Assignment
Prepare an OUTLINE for your Argumentative Final Project Essay.
By your project thinking and writing, you can engage and practice making a contribution toward our course objectives --
This course takes Asian women living in the US as the focus of analyses of identity, culture, and political economy. We will examine works by and about Asian American women from multiple disciplines, in order to elucidate how Asian American women have been represented and treated as the objects of history and culture, as well as how Asian American women in turn shape these forces. By exploring the areas of immigration and settlement, social stereotyping, identity construction, family, community, labor, organized resistance, and cultural production, we will attempt to answer questions such as: Who are "Asian American women"? What are the commonalities and differences of racialization, gender, class, sexuality, language and culture that delineate this category? How do Asian American women negotiate the complexities of multiple identities and positions of their lived experiences, both in the United States and transnational spaces?
Requirement 1: What am I going to argue? This is my THESIS.
An argumentative or persuasive piece of writing must begin with a debatable thesis or claim. In other words, the thesis must be something that people could reasonably have differing opinions on. If your thesis is something that is generally agreed upon or accepted as fact then there is no reason to try to persuade people.
In general, your thesis statement should be 1-2 sentences long and should be found at the end of your first paragraph (or occasionally your second paragraph).
Requirement 2: A Well-Organized Body
The body of the paper is where you flesh out your thesis and present your evidence. Most people find it helpful to outline before beginning to write. It is important that you move logically from point to point as you move from paragraph to paragraph.
Present each of your paragraphs and its central idea.
This central idea is generally expressed in a topic sentence which is usually the first or second sentence in a paragraph. Many people find it helpful to string their topic sentences together after completing an essay. This should produce a coherent paragraph beginning with your thesis statement.
- What sequence of evidence best supports your claims?
- How and where will you engage both with what other scholars have written about your subject, or broader interpretations about his period in history, or with theories about the past, or historical forces?
- Are there counter-arguments that you haven't considered?
* The answer is in your head.
History is by its very nature a creative enterprise. Many people believe that if they could just find the right piece of information in their documents, they would find the "answer" to their paper. Information from documents is absolutely crucial to the writing of history since it provides evidence, but the interpretation of that evidence is what makes a paper valuable. Interpretations can only come from your own analysis of evidence. If the "answers" were really in the documents, we would all compile anthologies rather than writing papers.
Requirement 3: Draft of Your Introduction
Papers which lack coherent introductions tend to start in the middle and trail off at the end. It is important that you bracket your paper with an introduction which sets out your thesis.
A good introduction provides you with a plan to organize the rest of your paper by laying out the subjects, events, or kinds of documents you will discuss to support your thesis or develop your topic. Put forth in your introduction what your specific argument is, how you plan to develop that argument, and why your argument is important enough to defend. Your argument need not be the last sentence of the first paragraph.
+ Optional: New Sources since your Annotated Bibliography submission.
Element 1 - Your Thesis
a. Come with a question.
Theses are usually the answers to questions. If, for instance, you were to ask the question, "Why did Harvard try so hard to maintain its colonial identity beyond the colonial period?" you might come up with the thesis "Harvard's commitment to ‘colonial' architecture in the nineteenth century was part of its attempt to distinguish itself from Old World colleges and assert the distinctiveness and superiority of American higher education."
b. Theses are by nature debatable.
A fact is not a thesis. Although all are true, none of the following are acceptable theses: "Harvard College is in Cambridge, Massachusetts." "Harvard College was founded in 1636." "Harvard College's architecture has changed over the centuries." Theses must be supported by facts, but the thesis itself is an interpretation of those facts.
c. Theses are specific.
Avoid broad generalizations which tell your audience little about your subject. "Harvard College invented its distinctive architectural style" is much too vague to make an effective thesis; however "Harvard's buildings represent the persistence of a ‘colonial' attitude toward education that the college maintained well into the Nineteenth century" is a debatable and specific thesis.
d. Avoid Counterfactuals.
A counterfactual is an argument based on events which didn't happen. For instance, one might be tempted to argue that "If Harvard College had been founded after 1776, its post-revolutionary architecture would have been very different." Although it is often tempting to make use of counterfactuals to "prove" a point, historians are limited to analyzing what did happen as opposed to what might have happened.
e. Avoid the first person and especially "I believe," "I think," "I feel," or similar statements.
Though you probably have opinions about your subject matter, your work is fundamentally about what you can prove not what you think is the case. As a result, your thesis should avoid the first person, and it should avoid focusing on your feelings about the past. If you look at the thesis in letter c above, you'll see that the author is nowhere to be found. "Harvard College's buildings represent" is a stronger thesis than "I think Harvard College's buildings represent."
Requirement 3: Draft of Your Introduction
Papers which lack coherent introductions tend to start in the middle and trail off at the end. It is important that you bracket your paper with an introduction which sets out your thesis.
A good introduction provides you with a plan to organize the rest of your paper by laying out the subjects, events, or kinds of documents you will discuss to support your thesis or develop your topic. Put forth in your introduction what your specific argument is, how you plan to develop that argument, and why your argument is important enough to defend. Your argument need not be the last sentence of the first paragraph.
+ Optional: New Sources since your Annotated Bibliography submission.
Element 1 - Your Thesis
a. Come with a question.
Theses are usually the answers to questions. If, for instance, you were to ask the question, "Why did Harvard try so hard to maintain its colonial identity beyond the colonial period?" you might come up with the thesis "Harvard's commitment to ‘colonial' architecture in the nineteenth century was part of its attempt to distinguish itself from Old World colleges and assert the distinctiveness and superiority of American higher education."
b. Theses are by nature debatable.
A fact is not a thesis. Although all are true, none of the following are acceptable theses: "Harvard College is in Cambridge, Massachusetts." "Harvard College was founded in 1636." "Harvard College's architecture has changed over the centuries." Theses must be supported by facts, but the thesis itself is an interpretation of those facts.
c. Theses are specific.
Avoid broad generalizations which tell your audience little about your subject. "Harvard College invented its distinctive architectural style" is much too vague to make an effective thesis; however "Harvard's buildings represent the persistence of a ‘colonial' attitude toward education that the college maintained well into the Nineteenth century" is a debatable and specific thesis.
d. Avoid Counterfactuals.
A counterfactual is an argument based on events which didn't happen. For instance, one might be tempted to argue that "If Harvard College had been founded after 1776, its post-revolutionary architecture would have been very different." Although it is often tempting to make use of counterfactuals to "prove" a point, historians are limited to analyzing what did happen as opposed to what might have happened.
e. Avoid the first person and especially "I believe," "I think," "I feel," or similar statements.
Though you probably have opinions about your subject matter, your work is fundamentally about what you can prove not what you think is the case. As a result, your thesis should avoid the first person, and it should avoid focusing on your feelings about the past. If you look at the thesis in letter c above, you'll see that the author is nowhere to be found. "Harvard College's buildings represent" is a stronger thesis than "I think Harvard College's buildings represent."