Draft Thesis Statements

Before writing my essay, I will be crafting 2 thesis statements and writing my thoughts about their strengths and weaknesses.

Bruce Emmerling "scrabble" accessed via Pixabay
Uploaded October 2014 CC0 Public Domain

Thesis 1:

Jeff Turrentine, despite having a bias as a self-proclaimed environmental activist, writes a factually based credible article with a witty voice that remains convincing and relatable to the audience.  His clean and accurate writing style amplifies his moral and ethical appeals to the audience and successfully persuades the audience of impending cultural shift due to occur in the aftermath of the Pope's speech.

Thoughts:

This option includes the bias of Turrentine and presents his article as a successful because it can convince a Conservative audience even with the unavoidable heavy bias.  I'm not sure if I want to include this particular point in my main thesis, I might simply address it in my first body paragraph.  Otherwise this is a good starting point for my thesis, as it addresses most of the points I want to talk about in my essay.

Thesis 2:

Jeff Turrentine appeals directly to the moral and ethical qualms of the audience and analyzes the reasons for the cultural split between Conservatives and Liberals.  Jeff Turrentine's witty piece successfully persuades the audience of how the Pope may become the catalyst environmental science needed to inspire change in the US population and government.

Thoughts:

This thesis is a lot more specific to the article I am analyzing, but this also means I address the cultural part of my argument, where the first thesis did not.  It also is a little clumsy, so although I like the idea of this thesis, it is not my final choice.  I will likely use a combination of the two.

REFLECTION:

After reading Chelsea and Sam's I found a lot of variation in how we wrote our thesis statements.  I wrote two very detailed thesis in an attempt to cover all possible routes.  Normally my theses are more focused on starting an argument, so I really had to focus on exactly what rhetorical strategies I had to develop.  Chelsea wrote 3 thesis, and I found her last one to be the most effective in setting up her essay.  Sam had 2 very direct theses, but she spent a little two much time identifying the author and article.  By the end of the introduction, the audience should know the author and article, so it will be more effective to address the context, main idea, and rhetorical strategies instead.