A Good Blueprint For Any Paper

A Good Blueprint for Any Paper (Try building a house, much less a paper, without one.) THESIS: The foundation of your paper (from a Latin word meaning to place. Remember the story of the man who placed his house upon the sand? Watch out for constructing a paper on shaky ground.) Traditionally a thesis is one or two sentences at the end of your introduction which sum up your main point for the entire paper, in other words, an idea, position, or interpretation worth pointing out, risking even. Your thesis tells your readers in a clear, concise, and interesting way what they can expect to discover in your text. (Don't attempt to write a perfect thesis on the first try, not even on the second.) Watch how one can evolve: • • • •

It's hard to write if you haven't been a reader. It's hard to write with confidence if you haven't been a reader. Many students who have never enjoyed reading find it hard to write. Many students who have never enjoyed reading find it hard to write with confidence because they have rarely experienced good writing themselves.

If your thesis is supposed to appear at the end of your introduction, where do you start? Attract your readers' attention. Try creating a scene. Brainstorm the different kinds of scenes film directors create to draw in their audiences, then ask yourself how will you draw in yours? Given our revised thesis about a connection between reading and writing, we could develop the following introduction: A ten-year old boy leans forward, his body still but tense. Only his right hand moves. The room is dark. A screen flickers. He is thinking in images, not language, in sounds but not words. Eight years from now, an instructor in an English composition class will ask him to account for his thinking on any number of subjects, and the boy will struggle with the words. If only he could create a video scenario to show the effects of global warming. It would be better anyway, more vivid. Other students will be in this same position, male and female, technologically smart since childhood but frustrated with their inability to come up with words as easily as images. Many students who have never enjoyed reading find it hard to write with confidence because they have rarely experienced good writing themselves. INTRODUCTION: The entrance to your paper. If your thesis is supposed to appear at the end of your introduction, how will you lead up to it? Try attracting your reader's attention in one of the following ways: Set the scene. Imagine the different kinds of scenes film directors create to draw in their audiences. Then imagine how you will try to draw in yours:

A ten-year-old boy leans forward, intent on his flickering computer screen. He thinks in images, not language, in sounds but not words. Eight years from now, an instructor in a college-level composition class will ask him to account for his perspective on any number of subjects, and the boy will struggle. If only he could create a computer scenario to show the effects of global warming, he thinks. It would be better anyway, more vivid. Many college students will find it hard to write effectively because they have never been readers. Start with an interesting fact or assertion: According to The National Assessment Education Progress (NACEP) 1998 Reading Report Card for the Nation and the States, "Numerous studies have shown that reading development does not take place in isolation; children develop simultaneously as readers, listeners, speakers, and writers" (School and Home Factors section, para. 5). If this relationship is so important, what may happen to high school students who listen and speak but who spend little time reading and writing? How well prepared will they be for college-level work? Many college students will find it hard to write effectively because they have never been readers. Start with an interesting question(s): What's the difference between illiteracy and alliteracy? Illiteracy means one is not capable of reading, whereas alliteracy means one is capable of reading but resists whenever possible. Why? An informal survey of college students produces the following answers, "Boring," "Too hard," "I always fall asleep." "Better things to do." Too often students assume that not reading means nothing, such as not bowling or not eating sushi. They fail to realize that reading and writing are connected. Many college students will find it hard to write effectively because they have never been readers. The most interesting introductions begin indirectly but strategically. Rather than starting out by saying, "The purpose of this paper is to ...," or "... has been important throughout civilization," hook your reader with a carefully chosen image/anecdote, a thoughtful piece of information, or simply the right question. ORGANIZATION: The floor plan for your paper, taking into account the available space. Remember the working unit for most written texts is the paragraph (the way a room is for a house). Check out this assertion in your non-academic reading. Articles in the newspaper, Sports Illustrated, and Cosmopolitan count. Song lyrics, closer to poetry, don't. A good paragraph has one topic sentence that connects to your thesis and serves as a foundation for the paragraph. A predictable structure helps your reader understand your thinking. Three good "floor plans" follow: •

Chronological - simply means the order in which events happen in time. A chronological organization can help you structure a personal narrative, analyze a historical event or person, or write up a lab experiment. Generally it's a good idea to start a new paragraph whenever you move forward or backward in time.

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Topical - helps you discuss the various aspects of a subject, for example, how residents of Jackson County feel about having a shopping mall in Western North Carolina, the pros and cons of freshman parking their cars on campus, or the compelling reasons for including a fine arts cinema in the new performing arts building (a personal favorite). Generally speaking, weaker points precede stronger points and lesser pros and/or cons precede greater pros and/or cons because gradually building the significance of your thesis helps keep your reader interested. Start a new paragraph whenever the topic shifts. If a paragraph threatens to take over the page, look for the first logical place to give your readers' eyes a break. On the other hand, if you find yourself ending a paragraph too quickly, take a careful look at our section on development. Transitional paragraphs are occasionally useful for helping a reader to move from one topic to the next, and they are generally short.

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Comparing and contrasting - helps youanalyze how two or more subjects are similar and how they differ. One strategy is to first analyze how the subjects are the same and then analyze how they are different, or vice versa: A student was assigned to write a paper comparing and contrasting popular culture during the decline of the Roman Empire with popular culture in the United States at the beginning of the 21st century. The most interesting part of the paper, the student realized as she researched both subjects, would be her analysis of the similarities between the two cultures and deciding whether or not the U.S. appeared to be heading for the same fate as the Roman Empire. How she summed up her findings and what her findings suggested would help her to develop a thesis. Because she had been asked to address differences as well as similarities, the student began her paper by first acknowledging several ways in which the Roman Empire and the contemporary U.S. are clearly different. Her thesis read, "Despite the differences 2000 years can create, the behavior of Romans during the decline of their empire bears an unsettling resemblance to the behavior of contemporary Americans." Another strategy for comparing and contrasting two subjects is to analyze several topics common to both subjects, one topic at a time: A student was assigned to write a paper comparing and contrasting the female protagonist in a novel written by a male author with the female protagonist in a novel written by a female author. He chose to look at Emma Bovary in Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert and Edna Pontellier in The Awakening by Kate Chopin. Where should he start? In each novel, the protagonist is married, takes a lover, and dies, so the student looked carefully at each woman's relationship to her husband, to her lover, and to her death. As he organized his topics (husbands, lovers, and death), he first discussed Flaubert's depiction of Emma (Madame Bovary being the older book) and then Chopin's depiction of Edna.His thesis read, "Based on the evidence of Madame Bovary by Flaubert and The Awakening by Chopin, a male author may tend to view a woman's poor choices as flaws

of her character, while a female author may tend to show what circumstances justify a woman's tragic state of mind." DEVELOPMENT: The home furnishings, what makes a place not only livable but pleasurable. The development of a paper is made up of its details, examples, and pertinent facts, what fills up one paragraph after another, in short, the evidence for your thesis. YOU EITHER HAVE EVIDENCE OR YOU DON'T. Observe the successful dynamic between topic sentences and their development in the following four paragraphs: Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write. [It] was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulders, and said, "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird." (Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird, pp.18-19) *********** I now want to mention briefly the seven intelligences we have located, and to cite one or two examples of each intelligence. Linguistic intelligence is the kind of ability exhibited in its fullest form, perhaps, by poets. Logical-mathematical intelligence, as the name implies, is logical and mathematical ability, as well as scientific ability. Jean Piaget, the great developmental psychologist, thought he was studying all intelligence, but I believe he was studying the development of logical-mathematical intelligence. Although I name the linguistic and logicalmathematical intelligences first, it is not because I think they are the most important--in fact, I am convinced that all seven of the intelligences have equal claim to priority. In our society, however, we have put linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences, figuratively speaking, on a pedestal. Much of our testing is based on this high valuation of verbal and mathematical skills. If you do well in language and logic, you should do well in IQ tests and SATs, and you may well get into a prestigious college, but whether you do well once you leave is probably going to depend as much on the extent to which you possess and use the other intelligences, and it is to those that I want to give equal attention. (Howard Gardner in Multiple Intelligences, pp. 8-9) (NOTE: Gardner sees that one paragraph cannot do justice to seven intelligences so he cleverly transitions to another paragraph.) **************** The first step in science's retreat from mechanical explanation toward mathematical abstraction was taken in 1900, when Max Planck put forth his Quantum Theory to meet certain problems that had arisen in the study of radiation. It is common knowledge that when heated bodies become incandescent they emit a red glow that turns to orange, then yellow, then white as the temperature increases. Painstaking efforts were made during the past century to formulate a law stating how the amount of radiant energy given off by such heated bodies varied with wavelength and temperature. All attempts failed until Planck found by mathematical means an equation that satisfied the results of experiment. The extraordinary feature of his equation was that it rested on the assumption that radiant energy is emitted not in an unbroken stream but in discontinuous bits

or portions which he termed quanta. (Lincoln Barnett in "Einstein's Relativity" from A World of Ideas, edited by Lee A. Jacobus, pp. 374-75) *************** I came to a strange realization today regarding ceremonies and costumes. At first, I was almost uncomfortable watching the Maasai pound the drums, sing, chant, scream, and jump. The crazy, outlandish costumes and body paint that everyone dressed in only added to the unfamiliarity. But, thinking back to our church in Charlotte (how far away does that seem?), one particular Sunday morning last Christmas comes to mind. It was an unusual, celebratory type of service with a small band in the middle of the choir. There were trumpets and trombones, a harp, and I believe a flute. In front of the pulpit there were four large bongo-type drums. Everyone playing these instruments was in a coat and tie, and they played in a respectful manner that complemented the hymns. The ideological similarities here are striking. The Maasai have their culturally mandated costumes, while all of the men in the States were wearing remarkably similar dark blue and black suits, with white or blue dress shirts. Their expensive shoes and socks were disconcertingly similar as well. All of the women were wearing nice dresses of almost identical length. The Maasai carefully apply body paint; the Charlotte women meticulously applied makeup and fingernail polish. The women over here add great ornamentation to their bald heads, while many of the American women dye, or least highlight, their hair. Perhaps the Charlotte women were more subdued, but the concept is certainly the same. (Worth Allen in In Mind/In Country, p. 71) (NOTE: Allen is comparing an African Maasai ceremony with a church service in Charlotte, North Carolina. In each comparison, Allen always mentions the Maasai first and the Charlotte church members second. Readers may hardly notice the sequence because the transitions are so smooth, but clearly Allen has paid attention not only to his details but also to the order in which they appear. As Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of The Scarlet Letter, once said, "Easy reading is damned hard writing.") CONCLUSION: The roofing for your paper, what gives your thinking closure. Good conclusions do not strictly mirror introductions in the same way that roofs do not simply mirror foundations. A good roof is both materially sound and a visually pleasing extension of the structure it tops. Likewise, a good conclusion pulls together the important elements in a paper and ties them together in a way that makes sense to your reader. In a complex paper, a reader will appreciate a conclusion that repeats the writer's key points, because the reader will need reminding. In less complex papers, however, readers appreciate less predictable conclusions. For example, a conclusion might include a final, compelling example; or a pertinent, thoughtprovoking question; or a well-worded quotation from an expert in the field. Take the time to draft and revise a conclusion worthy of its position as the last word to your reader. MECHANICS: Plumbing and wiring, invisible when functioning properly and a great big nuisance when not. The term mechanics in writing sums up grammar, syntax (word order), diction (word choice), punctuation, and spelling, the kinds of things all serious writers pay close attention to during the final stages of any writing project, like this mini-course, for example.

Clearly, mechanics are not the be-all and end-all of good writing, but they allow readers easy access to more important things, such as what a writer has to say. Apart from teachers, rarely does anyone have to repeatedly read writing which is mechanically challenged. Try it for yourself: Speeling is impotant. If you don't know how too speel, then you mite be in troubul. Many people don't take speeling very seerous. That is a tradegy. Speeling is probly the most importent part of the riting prosess. If you turn in a paper that has a bunch of errs in it, than you might knot only get a bad grade, there is a chance that you will look stuped, and knowon wants that. David Cybul, an English Graduate Student, willing to appear stupid in order to make his point. THE PROCESS: Is a house built in one day? Neither is a paper. Remember, this is a blueprint, not a recipe. Expect to brainstorm, research, document, outline, draft, and revise.