Critical evaluation essay thesis statement and outline

Module 6: Identifying Your Thesis and Using a Reverse Outline

Module 6: Identifying Your Thesis and Using a Reverse Outline

In this module, you will learn how to identify and strengthen your thesis statement. You will also create a reverse outline of your paper.

6-1 Reading: Thesis Statements

Reading: Thesis Statements

Because the thesis statement is the backbone of the essay, writers often feel a lot of pressure to come up with a final, polished version of the statement right from the start. In fact, in previous coursework, you were probably asked to come up with a thesis statement before drafting an essay. The problem with that method is that our perceptions and writing changes over time, so a thesis statement that was written at the start of the writing process may not end up aligning with ideas in the most recent draft.

Now that you have already begun the process of drafting your critical analysis essay, you are ready to construct your thesis statement. In 5-4: Assignment 2, Milestone 1, you identified your claim, an opinion about your selected article. This claim will now become the basis for your thesis statement. Thesis statements not only announce the main claim of the essay, they also often provide the specific examples the essay will address in order to support the main claim.

When you first begin writing essays, it can be helpful to think of thesis statements as having two parts:

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1. identifies the main topic of the essay 2. states the main point of the essay

For example:

The life of a working parent is often complicated.

In this thesis,

"The life of a working parent" presents the main topic of the essay. "Is often complicated" introduces the main point being made about the topic of the essay. This is the claim, the heart of the thesis statement.

The next step is to take the standard two-part thesis statement and add an additional element: show the specific reasons a working parent's life is often complicated.

For example, consider the following thesis statement that is made up of the main topic, the claim, and the specific reasons that support the claim:

The thesis statement for your critical analysis essay should follow a similar pattern. First, you should clearly state your claim, which is what you believe is the author's intent in writing his or her article. Then you should explain three specific reasons to support your claim. (Keep in mind that you have started to develop these supporting reasons when discussing your key points in 5-4.) You can use the framework below to help you construct your thesis statement:

The article's main claim of __________________ is ___________________ because ______________, ______________________, and ______________________.

For example, after reading an article about the benefits of yoga, you might construct the following thesis statement:

The article's main claim of yoga as the best form of exercise for both mind and body is well argued because the author includes medical research, provides compelling personal stories, and acknowledges the point of view of "non-yogi's."

A reminder: The thesis statement should appear at the end of the introductory paragraph.

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6-2 Reading: Thesis Statements and Supporting Points This assignment does not contain any printable content.

6-3 Assignment: Identifying Your Thesis (GRADED) This assignment does not contain any printable content.

6-4 Reading: Reverse Outline

Reading: Reverse Outline

A common step in the essay writing process is outlining. An outline is an organizational tool in which the writer uses symbols and formatting to list the main ideas, subtopics, and supporting evidence that will be covered in the essay. Typically, the outlining process occurs before you write your rough draft. However, for this critical analysis project, you will use the essay draft that you created in the previous module to create a reverse outline. This provides a bullet-point overview of your essay's main ideas, which typically appear in the essay as topic sentences of the body paragraphs. This process is known as reverse outlining because you begin with the draft of the essay and then break it down into its smaller parts, rather than starting with the individual parts and putting them together to create a draft.

Revising Your Draft Using the Reverse Outline and the TEA Formula

A reverse outline can help you make sure that your essay has a sound structure and is well-organized. It can also highlight areas in your essay draft that need more evidence or explanation. Finally, it can help you make sure that each section of your essay connects back to the main argument of the essay. While the questions you answered in 5-4 were shaped to help guide you through this process, now is the opportunity to break away from specific prompts and review each paragraph of your essay using the TEA formula.

TEA ( Thesis, topic sentences, Evidence, Analysis) is a guide for planning and organizing your essay. Click on the following tabs to analyze the effectiveness of your topic sentences, the evidence that supports the thesis statement, and your analysis of the evidence. You will need to do this for each body paragraph.

Thesis

When reviewing your essay using TEA, the first step is to analyze your thesis statement, or your main claim. You should be able to answer "yes" to the following questions:

Is there a thesis statement? Does it appear at the end of the introductory paragraph? Does my thesis statement express one single central idea/opinion in response to the essay prompt or course- related topic? Have I arrived at a thesis statement only after a careful and well thought out consideration of the prompt or topic and evidence at my disposal? Does my thesis statement express my opinion? Does the evidence I present in the body of the essay connect back to the thesis statement?

Topic Sentences

The next step is to analyze the topic sentences of your body paragraphs. You should be able to answer "yes" to the following questions:

Do I have a topic sentence at the beginning of each body paragraph? Do my topic sentences relate back to the thesis statement?

Evidence

The next step is to look closely at the evidence you are using in your essay. You should be able to answer "yes" to the

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following questions:

Do I have primary evidence? (Primary evidence is the main evidence that will be used to support the thesis statement.) Have I selected relevant and convincing evidence? Do I have enough evidence to support my thesis statement? Does my evidence fulfill the requirements for the essay? Does each selected piece of primary evidence contribute to a different topic sentence, which develops support for my thesis statement?

Analysis

In this final step, you should engage in the process of analysis by examining how each piece of evidence in your essay supports the thesis statement. You should be able to answer "yes" to each of the following questions:

Do I have an analysis for each piece of primary evidence? Does my analysis go beyond merely re-stating what is obvious in the evidence?

How to Create a Reverse Outline

In the activity in 6-5, you will create a reverse outline. You can preview this process by reading over the following steps:

1. Open a copy of your essay draft. Turn on the "Comments" feature that will allow you to insert comments in the margins of the paper.

2. Include your newly created thesis statement from 6-3 at the end of your introductory paragraph and highlight it for easy reference.

3. Based on your answers to the questions in the Thesis tab above, make any necessary changes to your thesis statement. 4. Read one paragraph at a time and write the main idea of each paragraph in the margins of your paper. Remember that the

main idea of the introductory paragraph should be the thesis statement (the last sentence of that paragraph).

Ultimately, after completing a reverse outline and using TEA, you should be able to connect the dots from your analysis to the evidence to the topic sentence and, finally, to the thesis statement.

After you have completed the steps above, break apart your essay so that you have three sections—an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. Then revise your essay sections based on the specific TEA analysis of each portion. You'll use your revised draft to complete the auto-graded activity in the next section (6-5).

6-5 Activity: Reverse Outline (GRADED) This assignment does not contain any printable content.

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Module 6: Identifying Your Thesis and Using a Reverse Outline
Module 6: Identifying Your Thesis and Using a Reverse Outline
6-1 Reading: Thesis Statements
Reading: Thesis Statements
6-2 Reading: Thesis Statements and Supporting Points
This assignment does not contain any printable content.
6-3 Assignment: Identifying Your Thesis (GRADED)
This assignment does not contain any printable content.
6-4 Reading: Reverse Outline
Reading: Reverse Outline
Revising Your Draft Using the Reverse Outline and the TEA Formula
How to Create a Reverse Outline
6-5 Activity: Reverse Outline (GRADED)
This assignment does not contain any printable content.