1. the attention grabber-which we went over, but we'll continue to work on
2. the connector
and 3. thesis statement
It seems perfectly natural that we would discuss the connector next because it's next in the introduction. But, actually, and don't get confused here, your thesis statment is the very first thing you're always going to write. You will ALWAYS start with your thesis statement, then you'll go back and create a magical attention grabber, and last is the connector. The attention grabber is usually a really comfortable beginning into learning to write essays; therefore, I taught you that first. So, now we're going to focus on the thesis statement because the connector won't make sense without it. But enough about all the technical stuff.
How would you define a thesis statement? I know you know what it is, but here's a technical definition for you. A thesis statement is a 1-2 sentence condensation of your argument or analysis. Sounds stupid, right? It's because they're making it more complicated than it needs to be. Thesis statement=main point! What's the point of this paper? What is my stance? What am I trying to prove? These are some questions you might ask yourself while you're developing a thesis statement for your paper. But that's it. A thesis statement is just the main idea. Simple, right? Wrong. It's hands down the most stressful thing you'll write in any paper. Why? Because your thesis statement tells you everything about your paper! It tells you what the paper is about, duh. It also tells you what type of paper it is. Most importantly, it tells you how the paper should be organized.
So here are my three rules to know about thesis statements:
Thesis Tip #1: Your Thesis statement should always answer a question. ( if you're lucky this question will be in an essay prompt or in the writing assignment)
Ex: If the topic is assigned as "Write about your favorite hobby and what role it plays in your life on a daily basis", you have the questions written out for you. So, they're asking you to identify your favorite hobby and explain what role it plays daily (two questions). Both need to be answered in the thesis.
Bad Thesis Statement: Recycling, one of my favorite hobbies, is something I plan to use everyday for the rest of my life because I want to help keep the earth clean for my children.
This isn't a bad thesis statement out of context. In context, it's downright disgraceful. Why? Because it's not answering the question. If your assignment has a prompt, a topic, a list of questions, guidelines, whatever, they're not there to take up space. You have to write about what they want you to write about.
Good Thesis Statement: Playing basketball, one of my favorite hobbies, helps me keep an active lifestyle throughout the week and serves as a calming outlet that allows me to forget about the day-to-day pressures I have.
I identified my favorite hobby and I gave not only one role but two roles that i can support with examples and evidence in my essay.
So, what happens when you don't have questions to answer. What do you do when the assignment is completely open? Rarely, will you have a random "write about anything you want" assignment. I haven't seen one since 6th grade. But it is common for professors to say "write a research paper on a music pedagogy" or "write about your philosophy of education" or "Pick anything science-related and write a four page paper on it" or "write an argumentative paper on any issue". I mean, yeah, the topic is there, but these are really open assignments and they happen. So what do you do then? Well, it's simple. You create the question. Just like we learned from Dr. Wilson; the scientific method
comes in handy now. When there is no question and there is just a topic; you create the question! Say the topic is, "Music pedagogy". You can write anything you want! No questions provided, just a plain and simple topic. PANIC ATTACK! What do you do? So, first, you go online and type in music pedagogy in the UTB database and let's say after an hour of reading the first page of different articles you end up finding three articles on different music pedagogies that you think are super interesting. So, you'll create a question...
Differences:
Of the three pedagogies presented in these articles, which one is best?
Good question, something you would probably ask yourself as you're reading the articles. It's not super complex, just one easy question you might consider while reading these interesting articles (bare in mind that the key here is to actually do the research which will put you in the right mind frame to create good questions). We have a question now. Wanna see what a thesis statement for it look likes?
Thesis: While David Hartford's "The Key is Sightreading" and Jennifer Paige's "Collaborative Music" offer some insight into music education, Taylor Johnson's "Writing Music Before Playing Music" boasts the most innovative learning tools for music education students and has proven succesful in two research studies since 2009.
Did you pick up on that? I didn't just mention the article that won my competition (for greatest pedagogy). I mentioned all three because.....I'm answering my question. Remember when you were in eighth grade and the teacher marked your answer wrong because you didn't write it in a complete sentence; you just wrote the answer. Well, this is the same thing. You don't pick and choose what parts of the question you address, you address every single part or you aspire to.
Let's develop another question, still the three articles on music pedagogy
What idea or principle do all three articles have in common, in terms of music education?
Ohh...i think you might have some strong ideas for a master's thesis, after this email.
Thesis: Hartford's "The Key is Sightreading", Paige's "Collaborative Music" and Johnson's "Writing Music Before Playing Music" all assert that the ability to sight-read is instrumental in any individual's music education and that the practice of writing music is key to a strong foundation for all musicians.
All three articles are mentioned and I gave two ideas that they all have in common that I would be able to support with evidence based on the information in the article.
So now you know you have to answer a question in your thesis and if it isn't clearly stated, then you have to do research and create one.
Thesis Tip #2: Your thesis statement should always be specific. ( which means using specific language)
Quickly look at the following two thesis statements and makes mental notes about the differences, this, of course, requires you to bounce back and forth between them.
Unspecific Thesis: A lot of kids are unhealthy because they have too much unhealthy food, so schools should serve healthy food more.
Specific Thesis: Because half of all American elementary school children consume nine times the recommended daily allowance of sugar, schools should be required to replace the beverages in soda machines with healthy alternatives
Differences:
1. "Alot of kids" got coverted into "Half of all american elementary school children". Whew! what a difference!
2. "too much unhealthy food" got coverted into "nine times the recommended daily allowance of sugar"
3. "School should serve healthy food more" got coverted into "schools should be required to replace the beverages in soda machine with healthy alternatives"
When you read an unspecific thesis, you're thinking, "Wow, what am i supposed to do with this". I already knew children were unhealthy. I already knew that they eat too much candy. I already knew schools need to change. What about it? The unspecific thesis vaguely mentions a problem and does even less to offer a solution.
On the other hand, the specific thesis claims a very specific problem and asserts a simple but still specific solution.
Let's look at another one...
Unspecific Thesis: Eleanor Roosevelt was a strong leader as First Lady.
Specific Thesis: Eleanor Roosevelt recreated the role of the First Lady by her active political leadership in the Democratic Party, by lobbying for national legislation, and by fostering women’s leadership in the Democratic Party.
The unspecific thesis lacks an argument. Why was Eleanor Roosevelt a strong leader?
The specific thesis not only gives us 3 reasons for why Roosevelt was a strong leader but it offers 3 things that can be proven in our body. Which leads me to...
Thesis Tip #3: Your Thesis Statement should always create an outline for your body.
This is probably the easiest to test. Your thesis statement, as already mentioned, is a condensed version of your essay; so, it should give clear direction for the paragraphs that follow. Let's look at some examples.
Prompt #1: Compare the superpowers of two superheroes.
Question in the essay prompt: When considering superpowers, how do Superman and Batman differ?
Specific Thesis that Answers a Question: While Superman was born with his super powers, power of flight; power of x-ray vision; and power of speed, Batman uses his wealth to manipulate technology into his own forms of superpowers.
So, we should be able to extract an outline of our body from the thesis....let's do it. In our prompt, we were given the number TWO, this tells us right away that we're comparing TWO people and therefore will have TWO body paragraphs.
Now, let's extract from our thesis.
While Superman was born with his super powers, power of flight; power of x-ray vision; and power of speed, Batman uses his wealth to manipulate technology into his an array of gadgets and his detective skills .
Our first body paragraph, this is after the intro, is going to focus on Superman (I'm pulling it directly from the thesis statement. And we're only going to talk about superman in this paragraph. Are we gonna talk about his family? His greatest villian? His romance with Lois Lane? NO!
We're going to talk about how he was born with superpowers, something not all heroes can say. But are we going to talk about every single superpower he has? NO!
We're going to talk about specifically, the power of flight, the power of x-ray vision and the power of speed.
Because we know this is a comparison, we can safely assume that our second body paragraph will focus on Batman. And following the same format as the first, we're going to specifically talk about how batman uses his money to buy technology that make gadgets. And we'll talk about how he uses good old fashioned detective skills.
Does that all make sense? Everything that I'm going to talk about in my body, came directly from my thesis, no shortcuts, no surprises and in the exact same order. Think of your thesis as a recipe.
Prompt #2: Girls and boys often enjoy playing the same sport. Some people believe that girls and boys should be able to play on the same team. What is your opinion on this issue? Write an essay stating your opinion and supporting it with convincing reasons.
Question in the prompt: What is your opinion?
Specific Thesis that answers a question: In my opinion, girls and boys should be able to play the same sport on the same team because it discourages sexual discrimination and encourages healthy social relationships.
How many paragraphs do we have here? Well, we're not comparing boys and girls, like in the previous essay. We're providing reasons for our opinion on an issue. How many reasons did we provide? TWO...So guess what? We're gonna have two paragraphs again.
What is the 1st body paragraph gonna talk about? It's going to talk about our first reason for our opinion....same team play discourages SEXUAL discrimination!
2nd paragraph? it's going to talk about our second reason....same team play encourages healthy social relationships
Later on, we're going to learn about how to provide support and the specific format for it. But for now, we're all done with thesis statements.
WRAP-UP
So we learned that there are three major criteria of thesis statements
1. it has to answer a question, the ones that are provided in the prompt and in some cases (when they are not provided) a question that you have to create
2. it should always be specifc....as specific as you can be...remember no one wants to read about something that is common knowledge, you have to go out of your way to say something original, something different, something SPECIFIC.
and
the most important 3. it should always create a body outline, in sequential order from left to right.
