ONWARDS TO PERFECTING THE ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY

I do see improvement, but….

WHAT WE NEED TO WORK ON: Works Cited Page Topic sentences (Should be arguable ideas, not facts) Comma Splices Simplistic Thesis statements, why the three step thesis statement is not enough What does it mean to look at the way in which one text informs another text? Discussing the texts in isolation Not connecting our body paragraphs back to the thesis statement

ROBERT FROST ON ESSAY WRITING “The game is matching your author thought for thought in any of the many possible ways. Reading then becomes converse — give and take. It is only conversation in which the reader takes part addressing himself to anything at all in the author in his subject matter or form. Just as when we talk together! Being careful to hold up our end and to do our part agreeably without too much contradiction and mere opinionation. The best thing of all is going each other one better piling up the ideas anecdotes and incidents like alternating hands piled up on the knee. Well its out of conversation like this with a book that you find perhaps one idea perhaps yours perhaps the book’s that will serve for other lesser ideas to center around. And there’s your essay.”

WORKS CITED Ungar, Stanford. “The New Liberal Arts.” They Say/I Say with Readings. 2 nd ed. Eds. Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russel Durst. NY: W. W. Norton & Company, Print. The page numbers that you are using from your in-text citation are from They Say, I Say. Therefore, you should include this in your works cited. The format has been provided for you! You just need to change the name of the auhor, the titles, and the page numbers.

TOPIC SENTENCES (CLAIMS) Your topic sentences should be IDEAS, and not facts. Your topic sentences control the entire paragraph. Your topic sentences should be clear, and declarative. They should communicate to the author what you will PROVE in that paragraph alone. In many or your body paragraphs there were emerging arguments. Arguments that were latent but were never clearly declared. YOU MUST CLEARLY STATE TO THE READER THE PURPOSE OF YOUR BODY PARAGRAPH.

TOPIC SENTENCES (CLAIMS) Unlike an essay that we read and analyze for class, you cannot expect your reader to look for the main idea of your paragraph. YOU need to state it, YOU need to guide your reader through your ideas as explicitly as possible.

COMMA SPLICES A comma splice is the use of a comma to join two independent clauses. For example: It is nearly half past five, we cannot reach town before dark. You cannot join two complete sentences with a comma. How can you fix this? By adding a conjunction (and, but, or, yet, for, after, although) Turning the comma into a semicolon (;) Turning the sentences into two separate sentences.

SIMPLISTIC THESIS STATEMENTS You want to have an air-tight thesis statement that encompasses all your ideas. That being said, a 3 point thesis statement will no longer work (We’ll get more into this later). Your thesis statements are not reflecting the complexity of your paper as a whole. Each body paragraph should connect back to the thesis statement, and your thesis statement should somehow encompass all your ideas. Thesis statement should answer how? And why? Questions that you then elaborate upon in your body paragraphs.

PARAGRAPHS THAT SERVE IN ISOLATION In an essay that asks you to synthesize, you cannot talk about each text in isolation. You are using the two texts together to prove your point. One paragraph about Baron, and one paragraph about Gladwell won’t cut it. Many of your paragraphs seemed to work in isolation. This means that there was no connection to the paragraphs before or after it, and there was no connection back to the thesis statement. Use transitional sentences to move from one paragraph to the next, and ALWAYS reference your thesis statement.

SUMMARY CLAIM: One of the author’s main points or argument. EVIDENCE: One of the author’s quotes that relates to that argument. WARRANT: An explanation of how that quote relates to the author’s argument. ANALYSIS CLAIM: Your OWN original idea that is not 100% present in either text. EVIDENCE: A quote from the text. WARRANT: An explanation of HOW you interpreted the quote from the text, and how this interpretation supports your IDEA

THE PURPOSE OF THESE ESSAYS The idea you should master and understand is that one text can serve as a theoretical framework through which to interpret a second text. For example: Gladwell creates these frameworks such as weak tie vs. strong tie, high risk vs. low risk, that he uses to develop his argument. You can USE his theories and these frameworks that he has developed in order to reveal a new understanding of said text. How do you see these ideas in another work? Does this change the way in which you understand Gladwell? Does it change the way in which you understand Baron’s argument?

We have been doing this with the literature we have read also: For example, Beauvoir’s theory that there exists a myth of woman is a theoretical framework, or lens that we try to apply to another text. We then have a new understanding of why a character may behave the way she does, or why Ibsen may have chosen to create her the way he did. We used Freud’s theories of the Id, Ego, and Superego, as a lens through which to reveal a new idea in Hamlet We used Aristotle’s theory of Mimesis in order to understand the purpose of Oedipus the King.

In thesis non-fiction texts, you are completing something similar. You are extracting the ideas from one text and looking at how they apply to another text. The development of your argument depends on how these ideas apply to this other text.