RESEARCHED DELAYED-THESIS
ARGUMENT (15% of your final grade)
Format: MLA Style, including Works Cited
Length: 4-6 typed pages + Works Cited page
Number of sources: you will have to use 6 secondary sources (library articles and/or books) and 2 or 1 (in the case of Trifles) primary sources (any of the seven texts in Unit 3).
STEPS TO FOLLOW:
1. Choose one of the prompts provided below.
Go to the library databases (http://www.lonestar.edu/library/article-databases.htm )
and do some research on your topic. You can also use Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com)
Find at least 6 secondary sources that explore aspects in your prompt. Print them out and/or save them in your computer and read them thoroughly. Underline, highlight, take notes… Find similarities and differences in the way critics and researchers answer the question you chose. Your sources need to both agree and disagree with your opinion. Your sources should NOT be literary sources, but historical, psychological, sociological … (depending on your topic)
For information on how to use the online LSC library databases, watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Se7RmnDMt4&feature=emb_logo
c. For information on how to properly cite and document your sources following MLA, go to https://style.mla.org/sections/ask-the-mla and https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_formatting_and_style_guide.html
TOPICAND PROMPT
Trifles: “Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.” –Eleanor Roosevelt. In 1916, when Glaspell wrote Trifles, women did not have the right to vote or serve on juries in most of the United States. Even after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which guaranteed women the right to vote, individual states retained the power to discourage women from jury service. It was not until 1975 that the Supreme Court denied states the right to exclude women from juries. Glaspell’s short story, then, takes up questions of justice—and seems to argue that women might have a different relationship to and understanding of justice—at a moment when women were excluded from full participation in the justice system.
a. The question that arises is: Do we have a moral obligation to obey unjust laws?
DELAYED-THESIS ARGUMENT (dialogic argument):
Even though you need to have an opinion about the issue question, you need to present it in a way that conveys that you are still thinking out your position, finding your way through a thicket of alternative ways and the complexities of the issue. You yourself may be pulled in multiple directions and may have arrived at your position after pondering different views.
· In addition, your readers’ resistance to your views means that they may be turned off if you forthrightly plunged into your claim and reasons. Therefore, a delayed-thesis argument enables you to engage your audience in a dialogic exploration of the problem before you argue a thesis.
· Instead of declaring a claim and reasons early in the argument, you need to work your way slowly to your claim/opinion, devoting a large part of the argument to examining other views, and re-creating your own inquiry into the subject.
· Never use “you,” and avoid “I.”
STRUCTURE OF A DELAYED-THESIS ARGUMENT ESSAY:
TITLE
(with two parts separated by a colon ( : ))
(don’t reveal your opinion in the title)
INTRODUCTORY PARAGRAPH:
■ Introduce the topic presented in the prompt and the controversy around it.
■ Situate the problem in the social context and point at how this issue is current.
■ Engage the audience in the problem leaning towards the opposing view.
BEGINNING OF THE DIALOGIC DISCUSSION (use at least two paragraphs with two of their reasons):
■ Explore the problem from other people’s perspectives, leaning towards the valid points of the opposing view. Show their validity
■ Keep the problem open (don’t reveal your view)
DELAYED-THESIS PARAGRAPH, or “BRIDGE” PARAGRAPH
■ This is the bridge that leads to presenting your claim/opinion in a very diplomatic way: present your claim (not your reasons yet) in a way that sounds as if you are considering that position after having posed a question that can be answered both ways.
■ Take what you have said in the previous two paragraphs and ask a question that can be answered either way. Then, you answer your way but in a tentative way, surprising your readers.
PRESENT YOUR FIRST REASON
§ Begin finding objections to your reason and addressing them.
§ Continue the dialogue presenting your side.
§ Tone down anything you say.
PRESENT YOUR SECOND REASON:
■ Begin finding objections to your reason and addressing them.
■ Continue the dialogue, presenting your side.
■ Watch your tone.
CONCLUSION:
§ Leave your resistant audience thinking about the problem and your position, and wanting to listen to you.
§ Remember that your goal is not to prove that you are right or more right than them, or that your opinion is the one that needs to prevail.
§ Your goal from beginning to end is to keep dialogue open.
Works Cited
§ Use a separate page but not a separate document.
§ Follow MLA (Minimum 6 Secondary sources + 2 or 1 (in the case of Trifles) Primary sources, all of which need to be listed in alphabetical order by last name)
GRADING RUBRIC:
CRITERIA
POINTS
FINAL GRADE
Title (complete and reflecting the content of your essay without revealing your position in the argument)
6
Good introduction presenting controversy and leaning towards the opposing view (paragraph 1)
10
Address the opposing views focusing on valid points (paragraphs 2 and 3)
10
Good use of research to show you know about the valid arguments/reasoning of those who disagree with your opinion (ethical appeal) (paragraphs 2 and 3)
10
Good “bridge” paragraph where you present your delayed claim without your reasons (paragraph 4)
6
Good support of your delayed claim with two reasons well explained (how you use research to elaborate on your points), including your answers to possible objections. This is the other side of the dialogic discussion (paragraphs 5 and 6)
10
Conclusion that leaves the audience thinking about the problem and your position and keeps the dialogue open (paragraph 7)
10
Correct use of your sources in your essay following MLA (how you incorporated them into your own style in a way that makes your essay flow naturally: Introduce quote + write quote + in-text citation of quote + Explain how quote helps support what you are saying.
10
Correct documentation of the sources used in the essay in the Works Cited page
10
Coherence and cohesion: Logical Appeal (good use of transitional words that keep all the parts of your essay connected and make it easy to follow)
4
Appropriate tone for a delayed-thesis argument (ethical appeal) and correct use of the emotional appeal (pathos)
4
Grammar, spelling, and punctuation / Correct format (following MLA)
10
