Is this a good thesis statement?

In this paper I am going to talk about barn owls and their various flight patterns

Is this a good thesis statement?

An analysis of barn owl flight behavior reveals two kinds of flight patterns: patterns related to hunting prey and patterns related to courtship.

Is this a good thesis statement?

• Jean Jacques Rousseau lived in the eighteenth century and wrote a book entitled “Emile.”

Is this a good thesis statement?

• In Emile Rousseau both denies and admits natural human sociability … The suppression of innately social sentiments and the corresponding denial of original human sociability, I argue, are essential to foster the conviction of freedom. This conviction proves both to be necessary to moral virtue, as the premise of binding moral commitment, and a reflection of the condition of asocial man in the original state of nature. Virtue accords with man's nature--justice has a natural basis--and recaptures freedom within civilization (Lorna Knott, Boston College).

Is this a good thesis statement?

I will talk about the ways that Mary Shelley critiqued the Enlightenment in her novel, Frankenstein.

Is this a good thesis statement?

• I argue that the way Shelley presented education in Frankenstein is key to her critique of both the Enlightenment and Romanticism. Viktor Frankenstein’s insistence on the purely mechanical and scientific indicates Shelley’s discomfort with the Enlightenment rational tradition. However, Viktor’s rejection of the ugly but learned M. Krempe as a teacher in favor of the attractive but outdated M. Waldman, as well as his ultimate rejection of the creature based on an emotional dislike of its appearance suggest that Shelley distrusted the Romantic cult of emotion and beauty.

Is this a good thesis statement?

• Thomas Jefferson’s actions, specifically his continued ownership of slaves, compromises his credibility as a representative Enlightenment thinker, because he failed to put his ideals into practice despite the fact that he lived in a revolutionary setting where many other facets of the Enlightenment, such as equality and representation, were imposed.

Is this a good thesis statement?

• Thomas Jefferson’s actions, specifically his continued ownership of slaves, do not compromise his credibility as a representative Enlightenment thinker, but rather enhance his status. The Enlightenment was marred by deep contradictions, especially over the practice of Enlightenment ideals and their potentially revolutionary consequences, and in general most Enlightenment figures erred on the side of maintaining existing institutions.

Does This Need a Citation?

• Laqueur’s arguments, and those of the historians who follow his lead about the increasing tendency to define gender as absolute difference through biological and medical ‘evidence” sound convincing.

YES. It is taken directly from p. 86 of Outram. If it were taken from a web site (not that you should use one), it

would still need to be cited.

• Laqueur’s arguments, and those of the historians who follow his lead about the increasing tendency to define gender as absolute difference through biological and medical ‘evidence” sound convincing (Outram, 86).

Does This Need a Citation?

• Outram argued that the Enlightenment debate about gender was important precisely because it highlighted inconsistencies and problematic areas in Enlightenment thinking. In particular, the debate about gender shows that Enlightenment thinkers had trouble universalizing its claims to all social classes and across genders, and instead used science to buttress claims of difference between these groups to justify inequalities.

YES. Although this is a paraphrase of Outram’s argument, readers need to know where it was made in the text.

(Outram, 94-5).“Whenever you quote, paraphrase, summarize, or

otherwise refer to the work of another, you are required to cite its source, either by way of parenthetical citation or by

means of a footnote” (Citing Sources, http://library.duke.edu/research/citing/).

• Outram argued that the Enlightenment debate about gender was important precisely because it highlighted inconsistencies and problematic areas in Enlightenment thinking. In particular, the debate about gender shows that Enlightenment thinkers had trouble universalizing its claims to all social classes and across genders, and instead used science to buttress claims of difference between these groups to justify inequalities (Outram, 94-5).

Does This Need to be Cited?

• Although Rousseau’s Emile exemplifies the contradictions within the Enlightenment, it was not universally popular in its own time, and in fact it was openly burnt.

YES. It is a specific fact, and not part of the average student’s general knowledge. Note that this is a “grey area” citation, dependent on the

knowledge level of the writer. Steven Shapin would have chosen not to footnote this sentence, but Dorinda Outram did (see note 33).

• Although Rousseau’s Emile exemplifies the contradictions within the Enlightenment, it was not universally popular in its own time, and in fact it was openly burnt (Outram, 94).

Does this need to be cited?

• Although eighteenth-century people argued about the definition of the Enlightenment, from the modern perspective we can see several uniting themes: faith in the power of reason, a belief in progress, and a focus on human worth and human dignity.

Not really.

• You can cite it, of course, but in general this is (or should be, after last class) common class knowledge. It is broad and general, not specific.

In general, the broader the knowledge – the more it is like an overview—the less it needs to be cited; conversely, the more precise and specific the knowledge, the more it needs to be cited.

Other Stylistic Things to Know

Write out numbers under 101. Example: Write one hundred, not 100.

Write out century names. Example: Write eighteenth, not 18th.

Do not use contractions: Example: write did not instead of didn’t.

If you use the word “this,” in general follow it with a specific noun. EXAMPLE: write, This presentation is boring but will help my writing, not This is boring but will help my writing.

William Wordsworth: I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud

• I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

• Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

• The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed - and gazed - but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought:

• For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.

Charta cosmographia, 1544

Tabula novus insularum 1550

Tabula geographico hydrographica motus oceani 1678