ENGL 101 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Welterweight, Tyrant
Document Summary
A thesis is an idea that you formulate about your subject. It should offer a theory about the meaning of evidence that would not have been immediately obvious to your readers. Promotes thinking: leads you to arrive at ideas. Reduces scope: separates useful evidence from the welter of details. Provides direction: helps you decide what to talk about and what to talk about next. In sum, the thesis needs to be a stimulus to the exploration of ideas, not a tyrant that reduces complex matters to oversimplified formulations. It lays out something at stake- an issue, question, or problem to which the writer" thesis is a tentative answer or solution. It provides an interpretive context that locates the thesis in relation to existing thinking. In sum, the introduction tells readers why the idea that the paper is about to explore matters and why, in other words, a paper needs to be written about it.
