SAMPLE PARAGRAPHS
Introductory paragraph:
This paragraph should include your thesis statement, prominently
placed (either the first or the last sentence). The rest of the paragraph
should make clear what you mean by the thesis (explain technical
terms briefly if they are not immediately obvious, give some BRIEF
historical background, describe the logical basis for the thesis) and
what type of evidence you plan to use to prove your thesis (don't list
specific sources unless you relied very heavily on one particular
source, but in general indicate whether your paper is based on
primary or secondary sources, and whether a particular type of
evidence, such as legal documents or poetry or modern statistical
studies, played an important role in your analysis).
Example: When the French scholar Abbo of Fleury arrived in
England in about 985, he was ill-prepared for the cultural differences
that he found, despite previous contacts between his home
monastery of Fleury and English monasteries. As revealed in his own
writings and the writings of his contemporaries in England and
France, the contrast between the two cultures was great. Abbo was
continuing a pattern of long-standing contact between Fleury and the
monasteries of the tenth-century English monastic revival. His own
monastery was an old foundation at the political and economic center
of the western Carolingian Empire (by this time the kingdom of
France), on the busy upper-reaches of the Loire River. In contrast,
the newly founded house of Ramsey lay in the middle of the East
Anglian fenlands, its location chosen for its remoteness from English
population centers. Although Abbo spoke affectionately of his
students at Ramsey, he described his time in England as an exile,
and after fewer than two years begged the abbot of Fleury to call him
back to France.
Evidentiary paragraph:
This paragraph should present one argument necessary for proving
your thesis along with supporting evidence. Summarize or quote
accurately and give citations of your sources (whether summarized or
quoted). Explain how/why the evidence in this paragraph supports
your argument and make clear how the argument supports your
overall thesis.
Example: Related to this change in physical environment was a
change in diet. English diet was (and remains) quite different from
that of France. Although Abbo never wrote about his diet in England,
he must have discussed it with his fellow monks at Fleury after his
return. In fact, the different diet is one of the few details provided
about Abbo's stay in England by his biographer, the southern
Frankish monk Aimoinus of Fleury. More than ten years after Abbo's
return to France, Aimoinus described the abbot as fat but excused
him from any suspicion of gluttony. Abbo's weight-gain came not from
eating well but from English cooking, for "in the regions across the
sea, the unaccustomed quality of the food of pilgrims and the drinking
of fermented beverages (decocta potio) turned his body to fat."(1) Far
north of the wine-producing regions of France, the English could offer
the visiting scholar only their fattening beer or ale with meals and
before the evening reading, though he might be treated to wine on
special days.(2) Other dietary changes can be hypothesized from the
lists vocabulary exercises of Aelfric Bata. He includes a long list of
fish available along England's waterways, including the ubiquitous
eel. The Continental staples of oil and wine, however, would have to
be imported. A boy in an English monastery might expect to eat
bread and butter (rather than oil) or perhaps "dripping, new cheese,
or lard," accompanied by meat, vegetables, eggs, fish, cheese, or
beans, with ale or water to wash it down. Wine was expensive and
would have been reserved for the old and wise.(3) When Abbo
attended feasts, such as the gathering at Dunstan's residence, he
might expect more courses and fancier but equally caloric fare. Feast
food might have included bacon, venison, pork, or beef, as well as
milk.(4)
Notes to evidentiary paragraph: (1) Aimoinus, Vita s Abbonis
ch.11. (2) Ann Hagen, A Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Food: Processing
and Consumption (revised edition 1998, rpt. Norfolk, England: AngloSaxon Books, 2002), pp. 69-70. (3) Aelfric Bata, lfrics Colloquies, ed.
G. N. Garmonsway (London: Methuen, 1939), pp. 27, 33, and 46-47,
and Hagen, Handbook, p. 71. (4) Hagen, Handbook, pp. 71 and 74.
Both sample paragraphs adapted from "Culture Shock: The
Experience of Abbo of Fleury in England" by Elizabeth Dachowski
(originally presented at the International Congress of Medieval
Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 2002).