Fluent Essays

http://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cDlbnaQZML   Write a specific, focused, thesis statement in complex sentence form (dependent + independent clause. that others in class might not agree with and that comes to a conclusion about how the narrator or Digby or Jeffs behavior illustrates a point Orenstein makes about young men in her article, The Miseducation of the American Boy. This assignment requires you to submit only one sentence. Type your thesis statement in the text box.So what is a thesis statement, anyway? A thesis statement is the point of your essay or response; it is why you are writing. It is a sentence that usually comes at the end of the introduction. Here is a visual representation of the organization of an academic essay: The rest of the paper, the body of the essay, gathers and organizes evidence that will persuade the reader of the logic of your interpretation. An essay with a clear thesis will be focused and not stray off-topic. Be sure your thesis statement does the following:  Your thesis statement should be specific—it should cover only what you will discuss in your paper and should be supported with specific evidence (in the paragraphs of the body of your essay).  Your thesis should directly answer the question asked of you; it is not the topic itself. In other words, the topic of your history essay might be the Vietnam War. Your thesis must, then, offer a way to understand the war.  Because your thesis must offer a way to understand the topic, it should make a claim that others might not agree with. For instance, regarding the topic of the Vietnam War, your thesis might be, “The Vietnam War might have been prevented had America itself not supported a number of military dictatorships before the Viet Cong rose to power.” using evidence (in the form of embedded quotations) for support. INTRODUCTION: introduce the topic generally, then focus with the specific THESIS STATEMENT Paragraphs should all reinforce the thesis statement and prove true the claims made in the thesis statement CONCLUSION: tie together what you have claimed in your thesis and proven in the body of your essay and leave you reader with something to think about How to Tell a Strong from a Weak Thesis Statement. 1. A strong thesis statement is debatable, reaching a conclusion with which others might not agree. Remember that your thesis needs to show your conclusions about a subject. For example, if you are writing a paper for a class on fitness, you might be asked to choose a popular weight-loss product to evaluate. Notice the marked difference in the following two statements:  There are some negative and positive health aspects to the LessWeight Herb Tea Supplement. This is a weak thesis statement. First, it fails to take a stand. Second, the phrase negative and positive aspects is vague.  Because LessWeight Herb Tea Supplement promotes rapid weight loss that results in the loss of muscle and lean body mass, it poses potential health risks to consumers. This is a strong thesis because it is debatable, as those who have lost weight without side effects from the supplement would disagree. 2. A strong thesis statement justifies discussion. Your thesis should indicate the point of the discussion; it should not be a mere observation. For an essay on photojournalism, note the improvement in the second of the following two thesis statements:  The photographs of Bosnian genocide victims2 “Greasy Lake” by T.C. Boyle Its about a mile down on the dark side of Route 88. - Bruce Springsteen There was a time when courtesy and winning ways went out of style, when it was good to be bad, when you cultivated decadence like a taste. We were all dangerous characters then. We wore tom-up leather jackets, slouched around with toothpicks in our mouths, sniffed glue and ether and what somebody claimed was cocaine. When we wheeled our parents whining station wagons out into the street we left a patch of rubber half a block long. We drank gin and grape juice, Tango, Thunderbird , and Bali Hai. We were nineteen. We were bad. We read Andre Gide[footnoteRef:1] and struck elaborate poses to show that we didnt give a shit about anything. At night, we went up to Greasy Lake. [1: Andre Gide: French novelist and critic (1859-1961) who was much concerned with unconventional behavior. ] Through the center of town , up the strip, past the housing developments and shopping malls, street lights giving way to the thin streaming illumination of the headlights, trees crowding the asphalt in a black unbroken wall: that was the way out to Greasy Lake. The Indians had called it Wakan, a reference to the clarity of its waters. Now it was fetid and murky, the mud banks glittering with broken glass and strewn with beer cans and the charred remains of bonfires. There was a single ravaged island a hundred yards from shore, so stripped of vegetation it looked as if the air force had strafed it. We went up to the lake because everyone went there, because we wanted to snuff the rich scent of possibility on the breeze, watch a girl take off her clothes and plunge into the festering murk, drink beer, smoke pot, howl at the stars, savor the incongruous full-throated roar of rock and roll against the primeval susurrus of frogs and crickets. This was nature. I was there one night, late, in the company of two dangerous characters. Digby wore a gold star in his right ear and allowed his father to pay his tuition at Cornell; Jeff was thinking of quitting school to become a painter/ musician/ head­shop proprietor. They were both expert in the social graces, quick with a sneer, able to manage a Ford with lousy shocks over rutted and gutted blacktop road at eighty-five while rolling a joint as compact as a Tootsie Roll Pop stick. They could lounge against a bank of booming speakers and trade mans with the best of them or roll out across the dance floor as if their joints worked on bearings. They were slick and quick and they wore their mirror shades at breakfast and dinner, in the shower, in closets and caves. In short, they were bad. I drove. Digby pounded the dashboard and shouted along with Toots & the Maytals while Jeff hung his head out the window and streaked the side of my mothers Bel Air with vomit. It was early June, the air soft as a hand on your cheek, the third night of summer vacation. The first two nights wed been out till dawn, looking for somet