Two Prongs Too Many: Thesis Statement Revision

Hello! Friendly neighborhood Writing Center here with some advice for those of you struggling to turn your stuffy five-paragraph essay into an innovative, sparkling college paper.

You probably know what a thesis statement is already: a one (or several) sentence restatement of your paper's main argument. You've probably written a lot of these, and many of them have probably been what we in the biz call "three-prong thesis statements." Here's an example:

This leads into a nice, neat five-paragraph essay. A nice, neat, boring five-paragraph essay. The image above comes from the website for a ninth-grade class, and the teacher even tells his readers that "For most high school writing, it will suffice, though more sophisticated writers learn to transcend this." (Gardner). Wait--high school writing?

Yes, the five-paragraph essay was a fine structure in ninth grade, but by your first year of college, you should be more than ready to move beyond that. So how, in Mr. Gardner's words, can you "learn to transcend" the three-prong thesis?
One way is simply to snip off two of your prongs, and expand the one you're most drawn to. One of the cardinal sins of the five-paragraph essay is its tendency to oversimplify its points. Let's imagine you were tasked with writing an analysis of this image:

Your three-prong thesis might look something like this: "This image is melancholy because of its unfinished roof, the ruined grandeur of the Roman columns, and the plants beginning to grow in the cracks." If you were sitting across from me, here at the UGA Writing Center, I would ask you which of those prongs you think has the most promise.

You'd probably point out the "ruined grandeur of the Roman columns," and I would agree. I'd then spend the next fifteen or twenty minutes asking you more about that idea. What emotions does that instill in you? What's so melancholy about ruins? Why might the builders of this folly have left it unfinished? How does the lack of symmetry change our interpretation of the building?

Answering those questions, and making whatever observations--even and especially off-the-wall-sounding observations--will help you find more to say about your newly-focused thesis. From there, you can begin the process of writing, revising, and reorganizing again.

So, to summarize:

• Find your prongs

• Pick the prong you consider the most promising and snip off the rest

• Brainstorm on your newly unified thesis, and begin writing again.

There are, of course, other methods for reforming a three-prong thesis, but when you're pressed for time, simply hacking off two prongs and forcing yourself to narrow your focus can work wonders.

(images courtesy of http://staff.camas.wednet.edu/blogs/mgardner/essays/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Erm11.JPG)

How to get the most out of a Writing Center appointment

Your friendly neighborhood writing center here!

We want you to get the most out of your appointment with us. Here are a few tips to help you out:

• Give us a clue. State what you want to work on when making your appointment online. This will help your consultant get a feel for how to help. Be as specific as possible.
• Come prepared. Bring a printed copy of your work if at all possible. It's easiest to help you when the document is right in front of us.
• Have a "target" for your consultant. If you bring in a long piece of work, we'll only be able to help you with a portion of it, so figure out where you need the most help and let us know.
• Remember what we do (and don't) help with! We can't proofread your document or "fix" your grammar, but we can help you identify error patterns in your writing and give you ways to work on them.
• Be on time. Undergraduate students get a half-hour appointment weekly, while graduate students get a full hour. If you're late, you'll miss out on valuable time.
• Book early. Once the semester gets underway, appointments fill up very quickly! The best idea is to go over your syllabus and determine when you'll need to have assignments turned in. Then, make appointments several days ahead of time. Showing up at the last minute makes us less likely to have time to help you, and that makes us sad.

If you follow these handy hints, you should be able to get exactly what you need from your appointment with us. We hope to see you soon!

Teaching Useful Peer Reviews

If you're a teacher of composition, chances are you probably incorporate peer review into your classroom. However, it can often be difficult to explain to students why peer review is important, and how they can provide useful and thoughtful peer reviews. When creating an exercise, here are a couple of things you can think about:

• "So what?" Students have very busy academic lives, and they generally want to know what's in an activity for them. Peer reviewing can seem like busywork, so explain what's helpful not only to their classmates but to them about doing peer reviews. Many students say that reviewing someone else's work in a methodical, critical way helps them identify weaknesses in their own writing that they might not have seen before. It also allows them to experience composition as a reader and not just a writer.
• "What am I doing?" A good peer review will do more than present judgment on the writing: it will explain where the reader had trouble or found problems and suggest ways of improvement. Encourage students to go beyond "I liked this" or "This doesn't work." Being able to give suggestions for improvement in a tactful, approachable manner is a very useful real-world skill!
• "How do I do this?" When creating your peer review exercises, more is better when it comes to instruction. Handing students a "blank slate" and telling them to "review" a peer's paper can be overwhelming. An exercise that breaks the peer review into short, clear steps will make everything go much more smoothly. Choosing a focus for the exercise will also help make the task more manageable within a set timeframe.
• "How do I say this?" If your department uses a rubric, like UGA's First-year Composition program does, try to incorporate language from the rubric into the exercise. Explaining to students what to look for when they're thinking about "coherence" or "audience awareness" will give them language to explain to their peers what they mean and will enable them to target their comments more specifically (and therefore productively).

Sample exercises will be available on our blog soon!

Creating Your Online Presence, Part 3

Last time, we talked about creating your own academic website. In this post, we'll talk about other options for creating and managing your online academic presence.

Academia.edu. Often called "Facebook for academics," Academia.edu allows you to post a profile that includes your C.V., publications, employment history, and many other features. It can be a nice way to have an online profile for academic colleagues to visit without creating awkward overlap between work and personal life (your hiring committee doesn't want or need to see those pictures of your last birthday party). You can get an account for free.

LinkedIn. Touting itself as the "World's Largest Professional Network," LinkedIn allows you to post many of the same elements as Academia.edu or Facebook: profile, picture, employment history, interests, skills, etc. 150+million members use LinkedIn, so having a profile could be a way for employers or colleagues to find you. You can get an account for free.

Facebook. If you really just want to use Facebook -- and really, in today's world, who doesn't use Facebook? -- make sure that your security and privacy settings are customized. Facebook has many options that will allow you to secure your profile and keep a professional online presence, such as options to create separate "lists" of friends with customized visibility settings (e.g., who can see your posts, photos, etc.). When you add professional contacts, keep them in their own list so that you can easily control what they are able to see. Like we said earlier: only your friends IRL need to see those party pics.

Twitter. If you're really into social media (or your field is quite technology-heavy, such as digital humanities), you might consider starting a Twitter account. If you're doing this for academic reasons, make sure that you have a professional @username: potential employers might not consider @funkycupcake* a scholarly persona. Keep your professional and your personal Twitter feeds separate, and as always, use discretion and common sense. The Chronicle of Higher Education has some stories about ill-judged or poorly-voiced tweets having disastrous effects on job searches.

*We apologize if that's a real username. We're sure you're really a nice person.

Creating Your Online Presence, Part 2

Last time, we showed you what you might want to put on an online C.V. Today, we'll walk you through how to create more elements for your own academic website. Up next: teaching materials!

It can be very useful to post some of your teaching materials on your website. This section can act as a sort of informal teaching portfolio, allowing visitors to get a sense of your teaching approaches and techniques. It can also be a wonderful resource for your fellow teachers, particularly if you have a great exercise or prompt to share.

Megan has arranged the "Teaching Materials" section of her website as a series of subdivisions, each with a descriptive title such as "Teaching Philosophy" or "Prompts." This makes the section tidy and easily navigable. Clicking on each link takes visitors to a new page.

While you may want to post other sorts of information here, what Megan has posted is fairly reflective of many teaching portfolios. Her teaching philosophy introduces her approach to teaching, and the syllabus, lesson plans, prompts, and class activities sections demonstrate how she translates that approach into actual student interaction. Finally, Megan also provides a selection of sample student evaluations that show how students have responded to her teaching. Taken together, these pages give a good idea of what a class taught by Megan might look like.

Now, let's take a closer look at these individual sections.

Teaching Philosophy. If you haven't already, consider writing a statement of your teaching philosophy. Virtually all academic employers require one, as do many teaching portfolio and certificate programs for university graduate students. The Chronicle of Higher Education offers some advice here, and you can view a sample teaching philosophy (from a Stanford student!) here. In general, a good teaching philosophy statement will:

• Be brief. Don't run on for eight pages about your inspirations from kindergarten up. Remember that most people who are reading this will read many, many others. Be kind to their eyes.
• Give examples. Don't rhapsodize in abstract platitudes about how your classroom is "student-centered." Give a good "hook" for readers to latch onto.
• Involve students. Don't get so focused on your teaching approaches that you forget to describe, at least briefly, how students have responded to these. If you're that amazing engaging totally fantabulous teacher whom that college just has to hire, show them why.

Syllabi. Posting syllabi can be a great way to demonstrate your teaching approaches more concretely than your teaching philosophy might. They can also reflect how you manage a semester/quarter and show off your mad planning skills.

Lesson Plans. Posting lesson plans can give visitors an idea of how you would manage a single class period and incorporate the approaches from your teaching philosophy in a concrete, interactive way.

Prompts. Being able to write clear, concise directions is invaluable. Demonstrate that you can clearly communicate your expectations to students by posting a few prompts or exercises.

Class Activities. Megan has posted a handout she made for students called "Zombie Grammar." Posting class activities you've created can show your engagement with your class and your response to student needs and wishes.

Sample Student Evaluations. You don't have to post all of your evaluations here, and nobody's expecting you to post that one from that student who thought, like, you totally robbed her of an A. Nevertheless, posting some selected evaluations can give visitors a sense of how students respond to your teaching.

Coming up: other online presences!

Creating Your Online Presence, Part 1

In the next few posts, we'll walk you through creating your own academic website. In the hyper-tech new media climate of today's job market, you want to create (and control) your online presence in a professional way. One of the easiest ways to do this is by setting up a personal academic website. Below, we'll show you how.

As an example, we'll use a site created by one of our own Writing Center consultants, Megan Stoner Morgan. There's a lot of information up there, but we'll break down what's important (and useful!) for you to have on your website. Think of your website as an online interactive C.V. You want people who search for you (networking connections, potential employers, etc.) to get a sense of who you are and what you do.

First of all, you'll have to figure out where to host your website. Unless you're loaded with cash, buying your own domain name is probably not feasible (or necessary), There are many free hosting services, such as Weebly, Moonfruit, and Google Sites, which is what our sample uses. When picking a provider, make sure that your service is reputable! The last thing you want to do is infect visitors to your site with viruses (or have your link perpetually cycle to an unknown website).

Once you've signed up with a host, you can get down to designing the front page, where visitors will stop first. Here's Megan's:

There are a couple of things to notice about this front page. First, it's relatively uncluttered, and the dark text on light background is easy for readers. Second, as the highlighting points out, Megan states her research interests and her current academic position, giving a sense of what she does. And finally, the picture gives visitors a face to put with the name and the description.

The tabs at the top also give readers a quick and easy way to find what they may be looking for. Megan's divided her website into pages like "C.V.," "Research Areas," and "Teaching Materials," all of which might be interesting to colleagues and/or potential hiring committees.

What We Do

Your friendly neighborhood Writing Center here!


We offer a wide variety of services through our centers at the University of Georgia in Park Hall, the Miller Learning Center, and the Science Library. Here is a list of what we can do for 
you!

We help you learn to evaluate the concepts of your writing, including thesis development and organization of the essay's content.

We teach you how to self-evaluate and proofread your work in every academic subject.

We offer tutoring and workshops on various aspects of the writing process.

We offer resources from experts, including the Purdue OWL, various academic stylebooks, and our own Consultants.

We help both undergraduate and graduate students.

Students can bring in their work at any point in the writing process (from brainstorming stages to the complete draft) and meet with an experienced consultant to discuss their work.  Meetings usually last 20-30 minutes

Drop-in tutoring is available at Park Hall when a consultant is available.  Drop-in tutoring at the Miller Learning Center is available  through the Division of Academic Enhancement Monday through Friday from 1 - 4 pm in Room 302.

Class visits are available to instructors and professors throughout UGA.  The Writing Center staff will help you design a workshop for your students and present the workshop to your class. 

Writing tips are available in the "Writing Resources" section of the web site.  Information on grammar, style, crafting a thesis, and organization, as well as links to other helpful sites, are included in this section.  

Online tutoring is not currently available.  Check back for more information on this service.

In addition to our in-person services, you'll also find plenty of helpful information on our blog, so check back here!