Writing Handouts

Print these handouts and follow them whenever you write an essay for one of Dr. Heuston's courses. 

Also, proofread out loud to avoid turning in work that contains sloppy mistakes, and make sure you underline your thesis.

Burrito-Shaped Earth (Thesis statements)                                   _________         ______________Heuston

THESIS STATEMENTS: 

Here's one way to think about the process of developing and evaluating thesis statements: In the professions that are related to your major or your intended career field (whether it's law, medicine, engineering, history, chemistry, English, law enforcement, the military, or something entirely different) there are at least a few professional journals. By professional journals, I mean periodicals/newsletters/magazines that deal exclusively with issues that are important to that particular profession. People in the professions (your professors here at The Citadel, for example) publish articles in those journals, usually when those people want to inform the rest of the people in the profession about some discovery they've recently made. IN ORDER TO GET THIS SORT OF ARTICLE PUBLISHED, THE PERSON MUST MAKE SOME SORT OF DISCOVERY OR NEW OBSERVATION. If you're an astronomer, for instance, you can perform all sorts of experiments that other astronomers have done before. In order to publish an article, however, you've got to discover something new. Your article tells the world something like this: "I have discovered that Earth is not round; it is actually shaped like a giant burrito." That's your thesis. The rest of the article explains and supports the burrito-shaped-Earth thesis.

When you're writing college essays, you're trying to do the same sort of thing. An ambitious thesis makes some sort of discovery. This is one reason I'm a fan of the compare/contrast approach. Juxtaposing works in ways we haven't tried in class can help you discover things that weren't visible before. Obviously, you've got to support your thesis throughout the paper. NOTE: A THESIS IS NOT A HYPOTHESIS. Don't get confused about that. You can do a scientific experiment and conclude at the end that your hypothesis was wrong (that the Earth, for instance, is not in fact shaped like a giant burrito . . . it's more like a giant blueberry muffin). You CAN'T do this with a thesis in an essay. You've got to think about the thesis before you write the paper and make sure that you'll be able to support and defend your thesis. That's why you want to think about a journal article rather than an experiment. You don't write the article until you're already sure that you made the discovery. Keep this in mind as you think about the essays you'll write for this course and other Citadel courses. One more thing: Make sure to underline your thesis statement whenever you write a paper for one of my courses.

Some Thesis Statement Basics                                     ______________         ______________Heuston

Arguable: Your claim must be arguable. That is, it must be possible for a reasonable person who has also read the material your paper discusses to doubt or argue against your claim (or at least to require a good deal of explanation, which is what your paper will provide).

Ambitious: Your thesis statement should make some new discovery about the text or texts your essay examines. It should not make your classmates want to say the word "DUH!" or something like that. Think about your paper as a presentation. If you're standing up in front of a group to give a presentation, you'd better have something insightful to say. That means you'd better either tell them something they don't already know, help them look at things in a new way, or both.

Precise: Avoid vague or metaphorical language in your thesis statement, and avoid unnecessarily inflated or elaborate language.

Boiled-down: Cut through all the big words and reduce your thesis statement to the simplest terms possible. This will help you see if your claim is really worthwhile or if you've been camouflaging a weak idea with a lot of words. You don't have to leave your thesis statement in this boiled-down form when you put it in your final draft, but if you don't boil it down at some point, you risk building a paper around a weak idea. 

Provable: You do have to be able to prove what your thesis claims. If your claim is so ambitious that you can't prove it, it won't lead you to a successful college essay. You could think of your essay as a bit like a business proposal (a presentation in which you're trying to convince your company to adopt some new policy or use some new technology, for example). You need to make a worthwhile claim, and then you need to support/prove your claim.

Underlined: Make sure to underline your thesis statement whenever you write a paper for one of my courses.

**********

Think of a spectrum or range of claims: Off to one side, there are claims that are too weak/obvious (not ambitious, and thus not worth proving in a college essay). Off to the other side, there are claims that are too ambitious to prove (claims you don't have enough evidence to prove in a college essay).  

United States military security/background screening model: Let's say you're giving a presentation to some top military brass. You're trying to convince them to make the background/screening process for enlisting in the military more thorough. Here are examples of how your main claim (which is basically the thesis statement of your presentation) could go wrong:

Here's your claim: We need to have some sort of screening process for the military. If we let known terrorists into the U.S. armed forces, then that could be bad for America. We need to keep known terrorists out of the military, because they pose a threat to our country.  (This is too weak, because it's much too obvious.)

Or, here's your claim: If we let space aliens into the U.S. armed forces, then that could be bad for America. We need to keep space aliens out of the military, because they pose a threat to our country. (This isn't something you can prove, so one could say that it's too ambitious.) 

Now that you've read the two bad thesis statement examples above, try to come up with your own thesis statement about military background checks. Could you argue in favor of improving military background checks without your thesis being too obvious or too ambitious? If so, how? Could you make a claim about the increasing importance of such background checks, a claim about how to improve the process, or both?

THESIS CONSTRUCTION     ___________________                  _________________________Heuston

MAKE SURE TO UNDERLINE YOUR THESIS STATEMENT WHENEVER YOU WRITE A PAPER FOR ONE OF MY COURSES. The thesis is the single most important component of your essay. It is the statement of your main idea, and everything that follows the thesis should in some way support it. The thesis must be focused and directly stated. You cannot afford a wishy-washy thesis (or one which is self-evident or overly general) because the rest of the paper will seem out of focus.

Arriving at your thesis: First, remember that the narrower your topic is, the better your chance of providing enough supporting materials to make a convincing case for your thesis. (On the other hand, you shouldn't shrink the topic until it becomes trivial.)

Topic (too broad):       T.S. Eliot's poetry

Topic (too narrow): British spelling in T.S. Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

Topic (good):  What is the role of Tiresias in Eliot's The Waste Land?        

Fair thesis: Tiresias functions to unify the many fragmented elements of The Waste Land. 

Good thesis: Tiresias unifies the many fragmented elements of The Waste Land by identifying a central theme for the poem through his descriptions of sexual confusion.

As you can see, it's often best to express your own topic in the form of a question. After doing so, you create your thesis by adequately answering the question. Notice that you should write the thesis using the present tense. Even though a poem or story was written in the past, use the present tense while writing literary essays in order to create a sense of immediacy in your analysis.

A good thesis not only contains a main idea ("Tiresias unifies the many fragmented elements of The Waste Land"); it also usually includes a statement of reasoning  ("by identifying a central theme for the poem through his descriptions of sexual confusion") which will help the reader understand your thinking and will also help you guide the reader into your supporting statements that follow your thesis. Here, the reader can anticipate an analysis of Tiresias' descriptions of scenes depicting sexual confusion. That analysis will help to validate (or prove) the original point.

Sometimes, particularly when writing an in-class essay, it is helpful to write out an outline statement before beginning your essay. The outline statement is one long sentence containing three key outline elements. (NOTE: Because it isusually too long, formulaic, and awkward, the outline statement does not appear word for word in the essay, although key phrases from it may appear at different points.) In order of appearance, the outline statement contains: (1) an "although" clause (which anticipates objections to your main idea), (2) the main idea: (that is, the core thesis), and (3) a causal clause (which provides both the reasoning behind the main idea as well as the predictive components). Here is an example of a good outline statement:

Although the myth of the Fisher King also helps to bring together the seemingly incoherent elements of the poem, it is primarily Tiresias who unifies the many fragmented elements of The Waste Land by clearly identifying a central theme for the poem through his descriptions of sexual confusion as exhibited by the "young man carbuncular" and the typist, through the melancholy tone he employs during the descriptions, and through his statement that he himself has "foresuffered all" that he is describing.

Again, you wouldn't want to use this exact statement directly in the essay. The statement is too big and too messy. But it would help its author write a clear, well-focused essay about The Waste Land. By identifying a possible objection to the thesis (one that the author will be sure to address) and by stating not only the main idea but the reasons for the main idea, it provides the author with a plan with which he or she can proceed with confidence. The author might decide to veer from the original plan, but it's unlikely that he or she will stray far from the original outline if it's well thought out.

Finally, keep in mind that the actual thesis is usually one sentence in length (rarely more than two), and that it generally appears toward the end of the first paragraph or the beginning of the second.

SUPPORT

Always remember that everything you say after the thesis must somehow relate back to the thesis: Everything must work toward validating your main idea. If you find yourself saying something that doesn't relate to your thesis at all, stop and back up to find the point where your argument went astray. Also keep in mind that a good literary essay is not primarily concerned with summarizing what went on in the poem or story but with what the poem or story actually means and how it communicates such meaning. Analyze, don't summarize.

Four Tips for Writing College Papers                                                                                              Heuston

(1) Think of your paper the way you would think of an in-class presentation: If you had to give a presentation in class, you wouldn't want to bore your audience (your classmates) by telling them something obvious or something they already knew. You'd want to teach them something or point out something they probably hadn't already realized. If one of your classmates gave an in-class presentation in which he or she spoke clearly and audibly, made good eye contact, and used proper grammar but told the audience little or nothing that the audience didn't already know, you'd probably say that the presentation was a well-polished waste of time. All of the above also holds true for a college paper. No matter how good the grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, and other elements of a paper might be, a paper without a strong sense of purpose is at best essentially a well-polished waste of time. Polish is important (insert your own Citadel joke here), but it's also crucial that your paper justify its existence by teaching its audience (again, your classmates) something new and non-obvious.

(2) Use the Hand Method to avoid needlessly-wordy introductions: Many students seem to feel the need to build up some intellectual momentum by starting their papers with extremely broad statements before they get around to making their main points. If you've ever begun a paper by writing something like "Ever since the beginning of time . . ." or "Man has always wrestled with the question of . . ." then you know who you are, and yes, I'm looking at you. Get to the point, cut to the chase, and accelerate toward your thesis right away.

Here's the Hand Method: Use your hand to cover the first sentence of your essay so you can no longer see that sentence. If covering that sentence doesn't damage your argument, then delete that sentence. Cover up your next sentence. If doing so doesn't damage your argument, delete that sentence too. Repeat this process until covering a sentence damages your argument. Leave that sentence in place and keep an eye out for pointless/unnecessary sentences throughout the rest of your paper.

(3) Write analysis papers, not opinion papers: Opinion is cheap, easy, plentiful, and often devoid of proof or much merit in general. Analysis explains, interprets, and ideally PROVES something. (See the thesis handouts above for details about the importance of analytical claims and proof in college essays.) If you graduate and go on to become a sports commentator or a political pundit (or a financial consultant, apparently) perhaps it'll be professionally acceptable for you to voice your opinion without being able to prove what you claim. Until you get that type of job, though, you'll have to tough it out with the rest of us who are required to prove that our claims are accurate. Make sure to use textual evidence to prove your claims. (See the S-E-E Method handout below for details about how to use textual evidence.)

(4) Retire your Webster's/definition introduction: You know the one: "Webster's Dictionary defines X [whatever term/concept you're writing about] as . . ." Never, ever use that kind of phrase in an essay again. It's widely perceived by college professors as the oldest, laziest, and lamest move in the book. If your high-school teachers already beat the Webster's move out of you, good for them. If they didn't, you need to get rid of it on your own. If you ever write a college paper using it, expect the worst.

The S-E-E Method                            __________________________________________________Heuston

The S-E-E Method can help you organize your thoughts into a logical pattern in each paragraph, and that can help you stay on track in an essay. It can also be a convenient way to make sure you're supporting your claims with textual evidence. You're not required to use this method, but it's a helpful way structure an argument, and it can make writing easier by giving you a sense of what to do next as you move from paragraph to paragraph. Note that this method works along with things you've already learned about thesis statement construction and the way everything in your essay must relate to your thesis.

S-E-E stands for Statement, Example, and Explanation. First, you make an analytical statement about a text; then you give an example (either a quotation from the text or a reference to a part of the text); then you explain how your example supports or proves your claim.

Here's an example of how it works. Let's say you're writing about Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire.

·                                 [Here's an analytical statement (S)]: "Although the attention to vivid color in Williams' elaborate stage directions suggests that color is an important element in the atmosphere Williams wants to create, the overall lack of detail about what certain colors might suggest or symbolize makes it impossible for readers or audience members to infer specific meanings from Williams' use of colors.

·                                 [Here's an example (E)]: In the stage directions before Scene One, Williams' references to colors include "the dim white building," "a peculiarly tender blue, almost a turquoise," "the brown river," repeated references to a "'blue piano'" overheard from around the corner or a few doors down the street, and references to white and "colored" neighbors who demonstrate "a relatively warm and easy intermingling of races" in mid-twentieth- century New Orleans.

·                                 [Here's an explanation (E)]:  Because Williams' use of color, though suggestive and deliberate, jumps from the literal visual colors of physical objects to the non-literal blue of the "'blue piano'" (Williams' quotation marks call attention to the metaphorical blue, like the blue of blues music rather than an actual color) to the skin tones of different racial groups, and because Williams never gives even strong hints as to what each color might imply, it is impossible for readers or audiences to move beyond a vague sense that color is generally important; Williams' shifting use of colors never lets us figure out exactly why particular colors are important or exactly what they mean.

Even if you've never read A Streetcar Named Desire, you can see how the examples above work within the S-E-E method: The first part (S) makes an analytical statement. The second part (E) gives examples from the text to support or illustrate the statement. The third part (E) gives an explanation of how the examples prove or relate to the statement. 

Note that (E) Example and (E) Explanation use the same letter. The usual way to keep them straight is to memorize them, but the order does make logical sense. You wouldn't want to end a paragraph with a bunch of unexplained textual evidence. You'd want to present your evidence (whether direct quotations or just references to parts of the text) and then explain how or why that evidence proves your point.  

GRADING STANDARDS FOR ESSAYS            ________________________________________Heuston

A—Outstanding Work (characteristics):

--a clear thesis presenting an ambitious idea worthy of development

--well-developed with effective support

--appropriate textual references

--interpretation, not paraphrase or summary

--sophisticated transitions

--very few (if any) problems with phrasing, grammar, usage, or spelling

--demonstrates command of mature, unpretentious diction

B—Good Work (characteristics):

B work shares most characteristics of an A paper, but may have

--minor lapses in support of the central idea

--a few ineffective transitions

--a few awkward sentences

--less sophisticated sentences

C—Adequate Work (characteristics):

A C paper is generally competent, but compared to a B paper it may have  

--a weaker thesis

--lapses in organization

--awkward transitions

--more mechanical and diction problems (including phrasing, grammar, usage, or spelling)

--a less sophisticated approach to the topic

It may fail to answer the topic question convincingly.

D—Poor Work (characteristics):

A D paper most likely

--presents a thesis too obvious or vague or too far off the subject to be developed effectively

--lacks adequate support

--has poor paragraph development

--lacks clear transitions

--has ungrammatical or poorly constructed sentences

--has major problems with spelling, punctuation, diction, or syntax, some of which impede understanding.

F—Failing Work (characteristics):

An F paper is seriously flawed. It may

--have no clear thesis or central topic

--display no sense of organization

--lack adequate support and focus

--not fulfill the assignment

--contain major and repeated errors in mechanics and usage.