Term Paper Resources

So a friend has a paper on social phobia and doesn’t know what to write. Here’s my suggestion:

First start your introduction paragraph by stating why social phobia is a problem. Are there many people how have it? Is it awful to have? Why is it important?

Then begin the body of your essay:

Paragraph 1

Define social phobia/anxiety

Paragraph 2

What are symptoms of social phobia

Paragraph 3

Who gets social phobia

Paragraph 4

What is the hope for people who have the disease?

Conclusion

OK, so that’s the outline for the paper. In text citations look like this:

Most of these therapies center around getting the individual to better understand his or her self and gain better coping skills. Different therapy methods include behavior therapy, cognitive-behavior therapy, and multimodal therapy (Carson, Butcher, and Mineka, 190).

You give the author’s name and then the page number after you state a fact.

The corresponding bibliography to this citation looks like this:

Carson, Robert C., James N. Butcher and Susan Mineka. Abnormal Psychology and Modern Life. New York: Harper Collins College Publishers, 1996.

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Somewhere in the recesses of history, an individual or group of individuals determined the form of the perfect essay. It may or may not have been the English department of some large university, but by the end of the 20th century, the basic structure of the essay had been perfected into its three component parts: the introduction, the body, and the conclusion. Each one of these parts serves to provide form and function in the communication of clear ideas, and each has a specific role to play that, when fully realized, transform the English language into a powerhouse of logic, argument, and erudition.

The first component of the perfect essay is the introduction. The opening paragraph (or paragraphs) of the perfect essay is a vital invitation. A strong, powerful introduction is needed in order to capture the reader’s attention. Without a strong introduction, the intended audience would have no reason to continue reading the essay. Further, what is the point of writing anything if it is not to be read by someone? The opening must grab the reader’s focus, and draw him or her into the world of words you as a writer have created. Often, a powerful opening sentence, one that may shock or stand out, can be used to startle the reader. Melville probably spent months formulating “Call me Ishmael.” It is stark and disconcerting, like the opening notes of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. Both of these are introductions that grab the attention of the audience.

The second purpose of the introduction is to establish the argument that will follow in the essay. One of the simplest essay forms to prepare is the three-point argument. After the opening phrases, the writer must get down to business, and lay out how he or she will support the argument in question. For example: “The French Revolution led to the complete upheaval of European society in the social, political, and religious realms” may be a stereotypical essay introduction. It demonstrates that the writer intends to prove the argument in three specific areas. These three identified topics will then form the second part of the essay, the body.

The body of an essay is where the main thrust and support for the argument and/or thesis will be found. An introduction by itself may read well, but will never prove its point. After having identified the three areas to be examined during the course of the essay in the introduction, the second paragraph of the essay usually begins the body proper. In the above example of the French Revolution, the second paragraph would offer support for the argument using examples from the social changes that took place in France and the rest of Europe between 1789 and 1799, attempting to show how conditions were different at the end of the Revolution. Likewise, the second paragraph of the body would offer examples from the political situation in Europe, with the third body paragraph drawing on religious changes.

Each paragraph in the body of an essay has a specific function. They can generally be identified by the topic sentence, which gives purpose to the paragraph, proving that paragraph’s worth, so to speak. However, since writing is more of an art than a science (despite the best efforts Strunk and White), topic sentences may occur in the middle or end of a paragraph, drawing the reader into the bulk of the argument as a synthetic whole. Indeed, while paragraphs are not used in the body of an essay without purpose, often they serve as transitions from one topic to another, linking one topic to the next so that there is not a sudden sharp intellectual break between points of the argument. Without transition, an essay would read more like an outline, bulleting points one after another.
After the body of the essay has been written, a conclusion must be drawn. It would not serve the reader to be drawn in by a great introduction, follow an argument through the body of the essay point by point, and then be left hanging by an abrupt cut off. A conclusion is needed to reiterate to the reader that you, as a writer, have proven the argument you intended to. Generally, the main thesis is restated in the conclusion of an essay, along the lines of: “It has been clearly shown that the French Revolution dramatically altered European society in the social, political, and religious realms.” This reminds the reader that there was a purpose to the entire essay, and you as the writer have proved the thesis.

Conclusions can be the shortest of the three sections of the essay. Introductions often need a few sentences to ease into the topic at hand, for stylistic purposes, and the body of the essay will always be the largest portion, but conclusions sometimes become truncated in the face of time or space constraints. It is often enough to simply restate the thesis and the main ideas used to prove it. But a conclusion should not be slighted as the least worthy part of an essay. A conclusion should be viewed like dessert after a fine meal: the perfect ending, light and fulfilling. A conclusion is the writer’s opportunity to shine stylistically, the work of the essay has been completed, the thesis proven with great mastery, and so the reader should be left satisfied.

The perfect essay is art surrounding a specific frame. An introduction, the main body and a conclusion are the three structures that hold an essay together, paint, canvas and easel of the writer. How they are then used becomes a matter of style. In the right writer’s hands, the three parts of an essay form a beautiful example of the English language.

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Everybody has two sides to contrast in a Contrastive Essay

Writing an essay about two people that look alike teaches the following about writing a contrastive essay: 1] it teaches one to pay attention to logical hierarchies; 2] it teaches one a sense of relevance.

With respect to logical hierarchies, the process of looking closely at two similar people and writing a contrastive essay about their similarities and differences causes one to sharpen one’s sense of the distinction between generalities and specific details.  For example, both of the people one is writing the essay about may have roughly the same body type; they may be mesomorphs, i.e. of a muscular type.  One describes them as such and then, observing them more closely, one perceives and records subtle differences in the way that they are physically structured. Read more…

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What is rhetoric?

The word “rhetoric” comes from ancient Greece and it literally means “the art of persuasion.” It has a rich history stretching back to Aristotle and up through the European Renaissance and into today. You may wonder how if rhetoric continues to influence the world today, but your answer is in the world around you. Rhetorical arguments are on television, on the radio, and in the newspaper. When the president delivers the state of the union address he is delivering a statement that is built solidly on a rhetorical premise that has carefully considered genre, audience, and position.

What does rhetoric mean to me?

No matter what career you are planning to pursue, your ability to communicate and persuade audiences will be important to you. When you write a cover letter to an employer, or an opening argument in a law case, or an article for a medical journal, you will have to consider rhetoric. You will have to think about how to best persuade your given audience. And there are many factors involved in how to do this. A rhetorical analysis endeavors to make you more knowledgeable about this very subject and to better prepare you to create effective arguments.

How do writers think about rhetoric?

In writing an essay, we encourage you to think about pre-writing as an act of thinking before you write. It’s the planning stages of writing, which in many ways are as important as the actual act of writing itself. Rhetorical writing is no different. You should be engaging in basic essay pre-writing, but now we’re going to apply some advanced rhetorical concepts to the act.

Writers generally start with a purpose. This purpose may come from an outside source—your professor assigns you to write a one page argument essay about abortion or your employer asks you to write a grant proposal—or internally from yourself (a cover letter to a prospective employer). This purpose will affect your rhetorical aim.

Your rhetorical aim is what you plan to do; what your goals are in your writing assignment. You may be writing to express an opinion or to explore options, or to inform an audience on a Rhetoric they’re unfamiliar with, or to persuade them to believe in your opinion. What you aim to do will affect what you write, not only in terms of content but in terms of tone and diction. You will want to choose between open-form vs. closed-form writing, and your choice between these two styles (where your writing will fall along the continuum) will be based on your rhetorical aim and/or your purpose.

Aim and purpose aren’t the only things that writers think about in the pre-writing stage. They also consider audience. Considering audience will vastly alter the rhetoric you use in your writing. Here are just a few questions you may want to think about when considering audience:

Who am I trying to argue to?
How old are they?
How much background information do I need to provide?

What are their values (religious, social, etc.) likely to be?
How much do they already know about my subject matter?

What can I assume their opinion on the subject is?

How much interest do they have in the subject?
Writers also consider genre when they consider their pre-writing decisions. Considering genre is to think about the conventions (style, subject matter, design, etc.) that you need to consider for writing a particular piece. If you were to write an article for the magazine GQ it would have to consider the conventions of the magazine (male-oriented, etc.).

How do writers use rhetoric in their writing?

When writers persuade, they make something that we call appeals. Appeals are messages—whether stated or unstated—that try to persuade an audience in a particular way. We see appeals all the time—in every advertisement we see and statement that’s spoken on the nightly news—but most of the time we’re not keeping our eyes open or actively analyzing them. Aristotle defined three different types of appeals.

Pathos appeals are literally appeals of emotion and value. They try to get an audience to feel something in order to persuade them. They also try to appeal to shared values.

Logos appeals are appeals to logic and reason. They commonly refer to the facts, figures, statistics, statements, and the quality of an argument. Logical arguments are sound and believable because they make sense and can be proven. When you assert a clear thesis in your essay and then support it with evidence, reasons, and facts, you’re creating effective logical arguments.

Ethos appeals are ethical appeals—or appeals to character. They are the arguments that are presented by who arguing. When a medical doctor makes a statement, his/her ethos argues on his/her behalf. Because they are a doctor—a respected figure who we assume has spent years in school and therefore is intelligent and believable—we may be persuaded on the grounds of their ethos.

You likely aren’t a doctor (yet!) but there are still ways that you can make your ethos, your character, seem more reliable and believable. By adopting a tone that is forthright and honest, you can sound like someone who we should believe. By crediting your sources and appearing fair in your arguments you can also construct a believable ethos. Your grammar and format can also speak worlds for your ethos.

Thinking about rhetoric in your essays.

Let us say that your essay requires you to analyze a book as you read it and the professor is also asking for you to do some reverse thinking. When you read the selections from the book, you’re seeing finished products. You’re seeing the product of pre-writing, revision, and drafting. But ultimately you need to figure out how the writer is doing what they’re doing. How are they persuading?

For a rhetorical essay you don’t need to confuse yourself with whether you agree or disagree with the points that are argued. You instead need to think about how rhetoric is being used and why (or why not) it is effective. Where is the author writing from—for what purpose, genre, or slant? Who is the writer trying to persuade? Who is the audience? How do you know? Where is the author making logos, pathos, and ethos appeals? Are they effective? Why or why not?

As you read critically and begin to pre-write on your own essay, think about the above questions. If you follow these questions, you are certain to be on your way to becoming a rhetorical essay writing expert.

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