20 Mar Working Thesis ( this is a small part of a bigger paper)

Elizabeth Comack andSalina Brickey argue that social and legal understandings of violence tend tobe understood through narratives and stories (or to use their word, discourses)that are fundamentally gendered (pp. 4-5). These narratives and storiesutilizedby the law, the media, and sometimes even violent people themselvesoften relyon problematic assumptions about femininity and masculinity in order to makesense of the violence.

DiscussComack and Brickeys argument with respect to one of thefollowing four topics:

1. violent women
2. right-wing extremists
3. rape myths
4. HIV-positive women

Notethat this topic will be used for your .

Instructions

Write an introduction paragraphcomplete with a thesis statementas if you were writing an essay.  (You will, in fact, be writing an essay on this topic for your Winter Research Paper. As such, this is an opportunity to get feedback on your introduction paragraph before you submit your essay.)  

In total, your introduction paragraph must be 8-12 sentences, and must contain a thesis and roadmap. Prior to your thesis, you must have 3-6 sentences introducing the topic of your paper. Your thesis and roadmap must explicitly follow the format below.  

Format and Notes

The thesis is usually considered the most important sentence of your essay because it outlines the central purpose of your essay in one place. 

A good thesis statement will link the subject of an essay with a controlling idea/main argument, as well as outline what supporting arguments/evidence will be addressed in the paper. Consider, for example, the following sample thesis:

This paper will argue that despite a history of divorce law reform in Canada, most women experience social and economic inequities in the aftermath of divorce in comparison to most men.  In particular, the paper argues that women are more likely than men to experience poverty and stigmatization based on single parent status.  In order to illustrate this argument, the paper will first discuss the evolution of divorce law in Canada through an analysis of the changing definitions of equality from formal equality to substantive equality.  Next, the paper uses Debbie Brocks definition of power in Making Normal to outline the way in which the social norms regarding womens gendered role in the nuclear family structure their increased likelihood of poverty and stigmatization upon divorce.  The paper concludes that inequalities between men and women regarding divorce persist because it is not enough to entrench substantive equality within law, rather both law and society need to work together in order to achieve substantive equality and change social norms.

This sample thesis makes an argument and has the following characteristics:

Subject: gendered inequities of divorce and divorce law

Controlling Idea/Main Argument: women more likely to experience social and economic inequities

Supporting Argument/Evidence #1: changing definition of equality in divorce law

Supporting Argument/Evidence #2: social norms based on nuclear family still result in womens poverty and stigmatization

Supporting Argument/Evidence #3: in order to challenge the power of social norms, both law and society need to work together

As you can see, the first two sentences give the argument (the thesis), while the subsequent sentences outline exactly what the paper will discuss and gives the order of presentation (the statement of organization or “roadmap”).

In a short essay, a thesis statement appears at, or near, the end of the introductory paragraph of the paper so that readers know the topic of the essay before they see the writer’s statement of the central purpose of the essay. This way the first paragraph helps the reader understand why the writer is writing, and exactly what the paper will discuss.