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Writing a Thesis Statement July 2, 2008

Posted by jhicks in : Essay Planning, Uncategorized , comments closed

You’ve probably heard time and again how important it is to have a thesis statement in your essay. But what exactly is a thesis statement, and where in your essay should you put your thesis once you’ve come up with it?

It’s helpful to think of your thesis as a one-sentence summary of your essay topic and an attitude or position related to your topic. In essence, your essay will explain, elaborate, and defend your thesis in much greater detail.

For example, let’s say you find yourself writing about the following topic

the Internet and its effect on college life

and you decide that in your first draft your thesis statement should be

“The Internet has an impact on college life.”

Writing an essay explaining the fact that the Internet does have an effect on college life would be defending a general observation. You wouldn’t be engaged in an analytical discussion about a topic because the thesis does not include how this topic is significant. Instead, as one of my old profs would say, you’d be writing a “duh” paper. It’s clear that the Internet has an impact on college life. So what?

In order to write an effective essay about the Internet and its effect on college life, you would have to include your take on this matter; that is, how this topic is significant in your eyes. Is the Internet beneficial for students? How so? Or do you feel that the Internet (and all the time spent on Facebook and Myspace) is too much of a distraction for college students? How so? You should also define what kind of Internet activity you are referring to–entertainment or access to research materials. Remember also that you should choose a side and stick with it. To say that the Internet has both positive and negative aspects would be “straddling the fence,” and you rarely want to do that. Instead, argue a particular side but acknowledge briefly the opposing viewpoint – what others believe, why they believe it, and what makes their belief wrong in your eyes.

Thus an effective thesis statement, which will be argued throughout the rest of the essay, will include a topic and an opinion or attitude to defend. But where in your essay should you insert the thesis statement? Many students place the thesis at the end of the introduction paragraph. This way the reader will know exactly what you’re arguing and will be able to follow along as you explain and prove your thesis.

Eric Gutierrez
Writing Center Consultant

Developing Your Own Voice July 2, 2008

Posted by jhicks in : Editing, Style , comments closed

When you sit down to write your papers, you probably have a couple goals in mind:
1) getting the paper done by the deadline (which might be very soon),
2) answering the prompt in such a way as to obtain an “A” or at least a passing grade, and 3) providing evidence and support for that prompt from either the text that you’re discussing (CORE or CC) or from various bibliographic sources (for your history, economic, business classes). Thinking about how your writing style, word choice, thesis and argument affects the strength and personality of your writing voice…probably not on your radar, especially not at 3:00 am the day before your paper is due.

BUT I would like to argue that thinking about your writing voice is one of the most important things you can do to develop good writing (and good grades) both when you are taking some time to improve your writing skills and when you’re staring down the gauntlet at the paper due date.

A few reasons why:
–If you assert a weak thesis and argument in a strong manner, your paper still may be better than a paper with a strong thesis that is clouded by an unclear paper structure, poor word choice, and long, complicated sentences. And conversely even if you assert a strong thesis, if your voice is weak then your paper will be weak.
–A paper with a confident tone and clear ideas is more enjoyable to read from a professor’s (and writing consultant’s) standpoint.
–Writing is more fun when you feel confident in what you’re saying and you have the tools to know how to say what you want well.
–Being aware of your style and writing habits (both bad and good) can tell you what mistakes to look for in earlier drafts, what to focus on in your writing, and how much time and effort you’ll need to put into different aspects of your writing. [For example, if you're great at using imagery and making your voice unique and accessible, you'll probably have little problem writing narrative essays, but you might have more difficulty confining yourself to a thesis and a more formulaic writing prompt].

So, given these reasons what are a few things you can do to develop your writing voice?

–Save your first drafts and your early papers, wait a few weeks and then look for your own bad writing habits – are my sentences simple or complex? Do I use a lot of prepositional phrases and extra clauses? Do I focus on my thesis and refer back to it throughout my paper, or do I find my thesis after writing a draft? (You could set up an appointment at the Writing Center and have a consultant go through these with you!)

–Name three ways that make your writing different from the writing of your peers (perhaps after you do a peer review). For example, perhaps you’re most comfortable with short, clear sentences or maybe you’re great at using metaphors. In your next paper, focus on those strengths and begin to intentionally work on strengthening your writing gifts in those areas. When you’re confident in how you structure your ideas, your writing voice will take on a new tone of authority, and that’s the goal!

–Pick up one of your favorite authors or borrow a classmate’s paper (preferably someone who got an A!) and notice how they use their language. Why is it that you pay attention to what they are saying? Anything noticeable about the way they present their ideas? Interesting word choice? Sentence structure? Think about ways you can synthesize some of these ideas into your own voice and make it into your own.

Easy Tidbits for you last-minute writers (give yourself 20 minutes to work on voice stuff):
–Scratch all passive sentences and change them to active voice wherever possible.
–Use active verbs and descriptive adjectives.
–Scratch ALL COLLOQUIAL LANGUAGE! Do not dumb down your prose! If it sounds like something you wouldn’t say when you’re dressed up in a suit and giving a formal presentation in front of the peers you respect the most. . .it shouldn’t be in your paper either.
–Look at your introduction and conclusion: make sure they are concise and not broad but focus on getting your reader to your thesis/subject of the paper and then provide a way of tying up loose ends in your conclusion and answering the question “why I read this.” If you structure your ideas well at the beginning and end it will at least structure and frame any madness that is in the body of your paper. :-)

Good Luck! And come in and talk to me on Thursday and Friday afternoons if you’d like to really make your voice come through strong on paper!

Your friendly writing center consultant,

Hannah Cartwright

Read Aloud for Better Proofreading July 2, 2008

Posted by jhicks in : CORE, Correctness, Editing, Education Unit , comments closed

We’ve all come to that point in the essay-writing process when we finish our paper and proofread for errors. So the essay is finished, right? Unfortunately, by focusing on correcting typos, we may overlook other issues having to do with sentence structure. Even though your paper might appear to be grammatically sound, it might not have a nice flow to it due to problems with sentence structure.

The best advice I can give to fellow writers is to always, always read your essay out loud at least once before handing it in. This way you will hear your essay being read out loud. Even though you’ve read your essay to yourself in writing and proofreading it, hearing it spoken allows you to immediately notice disruptions of flow that result from sentence fragments, comma splices, sentences that are too long, sentences that are too short, choppy sentence structure, inadequate transitions between paragraphs, etc. You will find that reading your papers out loud will draw your attention to sentences (and potentially whole paragraphs) that need revising. By proofreading and making sure your paper has a good flow to it, your professors will be more interested in reading through your essay and might be inclined to give you a better grade for it.

Eric Gutierrez
Writing Center Consultant