Draft Thesis Statements

In this blog post, I will share some of my preliminary thesis statements for this project. I will also some reflections and thoughts.

Beall, Jeffrey. "Draft" April 24th, 2011
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Thesis #1:

In his interview "Maus Banned in Russia for It's Cover", Art Spiegelman addresses the issue of his book's removal from bookshelves. His use of personal narrative and tone appeals to his audience's beliefs about the value of free speech and censorship. His use of appeals to his credibility on speaking about the "arbitrary" decision helps persuade his audience that the removal of 'Maus' was absurd.

 Reflection 

I worry this thesis is concise but does not do the most effective job at laying what I will be discussing for this essay. The second sentence holds most of the bulk of the argument for this thesis, but I worry about the lack of specifics and word choice. I feel as though it has good ideas, but could be written so that it sounds more professional or less obviously scream "This is a thesis!".

Thesis #2:

In a recent interview with NPR, Comics advocate and cartoonist Art Spiegelman carefully appeals to his audience's values. His use of personal stories, references of credible sources, and elevated word choice all work to persuade his audience to see the absurdity of his graphic novel being banned in Russia. The predominant use of emotional and credible appeals helps Spiegelman effectively communicate his stance on this issue.

Reflection

This thesis is not too different from my first one. However, I do feel as though it is a little big stronger. It has some better word choice while not being too lengthy, and doesn't seem too wordy.I still believe it could use some work, but it feels a little stronger than my first thesis.



Other Posts

 After reading over a couple other drafts, I feel simultaneously more and less assured by the strength of my theses.

I read Laurence's drafts first. While he had a good building blocks, they needed to be fleshed out a bit more. Theses for rhetorical analysis seem to be more than just one sentence long, and have a good chunk on information in them. If he just added a little more information to his theses, they would be very well done.

I also read Swati's post, which seemed a little more in-line with mine. They were quite well-developed, and I feel like she did a much better job than I did connecting her ideas. Hers were quite specific and the two theses were more than two different ways to restate the same idea. Mine could use some more work, perhaps from opposing views, so that I may be able to enhance my ideas.