What is an argument and why do I need one?

 

By Bronwen Durocher

So your professor has asked you to write a thesis-driven essay.

In high school, teachers simply asked you to regurgitate information you learned in class. Being able to clearly articulate the main points of a subject or idea may have earned you that elusive A in the past.

But you’re in college now.

Ack! “You mean to tell me that if my essay shows that I was actually paying attention and not instagramming the back of my classmates head I still might not get an A?” That’s right. Most professors will want you to analyze the information you’ve absorbed so that you can articulate an original claim you must then support with details from the work you are studying. Sound hard? College is supposed to help you become a questioning, freethinking person. Nobody said it was easy!

We’re here to help.

So, what is a claim or an argument? An argument-driven essay can come in the form of an explanation of an opinion, a discussion of a literary interpretation, or an evaluation of a certain cultural or literary phenomenon (among many, many other options). Simply put, a claim or argument is something you can prove. For thesis-driven essays, your claim must be specific and it must be debatable.

What’s the “So what?”

Any effective thesis statement argument should also have stakes. Ask yourself why your argument is important, relevant, or interesting to you. You should be excited to prove to your readers why your claim matters. What does your claim illuminate about the novel, poem, film, or other subject in question? Being able to answer the “so what?,” my friends, is the secret to writing an effective thesis statement.

Ineffective thesis statement:

There is a lot of symbolism in The Grapes of Wrath.

Is this debatable? Is it specific? Does it show that you’ve analyzed the novel?

More effective thesis statement:

John Steinbeck sets up a contrast between the natural world and a budding industrial economy in The Grapes of Wrath.

Is this debatable? If so, why is it important? Are there stakes? What’s missing here?

Effective thesis statement:

Through its use of symbolism, The Grapes of Wrath suggests that in order to endure the suffering and poverty of the new industrial economy, one must return to more natural human instincts.

This suggests an analytical reading based on evidence from the novel. It also tells us why the argument might be important to readers. It answers the “so what?” so many professors are wont to ask.

Make your supporting details work for you!

Remember that any argument you make must be supported by evidence. Supporting evidence might come in the form of historical data, secondary criticism, or a primary literary (or nonliterary) source. These supporting details are the meat and potatoes of your essay. Each piece of evidence should be included in your paper in a way that gives credence to the specific claim you are making. Simply inserting a detail without explaining why it relates to your thesis won’t work. Each quote or reference must be analyzed, interpreted, and integrated into your essay so that it helps convince your reader that what you are arguing is valid and well researched. (For help with citations, check back for another blog post or ask your favorite tutor.)

Phew, we’re done here for now. If you’re still having trouble writing a thesis statement and building evidence to support it, come in and talk to one of our lovely writing tutors. Good luck and happy writing!

Quotation Integration: Two Simple Mistakes to Avoid

By Kurt Stumpo

You’ve researched for weeks, identified your key sources, crafted a thesis that is supported by your sources, and compiled a perfectly formatted works cited page. Well done. Maybe. There’s only so much paraphrasing you can do, and if your use of quotations is ineffective, your paper will be ineffective as well (in spite of your hard-earned research!).

Sports metaphors lurk everywhere, so why not consider one here? It doesn’t matter how stacked your team is if you put six of your players in left field. Spacing and placement matter, and effective research will be undermined by ineffective deployment within your sentences/paragraphs (the same way that six players in an outfield will let a lot of balls through the infield).

There are two glaring errors common to quotations integration. Here is one especially unfortunate one:

Hans warned me against drinking that. “That chocolate milk went bad six months ago.” Therefore, because he told me that, I won’t drink it, lest I develop a GI-tract infection.

It doesn’t matter if your prose sparkles (the aforementioned certainly doesn’t): Never leave a quotation by itself. Lonely quotations that dump information in the middle of a paragraph will not help you create a cohesive argument.

At the least, introduce your source within the same sentence:

Hans seemed very confident when he told me that, “that chocolate milk went bad six months ago.” Therefore, I didn’t drink it, lest I develop a GI-tract infection.

My source is identified in the same sentence in which I deploy my quotation. Rather than having to backtrack to make sense of a quotation that suddenly appears in the middle of my paragraph, I can move forward with whatever argument I may want to make, and my whole paragraph is in position to fall into place now.

The other common mistake is comma abuse. Even if you know you don’t stick a solitary quotation in the middle of a paragraph, you may be guilty of this offense:

Hans’s Greek yogurt was several weeks old, the CDC warns against “consuming Greek yogurt that’s been sitting in the refrigerator for a long time,” so I didn’t eat it.

This is slightly better than leaving the quotation by itself, but the first comma is being spliced here. Just because these ideas are related doesn’t certify the comma usage.

Again, the fix is simple:

Hans’s Greek yogurt was several weeks old, and the CDC warns against “consuming Greek yogurt that’s been sitting in the refrigerator for a long time,” so I didn’t eat it.

Alternatively, we can re-tailor this sentence with a colon, a handy tool for quoting:

There was a great reason why I didn’t eat Hans’s Greek yogurt: the CDC warns “against consuming Greek yogurt that’s been sitting in the refrigerator for a long time.”

Colons can help introduce quotations efficiently, but whether you use a colon or not, make the link between what you’re saying and what your source is saying apparent.

Every quotation should either be accompanied by a reference to the original writer or in some way establishes its relevance to your argument. Keep these two ideas in mind, and you’ll be ready to deploy quotations in a manner that will be both grammatically correct and logically coherent.

Parallel Structure

By Laura Radford

Have you ever felt as though your writing has lost balance? While the written word can’t fall flat on its face the way that we can, it can fail to impart meaning to your reader. If you’ve ever felt an imbalance within your sentence structure, or even in the layout of a paragraph, your writing may be suffering from a lack of parallel structure. But what is parallel structure? In the simplest terms, it’s use of the same pattern of words to show that two or more ideas have the same level of importance. Parallel structure occurs at the level of a word, phrase, or clause. If your writing suffers from imbalance, what do you do? Or perhaps the better question is what do you not do?

First, do not mix forms.

Not Parallel: The art students were asked to sketch the display quickly, accurately, and in a detailed manner.

What’s happening: You might think that varying structure makes writing more interesting, but too much variance can create confusion. Each verb form (in this case, adverb form) should follow the same structure.

Parallel: The art students were asked sketch the display quickly, accurately, and thoroughly.

Why this is better: Even though you have to change “in a detailed manner” to “thoroughly,” the sentences have the same meaning. More importantly, the second version is easier to read.

Second, watch your clauses.

If you make the decision to begin a structure with clauses, you must continue using clauses. Changing to another pattern or changing the voice of the verb (from active to passive or vice versa) will upend the balance and break the parallel structure. Now, let’s visit our art class again!

Not Parallel: The professor expected that the students would present their sketches at the meeting, that there would be time for him to show his slide presentation, and that questions would be asked by the class. (passive voice)

Parallel: The professor expected that the students would present their sketches at the meeting, that there would be time for him to show his slide presentation, and that the students would ask him questions. (active voice)

Third, all listed elements after a colon must follow the same form.

Not Parallel: The art history textbook glossary can be used to find these: term definitions, works by artist, and looking up artists by work.

Parallel: The art history textbook glossary can be used to find these: term definitions, works by artist, and artist by works.

Remember, parallel work is easier to process, which your professor will appreciate!

Writing Clearly

By Brock Mason

Ever start to read something and after eventually droning off, you look back and realize you have no idea what you just read?

The writing might sound smart: lots of big words like “amorphous” and “erudite” scattered everywhere, really complicated sentences with long introductions and tons of commas, and a lot of quotations from important thinkers sprinkled every few lines or so. It might look something like this:

But the current concepts of erudition and the role of justification, while perhaps surpassing the modern understanding of “absolutization” within the context of scientific “objectivity,” never succeed in exteriorizing the post-essential manifestations of themselves, always caught up within the temporality of spoken utterances yet ignoring the Platonic . . .

Unfortunately, sentences like this one are obnoxiously common in the academic world. While they are certainly guilty of being long, it’s not so much the grammar or the mechanics of this sentence that makes it so incomprehensible and useless. Instead, the problem is with clarity—the author seems to have no care for it whatsoever. While not all writing is as bad as our example, one of the most common problems in writing is clarity. If your point is to get some type of message across, then unless that message is clear, you have probably failed as a writer. Sure, sometimes we deliberately write in vague ways, and that serves an important point; still, it’s better to know how to write clearly before ever deliberately writing unclearly.

With that in mind, here are three basic tips to make your writing clearer, both at the sentence and paragraph level:

First: as much as possible, make the subjects of your sentences short and concrete. Let’s take our example above to illustrate. What’s the subject?—“the current concepts of erudition and the role of justification.” First off, what are the current concepts of erudition? What is the role of justification that we are referring to? And even if we listed them all, wouldn’t that be a really long list? What we want is a short phrase that captures all of this, something easier for our minds to comprehend and something short so our sentence doesn’t look so daunting.

We could write something like this: “Our current understanding of knowledge.” That’s shorter, easier to understand, and doesn’t use “big” words to try to sound smart.

Second: make the main point of your writing explicit right at the beginning of your paper and the beginning of your paragraphs. Your words don’t interpret themselves; don’t assume that your reader will understand what you’re trying to prove simply because you do. Say it somewhere. In many disciplines (though not all), this type of language is not only approved but encouraged—“In this paper, I will show that . . .”; “I will prove this by doing X, Y, and Z”; or “this shows that X is true for this reason.”

With our example sentence, we could adjust it as follows:

Our current concepts of knowledge are inadequate because while perhaps they surpass the modern understanding of “absolutization” within the context of scientific “objectivity,” they never succeed in exteriorizing the post-essential manifestations of themselves, always caught up within the temporality of spoken utterances yet ignoring the Platonic . . .

Here, we didn’t have to include any first person language, but we made the point of the entire sentence clear right from the very beginning: our current conceptions of knowledge are inadequate, and the rest of the sentence is going to show why.

Third: have others review your paper, and if they find something unclear, believe them. As far as clarity goes, there is nothing like having a trusted reviewer look over your writing. A reviewer comes with a fresh set of eyes and doesn’t have the same assumptions as you. But here’s the catch: if your reviewers tell you that something is unclear, trust that they see something you don’t. In most cases, our first response to a comment like “this is not clear” is to explain it in our words, then move on; the reviewer should’ve understood it the first time. But that’s not how this works—your writing needs to be clear to other people, not just to you. If a reviewer says your thoughts are unclear, make them clearer. Period.

Writing Confidently: I think my thesis makes sense, maybe, perhaps?

By Bridget Dowd

You’ve finished your paper! You have a solid thesis statement, you’ve backed up all your claims, and you’ve incorporated all your sources properly. However, your paper is peppered with words like “maybe,” and “perhaps,” and “seems.” No matter how original your ideas and brilliant your examples, if you don’t make your point confidently and clearly, your paper (or cover letter, or application, or even Facebook status!) is going to fall flat.

One way to ensure that your confidence comes through in your writing is to state important points in active voice.

For example, instead of saying, “Hamlet is made mad by the traumatic events he undergoes.”

Say something like this: “By illustrating the tragedy Hamlet experiences alongside his descent into madness, Shakespeare shows that Hamlet’s madness is, in fact, genuine.”

In the second example, you more explicitly engage with the text, demonstrating your capability in analyzing it and your comfort in writing about it. Furthermore, your point is made more immediately clear to the reader.

Another way many writers reveal their discomfort in writing is through syntactical complexity. If your readers can’t understand the grammar of your sentence, you can bet they won’t understand the brilliant idea hidden within that sentence! So, if you were writing about Jane Austen’s evaluation of marriage, don’t write:

“The character of Mrs. Bennet, who was created by Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice, suggests instability in the English economy through her objectification of her five daughters and her attempts to essentially sell them to the highest bidder.”

This sentence has several issues. First of all, the second clause interrupts the flow of the thesis statement, which ought to be delivered clearly. Additionally, words such as “objectification” are called nominalizations; nouns like this (often ending in “ion”) can usually be turned into active verbs. Mrs. Bennet does not participate in objectification; she objectifies. Lastly, the final part of the sentence reveals the writer’s evasion—words like “essentially” should be used sparingly, because they often serve as filler instead of adding substance to prose.

Instead, try something like:

“In Pride and Prejudice, Austen uses Mrs. Bennet’s treatment of her daughters to draw a parallel between the marriage market and eighteenth-century economic instability.”

This version of the thesis leaves your readers in no doubt as to the subject of the paper they are about to enjoy.

Confident writing is not just important in academic writing. When penning applications or cover letters, be sure to use language expressive of your confidence in your own abilities. Oftentimes, you should check your verb choices. For example, would you want to hire somebody who “would be a good fit for the job?” No! Let your reader know, “I am a good fit for your company.” Through this simple grammatical change, you’ve made yourself into a more confident, comfortable candidate for the job.

If you overuse passive language, your readers will see that even you aren’t sure of your point (or that you’re trying your hardest to reach that elusive word count)!

Prewriting Techniques: Three Ways to Get Started

By John Breedlove

When beginning a piece of writing, there’s no worse feeling than not knowing what you are going to write about. In a perfect world, paper topics would magically reveal themselves once you sat down to begin your paper. And sometimes paper topics do come easily. But when this doesn’t happen, when you have no idea what you want to say, or where to even begin, the writing process can become incredibly arduous.

But don’t panic. Even seasoned writers will encounter moments of writer’s block. The key is to have a system in place that helps you find the ideas, topics, subjects that interest you. The following are just a few prewriting techniques that could prove valuable when you get “stuck” trying to find an interesting topic.

1. Freewriting. Start off by choosing a potential topic or idea that you think will be useful to explore. Don’t think about it for too long—the idea behind this exercise is simply to get words onto the page. Even if you start out writing about something that has very little, if anything, to do with your subject matter, don’t worry about it. The rule is simply to keep writing. You may want to start out writing for ten minutes; but during that time don’t stop for anything, even if you wind up writing down whatever is on your mind. This will get you in the habit of exploring topics and interests through writing. While much of what you write may not lead you anywhere, the goal is for you to eventually come across something (a word, phrase, concept, problem, or whatever) that will spark a more productive freewriting session next time, and lead you closer to your paper topic.
2. Brainstorming. This exercise is especially useful for writers who have a vague or general sense of what they may want to write about, but aren’t sure what about the topic interests them. Brainstorming is similar to free-association where you write down words or phrases that come to mind regarding a particular topic. It’s an unstructured process, but the idea is to tease out interesting relationships that you were not previously aware of and to build on these relationships with each new brainstorming session.
3. Journals. Keeping a daily journal to jot down important ideas, summarize information, and add your thoughts about the material you read, is a valuable way to generate material for your paper. When it becomes time to start writing, you can simply open your journal and reread the ideas and thoughts that have most interested you. Because journal entries are not meant to be exhaustive, they provide a series of thoughts that can be easily reread and a guide for understanding your own thoughts and interests. Of course, the earlier you begin your journal, the more information you will have to choose from when the time comes to begin writing your paper.

The writing process can be very unpredictable, which is why we need systems in place that will help make it a bit more reliable. So if you’re having trouble getting started with your paper, try one of these techniques and see which one works best for you.

On the Importance of First Impressions: Or, Writing an Introductory Paragraph

By Jessica D’Onofrio

As the age-old cliché goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. In both life and writing, making a stellar first impression is crucial. As a result, students are often apprehensive when it comes to writing those ever-so-important first paragraphs.

To face some of those first paragraph jitters, let us first consider some of the important functions of an introductory paragraph:

1. First, it is important to grab the attention of your readers so they are eager to continue reading and develop an investment in what you have to say. You might open your paper with a quotation or a broad statement they can relate to.
2. While engaging your readers, you also want to establish some credibility by having a clear and active voice. Would you be inclined to trust someone who hasn’t taken the time to proofread her or his work for grammatical errors and typos? I certainly wouldn’t.
3. Now that you’ve begun making a great first impression, it’s time to provide your readers with a sense of the paper’s direction. An effective introduction will function as a roadmap for the readers, informing them of what the paper is going to be about. You might think of your introduction as a spoiler alert, meaning your readers should know where you plan to take your discussion without any surprises later on in the paper. Telling your readers your plan for the paper usually manifests in the form of a thesis statement or claim, in which you assert your main argument.

Imagine you’re writing a paper on the political role of women and literature in nineteenth-century America. Your introduction paragraph might look something like the following:

It is believed that upon meeting renowned author and abolitionist, Harriet Beecher Stowe, President Abraham Lincoln exclaimed, “So you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!” In nineteenth-century America, the role of women was traditionally relegated to the domestic realm, while issues of politics and economics were reserved for men to debate in public sphere. In 1852, using the conventions of the sentimental novel, Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin and ignited the antislavery movement in antebellum America. An analysis of Stowe’s novel illustrates the ways in which women used literature to subvert the domestic realm and private sphere to not only infiltrate, but also influence, the political public sphere of nineteenth-century America.

Now that we understand the importance of an introductory paragraph (and have a model), let us consider some strategies for crafting an effective introduction:

1. Visualize your introduction paragraph as an inverted triangle. You will begin broadly to grab your readers’ attention and locate your topic within a larger conversation or tradition. From there, you will steer your readers closer and closer toward your focus. Ideally, as you move through writing your first paragraph you will narrow down your focus to the point where it will reach its most specific: the presentation of your thesis statement. Thinking of the first paragraph visually is an easy and palpable way to remember the trajectory of the introductory paragraph.
2. Think of your introduction paragraph as a work-in-progress. You should always assume that after you “finish” writing your paper, you will go back and revise your first paragraph (along with the rest of your essay). Ideally, by the time you finish your paper your topic has evolved and your ideas have developed. While further developing your research through the writing process is a wonderful thing, it also means that what you initially told your readers you were going to discuss, may not end up being what you wrote about. Thinking of your introduction as something you will go back to helps erase some of the jitters of getting started and removes some of the pressure of getting it perfect. If you begin writing a paper knowing that you will revise your introduction then you can use that space to get your ideas flowing and ease yourself into writing the body of your paper. Revisit and revise your introductory paragraph in the final stages of the writing process to ensure you are making a killer first impression on your readers.
3. Don’t fret if you’re still apprehensive about beginning your paper. One alternative to revising your introduction after you have finished the rest of your paper is starting your introduction after you have finished writing the body of your paper. Logically it seems normal or expected to write an introduction first, since it’s the first part of the paper. Not so fast! The logic behind the importance of revising your introduction after writing the rest of your paper lends itself to the possibility of writing your entire introductory paragraph after you write the body of your paper. Perhaps when you began writing you weren’t entirely sure of your exact argument or maybe your argument took shape as you were writing your body paragraphs. Christopher Columbus set out to find a more efficient route to Asia and discovered the “New World.” In case you too discover a whole new world while writing your paper, consider writing your introduction later on in the process to ensure you are guiding your readers down the path your paper actually travels.

As you can see, there is a great deal of strategy behind making a good first impression or writing an impressive introductory paragraph. The good news is that a conclusion paragraph often parallels the introduction paragraph. Now that you know the function of an introductory paragraph and some strategies to writing one, you’re also on your way to writing an effective conclusion!

Tips for International Students

By Jihyun Yun

As a non-native speaker of English, you might assume that excellent English writing is forever impossible. You might have even spent numerous days and nights wrestling with words, only to receive your professor’s comments and might now feel that it is too late to learn to write like a native speaker of English.

As an international student myself, I do not intend to suggest a more or less naïve statement that time and effort will pay off in the end. Instead I want to encourage you to use your time and effort effectively.

Theories on foreign language acquisition point to many different strategies, and I’m sure you have been practicing these strategies in your own way. But here is one very simple strategy you may want to consider trying.

Prepare a laptop and a piece of writing, any material will be fine as long as it is written in English. Open any page of the material and type every sentence on the page in your Microsoft Word document. In other words, just COPY everything word by word. Don’t feel overwhelmed about making your own sentences because all you have to do is to literally copy what is printed on the page. (How easy is that?) Do this practice for 10 minutes. Yes, just 10 minutes a day of copying and you’re done for that day. You do not need to memorize or analyze what you have typed (unless you strongly feel that you want to do so). Do the copying again for another 10 minutes the next day. And again for 10 minutes the day after that. Repeat this process for weeks, months, and/or years.

What is the point of this activity? The point is to help you grasp the style of English writing by making yourself emerged into the actual writing system of English. In order for you to create good English sentences by yourself, start from copying the good sentences written by practiced writers. You have probably learned the rules of English, but there are so many components of language that cannot be fully explained by the rules. One of the best ways to get a sense of what it is like to write in English is to copy someone else’s writing without necessarily thinking about the rules.

Do not assume that just reading a lot of English writing will suffice; make sure that your hands are busy copying and typing every word—if you prefer handwriting to typing, that’s fine. Try not to skip the daily session. You can spare 10 minutes a day no matter how busy you are. Start today.

Aaahh!!! Real Research! Tips to Make the Research Paper Less Scary During the Scariest Time of the Year

The time has come. The end of the semester is nigh. This means, most likely, it’s time to write THE RESEARCH PAPER (DUN-DUN-DUUNNN!). You finally have a handle on how to create an argument and now, BAM, you have to tackle incorporating what others have said. A research paper can seem scary at first. Not only do you have to come up with an original argument, you also have to locate relevant secondary sources, understand other scholars’ arguments, and figure how out what they are saying relates to what you are saying. I want to give you some tips on how to find sources, how to incorporate them, and how to alleviate the fear of the dreaded RESEARCH PAPER.

Tip #1 – Use Fordham’s Databases and Library to Find Peer-Reviewed, Scholarly, Sources

A peer-reviewed, scholarly, source is a piece of writing (normally an article or a book) that other experts in the field have read and agree is a founded claim. This is different from other sources, say a blog post (see what I did there?), where an author can make claims that may not founded in any evidence. The first step to finding a good source, therefore, is beginning with academic, peer-reviewed, sources.

To find these kinds of sources, it is important to use scholarly search engines and databases. Use tools like One Source, the library (yes, the real physical one, some of the best sources are in print), and scholarly databases like JSTOR and ProjectMuse. Find your school’s list of databases, read the descriptions, and decide which database would be best to use for your topic.

Make sure the source you are using is from a reputable journal, publisher, or author. Newspaper articles are sometimes appropriate as well, but make sure the paper is a reputable one, and keep in mind that many papers have political leanings that can influence the way they report news. You want to make sure that other people think this source is important, too. One way to be sure, is to search the name of an article or book and see if other scholars are citing it.

I think we all know that we shouldn’t use some random Internet blog as a source, but it can be tricky sometimes to figure out what sources are the best to use. Here are two examples to help us tackle this problem.

Let’s say my thesis is that: “While Rosemary’s Baby depicts women in positions of powerlessness, it actually promotes reproductive rights for women.”

Now let’s look at imaginary Source #1: A book on feminist horror, written by a professor and published by a scholarly press. It doesn’t directly address Rosemary’s Baby, but is cited in a lot of the articles you read.

Source #2: A book, written by a professor and published by a scholarly press, on Rosemary’s Baby that discusses primarily depictions of Satan in the movie. It doesn’t directly address feminism, but is cited by one of the articles you read.

So, both of these sources look pretty good. They are scholarly, reputable, and on your subject. Which one, however, would be the BEST one to pick for your specific paper? You guessed it, #1! While #2 is on the film, its thesis is not really related to your specific argument. Also, the fact that it wasn’t widely cited in the articles you read may indicate that is not important in the conversation you are joining (this doesn’t mean that it isn’t important in another conversation, maybe one about depictions of Satan throughout the horror genre). While the first book isn’t about the film, other people writing about the film think it’s important, and therefore you might need to address it. Next let’s talk about HOW to address it.

Tip#2 Figure Out the They Say, I Say

Once you have found some scholarly sources on your topic, read them carefully, and figure out what the author is arguing. Jot down the thesis and some of the main points. Think about how what you want to say is similar or different from what they are saying. Consider if their claims support your argument or if you need to make a counterclaim to this evidence.

Let’s say that Source #1’s thesis was that a horror films can only be feminist if a female character is in a position of power (such as a revenge movie). If you want to prove that Rosemary seems powerless, but that the film still promotes feminist ideas, how would you use this evidence? Does it support your claim or do you have to make a counter-claim? Counter-claim! That’s right! A counterclaim might look like this: “While Source #1 claims that woman must be in an explicit position of power for a film to be feminist, my paper will argue that horror movies can still promote a feminist message even if the female character fails to gain complete control.”

How about another example? Let’s say Source #1’s thesis read something like: “Even if a female character is not in complete control, women can gain agency in a horror film by successfully fighting back against their attacker (such as in The Shining when Shelley takes the situation in her own hands and outwits her maniac husband).” In this case, Source #1 supports our claim but in a slightly different way. Rosemary is not successful in getting away from the people around her and does not gain power in an explicit way. A way we could use this evidence might look like this: “While Source #1 reveals that horror films can support a feminist message through strong female characters that fight back successfully, Source#1 does not consider the ways that strong female characters that are unsuccessful and a film as a whole can support a feminist message. This paper will argue that Rosemary’s Baby supports a feminist message about reproductive rights by depicting a round character whose terror we identify with and by revealing on a larger scale the horrifying ways women’s bodies are treated as incubators for life.”

As you can see, Source#1 supports our argument, but we are not saying the SAME exact thing as Source#1’s author. In this example, Source#1 is saying that women who fight back are feminist. This supports our claim because Rosemary fights back. However, we want to say something different, so we need to show where our claim comes in. Also, did you notice that my thesis had to change to show how what I was saying was different from what Source#1 was saying? Most of the time, research can help you not only make a unique claim but a more complex claim as well. This brings us to our next tip!

Tip #3 Don’t Forget to Make a Unique Claim and be Open to Change

Sometimes when we are doing research, we can get really caught up in all the interesting things other people have said. That can make it really hard to come up with your own unique claim. You might have a thesis in mind and then realize other people have said the same exact thing, which also makes this process tough because now you have to construct a new claim. Your ideas, however, are the MOST important part of this paper and they are valuable! So, you have to make sure that you don’t spend your whole paper agreeing with others instead of making your own claim.

If you find an article that seems like the author has said what you want to say, read it carefully. Most likely, they have made an assumption or overlooked something. For example, in one of Source#1’s arguments, they overlooked the fact that women who are unsuccessful in fighting back can still have agency and reveal something meaningful about the role of women in society. Identifying a place where a critic overlooked something can be a really good place to start making your own, unique, claim. The idea is that you want to build upon and extend someone else’s analysis (or prove them wrong) in order to say something new.

It’s good to have a tentative thesis when you start doing research, but keep yourself open to changing your thesis. Research may convince you to change your thesis completely or to make it more complex. Research should help you make a stronger, nuanced, and unique claim.

I hope these tips helped make research less scary and I’m sure you’ll be incorporating research like an expert in no time. Happy Finals!

Aaahh!!! Real Research! Tips to Make the Research Paper Less Scary During the Scariest Time of the Year

By Anna Anastasi

The time has come. The end of the semester is nigh. This means, most likely, it’s time to write THE RESEARCH PAPER (DUN-DUN-DUUNNN!). You finally have a handle on how to create an argument and now, BAM, you have to tackle incorporating what others have said. A research paper can seem scary at first. Not only do you have to come up with an original argument, you also have to locate relevant secondary sources, understand other scholars’ arguments, and figure how out what they are saying relates to what you are saying. I want to give you some tips on how to find sources, how to incorporate them, and how to alleviate the fear of the dreaded RESEARCH PAPER.

Tip #1 – Use Fordham’s Databases and Library to Find Peer-Reviewed, Scholarly, Sources

A peer-reviewed, scholarly, source is a piece of writing (normally an article or a book) that other experts in the field have read and agree is a founded claim. This is different from other sources, say a blog post (see what I did there?), where an author can make claims that may not founded in any evidence. The first step to finding a good source, therefore, is beginning with academic, peer-reviewed, sources.

To find these kinds of sources, it is important to use scholarly search engines and databases. Use tools like One Source, the library (yes, the real physical one, some of the best sources are in print), and scholarly databases like JSTOR and ProjectMuse. Find your school’s list of databases, read the descriptions, and decide which database would be best to use for your topic.

Make sure the source you are using is from a reputable journal, publisher, or author. Newspaper articles are sometimes appropriate as well, but make sure the paper is a reputable one, and keep in mind that many papers have political leanings that can influence the way they report news. You want to make sure that other people think this source is important, too. One way to be sure, is to search the name of an article or book and see if other scholars are citing it.

I think we all know that we shouldn’t use some random Internet blog as a source, but it can be tricky sometimes to figure out what sources are the best to use. Here are two examples to help us tackle this problem.

Let’s say my thesis is that: “While Rosemary’s Baby depicts women in positions of powerlessness, it actually promotes reproductive rights for women.”

Now let’s look at imaginary Source #1: A book on feminist horror, written by a professor and published by a scholarly press. It doesn’t directly address Rosemary’s Baby, but is cited in a lot of the articles you read.

Source #2: A book, written by a professor and published by a scholarly press, on Rosemary’s Baby that discusses primarily depictions of Satan in the movie. It doesn’t directly address feminism, but is cited by one of the articles you read.

So, both of these sources look pretty good. They are scholarly, reputable, and on your subject. Which one, however, would be the BEST one to pick for your specific paper? You guessed it, #1! While #2 is on the film, its thesis is not really related to your specific argument. Also, the fact that it wasn’t widely cited in the articles you read may indicate that is not important in the conversation you are joining (this doesn’t mean that it isn’t important in another conversation, maybe one about depictions of Satan throughout the horror genre). While the first book isn’t about the film, other people writing about the film think it’s important, and therefore you might need to address it. Next let’s talk about HOW to address it.

Tip#2 Figure Out the They Say, I Say

Once you have found some scholarly sources on your topic, read them carefully, and figure out what the author is arguing. Jot down the thesis and some of the main points. Think about how what you want to say is similar or different from what they are saying. Consider if their claims support your argument or if you need to make a counterclaim to this evidence.

Let’s say that Source #1’s thesis was that a horror films can only be feminist if a female character is in a position of power (such as a revenge movie). If you want to prove that Rosemary seems powerless, but that the film still promotes feminist ideas, how would you use this evidence? Does it support your claim or do you have to make a counter-claim? Counter-claim! That’s right! A counterclaim might look like this: “While Source #1 claims that woman must be in an explicit position of power for a film to be feminist, my paper will argue that horror movies can still promote a feminist message even if the female character fails to gain complete control.”

How about another example? Let’s say Source #1’s thesis read something like: “Even if a female character is not in complete control, women can gain agency in a horror film by successfully fighting back against their attacker (such as in The Shining when Shelley takes the situation in her own hands and outwits her maniac husband).” In this case, Source #1 supports our claim but in a slightly different way. Rosemary is not successful in getting away from the people around her and does not gain power in an explicit way. A way we could use this evidence might look like this: “While Source #1 reveals that horror films can support a feminist message through strong female characters that fight back successfully, Source#1 does not consider the ways that strong female characters that are unsuccessful and a film as a whole can support a feminist message. This paper will argue that Rosemary’s Baby supports a feminist message about reproductive rights by depicting a round character whose terror we identify with and by revealing on a larger scale the horrifying ways women’s bodies are treated as incubators for life.”

As you can see, Source#1 supports our argument, but we are not saying the SAME exact thing as Source#1’s author. In this example, Source#1 is saying that women who fight back are feminist. This supports our claim because Rosemary fights back. However, we want to say something different, so we need to show where our claim comes in. Also, did you notice that my thesis had to change to show how what I was saying was different from what Source#1 was saying? Most of the time, research can help you not only make a unique claim but a more complex claim as well. This brings us to our next tip!

Tip #3 Don’t Forget to Make a Unique Claim and be Open to Change

Sometimes when we are doing research, we can get really caught up in all the interesting things other people have said. That can make it really hard to come up with your own unique claim. You might have a thesis in mind and then realize other people have said the same exact thing, which also makes this process tough because now you have to construct a new claim. Your ideas, however, are the MOST important part of this paper and they are valuable! So, you have to make sure that you don’t spend your whole paper agreeing with others instead of making your own claim.

If you find an article that seems like the author has said what you want to say, read it carefully. Most likely, they have made an assumption or overlooked something. For example, in one of Source#1’s arguments, they overlooked the fact that women who are unsuccessful in fighting back can still have agency and reveal something meaningful about the role of women in society. Identifying a place where a critic overlooked something can be a really good place to start making your own, unique, claim. The idea is that you want to build upon and extend someone else’s analysis (or prove them wrong) in order to say something new.

It’s good to have a tentative thesis when you start doing research, but keep yourself open to changing your thesis. Research may convince you to change your thesis completely or to make it more complex. Research should help you make a stronger, nuanced, and unique claim.

I hope these tips helped make research less scary and I’m sure you’ll be incorporating research like an expert in no time. Happy Finals!