Processing of Writing |
Argumentative
essay |
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Stating Your Thesis
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To make your topic into a thesis statement, you need to make a claim about it. |
A thesis is a one sentence statement about your topic. It's an assertion about your topic, something you claim to be true. Notice that a topic alone makes no such claim; it merely defines an area to be covered. The topic is seldom stated as a complete sentence with a subject and predicate. To make your topic into a thesis statement, you need to make a claim about it. Think about what you believe to be true. Think about what your readers want or need to know. Then write a sentence, preferably at this point, a simple one, stating what will be the controlling idea of your paper. The result should look something like this:
Focused Topic: The government should allow the establishment of private universities
Thesis: I believe this to be true as private universities can be cheaper, can offer greater flexibility and diversity.
Thesis statement is a statement of fact, pure and simple, and requires to have little or nothing added. A good thesis asks to have more said about it. It demands some proof. Your job is to show your reader that your thesis is true, so that in end the reader will say, "Ah yes, now that it's been explained, I can see that the government should allow the establishment of private universities"
Getting Inside an Idea
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. . . a whole essays, a whole book, can be built from a single idea that is fully explored and developed. |
It isn't unusual to hear people say they can't write any more because
they've run out of ideas, as though every sentence had to present a new
thought. Most experienced writers understand, though, that a whole essay, a
whole book, can be built from a single idea that is fully explored and
developed.
The writer's job is not simply to list ideas, which could be seen as
mere personal opinions, but to probe and test a single worthwhile thought, to
take the reader inside that idea rather than pass quickly over its surface.
To begin doing this, look carefully at your thesis. Try asking:
- Why do I believe this statement is true?
- What have I seen or done or read or heard that caused me to make this statement?
At this point, look less for specific details than for "good reasons." Maybe you've heard the expression, "Give me three good reasons why I should believe you." If you can do that, give at least three good reasons why a reasonable person should believe your thesis, you're well on your way. For example, the thesis, "The government should allow the establishment of private universities" could be supported as follows:
Focused Topic: The government should allow the establishment of private universities
Thesis: Private universities cost less money and therefore facilitate a better allocation of government resources.
Reason 1: Private universities need very little financial support from the government.
Reason 2: This reduces the burden on government finances and government will then be able to re-allocate its resources more efficiently.
Developing Your Paragraphs
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. . . show the foundation of specific evidence that your general ideas are built upon. |
Your topic sentences indicate the major areas of support for your thesis,
and the guide sentences indicate the general course of development you plan to
take within each paragraph. While you've opened up your main idea to expose
its parts, you have yet to get down to giving the specifics, the precise
details that will help your reader feel the full weight of your thought. You
must show the foundation of specific evidence that your general ideas are
built upon. The following suggestions for paragraph development will help you
coax forth the details that will make your writing solid and substantial.
| Developing Paragraphs | |
| ~ Give an Example | ~ Offer an Explanation |
| ~ Present the Facts | ~ Make a Comparison or a Contrast |
Give an Example
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Examples allow readers to see, touch, hear, taste, and feel the actual stuff your thoughts are made of. |
Notice how often a paragraph will say, in the second or third sentence, "for instance" or "for example." This is how writers introduce an actual incident or object to prove or illustrate the point under discussion. The example may be a brief physical description:
I can still remember her imitation of a frog. Puffing out her cheeks and hopping around the room, she almost seemed to become one as she croaked out a mating call.
Or even a story:
Once I'd been suspended from school for a minor infraction, which I won't go into here, and she still wanted me to turn in my tree project, but would give me no credit for it. Even so, I turned it in, doing an extra good job, and she somehow managed to give me a B for that grading period.
Either way, examples get readers involved. Examples allow readers to see, touch, hear, taste, and feel the actual stuff your thoughts are made of.
Examples are also easy to fold into your paper. You can often slip a brief example in between two guide sentences in your skeleton essay, or you can might use one or two extended examples to develop a whole paragraph.
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Offer an Explanation
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This kind of development offers refinement of your general principles. |
Sometimes a point made in your thesis sentence, a topic sentence, or a guide sentence needs elaboration and clarification. That is, the reader may pick up the general outline of what you're saying, but a second sentence or two may be needed before the full meaning comes across. The first two sentences of this paragraph work like that. The second one explains the first, and the next two (including this one) carry the process even further. Each sentence, after looking back at the previous one to see if it tells the whole story with perfect clarity, goes on to fill in the gaps and make the meaning more precise.
This kind of development offers refinement of your general principles. It's not unusual, therefore, to see a topic sentence followed by a brief explanation, followed by an example or illustration.
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Make a Comparison or a Contrast
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The thoroughness of the comparison depends upon our purpose in making it. |
Seeing an object or idea alongside similar one directs our attention to points of likeness and difference. This gives us a better idea of their distinctive and shared features. Thus, we can give a more exact understanding of what an elk is like by showing how it differs from a deer or a moose than by simply describing the elk in isolation. The thoroughness of the comparison depends upon our purpose in making it. Sometimes just a passing reference will be enough:
- Ice slabs floated on the river like scattered pieces of a child's jigsaw puzzle.
Other times you may want to be more thorough, devoting a full paragraph to the comparison. Either way, look for definite points of correspondence and difference. These are the foundation of your comparison.
In an extended comparison, you can use these points as a basis of organization (point by point structure), moving back and forth from one item to another. Or you can discuss one item fully and then discuss the second (item by item structure), being careful to cover the same points for each. These two patterns are illustrated below:
Point by Point Structure Item by Item Structure Point 1: item A, item B Item A: point 1, point 2, point 3, point 4 Point 2: item A, item B Item B: point 1, point 2, point 3, point 4 Point 3: item A, item B ¡@ Point 4: item A, item B ¡@
Either pattern will work although their effects are different. Point by point emphasizes specific features. Item by item emphasizes the the items as wholes. Whichever pattern you select, be sure to keep your attention, and your reader's, on specific features that provide a basis for comparison.
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Present the Facts
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If you're in doubt about whether informal or formal documentation is best, ask your teacher. |
Facts, like examples, show readers the concrete particulars your ideas are built on. If readers know your thoughts are drawn from careful and detailed observation, they'll take those thoughts more seriously than they would mere opinion. Two valuable kinds of details are facts and statistics.
When you use facts and statistics, be sure they're accurate and that your reader can verify them by consulting your sources or other independent sources. Nothing destroys credibility faster than a reader's belief that you're intentionally or unintentionally distorting facts.
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Often, as in the following example, an informal reference that clearly identifies your source of information will be adequate:
According to Bob Hull, the city's new recycling coordinator, 70% of all homes are participating in the new campaign, and this has resulted in a 30% reduction in the volume of waste received at the landfill.
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Summary
The thesis-support pattern refines and systematizes natural thought patterns. Besides offering an organizational framework for your writing, the thesis-support pattern can also serve as an aid to invention. It can help you probe your subject and uncover your thoughts about it. It can also help you see the reasons, experiences, observations, and judgments that underlie those thoughts.
The following process can help you produce effective expository essays on a wide variety of subjects assigned by another or chosen by yourself.
First: Restrict the scope of your subject by focusing on the particular part of it (your topic) that you know the most about and are most interested in.
Second: Make a clear, precisely worded, one sentence statement about your topic. This thesis statement should make an assertion that is not obviously true, but which you believe you can show to be true.
Third: State at least three or four "good reasons" for believing your thesis. These reasons will serve as the topic sentences for each paragraph in the body of your essay.
Fourth: Give two or three "good reasons" for believing each of your topic sentences. These sentences, which we have been calling guide sentences, will help you see a general direction of development for each paragraph.
Fifth: Develop your guide sentences with illustrative and supportive detail. Try using one or more of these traditional means of development: 1. Give an example. 2. Offer an explanation. 3. Make a comparison. 4. Supply the details.
After you've used the process a few times, it won't feel so stiff and mechanical as it might at first. As you get more comfortable, you'll modify the process to suit your own purposes and your composing style. That's good. But take your time. Don't shortcut or re-arrange the process until you're certain you know what you're doing and why.
Revising Your Thesis: The Thesis As Predictor
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While writing, you may have grown to a new awareness of your subject, so that your original thesis now seems imprecise or misleading. |
One major purpose of the thesis is to predict what will follow. It does
this for both writer and reader. It provides the writer with purpose and
direction throughout the composing process. For the reader it creates
expectations about the form and content of what's to come, and the reader's
satisfaction with the final essay will depend largely upon whether these
expectations have been satisfied.
Still, while we want the thesis to set up expectations for the total paper,
few of us are prophets. Because we don't know what we want to say until we
discover it by writing, the original thesis is often only a hunch or
hypothesis about where the paper will go. It isn't unusual for the sentence
that started the paper growing to make a commitment the paper doesn't fully
honor.
While writing, you may have grown to a new awareness of your subject, so that your original thesis now seems imprecise or misleading. If so, you need to re-state your thesis to take your new understanding into account.
Your revised thesis becomes a distillation of your entire paper, and
because by now you've seen not just the general outline, but the main
divisions and even the supporting details, you may want to include some of
this in your thesis. For instance, "The major responsibility for
preventing dental problems lies within you," might be revised as follows:
"Learning a few basic skills and practicing them in a daily routine will
help keep your dental problems to a minimum." The second thesis not only
states the main idea more precisely but also forecasts the paper's main
divisions and the order of discussion.
If you can write a single sentence that clearly indicates the relationship
between the various parts of your paper, those parts probably fit together
well. Seeing this, your reader will perceive your paper to be clear, unified,
and well-organized.
Introductions and Conclusions
The beginning and end of your essay are positions of high emphasis. They deserve careful attention. Keep them short and purposeful. Use them to create and satisfy expectations. Get into the habit of reading your introduction and conclusion together, with an eye toward revision, as one of the last stages in your writing process.
If you sometimes have trouble with introductions and conclusions, you may find the following suggestions useful.
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Introductions and Conclusions |
Introductions
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It's the occasion at which you take the first steps toward building a strong relationship, one that will last at least for the rest of the paper. |
First impressions are often lasting impressions. This is true in life, and
especially in writing. Your readers' first judgments, even if mistaken, about
the value of the topic, your skill as a writer, and your character as a person
have a strong impact on their total response to your work.
If you get off to a good start, readers may stick with you through the rough
spots, forgiving an occasional error or concentrating extra hard when you
explain a complex idea. On the other hand, if readers don't see your
topic's importance or think you're uninformed, overly sentimental or
sarcastic, they'll keep those impressions until you prove them false. Your
paper may Evan be set aside, unread.
It might be helpful, therefore, to think of your introduction as a first
meeting between you and your readers. It's the occasion at which you take the
first steps toward building a strong relationship, one that will last at least
for the rest of the paper.
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. . . reach beyond your personal perspective for the common ground you share. |
Just because readers are people, they have individual interests, viewpoints, preoccupations, and needs. Your memo on staff reorganization may come across your supervisor's desk just before an important luncheon meeting when she's hungry and a bit nervous. She may not have been thinking much about the idea you mentioned last week, and what she has been thinking may not have been in line with your thoughts.
In such a situation, you need to try seeing things from her point of view.
You must reach beyond your personal perspective for the common ground you
share. Having shown that you're sensitive to, and perhaps even share, the
reader's needs, you'll be well poised to state your ideas.
Begin With a Fact or Example
By now, you understand the importance of concrete, specific details in your paper's body. Details can also be excellent ways of opening and closing, as they give your reader a concrete, specific connection to the subject.
Last July, Duke, a four year old Labrador retriever, was dragged behind a pickup truck on a rope and left to die on the desert. Fortunately, he was found and taken to the Humane Society where his wounds were treated and he was gradually nursed back to health. Eventually, he was adopted by Bill and Linda, a young couple who say they couldn't imagine finding a better pet. Not all stories of animal abuse end as happily as Duke's, but the Humane Society works hard to help all animals in distress, and it deserves your support.
Note a Common Misconception
If your readers were fully informed on your subject, there wouldn't be much need for them to read your essay. So, whether their misconceptions are due to lack of information, failure to draw valid conclusions from factual information, or some other reason, it's often helpful to acknowledge misunderstandings at the start. In doing so, you show that you're aware of these views, and also demonstrate why your paper is important: to correct these mistaken ideas, to bring about better understanding.
When I first tell people that I grew up without a father, they often express sympathy. It's true that I never had a dad to play catch with or teach me to fish, but I played catch with friends and learned to fish on my own. Actually, I found that growing up in a single parent family has several advantages.
The sense of opposition generated by this type of introduction creates tension, and in doing so, sharpens and dramatizes your ideas.
Raise a Question
Explanations often begin as a result of trying to answer a question or solve a problem, and a thesis statement, especially in the early stages of writing, is often a tentative answer to a question that you want to explore. Why not share the question with your readers and invite them to join in the search for an answer?
Like many people my age, I limit my cholesterol intake, but recently I've learned that some cholesterol can actually be healthy for me. What exactly is cholesterol, and what does it do? How can I tell whether the cholesterol in a salmon steak is good or bad for me? To maintain a healthy blood cholesterol level, we should all understand what this chemical compound is and how it works in the human body.
Make a Bold Assertion
Another way of saying this might be: Go out on a limb. Take a risk. Of course, this approach can be overdone and can lead to exhibitionism and sensationalism, especially if you're writing on a subject that demands caution and moderation. In those situations, this "Look, ma! No Hands!" approach could be a disaster.
The new fall television lineups are out, and they look like the same old trash: more violence, more insipid sitcoms, more hackneyed plots and one-dimensional characters. This is mind pollution, pure and simple. The American people deserve better programming from the major networks.
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Conclusions
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If your remember that part of your conclusion's purpose is to give a sense of finality and closure, you won't open up a new subject and leave your reader hanging. |
Although some writers find them difficult, conclusions need not be a problem, especially if you've been working toward a goal throughout your essay. As you near the end of your paper, you might try asking a few fundamental questions. So what? What does all this finally have to do with anything, anyway? What would I most like my readers to take away from this essay? What do I hope they'll do now that they've read this? What are the last thoughts I'd like to impart on their minds before we part company?
Often your own instincts will tell you what needs to be said, worked
through, made clear, at the end. If you remember that endings are always a
place of great emphasis, you won't leave your reader with a mere supporting
fact from one of your sub-points. If your remember that part of your
conclusion's purpose is to give a sense of finality and closure, you won't
open up a new subject and leave your reader hanging.
Keeping such general principles in mind and also being careful not to
needlessly repeat what you've already discussed adequately, you should sense
how best to end, and if you do your job well, your reader should agree.