Paper 4: Finding a Thesis

For paper #4, where you will be presenting your position on the subject you explored in paper #3, you=ll need to come up with an argumentative thesis: that is, the point you want your paper to prove. If your topic was pretty broad (e.g. Aschool violence@), then you=ll have to focus that thesis. For instance, you wouldn=t need to argue that ASchool violence is bad@ or ASchool violence should be stopped@Bthese are pretty general, unfocused statements, and most people would agree with them. Instead, you=ll want to narrow the topic downBperhaps to something like AParents need to become more involved in their children=s schools to stop school violence@ or AChildren who harm other children at school should be tried as adults and suffer the same penalties.@

By focusing your thesis, you=ll give yourself a clearer plan for organizing your paper. The next thing you=ll have to decide is who your audience is. It should be a college-level audience, but you=ll need to pick some appropriate subset. AThe general public,@ after all, is about 200 million people in this country alone; it=s hard to persuade all of them in 5-7 pages. On the other hand, you might want to address the PTO at Richland East High School or the Rock Hill School Board or the South Carolina legislature. (OK, so not all those people are college-level. But....)

Your audience might have one of three positions when it comes to your thesis: favorable (positive), neutral, or hostile (negative). Your goal in all three cases is to get them to listen to your point of view with respectBand maybe even to agree with you (at least partially). So you will have to think of ways to present your information that appeal to their interests. This means you need to think about not only what things and viewpoints your audience likes, but what rhetorical strategies you might use. Would they be impressed by statistics? By heart-tugging cases? By examples of what other states/competitors/people like them/etc. are doing? Is money a factor? Is politics? The more things you can pin down about your audience, the easier it will be to sort through your information and find the best bits to use in making your point to them. If you work on thesis/focus and audience/strategy, you=ll have much less trouble organizing paper #4.

Formulating a thesis and thinking about the audience should help you decide what your opinion is on your topic. This paper will focus on your opinions and viewpoints; you=ll be using your sources as evidence and testimony that supports what you have to say. (Therefore, you can use I, of course!)

 When you come for your conference, make sure you can tell me what your thesis is going to be, who your audience is going to be, and what strategies you know you can/can’t use. This will help us use our time much more effectively. You should also bring the sources you think you want to use so that we can talk about where they might go and how you will develop your paper.