Supporting Your Thesis

1. Supporting Your Thesis How to Create Effective Body Paragraphs

2. Every Paper is an Argument • You are attempting to prove your thesis. • In order to convince your reader, you must offer sufficient support. • Each paragraph in your essay, is a chance to further convince your reader that your thesis is believable.

3. Go to Court • Consider your paper to be the equivalent of a court case. • Your thesis is the verdict you want the jury to return. • Your introduction and conclusion are your opening and closing arguments. • The body paragraphs are then the witnesses you call to the stand to testify in support of your claim.

4. Your Role • As the attorney in the case, you need to guide the witnesses so they say exactly what you want them to (not too much, not too little). • Keep them focused on the case at hand. • You also need to make sure, that the jury interprets what the witnesses say to arrive at the conclusion you want them to make.

5. Which Means… • Choose supporting details (direct quotes, statistics, facts, dates, paraphrases, summaries, interviews, etc.) that clearly connect to the point you are trying to make. • Don’t include filler and fluff. • Use your own words as often as possible and utilize direct quotes only when you can’t say it any more clearly on your own. • Interpret every piece of evidence for your reader.

6. Let’s Practice • Your current assignment is to show how an author uses a conflict derived from a culture clash, to showcase a greater theme. • Let’s utilize George Orwell’s Animal Farm as our practice text. • First, we need a thesis to prove (a verdict we want the jury/reader to reach).

7. Guiding Thesis • In George Orwell’s, Animal Farm, Mollie is caught between her desire for acceptance amongst the animals and the care and approval given to her by human masters, illustrating how complacency and security can motivate individuals to avoid rebellion and forfeit freedom. Text Identifiers Cultural Conflict Theme

8. First Point to Prove • Initially, you will have to convince your reader that Mollie is not 100% on board with leaving behind the human conveniences from being a domesticated animal. • Consider the following: Upon entering Mr. Jones’ home for the first time, Mollie spends much time gazing at her reflection in the bedroom mirror and playing dress-up with human worn ribbons. She also is reluctant to learn to read and write, to educate herself as a means to independence.

9. Possible Body Paragraph It is not a unanimous desire for all of the animals on the farm to throw off their human owners and all connection to the domestication they were accustomed to. Mollie, upon entering the home of Mr. Jones for the first time, “[…] remained behind in the best bedroom. She had taken a piece of blue ribbon from Mrs. Jones’s dressing-table, and was holding it against her shoulder and admiring herself in the glass in a very foolish manner,” (41). Mollie finds enjoyment in fantasizing about the decoration once bestowed upon her by Mr. Jones, and longs to continue to be treated to such pampering. Later on, Mollie is reluctant to learn the alphabet and will only take the time to learn the letters which form her own name. Even these letters, she decorates with flowers as she was once adorned by her human masters (50).She is conflicted about giving up any and all human niceties but is also wary of sharing her desires openly.

10. Three Components • Introduce your witness(set up what your evidence is going to address). • Allow the witness to speak (embed a specific quotation or detail from the text). • Direct the jury (reader) to the specific point they should have gained from the testimony. Don’t let the evidence speak for itself without interpretation or direction on your part.

11. Direct Quote vs. Summary and Paraphrase. • In our sample paragraph, a direct quote and a summary was utilized. • Notice that both are cited with a page number. All information gained from a text must be cited to avoid plagiarism whether you used a quote or your own re-wording. The ideas are not your original ideas—you are using them to prove your point.

12. Why and How to Embed Quotations • Embedding quotations using transitions helps quoted material flow naturally and coherently into your response. • When written properly, the reader should not be able to hear where the quotation marks are when the sentence is read aloud. • When done poorly, the transition is choppy, incomplete, and predictable.

13. Example • Mollie, upon entering the home of Mr. Jones for the first time, “[…] remained behind in the best bedroom. She had taken a piece of blue ribbon from Mrs. Jones’s dressing-table, and was holding it against her shoulder and admiring herself in the glass in a very foolish manner,” (41). • The words in light blue are the transitional phrase.

14. A Good Transition Should… • Give background for all quoted material -- what is happening, who is speaking? • Only use the most important part of the quote. • Have no audible distinction between your words and the quotes start and end. • Omit unnecessary words and phrases; use ellipses (…) and brackets [ ] to indicate your changes

15. You may need to change words within your quote so that the sentence is understandable. • When changing words in a sentence indicate the change by placing brackets [ ] around the change in the word or the changed word. • To omit words in the middle of a long quote, use ellipses (…) • Anytime you change or add something in a quote, you must use a bracket to indicate your change.

16. Original sentence: “Mollie refused to learn any but the six letters which spelt her own name.” • Changing one or more words: “[She] refused to learn any but the six letters which spelt her own name.” • Omitting one or more words: “Mollie refused to learn […] her own name.” • Changing and omitting one or more words: “Mollie refused to learn […][how to spell] her own name.”

17. Your Turn • Write a transition of your own using the following quote from Animal Farm. “Three days later Mollie disappeared. For some weeks nothing was known of her whereabouts, then the pigeons reported that they had seen her on the other side of Willingdon. She was between the shafts of a smart dogcart painted red and black, which was standing outside a public house. A fat red-faced man in check breeches and gaiters, who looked like a publican, was stroking her nose and feeding her with sugar,” (62).

18. Sample As more and more restrictions were put on the animal’s, Mollie grew sentimental for life before the rebellion. After Clover confronted her, “[…] Mollie disappeared. For some weeks nothing was known of her whereabouts, [until] the pigeons reported that they had seen her […] between the shafts of a smart dogcart […]. A fat red-faced man […] was stroking her nose and feeding her with sugar,” (62). Mollie’s desire for human care and conveniences ultimately won out over her loyalty to the other animals and her emerging freedom.