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A/P Ian Gordon | History | AS | NUS | Back to Essay Guide Page |
Writing Interpretative Essays
Introduction
An initial approach to
formulating an essay topic is to ask yourself "what am I interested in?"
You should then ask yourself a series of questions about the topic you
select: "Why is this subject important?" "What do I think about it?" "Why
do I think that?" "What evidence do I have to support what I think?" "Where
can I find evidence to support what I think?" "What counter arguments might
be used against my interpretation of this subject?" "How can I refute those
arguments?" "Where can I find evidence and sources of information to help
me refute those arguments?" Eventually you should arrive at a thesis questions,
that is a question that focuses your essay on a specific subject.
It is of utmost importance that your paper has an argument, that it is interpretative. A paper that is merely descriptive - that simply describes some event or institution - is not satisfactory. A key point to keep in mind when you write your paper and exam is that your argument is an empty argument, a mere assertion, unless it is backed up with concrete pertinent evidence drawn from the books and other sources you have seen or read. You must support your generalisations with examples drawn from texts or movies. By all means strive to write papers that are imaginative, but avoid papers that are simply fanciful.
The essay for this course is designed to give you practice in thinking and writing about issues. You are to read and analyze the course readings and develop your own arguments about the material. I do not want you just to describe or summarize the work that you have read or to recount someone else’s argument about the texts. I am interested in your perspectives on the ideas and your ability to organize and support your opinions
Defining an Argument (or
Thesis)
A thesis is an assertion
or opinion that takes a stand on a question. You do not have to be an expert
to have a thesis! In fact, "hypothesis" might be a better word than "thesis."
You are expected to offer your opinion about an issue, based on your reading
of the evidence. I understand that you do not have all the answers (who
does?), so go out on a limb and give your personal reaction: take a stand
and support it with evidence.
Presume, for example, that you were writing a paper on the World War Two . . .
IT WOULD BE UNACCEPTABLE
FOR YOU just to describe a battle or even a dozen battles. If
your reader wanted
the facts, he or she could turn to an encyclopedia. Your job is to help
the reader
understand these
facts. You need to offer an interpretation of the evidence at hand. What
does the
specific evidence
indicate about the war in general?
IT WOULD NOT BE
ENOUGH, THOUGH, just to say, "World War Two was interesting." This is a
thesis, in that
it expresses an opinion, but it is an extremely weak and vague one. Every
period and
event is interesting
in some way. The reader is no better off than before she or he read the
paper.
Why is it interesting?
IT WOULD NOT BE
MUCH BETTER to say, "World War Two was a time of great change." Every
period is a time
of change, and it is particularly safe to assume that wartime is a time
of flux. What
was the nature
of the change during the war? What makes it distinct? How would you characterize
the changes?
IT WOULD BE BETTER
to say, "World War Two was a time of great change in industrial
technology, race
relations, and gender roles." This thesis identifies some key aspects of
society
that the war changed,
and you could use these categories to organize your paper: you could first
discuss changes
in technology, then those in race relations, then those in gender roles.
But you
would not want
the three sections to be disconnected from each other. You would not want
to write
a five-page paper
that is really three shorter papers stuck together. What do the changes
in
technology, race,
and gender, have in common? How are they different? What do they say about
American society
in this period?
A FULLY-DEVELOPED THESIS would say something like, "Looking at changes in technology, race relations, and gender roles reveals that the government played an increasingly powerful role in people’s lives during World War Two." You could support this thesis by noting that during the war the federal government encouraged scientific and technological advances by funding research and development in the public and private sectors; that it took on a larger role in society’s racial concerns with its involvement in the segregation of armed forces (and its later desegregation) and in FDR’s negotiations with civil rights groups about the original March on Washington; and that its campaign first to encourage women to work in industry through the Rosie the Riveter campaign and later to ask them to give those jobs back to returning G.I.s transformed gendered conceptions of work. The paper would still be organized around the same three categories, but now each section would be linked by the common theme of government involvement.
Obviously the above example is not a model for writing an essay on media but it does provide an example of how to focus an argument.
How to Support Your Thesis
With Evidence
You do not have to pretend
that you are an expert on every facet of American media and its history,
but you do want to convince the reader that, based on the material available
to you, your opinion is correct. Remember, writing is an act of persuasion.
To be persuasive, you have to cite specific evidence such as policy statements,
television shows, movies, web sites, and (with restraint) the opinions
of recent media scholars.
How to Organize Your Thesis
and Evidence Into a Paper
The point of your paper
is to explain and prove your thesis. This means that every paragraph should
tie into the overall point of the paper. Do not get bogged down in giving
historical background to set the stage for your argument.
Use your introductory paragraph to preview your argument. Your thesis to be clearly stated in your introduction. You do not need to spell out every nuance of your paper, but try to give the reader an overall sense of where your argument is going. The introduction can serve as an aerial view of the terrain you will cover in your paper.
Throughout, think of yourself as guiding the reader through your argument. This means making the connections between individual paragraphs and your thesis explicit. These connections may seem obvious to you, but you cannot expect your readers to see on their own all the brilliant links that you did. Clear transition sentences at the beginnings of paragraphs can make it a lot easier for your reader to follow your argument.
I am not expecting you to write the perfect paper, but you should think about these points before and as you write.
This guide adapted from numerous sources including Robert Westbrook, Suzy Smith, and John Cheng