WRITING A PAPER IS a lot like doing a pentathlon—you’ve got to be very good at a wide range of things. It requires time management, research skills, creativity, logic, persuasive writing, and much, much more. This is your time to shine as a scholar and to think of things no one has ever thought of before. Perhaps more than any test, a paper demonstrates your knowledge of a subject and your ability to apply that knowledge. While the process of putting words to paper is never easy, in the end you’ve got a document that is uniquely yours and which, hopefully, you can be proud of for years to come.
This chapter is going to focus on papers that require a thesis—that is, a statement you have to prove. Many papers in high school and almost every paper in college will call for some kind of thesis. They can be research papers, persuasive essays, opinion pieces, literary analyses, and more. I’m not going to talk about things like summaries, newspaper-style articles, descriptive pieces, or creative writing, which require a very different skill set.
If your teacher gave you the assignment orally, write down each and every requirement; if he or she gave you written guidelines, read them at least two or three times. Remember that your grade will be based not just on the quality of the paper, but on how well you follow instructions. Don’t disqualify yourself from an A before you’ve even started! Make sure you’re crystal clear on the following:
• How many words or pages are required? Is there a range?
• Is there a specific question (a prompt) that needs to be answered?
• Does it have to be on a certain topic?
• What types of sources are required, if any? Should the paper be based on specific texts or are you free to choose your own? Will you need primary and secondary sources?
• How many sources are required, if any? Do you have to do outside research, or is it based on readings that were assigned for class?
• Does your teacher want footnotes, endnotes, or in-text citations? What format should they be in?
• Do you have to submit a thesis or draft of your paper before the final version?
• Did your teacher provide a recommended bibliography?
• And last but certainly not least—when is it due?
Sometimes your teacher will make life easier by telling you what to write about. Sure, you may not always like the topic, but at least this saves you the trouble of having to think of one by yourself. Plus, whether the topic is easy or hard, all your classmates will be in the same boat. If your teacher gives you a list of topics to choose from, go for one that’s highly specific with well-defined parameters. If possible, stay away from the most obvious choice—the one everybody else seems to be doing. Your teacher will probably appreciate a change of pace when he or she is pulling a marathon all-night grading session.
If the burden is all on you, though, you’ve got a big decision to make. The topic you choose can mean the difference between an incredibly frustrating, tear-your-hair-out experience and a paper that practically writes itself. Here’s how to pick a good one.
• Did something jump out at you earlier in the term? Something that made you stop and think, “I would really like to know more about this,” or “That explanation the teacher gave didn’t sound quite right.” Make a list of these things as you encounter them; don’t wait until the paper assignment is announced. You should be on the lookout for potential paper topics from day one of the semester.
• Don’t know where to start? Read through your class notes and syllabus to give your brain a refresher. If your teacher posed a question but never answered it, or mentioned a topic but never fleshed it out, this may be a paper just waiting to happen.
• Review your textbook and other reading assignments. Be on the lookout for topics that cry out for more attention and for statements that are ambiguous, simplistic, contradictory, or controversial. Some textbooks have questions for further discussion at the end of each section—they’re practically giving paper topics away!
• Go over past assignments. Are there any questions that could do with further investigation, or that could be applied to another area? When you got the assignment back, did your teacher make a thought-provoking comment on what you wrote?
• Use Wikipedia for a whirlwind introduction to potential topics. Click on the hyperlinks whenever you come across a term you’d like to know more about, and see where your curiosity leads you. There are often excellent external links at the bottom of each page. Warning: Unless your teacher says it’s okay, do not cite Wikipedia in your paper.
• Ask your teacher for suggestions. This is best done after you’ve put some thought into the matter, though, as most teachers don’t like giving out paper topics for free. Remember to bring along a notebook to write down his or her advice.
In general, the narrower your focus, the better your paper will be. So if you’re feeling overwhelmed by a topic, try cutting it down to a more manageable size. Here are some examples of how to turn a nebulous idea into a highly refined, easily researchable paper topic.
Sample Paper Topics |
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General |
Specific |
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The Cuban missile crisis |
Robert McNamara’s role in the Cuban missile crisis |
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Buddhism |
The practice of Buddhism in modern-day India |
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Advertising |
Advertising aimed at preteen girls in America |
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Say you have this really exciting, first-rate idea, one you know your teacher would love and which no one has ever thought of before. The only problem is that you would need weeks to research and write it—and the paper’s due in ten days! Judging what you can do in the time you have is an important skill in school and in life, and it’s part of what you’re being graded on.
Unfortunately, your teacher won’t give you an A just for having a brilliant idea. If you can’t do your topic justice, you’d better find something else to write about. I’m not saying you should give up on it, just that you can find better venues. If you’re in high school, consider taking a class in college where you can give your idea the attention it deserves. If you’re in college now, you could incorporate it into your senior thesis or even save it for grad school. For now, see if you can write your paper on a smaller part of your overarching idea.
As you’ve probably guessed, this step applies only to research papers. It’s become incredibly easy to find information online, but a lot of sources are still only available in hard copy. To find the books you need, do a search on your school or local library’s online catalog, or better yet, physically go to the library and ransack the shelves. Look at all the titles and skim through the ones that pique your interest; you’ll find stuff you never would have known existed with an online search alone.
Google can be a great research aid, but be very careful about citing websites in your paper. If an article on the Web refers to a source, you should find and cite the original text rather than footnoting the website. Sites affiliated with universities are usually trustworthy. If you’re not sure whether websites are off-limits for your paper, ask your teacher. With that caveat, here are six tips for smart googling:
1. Use double quotes to search for an exact term or a set of words in a specific order.
2. If you want to exclude results that contain a certain term, put a hyphen before that term in your search. For example, Children’s Crusade -Vonnegut will search for the medieval crusade, not the Kurt Vonnegut novel of the same name.
3. Include “site:” to limit your search to a particular website (site:nytimes.com) or top-level domain (site:.edu).
4. If you’re looking for pdf documents—which are often more scholarly than regular websites—enter your search term followed by “filetype:pdf.”
5. Check out Google Scholar at http://scholar.google.com/. Doing a search here will bring up lots of academic articles and online books. Even if you don’t have full access to them, you can often view enough to get some really great quotes and ideas. Quick tip: To do a search by author, type “author:name.” For example, author:stone will show you works by Stone rather than articles about rocks.
6. When trying to find a term on a web page, don’t forget about good old Ctrl-F (or Command-F if you use a Mac). Just type the word or phrase you want to find in the box that pops up, and it’ll show you all the places where it occurs.
Academic databases are another fantastic—and much more trustworthy—electronic research tool. They aren’t free, but a lot of colleges provide their students with access. The database JSTOR is one of the best research tools ever—by plugging in a few terms, you can see over a century’s worth of articles from academic journals. (You should focus on the newer ones, though, since a lot can change in a hundred years—even in topics like ancient history.) Reading through articles is a whole lot faster than slogging through entire books. You can also get a whirlwind introduction to a lot of texts by reading people’s reviews. Some other good databases are ProQuest, EBSCO, SpringerLink, LexisNexis (good for legal and public-records information), and ScienceDirect. For articles you can access for free, check out DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals).
A lot of students skip over footnotes (or endnotes) when they read, but they’re actually passing up a fantastic resource. These notes are like graveyards for the authors’ half-finished ideas and unproven theories, things that weren’t needed for their own papers. This makes footnotes an excellent source of inspiration.
Take, for example, an article about the ancient synagogue of Dura Europos in modern-day Syria. The authors state in their very first footnote, “The art of the synagogue will not be dealt with in this paper, except in as much as it relates directly to the discussion. Nor will the evidence from the brief, final period of the synagogue’s existence in the second half of the third century: both subjects warrant separate discussions.”71 And there you have it, two potential papers just waiting to be written.
At this point you should be skimming books and articles—don’t spend hours reading one text before you’ve even come up with a thesis. Focus on the chapters and passages you find most interesting. You’ll probably start to notice that a lot of authors cite the same sources again and again and again. For every topic, a handful of texts make up essential reading—make sure you take a look at these sources for yourself.
Okay, so you’ve decided on a topic, raided the library, maybe paid a little visit to your teacher. It’s now time for the most crucial and dreaded part of the paper-writing process: finding a thesis. A thesis, by the way, is the argument you’ll be proving in your paper, and it is the bane of many students’ existences. Your mission is to come up with an original, meaningful statement about your topic and then use evidence to back it up. This evidence can come in the form of facts, statistics, passages or quotations from a text, studies, experiments, class notes, art and artifacts, interviews, personal experience, and more.
1. It must be specific.
2. It must take a stand on something.
3. It should not state the obvious.
4. It must be something you can prove (and that requires proving).
5. It should be objective—unless you’re writing an opinion piece.
6. It should answer a question, but not a “yes or no” question.
7. It should be one sentence long—although for longer, more complex papers, it’s okay if it’s several lines or even a full paragraph.
8. If you’re responding to a prompt (a question posed by the teacher), your thesis must directly answer the prompt.
9. It should not state absolutes or superlatives—for example, “Napoleon was the best general ever because….”
10. It’s often helpful to include a counterargument as part of your thesis. A counterargument is a statement that your thesis will reject or refine. For example: “While scholars such as Henry and James assert that the island of Keos was under Mycenaean hegemony in the Late Bronze Age, new archaeological evidence reveals that it was actually a Minoan colony at this time.” By stating the counterargument, you help to strengthen and give purpose to your own argument.
Remember those topics I mentioned earlier? Here are some potential thesis statements that could come out of them.
Sample Thesis Statements |
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Topic |
Thesis |
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Robert McNamara’s role in the Cuban missile crisis |
Although some scholars claim that JFK prevented nuclear war from breaking out during the Cuban missile crisis, Robert McNamara actually played a more crucial role in the successful resolution of the conflict. |
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The practice of Buddhism in modern-day India |
The rise of Buddhism among the native population of northern India in the late twentieth century was spurred by the exile of the Dalai Lama to Dharamsala. |
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Advertising aimed at preteen girls in America |
Although most parents believe that advertising hurts preteen girls’ self-image, commercials aimed at young girls actually improve their self-esteem by giving them positive role models. |
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If you’re lucky, your thesis will come to you in a flash of inspiration. Other times, no matter how hard you rack your brains, the lightbulb just never seems to go off. But never fear—there are plenty of things you can do to force inspiration.
One of the best ways to come up with a thesis is to create a log of your research. Whether you’re looking at one book or twenty, you should write down any quotations, facts, and ideas that strike you—even though you haven’t decided on a thesis yet. For each thing you write down, be sure to include the title of the book or article and the page number it comes from. Make note of any and all of the following:
• Useful background information.
• Your responses/reactions to what you’re reading.
• Anything you agree or disagree with.
• Anything that needs clarification.
• Statements that are overly conventional.
• Statements that are controversial.
• Holes in the authors’ arguments.
• Statements in which authors contradict each other or themselves.
These last four are excellent starting points for a thesis. They’re practically begging for readers to challenge them.
You don’t have to go into a lot of detail in your research log. For example, if you come across statistics on the number of Americans who had electricity at the turn of the twentieth century, and you think this might be good to cite in a paper, just write, “Page 23—#Americans w/electricity.” You can always go back to the text and look up the actual figures. If the precise wording is important, though, you should probably include the whole quotation.
As you read your sources, remember that you are now a scholar. Think of academia as a perpetual back-and-forth debate. Just because you’re in high school or college doesn’t mean you can’t come up with a better solution than people with advanced degrees. It’s perfectly valid to come up with a thesis that sets out to disprove a previously accepted theory.
Although you’re a scholar, you should also act like a two-year-old—always ask “Why?” Get into the habit of constantly questioning your sources. Read with a critical eye, and never take what anyone says for granted. Ask yourself questions like: What were the author’s motives or biases? How does the author know this? Does this argument make sense? Why did this historical figure or character do what he or she did? Why did this event happen at this time?
Two main reasons:
1. Creating a research log makes it easier to see the big picture. When you’re in the middle of a book, you may be too focused on what you’re reading to put the information in context. But when you review these notes once or twice or three times, a theme or pattern will start to emerge. Having all these important points in one place can help you make connections and observations.
2. When you’re writing the paper, you’ll be able to cite your sources without going on a wild-goose chase for half-remembered quotes and figures. You’ll also know exactly where to go if you need to clarify something.
It’s a good idea to do your research log on the computer, for a number of reasons. You’ll be able to easily search for terms—a huge plus when it comes to making connections and finding citations for a paper—and you can write out quotations faster. If you do additional research, you can add to your log and move things around. And when you’re writing the paper, you can simply copy and paste quotes and other information.
Congratulations, you’ve found your thesis! The hardest part is over. But don’t start celebrating just yet. If you’re doing a research paper, it may be time to make another trip to the stacks. Now that you know what you’re trying to prove, ask yourself whether you really have enough evidence to make your case. Be on the lookout for holes in your argument and for counterarguments you must address.
Your searches will probably be more directed and focused now, since you have a better idea of what you’re looking for. Sometimes, with databases like JSTOR, you can find what you need in seconds. Use the advanced search functionality in your library’s online catalog. It usually will allow you to search for multiple terms and mix and match your search by keyword, title, author, subject, and so on. As you do this second round of research, make sure to update your research log.
Before you start writing, it’s time to make a plan—otherwise known as an outline. For a short paper (under three pages), write down how each paragraph is going to support your thesis. For a longer paper, just sketch out the flow of your argument. Note each point you’re going to make and where it will occur; and for each point, list the evidence that supports it. This is when having prepared a research log really pays off: use it to find quotes, facts, and figures to back up your thesis.
A point is a sub-argument that supports your thesis (the main argument) by providing evidence, refuting counterarguments, and making logical deductions. Let’s return to our examples for a moment and add some points for each one. (These are completely made up, by the way—I haven’t actually researched them—so think twice before you use them for a real paper.)
Most papers follow a certain pattern—most teachers will expect it, and it makes the writing easier, too. In the first paragraph, build up to your thesis by providing background information, setting up a counterargument that you’ll be rejecting, defining key terms, putting your thesis in context, analyzing a quote from one of your sources, or posing a question that your thesis will answer.
Your thesis should usually come at the end of the first paragraph, but if your paper is very long—say, a fifty-plus-page monster of a senior thesis—you might want to wait until the end of the first section or chapter. Occasionally people will write open-form essays, in which the thesis isn’t stated until the end of the paper. Most teachers will expect to see it in the beginning, though, so it’s best not to keep them waiting.
In the body of your paper, be sure to use connecting sentences. Every paragraph (except the first) should begin with a topic sentence that links the current paragraph to the one before it. Draw your reader from one paragraph to the next in a clear, logical fashion with words such as “however,” “moreover,” “while,” “nevertheless,” “in addition,” “also,” “indeed,” “for example,” “since,” “then,” “because,” and “although.” Don’t make your reader guess where you’re going!
Every paragraph should play a unique role in supporting your thesis and should clearly relate to your central argument. Make sure that all of your points are relevant and on topic, and keep in mind that a really strong essay will not only provide evidence in support of your thesis, but also address and refute counterarguments.
Follow your outline as much as you can, but realize that it’s okay if your paper doesn’t adhere to it completely. Think of your paper as a living, breathing thing. One paragraph will often give rise to the next in an organic, natural growth that can be hard to predict. You may think of things that never would’ve occurred to you before you started writing.
The final paragraph is a bit tricky. Gone are the days when you can simply summarize what you said in your paper. In general, your conclusion should recap your argument and go a little bit further—it should leave the reader with something to think about. Here are some suggestions for ending your paper with a bang:
• Address the consequences or implications of your argument. For example: given my findings about McNamara’s role in the Cuban missile crisis, his performance as Secretary of Defense must be reevaluated.
• Propose steps for additional research.
• Put it into a broader context. For example: the fact that commercials aimed at preteen girls improve their self-esteem is part of a broader movement among advertisers to empower women.
• Mention new questions that your conclusion has raised.
• Explain the significance of your findings. For example: my finding that the rise of Buddhism in northern India was spurred by the exile of the Dalai Lama is important because it gives us a better understanding of the diversity of religion in India.
• Discuss the limitations of your thesis. Be careful with this one, though, as you don’t want to make it sound like you’re contradicting yourself.
To see these techniques in action, check out the sample essay at the end of this chapter.
Unfortunately, many people suffer from BPS—Blank Page Syndrome. Let’s face it: starting to write is scary. Seeing the cursor blinking at you on that bright white screen, realizing that you now have to come up with three or ten or twenty pages of text all on your own—it’s enough to give anyone a major case of writer’s block. But don’t despair! There are plenty of things you can do to ease into writing, such as telling yourself it’s okay to make mistakes. Writing is like painting: you can always go back and change something you’re not happy with. It doesn’t have to be perfect the first time—just make sure you leave enough time for revision! You can even pull a James Joyce and start off with a quick stream-of-consciousness draft. Write down whatever comes into your head without thinking about how it sounds—you can do some major adding and editing later. Most importantly, start your paper early so you don’t feel compelled to write the whole thing in one sitting. It’s much less intimidating if you only have to do a page at a time.
You can also conquer BPS by starting with the easy stuff. If you’re doing a research paper, consider doing the bibliography or Works Cited page first. Write down all your sources in a format such as APA or MLA—your teacher may tell you which one to use. This takes some of the pressure off because you’re no longer staring at an empty page, and you’re getting a small but necessary part of your paper out of the way. I always like doing the little things first so I can head into the real job with a feeling of accomplishment.
Another way to start is by writing out quotations, facts and figures, and any other supporting information you want to use from your research log, in the order you plan to cite them. Once you have your evidence laid out, you can write your paper around them. Keep in mind, though, that your paper shouldn’t sound like one long list of citations; you must logically connect these pieces of evidence and explain how they’re relevant to your argument.
A few words of advice about the writing process itself. If you can’t think of exactly the right word, don’t try to force it—just leave it blank and come back to it later. I like to insert brackets with possible words or ellipses, which I put in bold so I can easily find them. Racking your brain for the perfect word wastes too much time and energy. Besides, it’ll probably pop into your head when you least expect it.
Similarly, don’t waste time debating whether or not to delete things. Sometimes it can be hard to take out words, sentences, or even complete paragraphs that you’ve worked so hard on. You know they don’t quite work, but you’re not ready to delete them forever. Who knows, maybe you’ll change your mind or be able to use them somewhere else. Take the temporary measure of cutting and pasting them into the bottom of your paper, or putting them in italics.
You should, however, waste no time in getting rid of unneeded words. A lot of students have a field day with adjectives and adverbs—they confuse flowery prose with good writing. But your work will be stronger without these distractions.
Make sure you leave plenty of time to edit your paper. No matter how good your thesis is, your teacher probably won’t take it seriously if it doesn’t sound polished. It would be a pity to spend so much time crafting a paper, only to miss out on the grade you deserve due to clunky writing. When you revise, it’s helpful to print it out. Many people (myself included) find it easier to read and make comments on a hard copy, and it’s amazing how different your writing will sound on paper than on a computer screen. Write your edits on the printout, then go to the computer and implement all changes at the same time.
You should also get a fresh pair of eyes. It’s hard to view your own writing objectively. After all, this is your baby—you created it, nourished it, made sure it didn’t hit its head on the table, etc. That’s why you should ask a friend or family member to read it and give you feedback. Sometimes teachers or teaching assistants are willing to give your draft a quick read-through. If that’s the case, make sure you take advantage of this special, limited-time offer. Who better to give you advice on a paper than the person who’s going to be grading it?
It takes a lot of steps to write a paper, so the first thing you should do when you get the assignment is make a schedule. The following is what I recommend for a typical research paper. You can adjust these percentages depending on the nature of the project and your strengths and weaknesses—for example, if you’re a fast writer, you might want to spend more time on research and less on writing.
• Time spent deciding on a topic (if it’s not already given): 5 percent
• Time spent doing research, creating a research log, and coming up with a thesis: 30 percent
• Time spent creating outline and doing any remaining/follow-up research: 10 percent
• Time spent writing the paper: 45 percent
• Time spent revising the paper and getting feedback: 10 percent
Let’s say you’re given a start date of October 1 and a deadline of October 31:
The following might sound obvious to some of you, but I’ve seen people with advanced degrees make these mistakes—heck, I’ve even seen professors make them—so it couldn’t hurt to go over a few basic grammar rules.
1. Your vs. You’re
Your: Second person possessive adjective, describes something as belonging to you, almost always followed by a noun.
You’re: The contraction of “you are.”
Teacher: I loved reading your paper on the transport of giant stone money to the island of Yap.
You: Awww, you’re too kind!
2. Its vs. It’s
It’s: The contraction of “it is” or “it has.”
Its: Possessive adjective meaning “of it” or “belonging to it.”
Teacher: Its grammar is flawless.
You: Well, you know, it’s not hard, once you know the rules.
3. There vs. Their vs. They’re
Their: Third-person plural possessive adjective meaning “of them” or “belonging to them,” almost always followed by a noun.
They’re: The contraction of “they are.”
There can indicate a place, introduce a noun or clause, be used for emphasis, or mean the opposite of “here.”
Teacher: They’re doing a reading of student papers down at the local Y.
You: Oh, you mean that Y there? [pointing]
Teacher: Yes. Their events are very well attended.
4. Who’s vs. Whose
Who’s: The contraction of “who is” or “who has.”
Whose: The possessive form of “who.”
You: Who’s going to do the readings?
Teacher: Every student whose paper scored an A or higher.
Who: A subject, the person performing the action of the verb.
Whom: An object, the person to, about, or for whom the action is being done.
Whom often occurs after a preposition such as “to,” “with,” and “from.”
The who/whom rule. Here’s an easy way to know which one to use. If you can substitute “he,” “she,” or “they” for the word, use who. If it makes more sense with “him,” “her,” or “them,” use whom.
Teacher: Who inspired you to write about this subject? [Using the who/whom rule: “ He inspired me…”]
You: My father is the person to whom I am most indebted. [Using the who/whom rule: “I am most indebted to him.”]
6. Then vs. Than
Than: A conjunction used in comparisons.
Then can mean “at that point in time,” “next,” “in addition,” “also,” “in that case, “therefore.”
The bottom line is that if you’re not comparing something, use then.
Teacher: Then you’ll be inviting him to the reading?
You: Yes, I would rather invite him than anyone in the world.
The following is an excerpt from a paper I wrote in response to the following prompt:
Historians, philosophers, art historians, and legions of students have pondered what can be called “the Renaissance problem.” Did a distinct period of innovation, or rebirth, actually occur in Europe in the fifteenth and early sixteenth century? Your task is to enter the debate and think up your own position on the issue. Would you subscribe to the belief that there was such a period as the Renaissance? How would you define it? Or conversely, how would you defend the argument to “de-periodize” this era of history?
I chose to do the latter, partly because I felt that few of my classmates would be attempting this. It’s worth noting that this paper did not require any outside research; I had to limit myself to sources that were assigned as part of the course. This was a key parameter, turning what could have been an extremely open-ended subject into a manageable essay.
The Myth of the Renaissance
The term Renaissance, or “rebirth,” implies a sudden and drastic change in the status quo. It suggests that what did not exist in one moment appeared in full force in the next, that the time before the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries—known as the Middle Ages—was devoid of progress, and that it was a phenomenon affecting virtually all parts of society. However, history is rarely so black and white. As we shall see, it is inaccurate to say that there was such a period as the Renaissance; instead, it should be viewed as the continuation of a gradual process of innovation and change.
Humanism, an intellectual movement that is almost synonymous with the Renaissance, appeared in Europe long before the fifteenth century. Rhetoricians were already promoting an important humanist ideal, “that education should be reformed to give more attention to the classics and to help people lead moral lives,” in the late thirteenth century (Chambers et al. 394).73 Byzantine scholars, who played a major role in reintroducing the Greek language to Western Europe, had been coming to Italy since the late fourteenth century (Chambers et al. 385). And one of the most prominent humanists, Petrarch, worked and died in the 1300s. To be sure, this movement spread more quickly and gathered greater force in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but it had its roots in the Middle Ages.
It can also be said that there was no such period as the Renaissance because the innovations of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries affected only a small portion of the population. The condition of the peasantry, for example, may actually have worsened at this time. While society had been relatively stable from the Early Middle Ages until the fourteenth century, numerous peasant revolts against the propertied class occurred in the following two centuries (Chambers et al. 368). Thomas More’s Utopia also makes reference to the plight of the poor in Renaissance Europe. According to the character Raphael, “nobles and gentlemen” enclosed “all the land they [could] for pasture,” thus evicting “hundreds of farmers” who “[couldn’t] find anywhere else to live” (46–47; bk. 1). These displaced farmers lived on the margins of society, forced to steal or beg in order to survive. The intellectual movements of the elites had little or no impact on the lives of these peasants.
Although the developments of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were outgrowths of the Middle Ages, and despite the fact that they had limited impact on Europeans as a whole, this age was certainly not without its merits; it improved upon earlier inventions and produced its own novel ideas. Humanism may have had its roots in the Middle Ages, for example, but it was not fully developed until the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. While monks and Scholastics monopolized medieval learning, Renaissance humanism introduced a large portion of lay society to the “intellectual treasury of the European past” (Chambers 399); and civic humanism, which promoted participation in public affairs, originated in Italy in the 1400s. The printing press, which had an undeniable impact on the progress of Western culture, was perfected in the mid-fifteenth century. Yet another innovation was the belief that females should be educated. In light of this evidence, it can be said that the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries witnessed not a “rebirth” of culture, but a maturation of the one that already existed.
For each of the topics listed below, write down a more specific topic that could come out of it, a potential thesis statement, and three points you could make in support of your thesis. (Note: you can make up anything you want—this is just for practice.)
Tip: Your thesis should be something worth proving; avoid stating the obvious.
Topic 1: Feudalism
More Specific Topic:
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Point 1:
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Point 2:
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Point 3:
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Topic 2: Global Warming
More Specific Topic:
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Thesis:
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Point 1:
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Point 3:
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Topic 3: Japan
More Specific Topic:
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Thesis:
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Point 1:
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Point 2:
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Point 3:
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