Of late, I’m seeing a lot of assignments from educators who don’t want full essays. They are asking their students to write just the outline of the essay, or perhaps only one body paragraph. One local science professor wants to see all the experiment results in point form, for now (and the students will have to write up 5 of the experiments at the end of the semester).
As a teacher, I can see the purpose to these assignments: it’s a matter of breaking the writing down into small parts to ensure the student understands the basics. It’s like those hockey drills where the players skate back and forth across the rink, spraying snow as they stop; by the end of the drill, it’s automatic and they don’t even need to think about how to stop. If you’ve written a body paragraph a hundred times, you’re not likely to mess up the body paragraphs on your final exam.
Sometimes, these exercises backfire. Yesterday, I had a student tell me that he didn’t think he needed a thesis because he was only working on an outline.
Aie, aie… aie. You always need a thesis. The minute you pick up a writing implement and begin looking for a piece of paper, you need a thesis. If you’re writing a grocery list, you need a thesis (I need to buy these things at the grocery store). If you’re writing a thank you letter to your grandmother, you need a thesis (The lovely fuchsia sweater with the fluffy kittens on it is beautiful).
A thesis is a subject, the matter about which you are writing. If you don’t have a thesis, you don’t know what you’re writing about. Perhaps you won’t need to write your thesis down for a particular assignment, but you will always need to have one. It’s best to write it down somewhere, so you remember what you’re writing about (put it on a sticky note and stick it to your forehead, or write it on the back of your hand in glittery green ink).
It’s not necessary to come up with the perfect thesis before you actually begin writing. Particularly when taking on a subjective argument, it may be easier to find your supporting points first. I will often scribble over several pieces of paper, looking at a topic from several view points, before I choose the ones I want to write about. Once I have three or four points which work well together, I can write a thesis which connects them.
Should you need a refresher course on the parts of writing, check out this website on how to write a thesis statement.
Remember that the individual parts are as important as the whole: the forest could not exist without the trees.
Tags: communication, thesis