Preliminary Thesis Statement Writing

1. Preliminary Thesis Statement Writing Literary Research Paper

2. OBJECTIVE • To craft an early draft of your thesis statement that shows your focus and approach to research and connects with the topics you seem to be finding in your research.

3. STEP ONE: Review Research • Look for and organize… • Patterns in research findings • Intriguing insights—ideas about the text that are new and exciting to you • Researched ideas that connect to your own opinions or reactions to the text • Use the tangible nature of your notecards to your benefit… • Lay them all out and examine them—this will help you to actually see patterns in your research • Make piles of similar ideas

4. STEP TWO: Choose An (Initial) Arguable Focus • ARGUABLE • Debatable • Questionable • Disputable • Someone has to be able to DISAGREE with your idea…this can’t be a FACT of the text! • You must be able to sustain (6-10 pages) and support (7 secondary sources) this focus… • What do you already have in your research? • What more do you need? How do you need to focus your work for remaining Media Center days?

5. POSSIBLE THESIS STATEMENT DIRECTIONS • Look to your own annotations and original ideas about the text…the best topics originate from these creative, personal thoughts! • Some common research approaches to consider…

6. Common Lit. Research Topics • A discussion of a work's characters: are they realistic, symbolic, historically-based? • A comparison/contrast of the choices different authors or characters make in a work • A reading of a work based on an outside philosophical perspective (Ex. how would a Freudian read Hamlet?) • A study of the sources or historical events that inspired a particular work • An analysis of a specific image occurring in several works (Ex. the use of moon imagery in certain plays, poems, novels) • A study of the social, political, or economic context in which a work was written — how does the context influence the work?

7. Sample Thesis Statements • Mark Twain shows how racism can corrupt good people in Huckleberry Finn. • The climax of Stephen King’s The Stand represents the classic struggle of good versus evil. • In "The Swimmer," John Cheever uses the metaphor of the swimmer to describe the escape of a modern man from his personal life. • In Hondo, Louis L’Amour’s title character represents the idealized hero in western literature. • Jack Ryan in Tom Clancy’s Debt of Honor is a classic modern hero. • The main character in “To Build a Fire” embodies a man versus nature struggle that characterizes most naturalist writings.

8. DON’T WORRY… These samples are much more polished and more formal than what you need to produce RIGHT NOW. These exemplify what your thesis statement will look like in your final draft…

9. Preliminary Thesis Statement Formatting In my book I noticed ___________________________. Based on my opinions and my research so far, I think I could write a paper on _______________________________________________. This is the BARE MINIMUM of what you need to produce. If this is all you can do right now, that is perfectly fine. But, if you can say more and in a more formal fashion…DO IT!!!

10. For further thesis guidance see Chapters 9 (p. 336-368) and 10 (p. 369-400) ADDITIONAL WEB RESOURCES http://www.northland.cc.mn.us/owl/Writing%20a%20Literary%20Paper.htm http://www.roanestate.edu/owl/Argument.html http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/618/02/