Tuesday, February 17, 2004

Essay 1 due.

Peer-editing workshop

Notes

A few words about this essay: Remember that you need to stake a claim in your paper: you must advance some sort of argument, most likely through a thesis statement (i.e., a statement which has an opposing argument). Note that a thesis statement does not have to be earth-shattering. “Thomas Jefferson was a raving fascist” sounds pretty powerful, but it’s a tough position to advance and may make your readers hostile to your position. Instead, you might want to assert that “Thomas Jefferson’s slave ownership invalidates his arguments in favor of human liberty” — you are arguing something without making your position seem untenable. (Please remember that this is only an example — in either case, I don’t know if the argument will hold!)