Writing a thesis and organizing your paper What to know before you write

Thesis This is the road map of your paper; it explains what the rest of your paper will do.

Thesis You are writing an argumentative or persuasive paper. You will make a claim about a topic and justify your claim with specific evidence. The claim in our assignment could be an opinion, an evaluation, a cause-and-effect statement, or an interpretation. The goal of the argumentative paper is to convince the audience that the claim is true based on the evidence provided.

Thesis Your thesis statement should be specific—it should cover only what you will discuss in your paper, and it should be supported with specific evidence. The thesis statement usually appears at the end of the first paragraph of a paper. Your topic may change or evolve as you write, so you may need to revise your thesis statement to reflect exactly what you have discussed in the paper.

Thesis A good thesis will have the following parts: A what A why It will also be a good idea to include some Hows (literature, history, human nature) as well.

Thesis example Example of an argumentative thesis statement: High school graduates should be required to take a year off to pursue community service projects before entering college in order to increase their maturity and global awareness.

Thesis example continued The paper that follows should: present an argument and give evidence to support the claim that students should pursue community projects before entering college

Organizing your paper You will have an introduction where you state your thesis. You should have two body paragraphs where you will discuss two main points that prove/support your argument or position You should have a conclusion that wraps up the essay and leaves your reader with a clear sense of your purpose.

Support In your essay, you will refer to examples from Beowulf and your modern hero article. You may also reference the essay “The Man in the Water” if you wish. You should have at least 2 strong examples from the texts for each body paragraph. You can include more.

Organizing You can organize the body of your paper in a few different ways. Compare and contrast body paragraphs: This will work well if you are arguing that heroes are irrelevant Option one: Paragraph about Beouwlf Paragraph about modern hero Option two: Paragraph about then vs. now with evidence from both Paragraph about traditional hero vs. modern hero (or non- hero)

Organizing If you believe that heroes are relevant today, you can trace a chronological pattern Give traditional, historical examples and why heroes were important then Give support and examples about why heroes still exist and are needed in our society today. You can start in the present and work back, or you can start in the past and move to today.

Conclusion Ties body paragraphs together Offers the reader something new, a broad perspective on mankind, a look into the future, etc.

Your paper will look like this: Introduction Body paragraph 1 – support for point 1 Body paragraph 2 – support for point 2 Conclusion

Questions?