Expat Living: Assay at an Essay

Writing that Essay

It's all so logical...

(Image from Free Dictionary)

My most recent language column appeared in yesterday's "Expat Living" section of the Korea Herald (April 23, 2008), a newspaper -- as you will recall -- that does not allow links to specific articles, which provides me at least one good reason for posting the article here on Gypsy Scholar.

You'll find no poetry in this particular language column . . . sniff. Yes, it's sad, but I was asked to tone down the poetry since most people don't generally read poetry because they find it difficult to understand.

Well, that's what they said. They also said that people are bitter, cling to their guns, their religion, their xenophobia (oops, foreign, elitist word), and their anti-trade sentiment (um . . . somewhat of a mixed message, that). Who ever knew that poetry could be so alienating.

So, anyway, I wrote the following, very prosaic piece on 'logical' writing:

"The what and the why of theses"

Because students learn best through writing, I require my students in nearly every course to write a research essay supporting a thesis.

People often complain about difficulty in composing their essay's thesis statement, but the basic statement is really quite simple. On some topic that you have chosen, ask yourself two questions: "what?" and "why?"

That might sound obscure, so let me provide an example.

Put yourself in Aristotle's shoes and suppose that you want to write some piece debunking Socrates, your philosophical rival's teacher, whom your rival portrays as having faced death courageously by anticipating an afterlife.

Reflecting upon these views, you ask yourself what you think and then, because you are Aristotle, you reply with the claim that Socrates is mortal. Next, you ask yourself why you think so, and you give as your reason the fact that Socrates is human.

You then compose your thesis statement by conjoining your claim to your reason: "Socrates is mortal because he is human."

Note that this has the following logical form: A is B because A is C.

That sounds fairly reasonable, but a concessive clause might further establish your reasonability: "Although Plato defends the soul's immortality, Socrates is mortal because he is human."

Not an especially impressive example, perhaps, but one of my students has already accounted for the statement's intellectual deficiencies by noting that we often fall short of using our intellectual gifts to their fullest:

Although humans have good brains, many people don't use their brains well because they don't recognize the importance of using their brains well.

To help this student use his own brain well, I have tidied his grammar and spelling, but I suspect that he needs to do some hard, brainier thinking before this thesis statement can capably sustain a semester-length research essay.

I will grant that his thesis statement has the proper logical form, but that alone does not suffice, as two more examples demonstrate. For instance, one student, perhaps having considered the oft-expressed comparison of sports to battle, takes that comparison perceptibly further:

Although military strategy and position are different from soccer strategy and position, soccer is similar to war because it has strategy and position.

I rather like this argument's redundancy, though I am not quite clear on what "position" means . . . but at least my insufficient understanding means that I still have something to learn from this student.

The other example -- a thesis statement that I rather fancy -- comes from a student with ecological concerns:

Although many people say that it is not too late to prevent global warming, the earth will be destroyed because it is already getting hotter.

I have noticed this myself. March was noticeably warmer than February, and if this trend continues through April and beyond, I expect that we will be suffering considerable heat by early July and utter destruction by early August.

If this student and I are truly lucky, the foretold destruction might occur even before grading.

Jeffery is a professor at Kyung Hee University and can be reached through his blog Gypsy Scholar at gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com - Ed.

Regular readers will recognize that I have again cannibalized a previous Gypsy Scholar post. Once again, I defend myself with the justification that the work put into my blogging ought to have some practical benefit for me.

So there.