Essay Writing

Last time we dealt with the thesis of the paper and I said it was the backbone that held the paper together. The thesis should be idealy a one sentence a summary of the essay. "The American Revolution was a struggle for nationalism, economics, political power and ultimately liberty." You may not fully understand from that thesis but it does tell you why there was a revolution. More importantly for out purposes here this thesis also tells you how to write the rest of the essay. Since this class is one on American history, our readings covered a lot of information other than the subject of the revolution. So you want to begin with a good introduction which does two - no three things.
First the introduction moves the reader and the grader into the subject of the paper. It takes my interest from what I was doing and shifts it to what you want me to get. Some subjects are so fascinating they don't need an introduction but not many. The American Revolution may be one of them but I am not convinced so the introduction should tell me why I want to read another paper on this subject. It take my focus from the broad universe down to limited scope of your paper. All introductions do that.
Second because this is an academic essay, the essay has an additional purpose of show the grader, me, that you understand that the subject is much broader than your paper and that you understand all that other information too. So a good academic essay will briefly summarize the material that is not going to be deal with more completely in the essay. Our reading talked about the French and Indian War and the continued movement of English to America. It also talked about the continued conflict, between Europeans and Native Americans. So you might want to summarize those issues in a sentence to two and add one about the importance of the America revolution.
Third a good academic introduction presents the thesis. I always tell my student not to write mysteries. I don't want to wait until the end to find our who done it. I want to know from the very beginning. So the introduction should take my interest and move it forward from the settlement of America, to the long stuggles to push the Native Americans off the land and the long struggles betweeen in England and France to the important struggle that is the American Revolution and then spring the thesis on me.

Thesis

So to write an essay you must have a plan and the backbone of that plan is the thesis. Think of the thesis is a one sentence version of the essay or answer to the question. When you are writing academic essays in general and for me in particular you should also remember that the essay makes and defends a number of point. There is nothing really magic about the number four, but for the essays I assign, you should be able to make four key points. Ideally again these should be summarized in the thesis.

Why was there an American Revolution in 1776?

There was a revolution is 1776 as a result of a simple struggle for power, an economic transformation, nationalism and because the Americans had come to a new understanding of liberty.

or

The American Revolution was about nationalism, economics, political power and liberty.

See how that creates a backbone for your writing. You have four key ideas presented. Now you just need to develop each of them in a paragraph or two. How much depends on the length of the assignment. Each of these ideas can be developed at great length believe me. I have a book on my shelf about each of them.

What did the Greeks contribute to Western Civilization?

The Greek gave us philosophy, natural philosophy, drama and democracy.

This is a case where there are many other choices but you want to restrict your choices to four so that you have time and space to develop or defend them. I think of it as defending because your development shows the grader (me) that you understand the points fully. If you pick more than four points either you will not be able to develop them fully or you will write a very long essay. Four is a good number. That is why I use it.

So when you get a writing assignment think about the four point you want to develop in your answer and put them into a clear precise thesis. This tells me that you understand the material and have thought about it enough to organize your thoughts. After you have the thesis it is time to think about the introduction.

Grading

Think how much would be here if I had written an entry each week. I am tempted to start over but will strive to continue instead with a brief entry on grading. I just want to brief explain what I do when grading a paper. Knowing that should help you when you are writing a paper for me.

First thing I do is read quickly through the paper and highlight. In yellow I highlight what appears to be the thesis of the paper. In a well written paper this is is easy and set me in a good mood was I continue to grade. Sometimes what appears to be a thesis is not and I have to change the highlights. Sometimes student hide the thesis until the end of the essay. I call these mysteries because they are hard to grade. Sometimes there is no thesis. Instead the essay reads "This is a paper about how to smoke a pipe first I will tell you . . . " That is not a thesis that is a statement of the subject. Second thing I highlight in green all the errors in the text. I usually don't say anything about them. I just highlight them. I am not an English teacher but I do want students to see the mistakes and think about how to fix them.

What I do next depends upon the grading standards or the rubric. All my assignments have a standard which lists the elements I will look for when grading. I tend to mark and comment on these elements as I read through the paper again. I make two kinds of comments. One relates to the grading standard like "Point one well made and defended." The other relates to the content. I may say for example "I disagree with you assessment that Wilson was a great president, but you have done a good job of defending you point." or "I don't quite understand what you mean here." Since writing is part of the learning process as well as part of the evaluation process I try to make more of these kinds of comment. They are as much to encourage thinking as they are to point out mistakes.

Then I complete the grading standard. Behind each of the elements I record the score. Sometimes that is on a five point scale, sometimes only two, but I score each of the elements and total the score for the grade on this paper. I adjust the standards on an ongoing basis so I am not sure how much time I will spend going over them, but future entries will have more say about them.

Outlining 4

Having identified the major headings of your outline you now want to finish each section.
First begin with the subheadings:
From above for example A. Prehistory would include subheadings on Paleolithic and Neolithic.
A. Prehistory
1. Paleolithic Age
2. Neolithic Revolution

For each of these subheadings you will want to provide some detail. How much varies but remember you are creating a study tool so you need enough detail to make it worthwhile.

You might want to discuss a. when, b. where, c. who, d. important characteristics and e. historical significance for example.
A. Prehistory
1. Paleolithic Age
a. when
b. where
c. who
d. important characteristics
e. historical significance
2. Neolithic Revolution

a. when

b. where

c. who

d. important characteristics

e. historical significance

Then you want to put in the detail.

In outlining there is a rule, "Never use and 'A' without a 'B"

Here it means never use a "i" without an "ii".

So for "a" when you only have one entry so a. when - 20000 years ago.

But there may be several important characteristics to include.

d. important characteristics

i. domesticating animals

ii. growing crops

iii. new tools

And of course for some of those points you will want to list several examples under the sub sub heading.

Practice helps, but remember you are doing this is a study aid to create a study aid. Think about what you are learning as you work through the outline.

Outlining 3

Remember, we are learning how to outline so that we can learn better and faster.
Our outlines serve as study guides when we prepare for the test, but they also help us think and learn about the material. That was why we started with the thesis of the work. Once we see what the author's major point it is we have a better understanding about what and why is included in the reading.

After we have discovered the thesis we want to find the major themes of the work. (Later when you use outlines for writing you will need to find at least four of them, but your author's probably have many more.) Modern text books practice "chucking." They break the chapter in lots of small sections. When you are in a rush you might be tempted to use those as headings, but there is a danger here. The text is broken into sections more by size than content. Some headings have several sections in the text, others only one. So think for yourself when you are searching for the headings in your outline.

Keeping with the example thesis from above we can identify several headings which are in the chapter:
A. Paleolithic Life
B. The Neolithic Revolution
C. Mesopotamia
D. Egypt
E. Hebrews
F. Hittites
G. Assyrians
H. Neo Babylonians
I. Persians
That is one of organizing the outline, but it is not the only way. A less complicated way would be:
A. Prehistoric Life
B. The First Empires
C. The Middle Empires
D. The Persians
It depends upon your style and how much detail you want to include. The more detail, the better the study aid.

Outlining 2

Since there are many reasons to learn to outline, I have decided to give you the opportunity to practice and develop these important skills. Many of my classes begin with a simple outlining assignment: "Outline one of the chapters in the reading assignment." That brings up an interesting point because everyone knows that in today's world you can find most of these outlines, often even those produced by the publishers of the books, online. You could copy and paste them as the assignment, but you don't learn anything that way and that is cheating. It is cheating that is very easy to detect as well. But mostly you don't learn anything. The reason for the assignment - all assignments - is to help you learn. So do the outline yourself.

How?
First read the material carefully.
Then think about and define the thesis of the material.
All good writing begins with a thesis which the major point of the writing. The thesis is at best a one sentence statement of the major point the work is attempting to make.

eg. Chapter One in World History - "Civilization begins when people settle down along the banks of the great river (Tigris, Nile and others), learn to grow crops and create a series of cities, kingdom and empires from Mesopotamia to Egypt to the Hittites and the Jews to the Assyrians the Babylonians and the Persians."

It is important to identify the thesis before you get too far because it is the backbone of the entire work and holds everything together.

Outline

The outline

There are several reasons why it is a good idea to learn how to outline. Most of the links I have found to outlining stress its value as a writing aid. They tell you how to outline before you begin to write your term paper or essay. You should learn how to outline so that you can organize your writting and make it more effective.All good writing is well organized and most of it begins with an effective outline.Since that it true, the material that you read in your text books and probably the lectures your instructors have prepared and delivered for you also began with outlines. If you take the time to outline the material, either the text or the lecture, you will quickly see how the author put things together. You will understand the connections she sees between the themes and you will find it easier to remember the material.If you throw the outline away at that point, it has still been a valuable learning tool, but there is another reason for oulining. That is as a study aid. You have prepared an outline of the text with the important information in it. You can now review the outline rather than the text when it is time to review and prepare for the test. You can save your outlines and review them again and again. I still have many from my college classes.