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Need Help in Explaining a THESIS statement better

Lucian said:
This isn't the type of advice that you are seeking, but I would recommend that you adjust the tone of your writing, particularly in the opening sentence: "I don’t know how so many people managed to get into graduate schools without knowing how to write a proper thesis statement[,] but this is a huge problem." It's nasty and condescending. More importantly, what follows is not a definition or description of a "proper thesis statement." It's a description of the kind of thesis statement that is expected on this particular test. A thesis statement can appear in the guise of a long, sophisticated sentence in certain circumstances, and "proper" thesis statements do not have to include two reasons. You're not teaching them how to write a "proper thesis statement." You're teaching them how to write a completely formulaic thesis statement for a specific, dreary, formulaic task. The kind of thesis statement you describe may or may not be appropriate for their graduate school work, but it certainly isn't the only kind of "proper thesis statement."

I managed to get a high school diploma and a B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in English literature without ever consciously thinking about creating a thesis statement. As a college writing instructor, I discuss claims and thesis statements with my students. I want their point and their organization to be clear, but I don't really care if they write a thesis statement that screams, "Look at me--I'm a thesis statement!" at the end of the first paragraph. Indeed, I would prefer not to read hundreds of papers in a semester that all follow the same dismal formula. So, please, focus on the requirements of the test. Don't make it sound as if these requirements are the same as the requirements for good writing. And don't begin by expressing contempt for their non-formulaic writing styles.
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Aha! You know when we read it in the class aloud it's said as a joke and comes across that way. No one would call me condescending or rude in person.

But I do agree that the wording makes it sound like it is something they should already KNOW, instead of saying, "I know you've written thesis statements different ways in the past, but on this test they want a very specific TYPE of thesis statement."

Thanks for the feedback, I'm going to change that ASAP. :) I'll do an excercise where I ask them to take five minutes and write a thesis statement about the topic. I'll point out that on other tests those thesis statements would be just fine, but on THIS TEST it has to look THIS WAY. Voila.


Thanks for all the feedback to everyone else as well. And just to note, it's a thesis statement for an argumentative 5 paragraph essay.

And to note, this is done in a workshop format the first time. We spend 5 hours going over structure. I've literally broken it down sentence by sentence. I think I'm going to use the chart idea as well.


All really good suggestions. Keep em coming. I knew I'd get some good ideas here.
 
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theprestige said:
That is not a good thesis statement because it doesn't give two reasons for choosing a side, and because its punctuation is wrong.
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It, is an excellent (!!!) thesus statements bcoz, puncatation don't matters; also u don't need too reasons,?
 
AlaskaBushPilot said:
We aren't always writing persuasive or argumentative tracts.
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Unless you take a course with "technical writing" in the name, argumentative essays are pretty much all they want you to write in high school or college "English" courses. It's very overemphasized IMO. Kids are much more likely to need to write a research paper/report or a grant application in their future than an essay.
 
marplots said:
He's dead now.
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Yeah, well. I adore him anyway and link to that famous essay whenever I have an excuse.

Modified said:
Kids are much more likely to need to write a research paper/report or a grant application in their future than an essay.
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The ambition, IMO, should be teaching students to clarify their thinking. Grant applications, after all, should be persuasive. But I'm sure there are certain conventions that must be observed in various genres - being blunt and to the point might be inappropriate if your goal is to ruffle no feathers, butter up a committee and loosen purse strings.

Regarding technical writing: My father used to cite a joke, perhaps with some basis in fact, about instructions that began: "To assemble Japanese bicycle requires great peace of mind." The grain of truth might be that methodically making sure your kit contains all necessary components, then mindfully following each step, will make the process less frustrating.

Two things a writer must have: Something to say, and some idea of the audience he or she is addressing. That helps guide decisions on diction and tone, honoring the convention of the genre at hand. I usually enjoy doing the back-and-forth with beginning or mid-career writers, but it's fairly labor-intensive. People pick up bad habits - pretentiousness, verbosity, a horror of writing stark declarative sentences. My higner-education reporter (a graduate student in higher education) was especially plagued by an attachment to bureaucratic writing. Truethat, I suspect you deal with this a lot!
 
Modified said:
Unless you take a course with "technical writing" in the name, argumentative essays are pretty much all they want you to write in high school or college "English" courses. It's very overemphasized IMO. Kids are much more likely to need to write a research paper/report or a grant application in their future than an essay.
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There's a writing textbook called Everything's an Argument. This may be an exaggeration, but an awful lot of academic writing is persuasive, including grant applications and any research paper/report that involves analysis or interpretation.
 
Minoosh said:
Yeah, well. I adore him anyway and link to that famous essay whenever I have an excuse.



The ambition, IMO, should be teaching students to clarify their thinking. Grant applications, after all, should be persuasive. But I'm sure there are certain conventions that must be observed in various genres - being blunt and to the point might be inappropriate if your goal is to ruffle no feathers, butter up a committee and loosen purse strings.

Regarding technical writing: My father used to cite a joke, perhaps with some basis in fact, about instructions that began: "To assemble Japanese bicycle requires great peace of mind." The grain of truth might be that methodically making sure your kit contains all necessary components, then mindfully following each step, will make the process less frustrating.

Two things a writer must have: Something to say, and some idea of the audience he or she is addressing. That helps guide decisions on diction and tone, honoring the convention of the genre at hand. I usually enjoy doing the back-and-forth with beginning or mid-career writers, but it's fairly labor-intensive. People pick up bad habits - pretentiousness, verbosity, a horror of writing stark declarative sentences. My higner-education reporter (a graduate student in higher education) was especially plagued by an attachment to bureaucratic writing. Truethat, I suspect you deal with this a lot!
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A writer needs to consider audience and purpose: what effect does the writer want to have on the audience? Does the author want to inform, persuade, or entertain? Perhaps some combination?
 
Lucian said:
A writer needs to consider audience and purpose: what effect does the writer want to have on the audience? Does the author want to inform, persuade, or entertain? Perhaps some combination?
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Yes, of course. I conflate "something to say" and "purpose," I think. Something to say to that audience incorporates purpose. I knew when I narrowed it down to 2 goals that someone would come up with an equally valid scheme.
 
Don't lead your examples with how not to do it. After you clean up the negative opening give your bullet list (but use numbers). Then give the good examples with small numbers above the phrases that match your numbered list. THEN give some bad examples but also include small numbers that illustrate the mistake. IOW, directly link the requirements with the phrases that match (or don't) those requirements.
 
Minoosh said:
Yes, of course. I conflate "something to say" and "purpose," I think. Something to say to that audience incorporates purpose. I knew when I narrowed it down to 2 goals that someone would come up with an equally valid scheme.
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I figured that was what you meant, but it's the writing teacher in me--too many students who think having a topic is the same as having a purpose.
 
Lucian said:
There's a writing textbook called Everything's an Argument. This may be an exaggeration, but an awful lot of academic writing is persuasive, including grant applications and any research paper/report that involves analysis or interpretation.
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That is a minor component. I write or co-write a dozen or so of such documents each year, and they bear little resemblance to what I was expected to write in high school and college "English" courses. Those courses were poor preparation for technical writing. I learned to write quality research articles and grant proposals like most people do I suppose, by reading thousands of them and in the case of grant proposals, by working with experienced writers.
 
Modified said:
That is a minor component. I write or co-write a dozen or so of such documents each year, and they bear little resemblance to what I was expected to write in high school and college "English" courses. Those courses were poor preparation for technical writing. I learned to write quality research articles and grant proposals like most people do I suppose, by reading thousands of them and in the case of grant proposals, by working with experienced writers.
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College "English" courses aren't technical writing courses (except for the ones that are, in fact, technical writing courses). They aren't supposed to be technical writing courses. Why would you expect them to be good preparation for technical writing when that is not their purpose? Why do you keep putting "English" in scare quotes?
 
Lucian said:
College "English" courses aren't technical writing courses (except for the ones that are, in fact, technical writing courses). They aren't supposed to be technical writing courses. Why would you expect them to be good preparation for technical writing when that is not their purpose?
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I don't think so, that seemed to be your claim. My point is that there is far too much effort put into teaching students to write in a way they will probably never need to, and very little put into teaching them to write in ways they are more likely to need.

Why do you keep putting "English" in scare quotes?
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Because it's oddly vague compared to course names in other fields. They use the same name for a grade school course that teaches low-level reading and spelling, to grammar, to high school courses that are exclusively reading comprehension and writing, to high school and college courses focused only on writing.
 
Thesis statement: Denali National Park, and many others, are already privatized as a practical matter, operated by large corporations employing migratory workers under poor working conditions.

People have to eat, poop, sleep, transport, and wash themselves. This is a billion-dollar plus industry in the parks under private concessions to Aramark, Xanterra, or Delaware North. Their employees are extraordinarily low wage workers and up here almost exclusively from poor countries under a special visa program the industry giants got congress to pass so they don't have to follow the same wage and hour laws US citizens have.
 
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