, GRAMMAR, SPELLING: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CXCFl-2E54&feature=channel
Good Essay Writing Tips: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtP5Or78g9k&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWqMQ26Gqi4&feature=related
This is a good online GUIDE to writing an essay: http://lklivingston.tripod.com/essay/outline.html
STEPS for writing:
1. Planning: The planning stage includes reading over the assignment carefully, understanding the assignment, and jotting down ideas inspired by the prompt you are given. It is always a good idea to "sleep on it" if you get stuck; write down your ideas the next morning with a fresh perspective.
2. Outlining: After you plan out what you are going to say, start organizing your thoughts. Outlines, storyboards, and diagrams are all good ways to do this. There are many differnet outlines you can use; some are in your book, and there are many online. Here's a sample one: http://www.brighthub.com/education/k-12/articles/2999.aspx
3. Drafting: Now that you've organized your ideas, it is time to draft your essay. Make sure that each of your body paragraphs has a crystal clear topic statement and at least 3 supporting ideas. The topic statements must correlate with and advance the thesis. A rough draft should be a finished essay that may not have been edited yet. If you are incorporating quotes into an essay, then the rough draft should reflect that. Do not wait to include your quotes after peer editing day because I will not have time to check them to see if you are incorporating them correctly.
4. Peer Editing: The next step is handing your paper off to your peers to get feedback on your paper. It is very important that your peers actually provide feedback! We will be using the revision models in the "Bedford Guide" book during peer editing sessions. If you know someone marked something correct as a grammar error, then explain to them why you are right and they are wrong; if you are still in doubt, then ask me.
5. Line by Line Read: Read your paper line by line, sentence by sentence. Make sure each sentence makes sense on its own-- out of the context of the sentences surrounding it. All too often do students read what isn't there-- it makes sense in their brains but not on the paper they hand in to me. Reading aloud can alleviate some of these errors.
6. Use your tutoring tools: After your peer editing and line by line self edit, turn your paper into online tutors or sit with a tutor in the writing lab. Use them to help you with editing. They are also available to help you at the beginning of this process to organize properly, if you need that kind of help. Sometimes students need both.
7. Final Revision: Now you are ready to polish your paper! This is called the final revision. This is where you spice up your word choice, vary your sentence structure if it is too choppy, add content if you don't have enough detail, and format it to MLA.
Tutorial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezI42BqJ4d4&feature=related
8. Staple your paper.
Please note that on peer editing days, or anytime we work on essays in class, I will be going around and offering my feedback. Since we have such a short amount of time in class, I will not waste class time by pointing out what you are doing right-- I will spend my time helping you to pick up on errors so that you can correct them before your final revision! It is not my intention to come off as "mean" or "harsh", but in the frenzy of looking at 20+ papers in 45 minutes, please understand if it comes across that way. Your success in this class is important to me; I believe in you and WANT you not only to succeed, but also to excel!
MORE TOOLS... Annotations, Citations, Writing Tips...
Research Paper Tutorials:
Instructional video on types of shots: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwbsYgZ7d-8 Documentary Techniques: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9adF3G0uWE&feature=related
Tutorial on MLA Format: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PRb6557EmI
Another video on formatting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUbzPopdONo&feature=related
Works Cited MLA Format: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wKk7BXTfwo
Watch these to learn about Annotated Bibliography!
Annotated Bibliography (I like this guy:): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds6ygs8JgHg
She says it more quickly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vewwR5NgX_k&feature=related
Purdue Owl- the BEST website for understanding MLA: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/01/
How to put quotes into your essays: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8CoVWLBgnA
Internal Citations-- Blending your sources with your own words: http://www.gorpcc.com/docs/IntegratingSourcesIntoYourResearchPaperhandout.pdf
The 'Grammar' of Television and Film Television and film use certain common conventions often referred to as the 'grammar' of these audiovisual media. This list includes some of the most important conventions for conveying meaning through particular camera and editing techniques (as well as some of the specialised vocabulary of film production).
Conventions aren't rules: expert practitioners break them for deliberate effect, which is one of the rare occasions that we become aware of what the convention is. Samples Here is a sample of an annotation:
Kerr, Frances. "Feeling Half-Feminine: Modernism and the Politics of Emotion in
The Great Gatsby." American Literature 68 (1996): 405-31.
This is A brilliant analysis of the homoerotics in the novel-- Nick's attraction to McKee and to Gatsby. Kerr thinks the tennis girl with sweat on her lip is Jordan (which I think is wrong); shenotes that Jordan has more control over her emotions than the other women in the novel (Daisy and Myrtle). Kerr argues that Nick's narrative about his dumping her "leads the reader to believe that it is Jordan's indifference, shallowness, and dishonesty that prompt his move. The psychological subtext of Gatsby, however, suggests a motivation entirely different. Nick Carraway identifies with and feels most romantically drawn not to 'masculine' women but to 'feminine' men"(418). I used this article in my paper as proof of Nick’s attraction to men to support my case that he is, in fact, homosexual.
The first 4-5 sentences summarize the article (use at least 1 short quote). The last line tells how YOU used the article in your essay.
Sample citation of a movie review:
Ebert, Roger. "Twilight". Rev. of Twilight dir. by Catherine Hardwicke. Chicago-Sun
Times online. Chicago Sun-Times, 20 October 2008. Web. 02 November 2009.
To cite your reviews internally, since you don't have page numbers, you will use paragraph numbers. Example: (Ebert, par. 4).
If you have an article that has page numbers, or a book, then it looks like this:
(Martin 127).
Citations with paragraphs need a comma; citations with page numbers do NOT need a comma.
Sample citation of an article in an online database (like Ebschohost or Infotrac).
Martin, John. "Global Warming Strategies." Journal of Science 10.4 (2007): 145-167.
Ebschohost. Web. 02 November 2009.
Notice that the title of the journal is in italics; what follows is the volume and issue numbers, year of publication, page numbers, search database, and date you retrieved the article.
Exact Language-Samples Wordiness
Wordiness is taking more words than necessary to make your point. It may take the form of redundant expressions or phrases. To be sure, longer expressions may be appropriate at times as a matter of style or to avoid ambiguity. But some business writers clutter their sentences and paragraphs with words, phrases, and expressions that needlessly distract the reader.
Consistent elimination of wordiness results in a stronger, more concise writing style that is easier to read and provides fewer opportunities for misinterpretation. In contrast, a wordy style makes reading laborious and, thus, encourages skimming and leads to inattention. Do you wish the reader to carefully consider your message? If so, reduce wordiness to the extent possible. The examples below provide guidance for avoiding general forms of wordiness.
Click here for example: http://www2.gsu.edu/~accerl/wordiness/WO.html
Removing Nouns
Your message can become confused and lengthy when you use a wordy noun phrase instead of a verb. Instead of saying “give consideration to”, say “consider.” By doing this, you will reduce the number of words in your sentence, and convey a direct message that is easier to understand. Here is a list of some common noun phrases and the verb replacements:
Make a discovery of discover Perform an analysis of analyze Take action on act act Create a reduction in reduce Engage in preparation prepare Compound Prepositions
It is easy to replace compound prepositions with single words by simply asking yourself, “Would I talk like this?" Most people don’t use these wordy phrases when speaking, so it is easy to identify them in your writing.
For example, would you ever say “due to the fact that” or "subsequent to?” No, you would say “because” and “after.” Here are some more examples of wordiness caused by compound prepositions and the shorter form:
Despite the fact although For the amount of for The manner in which how Until such time as until At a later date later
Logical Fallacies-Samples Avoiding Logical Fallacies Logical fallacies are mistakes in reasoning. They may be intentional or unintentional, but in either case they undermine the strength of an argument. Some common fallacies are defined below. Please familiarize yourselves with them so that you can help writers to avoid them.
1) Hasty Generalization: A generalization based on too little evidence, or on evidence that is biased. Example: All men are testosterone-driven idiots. Or: After being in New York for a week, I can tell you: all New Yorkers are rude.
2) Either/Or Fallacy: Only two possibilities are presented when in fact several exist. Example: America: love it or leave it. Or: Shut down all nuclear power plants, or watch your children and grandchildren die from radiation poisoning.
3) Non Sequitur: The conclusion does not follow logically from the premise. Example: My teacher is pretty; I'll learn a lot from her. Or: George Bush was a war hero; he'll be willing to stand tough for America.
4) Ad Hominem: Arguing against the man instead of against the issue. Example: We can't elect him mayor. He cheats on his wife! Or: He doesn't really believe in the first amendment. He just wants to defend his right to see porno flicks.
5) Red Herring: Distracting the audience by drawing attention to an irrelevant issue. Example: How can he be expected to manage the company? Look at how he manages his wife! Or: Why worry about nuclear war when we're all going to die anyway?
6) Circular Reasoning: Asserting a point that has just been made. Sometimes called "begging the question." Example: She is ignorant because she was never educated. Or: We sin because we're sinners.
7) False Analogy: Wrongly assuming that because two things are alike in some ways, they must be alike in all ways. Example: An old grandmother's advice to her granddaughter, who is contemplating living with her boyfriend: "Why should he buy the cow when he can get the milk for free?"
8) Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc: The mistake of assuming that, because event a is followed by event b, event a caused event b. Example: It rained today because I washed my car. Or: The stock market fell because the Japanese are considering implementing an import tax.
9) Equivocation: Equates two meanings of the same word falsely. Example: The end of a thing is its perfection; hence, death is the perfection of life. (The argument is fallacious because there are two different definitions of the word "end" involved in the argument.)
STYLE Some of you write mixed-up or tangled sentences. Some of your write vague sentences. Some of you write wordy sentences. Some of you write choppy sentences or run-ons. Some of you don't realize that your sentences just aren't working and that it is a TASK for your reader to muddle through them. This is a great reference for understanding and developing STYLE in your writing:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~writing/materials/student/ac_paper/style.shtml
Paragraphs & Topics What should a paragraph do? At the risk of being silly, consider this. What you look for in a partner, a reader looks for in a paragraph. You want a partner who is supportive, strong, and considerate to others. Similarly, a good paragraph will:
Because the topic sentence plays an important role in your paragraph, it must be crafted with care. When you've written a topic sentence, ask yourself the following questions:
Introductions and Conclusions Introductions and conclusions are among the most challenging of all paragraphs. Why? Because introductions and conclusions must do more than simply state a topic sentence and offer support. Introductions and conclusions must synthesize and provide context for your entire argument, and they must also make the proper impression on your reader.
Introductions Your introduction is your chance to get your reader interested in your subject. Accordingly, the tone of the paragraph has to be just right. You want to inform, but not to the point of being dull; you want to intrigue, but not to the point of being vague; you want to take a strong stance, but not to the point of alienating your reader. Pay attention to the nuances of your tone. Seek out a second reader if you're not sure that you've managed to get the tone the way you want it.
Equally important to the tone of the introduction is that your introduction needs to "place" your argument into some larger context. Some strategies follow:
Finally, you might want to consider writing your introduction AFTER you've written the rest of your paper. Many writers find that they have a better grip on their subject once they've done their first draft. This "better grip" helps them to craft an introduction that is sure-footed, persuasive, interesting, and clear. (Note: Any changes that you make to an introduction and/or thesis statement will affect the paper that follows. Simply adding the new introductory paragraph will not produce a "completed" paper.)
Beach 1
Strategies for Writing and Revising a Successful Timed Writing Writing an Introduction
The introduction serves the purpose of instilling interest, a sense of empathy, or an amount of background knowledge that will cause the reader to engage him or herself with what you have to say about the subject. Often you’ve heard that you need an "attention grabber", but more importantly you need to provide a way for the reader to see a personal interest in the subject. When writing on a general topic or responding to a specific writing prompt, you have many choices for your introduction:
1. Summarize the reading. When you are asked to respond to a specific text, such as a prompt for the Subject A exam, explain the key points made by the author of the writing focusing clearly on those points relevant to the question being asked. In James Dannenburg’s article "What I Did Was Legal, But Was it Right?" the author attempts to explain his actions when he decided to evade military service during the Vietnam War. He explains his attitudes toward war in general as well as his specific attitude toward the Vietnam War. He notes that his actions during the war may have helped many young men who also didn’t want to participate in the war and the majority of his essay is an attempt to come to terms with whatever feelings of guilt or honor Dannenburg feels almost 40 years later. In my opinion…[thesis]
(I recommend this approach at an introduction for the Subject A examination)
2. Give Background Information. When writing on a general subject, such as economic conditions in the U.S.A., give some background information on the subject. This is useful since your audience is interested already and you don’t need to engage in some kind of device to curry their interest. With inflation slowing down, many companies have understandably lowered prices, and the oil industry should be no exception. Consequently, homeowners have begun wondering whether the relatively high price of home heating oil is justified given the economic climate. It makes sense, therefore, for us to start examining the pricing policies of the major oil companies. In Francis Bacon’s essay "Big Oil and Big Politics" the writer senses a shift in priorities in Washington on the energy question. In my opinion…[thesis]
3. Define a key term or concept. Beginning your essay with a definition may be crucial to your readers’ understanding of your position on your prompt question, however using the phrase "According to Webster’s Dictionary…" or a variation is cliché. Don’t do it! Democracy is a form of government in which the ultimate authority is given to and exercised by the people. This may be so in theory, but recent elections, especially the 2000 presedential race, have raised concerns about the future of democracy as we know it and define it. Benjamin Pleasure’s essay "Big Trouble in Big Washington" makes the argument that the decline in the integrity of the voting process is destroying democracy. Pleasure’s argument… [thesis]
January 2003 Beach 2 January 2003
4. Tell an anecdote or story. Use this sparingly and only use a story that is obviously related to the issue, topic, or prompt at hand. Give proper accreditation to the source of the story. In a famous dialogue between two great American writers, F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, "The rich are different from you and me" to friend and drinking buddy Ernest Hemingway. To this statement Hemingway replied, "Yeah, they’ve got more money." This quick-witted exchange shows the attitudes that many Americans have towards people simply because they have amassed great wealth. In Elizabeth Johnson’s article "Will the Real Donald Trump Please Stand Up!" the author argues that many people create images in their heads of what people who are fabulously wealthy must be like, images that are many times far from the truth. In my opinion… [thesis]
5. MY LEASt favorite: Ask a question. Though asking a question is the easiest way to begin an essay, it is by far the most clichéd. That being said, take yourself to task to come up with a creative way to ask a question that will inspire your reader to read on. Have you ever killed a man? If you were called upon tomorrow to go to Iraq knowing that you might have to kill another person, could you do it? These same questions faced James Dannenburg almost 40 years ago when he, as a young man, chose to avoid being drafted to fight in the Vietnam War, a war he didn’t believe in. Dannenburg’s article "What I Did Was Legal, But Was it Right?" recounts the thoughts and feelings that whirled through his youthful mind. I think… [thesis]
6. Relate your topic to recent news. Conjuring a recent, well-known event in the mind of your reader can establish a connection between the subject and your reader, since it’s likely your reader is aware of the recent happening. It was only three years ago that two students shot and killed their classmates at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Though this is an extreme example, personal conflicts and social trials in our nation’s schools have left children, teens, and parents all with a sense of fear and confusion similar to no other time in our nation’s history. Sandra Timmons’s essay "A Classroom of Fear" focuses on the environment of insecurity many teenagers face everyday in our schools. Through my experience, I feel her argument… [thesis]
Remember: Avoid beginning your essay with your thesis or the answer to the prompt question. This is disorienting and dizzying for an academic audience that has been taught/trained to expect certain elements in a certain order in essay writing.
Conclusions are also difficult to write. How do you manage to make the reader feel persuaded by what you've said? Even if the points of your paper are strong, the overall effect of your argument might fall to pieces if the paper as a whole is badly concluded.
Many students end their papers by simply summarizing what has come before. A summary of what the reader has just read is important to the conclusion - particularly if your argument has been complicated or has covered a lot of ground. But a good conclusion will do more. Just as the introduction sought to place the paper in the larger, ongoing conversation about the topic, so should the conclusion insist on returning the reader to that ongoing conversation, but with the feeling that they have learned something more. You don't want your reader to finish your paper and say, "So what?" Admittedly, writing a conclusion isn't easy to do.
Many of the strategies we've listed for improving your introductions can help you to improve your conclusions as well. In your conclusion you might:
The Argument Developing Your Argument: Evidence Students often ask how long a paragraph ought to be. Our response: "As long as it takes."
It's possible to make a point quickly. Sometimes it's desirable to keep it short. Notice the above paragraph, for example. We might have hemmed and hawed, talked about short paragraphs and long paragraphs. We might have said that the average paragraph is one-half to two-thirds of a page in length. We might have spent time explaining why the too-short paragraph is too short, and the too-long paragraph too long. Instead, we cut to the chase. After huffing and puffing through this paragraph (which is getting longer and longer all the time) we'll give you the same advice: a good paragraph is as long as it needs to be in order to illustrate, explore, and/or prove its main idea.
But length isn't all that matters in paragraph development. What's important is that a paragraph develops its idea fully, and in a manner that a reader can follow with ease.
Let's consider these two issues carefully. First: how do we know when an idea is fully developed? If your topic sentence is well-written, it should tell you what your paragraph needs to do. If my topic sentence declares, for example, that there are two conflicting impulses at work in a particular fictional character, then my reader will expect that I will define and illustrate these two impulses. I might take two paragraphs to do this; I might take one. My decision will depend on how important this matter is to my discussion. If the point is an important one, I take my time. I also (more likely than not) use at least two paragraphs. In this case, a topic sentence might be understood as controlling not only a paragraph, but an entire section of text.
When you've written a paragraph, ask yourself these questions:
You will also want to consider your method of reasoning when you construct your paragraph. Are you using inductive logic, working from clues towards your conclusion? If so, your paragraph will reflect this way of thinking: your evidence will come early on in the paragraph, and the topic sentence will appear at the end. If, on the other hand, you are using deductive logic, your paragraph will very likely be arranged like a syllogism. (For more information about constructing logical paragraphs, see Logic and Argument.)
Finally, remember that the modes of discourse that we outlined earlier can also serve as models for arranging information within a paragraph. If the purpose of a particular paragraph is to make a comparison, for example, your paragraph would be structured to assert that "A is like B in these three ways." And so on.
Coherence OK, so you've gotten this far: you have your thesis, your topic sentences, and truckloads of evidence to support the whole lot. You've spent three days writing your paragraphs, making sure that each paragraph argues one point and that this point is well supported with textual evidence. But when you read this essay back to yourself, you feel a profound sense of disappointment. Though you've followed your outline and everything is "in there," the essay just doesn't seem to hold together. It could be that you have a problem with coherence.
A lack of coherence is easy to diagnose, but not so easy to cure. An incoherent essay doesn't seem to flow. Its arguments are hard to understand. The reader has to double back again and again in order to follow the gist of the argument. Something has gone wrong. What?
Look for these problems in your paper:
1. Make sure that the grammatical subject of your sentences reflects the real subject of your paragraph. Go through your paragraph and underline the subjects of all your sentences. Do these subjects match your paragraph's subject in most cases? Or have you stuck the paragraph's subject into some other, less important part of the sentence? Remember: the reader understands an idea's importance according to where you place it. If your main idea is hidden as an object of a preposition in a subordinate clause, do you really think that your reader is going to follow what you are trying to say?
2. Make sure that your grammatical subjects are consistent. Again, look at the grammatical subjects of all your sentences. How many different subjects do you find? If you have too many different sentence subjects, your paragraph will be hard to follow. (Note: For the fun of it, underline the sentence subjects in paragraph one. You'll find three, more or less: you, the subject, and the reader. The relationship between the three is what this paragraph is all about. Accordingly, the paragraph is coherent.)
3. Make sure that your sentences look backward as well as forward. In order for a paragraph to be coherent, each sentence should begin by linking itself firmly to the sentence that came before. If the link between sentences does not seem firm, use an introductory clause or phrase to connect one idea to the other.
4. Follow the principle of moving from old to new. If you put the old information at the beginning of the sentence, and the new information at the end, you accomplish two things. First, you ensure that your reader is on solid ground: she moves from the familiar to the unknown. Second, because we tend to give emphasis to what comes at the end of a sentence, the reader rightfully perceives that the new information is more important than the old.
5. Use repetition to create a sense of unity. Repeating key words and phrases at appropriate moments will give your reader a sense of coherence in your work. Don't overdo it, however. You'll risk sounding redundant.
6. Use transition markers wisely. Sometimes you'll need to announce to your reader some turn in your argument. Or you'll want to emphasize one of your points. Or you'll want to make clear some relationship in time. In all these cases you'll want to use transition markers.
Here are some examples:
Instructional video on types of shots: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwbsYgZ7d-8 Documentary Techniques: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9adF3G0uWE&feature=related
Tutorial on MLA Format: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PRb6557EmI
Another video on formatting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUbzPopdONo&feature=related
Works Cited MLA Format: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wKk7BXTfwo
Watch these to learn about Annotated Bibliography!
Annotated Bibliography (I like this guy:): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds6ygs8JgHg
She says it more quickly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vewwR5NgX_k&feature=related
Purdue Owl- the BEST website for understanding MLA: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/01/
How to put quotes into your essays: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8CoVWLBgnA
Internal Citations-- Blending your sources with your own words: http://www.gorpcc.com/docs/IntegratingSourcesIntoYourResearchPaperhandout.pdf
The 'Grammar' of Television and Film Television and film use certain common conventions often referred to as the 'grammar' of these audiovisual media. This list includes some of the most important conventions for conveying meaning through particular camera and editing techniques (as well as some of the specialised vocabulary of film production).
Conventions aren't rules: expert practitioners break them for deliberate effect, which is one of the rare occasions that we become aware of what the convention is. Samples Here is a sample of an annotation:
Kerr, Frances. "Feeling Half-Feminine: Modernism and the Politics of Emotion in
The Great Gatsby." American Literature 68 (1996): 405-31.
This is A brilliant analysis of the homoerotics in the novel-- Nick's attraction to McKee and to Gatsby. Kerr thinks the tennis girl with sweat on her lip is Jordan (which I think is wrong); shenotes that Jordan has more control over her emotions than the other women in the novel (Daisy and Myrtle). Kerr argues that Nick's narrative about his dumping her "leads the reader to believe that it is Jordan's indifference, shallowness, and dishonesty that prompt his move. The psychological subtext of Gatsby, however, suggests a motivation entirely different. Nick Carraway identifies with and feels most romantically drawn not to 'masculine' women but to 'feminine' men"(418). I used this article in my paper as proof of Nick’s attraction to men to support my case that he is, in fact, homosexual.
The first 4-5 sentences summarize the article (use at least 1 short quote). The last line tells how YOU used the article in your essay.
Sample citation of a movie review:
Ebert, Roger. "Twilight". Rev. of Twilight dir. by Catherine Hardwicke. Chicago-Sun
Times online. Chicago Sun-Times, 20 October 2008. Web. 02 November 2009.
To cite your reviews internally, since you don't have page numbers, you will use paragraph numbers. Example: (Ebert, par. 4).
If you have an article that has page numbers, or a book, then it looks like this:
(Martin 127).
Citations with paragraphs need a comma; citations with page numbers do NOT need a comma.
Sample citation of an article in an online database (like Ebschohost or Infotrac).
Martin, John. "Global Warming Strategies." Journal of Science 10.4 (2007): 145-167.
Ebschohost. Web. 02 November 2009.
Notice that the title of the journal is in italics; what follows is the volume and issue numbers, year of publication, page numbers, search database, and date you retrieved the article.
Exact Language-Samples Wordiness
Wordiness is taking more words than necessary to make your point. It may take the form of redundant expressions or phrases. To be sure, longer expressions may be appropriate at times as a matter of style or to avoid ambiguity. But some business writers clutter their sentences and paragraphs with words, phrases, and expressions that needlessly distract the reader.
Consistent elimination of wordiness results in a stronger, more concise writing style that is easier to read and provides fewer opportunities for misinterpretation. In contrast, a wordy style makes reading laborious and, thus, encourages skimming and leads to inattention. Do you wish the reader to carefully consider your message? If so, reduce wordiness to the extent possible. The examples below provide guidance for avoiding general forms of wordiness.
Click here for example: http://www2.gsu.edu/~accerl/wordiness/WO.html
Removing Nouns
Your message can become confused and lengthy when you use a wordy noun phrase instead of a verb. Instead of saying “give consideration to”, say “consider.” By doing this, you will reduce the number of words in your sentence, and convey a direct message that is easier to understand. Here is a list of some common noun phrases and the verb replacements:
Make a discovery of discover Perform an analysis of analyze Take action on act act Create a reduction in reduce Engage in preparation prepare Compound Prepositions
It is easy to replace compound prepositions with single words by simply asking yourself, “Would I talk like this?" Most people don’t use these wordy phrases when speaking, so it is easy to identify them in your writing.
For example, would you ever say “due to the fact that” or "subsequent to?” No, you would say “because” and “after.” Here are some more examples of wordiness caused by compound prepositions and the shorter form:
Despite the fact although For the amount of for The manner in which how Until such time as until At a later date later
Logical Fallacies-Samples Avoiding Logical Fallacies Logical fallacies are mistakes in reasoning. They may be intentional or unintentional, but in either case they undermine the strength of an argument. Some common fallacies are defined below. Please familiarize yourselves with them so that you can help writers to avoid them.
1) Hasty Generalization: A generalization based on too little evidence, or on evidence that is biased. Example: All men are testosterone-driven idiots. Or: After being in New York for a week, I can tell you: all New Yorkers are rude.
2) Either/Or Fallacy: Only two possibilities are presented when in fact several exist. Example: America: love it or leave it. Or: Shut down all nuclear power plants, or watch your children and grandchildren die from radiation poisoning.
3) Non Sequitur: The conclusion does not follow logically from the premise. Example: My teacher is pretty; I'll learn a lot from her. Or: George Bush was a war hero; he'll be willing to stand tough for America.
4) Ad Hominem: Arguing against the man instead of against the issue. Example: We can't elect him mayor. He cheats on his wife! Or: He doesn't really believe in the first amendment. He just wants to defend his right to see porno flicks.
5) Red Herring: Distracting the audience by drawing attention to an irrelevant issue. Example: How can he be expected to manage the company? Look at how he manages his wife! Or: Why worry about nuclear war when we're all going to die anyway?
6) Circular Reasoning: Asserting a point that has just been made. Sometimes called "begging the question." Example: She is ignorant because she was never educated. Or: We sin because we're sinners.
7) False Analogy: Wrongly assuming that because two things are alike in some ways, they must be alike in all ways. Example: An old grandmother's advice to her granddaughter, who is contemplating living with her boyfriend: "Why should he buy the cow when he can get the milk for free?"
8) Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc: The mistake of assuming that, because event a is followed by event b, event a caused event b. Example: It rained today because I washed my car. Or: The stock market fell because the Japanese are considering implementing an import tax.
9) Equivocation: Equates two meanings of the same word falsely. Example: The end of a thing is its perfection; hence, death is the perfection of life. (The argument is fallacious because there are two different definitions of the word "end" involved in the argument.)
STYLE Some of you write mixed-up or tangled sentences. Some of your write vague sentences. Some of you write wordy sentences. Some of you write choppy sentences or run-ons. Some of you don't realize that your sentences just aren't working and that it is a TASK for your reader to muddle through them. This is a great reference for understanding and developing STYLE in your writing:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~writing/materials/student/ac_paper/style.shtml
Paragraphs & Topics What should a paragraph do? At the risk of being silly, consider this. What you look for in a partner, a reader looks for in a paragraph. You want a partner who is supportive, strong, and considerate to others. Similarly, a good paragraph will:
- Be Supportive.Even in the most trying of times a good paragraph will find a way to support the thesis. It will declare its relationship to the thesis clearly, so that the whole world knows what the paragraph intends to do. In other words, a supportive paragraph's main idea clearly develops the argument of the thesis.
- Be Strong.A good paragraph isn't bloated with irrelevant evidence or redundant sentences. Nor is it a scrawny thing, begging to be fed. It's strong and buffed. You know that it's been worked on. In other words, a strong paragraph develops its main idea, using sufficient evidence.
- Be Considerate.Good paragraphs consider their relationship to other paragraphs. A good paragraph never interrupts its fellow paragraphs to babble on about its own, irrelevant problems. A good paragraph waits its turn. It shows up when and where it's supposed to. It doesn't make a mess for other paragraphs to clean up. In other words, a considerate paragraph is a coherent paragraph. It makes sense within the text as a whole.
Because the topic sentence plays an important role in your paragraph, it must be crafted with care. When you've written a topic sentence, ask yourself the following questions:
- Does the topic sentence declare a single point of my argument? Because the reader expects that a paragraph will explore ONE idea in your paper, it's important that your topic sentence isn't too ambitious. If your topic sentence points to two or three ideas, perhaps you need to consider developing more paragraphs.
- Does the topic sentence further my argument? Give your topic sentences the same "so what?" test that you gave your thesis sentence. If your topic sentence isn't interesting, your paragraph probably won't serve to further the argument. Your paper could stall.
- Is the topic sentence relevant to my thesis? It might seem so to you, but the relevance may not be so clear to your reader. If you find that your topic sentence is taking you into new ground, stop writing and consider your options. You'll either have to rewrite your thesis to accommodate this new direction, or you will have to edit this paragraph from your final paper.
- Is there a clear relationship between this topic sentence and the paragraph that came before? It's important to make sure that you haven't left out any steps in the process of composing your argument. If you make a sudden turn in your reasoning, signify that turn to the reader by using the proper transitional phrase - on the other hand, however, etc.
- Does the topic sentence control my paragraph? If your paragraph seems to unravel, take a second look. It might be that your topic sentence isn't adequately controlling your paragraph and needs to be re-written. Or it might be that your paragraph is moving on to a new idea that needs to be sorted out.
- Where have I placed my topic sentence? Most of the time a topic sentence comes at the beginning of a paragraph. A reader expects to see it there, so if you are going to place it elsewhere, you'll need to have a good reason and a bit of skill. You might justify putting the topic sentence in the middle of the paragraph, for example, if you have information that needs to precede it. You might also justify putting the topic sentence at the end of the paragraph, if you want the reader to consider your line of reasoning before you declare your main point.
Introductions and Conclusions Introductions and conclusions are among the most challenging of all paragraphs. Why? Because introductions and conclusions must do more than simply state a topic sentence and offer support. Introductions and conclusions must synthesize and provide context for your entire argument, and they must also make the proper impression on your reader.
Introductions Your introduction is your chance to get your reader interested in your subject. Accordingly, the tone of the paragraph has to be just right. You want to inform, but not to the point of being dull; you want to intrigue, but not to the point of being vague; you want to take a strong stance, but not to the point of alienating your reader. Pay attention to the nuances of your tone. Seek out a second reader if you're not sure that you've managed to get the tone the way you want it.
Equally important to the tone of the introduction is that your introduction needs to "place" your argument into some larger context. Some strategies follow:
- Announce your topic broadly, then declare your particular take.For example, if you are interested in talking about the narrator in Virginia Woolf's novels, you might 1) begin by saying that Woolf's narrator has posed a problem for many of her critics; 2) provide a quick definition of the problem, as others have defined it; and 3) declare your thesis (which states your own position on the matter).
- Provide any background material important to your argument.If you are interested in exploring how turn of the century Viennese morality influenced the work of Sigmund Freud, you will in your introduction want to provide the reader, in broad strokes, a description of Vienna circa 1900. Don't include irrelevant details in your description; instead, emphasize those aspects of Viennese society (such as sexual mores) that might have most influenced Freud.
- Define key terms, as you intend to make use of them in your argument.If, for example, you are writing a philosophy paper on the nature of reality, it is absolutely essential that you define the term for your reader. How do you understand the term "reality," in the context of this paper? Empirically? Rationally? Begin with a definition of terms, and from there work towards the declaration of your argument.
- Use an anecdote or quotation.Sometimes you will find a terrific story or quotation that seems to reflect the main point of your paper. Don't be afraid to begin with it. Be sure, however, that you tie that story or quotation clearly and immediately to the main argument of your paper.
- Acknowledge your opponents.When you are writing a paper about a matter that is controversial, you might wish to begin by summarizing the point of view of your adversaries. Then state your own position in opposition to theirs. In this way you place yourself clearly in the ongoing conversation. Be careful, though: you don't want to make too convincing a case for the other side.
Finally, you might want to consider writing your introduction AFTER you've written the rest of your paper. Many writers find that they have a better grip on their subject once they've done their first draft. This "better grip" helps them to craft an introduction that is sure-footed, persuasive, interesting, and clear. (Note: Any changes that you make to an introduction and/or thesis statement will affect the paper that follows. Simply adding the new introductory paragraph will not produce a "completed" paper.)
Beach 1
Strategies for Writing and Revising a Successful Timed Writing Writing an Introduction
The introduction serves the purpose of instilling interest, a sense of empathy, or an amount of background knowledge that will cause the reader to engage him or herself with what you have to say about the subject. Often you’ve heard that you need an "attention grabber", but more importantly you need to provide a way for the reader to see a personal interest in the subject. When writing on a general topic or responding to a specific writing prompt, you have many choices for your introduction:
1. Summarize the reading. When you are asked to respond to a specific text, such as a prompt for the Subject A exam, explain the key points made by the author of the writing focusing clearly on those points relevant to the question being asked. In James Dannenburg’s article "What I Did Was Legal, But Was it Right?" the author attempts to explain his actions when he decided to evade military service during the Vietnam War. He explains his attitudes toward war in general as well as his specific attitude toward the Vietnam War. He notes that his actions during the war may have helped many young men who also didn’t want to participate in the war and the majority of his essay is an attempt to come to terms with whatever feelings of guilt or honor Dannenburg feels almost 40 years later. In my opinion…[thesis]
(I recommend this approach at an introduction for the Subject A examination)
2. Give Background Information. When writing on a general subject, such as economic conditions in the U.S.A., give some background information on the subject. This is useful since your audience is interested already and you don’t need to engage in some kind of device to curry their interest. With inflation slowing down, many companies have understandably lowered prices, and the oil industry should be no exception. Consequently, homeowners have begun wondering whether the relatively high price of home heating oil is justified given the economic climate. It makes sense, therefore, for us to start examining the pricing policies of the major oil companies. In Francis Bacon’s essay "Big Oil and Big Politics" the writer senses a shift in priorities in Washington on the energy question. In my opinion…[thesis]
3. Define a key term or concept. Beginning your essay with a definition may be crucial to your readers’ understanding of your position on your prompt question, however using the phrase "According to Webster’s Dictionary…" or a variation is cliché. Don’t do it! Democracy is a form of government in which the ultimate authority is given to and exercised by the people. This may be so in theory, but recent elections, especially the 2000 presedential race, have raised concerns about the future of democracy as we know it and define it. Benjamin Pleasure’s essay "Big Trouble in Big Washington" makes the argument that the decline in the integrity of the voting process is destroying democracy. Pleasure’s argument… [thesis]
January 2003 Beach 2 January 2003
4. Tell an anecdote or story. Use this sparingly and only use a story that is obviously related to the issue, topic, or prompt at hand. Give proper accreditation to the source of the story. In a famous dialogue between two great American writers, F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, "The rich are different from you and me" to friend and drinking buddy Ernest Hemingway. To this statement Hemingway replied, "Yeah, they’ve got more money." This quick-witted exchange shows the attitudes that many Americans have towards people simply because they have amassed great wealth. In Elizabeth Johnson’s article "Will the Real Donald Trump Please Stand Up!" the author argues that many people create images in their heads of what people who are fabulously wealthy must be like, images that are many times far from the truth. In my opinion… [thesis]
5. MY LEASt favorite: Ask a question. Though asking a question is the easiest way to begin an essay, it is by far the most clichéd. That being said, take yourself to task to come up with a creative way to ask a question that will inspire your reader to read on. Have you ever killed a man? If you were called upon tomorrow to go to Iraq knowing that you might have to kill another person, could you do it? These same questions faced James Dannenburg almost 40 years ago when he, as a young man, chose to avoid being drafted to fight in the Vietnam War, a war he didn’t believe in. Dannenburg’s article "What I Did Was Legal, But Was it Right?" recounts the thoughts and feelings that whirled through his youthful mind. I think… [thesis]
6. Relate your topic to recent news. Conjuring a recent, well-known event in the mind of your reader can establish a connection between the subject and your reader, since it’s likely your reader is aware of the recent happening. It was only three years ago that two students shot and killed their classmates at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Though this is an extreme example, personal conflicts and social trials in our nation’s schools have left children, teens, and parents all with a sense of fear and confusion similar to no other time in our nation’s history. Sandra Timmons’s essay "A Classroom of Fear" focuses on the environment of insecurity many teenagers face everyday in our schools. Through my experience, I feel her argument… [thesis]
Remember: Avoid beginning your essay with your thesis or the answer to the prompt question. This is disorienting and dizzying for an academic audience that has been taught/trained to expect certain elements in a certain order in essay writing.
Conclusions are also difficult to write. How do you manage to make the reader feel persuaded by what you've said? Even if the points of your paper are strong, the overall effect of your argument might fall to pieces if the paper as a whole is badly concluded.
Many students end their papers by simply summarizing what has come before. A summary of what the reader has just read is important to the conclusion - particularly if your argument has been complicated or has covered a lot of ground. But a good conclusion will do more. Just as the introduction sought to place the paper in the larger, ongoing conversation about the topic, so should the conclusion insist on returning the reader to that ongoing conversation, but with the feeling that they have learned something more. You don't want your reader to finish your paper and say, "So what?" Admittedly, writing a conclusion isn't easy to do.
Many of the strategies we've listed for improving your introductions can help you to improve your conclusions as well. In your conclusion you might:
- Return to the ongoing conversation, emphasizing the importance of your own contribution to it.
- Consider again the background information with which you began, and illustrate how your argument has shed new light on that information.
- Return to the key terms and point out how your essay has added some new dimension to their meanings.
- Use an anecdote or quotation that summarizes or reflects your main idea.
- Acknowledge your opponents - if only to emphasize that you've beaten them.
- Remember: language is especially important to a conclusion. Your goal in your final sentences is to leave your ideas resounding in your reader's mind. Give her something to think about. Make your language ring.
The Argument Developing Your Argument: Evidence Students often ask how long a paragraph ought to be. Our response: "As long as it takes."
It's possible to make a point quickly. Sometimes it's desirable to keep it short. Notice the above paragraph, for example. We might have hemmed and hawed, talked about short paragraphs and long paragraphs. We might have said that the average paragraph is one-half to two-thirds of a page in length. We might have spent time explaining why the too-short paragraph is too short, and the too-long paragraph too long. Instead, we cut to the chase. After huffing and puffing through this paragraph (which is getting longer and longer all the time) we'll give you the same advice: a good paragraph is as long as it needs to be in order to illustrate, explore, and/or prove its main idea.
But length isn't all that matters in paragraph development. What's important is that a paragraph develops its idea fully, and in a manner that a reader can follow with ease.
Let's consider these two issues carefully. First: how do we know when an idea is fully developed? If your topic sentence is well-written, it should tell you what your paragraph needs to do. If my topic sentence declares, for example, that there are two conflicting impulses at work in a particular fictional character, then my reader will expect that I will define and illustrate these two impulses. I might take two paragraphs to do this; I might take one. My decision will depend on how important this matter is to my discussion. If the point is an important one, I take my time. I also (more likely than not) use at least two paragraphs. In this case, a topic sentence might be understood as controlling not only a paragraph, but an entire section of text.
When you've written a paragraph, ask yourself these questions:
- Do I have enough evidence to support this paragraph's idea?
- Do I have too much evidence? (In other words, will the reader be lost in a morass of details, unable to see the argument as a whole?)
- Does this evidence clearly support the assertion I am making in this paragraph, or am I stretching it?
- If I am stretching it, what can I do to persuade the reader that this stretch is worth making?
- Am I repeating myself in this paragraph?
- Have I defined all of the paragraph's important terms?
- Can I say, in a nutshell, what the purpose of this paragraph is?
- Has the paragraph fulfilled that purpose?
You will also want to consider your method of reasoning when you construct your paragraph. Are you using inductive logic, working from clues towards your conclusion? If so, your paragraph will reflect this way of thinking: your evidence will come early on in the paragraph, and the topic sentence will appear at the end. If, on the other hand, you are using deductive logic, your paragraph will very likely be arranged like a syllogism. (For more information about constructing logical paragraphs, see Logic and Argument.)
Finally, remember that the modes of discourse that we outlined earlier can also serve as models for arranging information within a paragraph. If the purpose of a particular paragraph is to make a comparison, for example, your paragraph would be structured to assert that "A is like B in these three ways." And so on.
Coherence OK, so you've gotten this far: you have your thesis, your topic sentences, and truckloads of evidence to support the whole lot. You've spent three days writing your paragraphs, making sure that each paragraph argues one point and that this point is well supported with textual evidence. But when you read this essay back to yourself, you feel a profound sense of disappointment. Though you've followed your outline and everything is "in there," the essay just doesn't seem to hold together. It could be that you have a problem with coherence.
A lack of coherence is easy to diagnose, but not so easy to cure. An incoherent essay doesn't seem to flow. Its arguments are hard to understand. The reader has to double back again and again in order to follow the gist of the argument. Something has gone wrong. What?
Look for these problems in your paper:
1. Make sure that the grammatical subject of your sentences reflects the real subject of your paragraph. Go through your paragraph and underline the subjects of all your sentences. Do these subjects match your paragraph's subject in most cases? Or have you stuck the paragraph's subject into some other, less important part of the sentence? Remember: the reader understands an idea's importance according to where you place it. If your main idea is hidden as an object of a preposition in a subordinate clause, do you really think that your reader is going to follow what you are trying to say?
2. Make sure that your grammatical subjects are consistent. Again, look at the grammatical subjects of all your sentences. How many different subjects do you find? If you have too many different sentence subjects, your paragraph will be hard to follow. (Note: For the fun of it, underline the sentence subjects in paragraph one. You'll find three, more or less: you, the subject, and the reader. The relationship between the three is what this paragraph is all about. Accordingly, the paragraph is coherent.)
3. Make sure that your sentences look backward as well as forward. In order for a paragraph to be coherent, each sentence should begin by linking itself firmly to the sentence that came before. If the link between sentences does not seem firm, use an introductory clause or phrase to connect one idea to the other.
4. Follow the principle of moving from old to new. If you put the old information at the beginning of the sentence, and the new information at the end, you accomplish two things. First, you ensure that your reader is on solid ground: she moves from the familiar to the unknown. Second, because we tend to give emphasis to what comes at the end of a sentence, the reader rightfully perceives that the new information is more important than the old.
5. Use repetition to create a sense of unity. Repeating key words and phrases at appropriate moments will give your reader a sense of coherence in your work. Don't overdo it, however. You'll risk sounding redundant.
6. Use transition markers wisely. Sometimes you'll need to announce to your reader some turn in your argument. Or you'll want to emphasize one of your points. Or you'll want to make clear some relationship in time. In all these cases you'll want to use transition markers.
Here are some examples:
- To show place - above, below, here, there, etc.
- To show time - after, before, currently, during, earlier, later, etc.
- To give an example - for example, for instance, etc.
- To show addition - additionally, also, and, furthermore, moreover, equally important, etc.
- To show similarity - also, likewise, in the same way, similarly, etc.
- To show an exception - but, however, nevertheless, on the other hand, on the contrary, yet, etc.
- To show a sequence - first, second, third, next, then, etc.
- To emphasize - indeed, in fact, of course, etc.
- To show cause and effect - accordingly, consequently, therefore, thus, etc.
- To conclude or repeat - finally, in conclusion, on the whole, in the end, etc.