They Say, I Say Chapters 4 and 5

• A thesis is the claim about your topic/issue that you are making in the introduction of your essay and supporting in the body of your essay.
• Every paragraph in your essay should work together with all of the other paragraphs to support/explain your thesis.
• This means that your thesis is one of the most important sentences in your essay.

• What do you think about what have you learned about the issue you set out to explore? You might consider questions like…
• Why are things the way they are when it comes to representation/diversity in the area of the media you researched?
• What are the consequences of things being this way?
• What should be done differently in your area of pop culture?
• If you are researching a controversial issue/portrayal, do you agree with the criticism of the piece/genre of pop culture? Why or why not?

• Make a claim that invites further discussion.
– A thesis should not be a statement of indisputable fact.
– If your thesis puts forwards reasons for or consequences of an indisputable fact, that is acceptable. You claim is not that the fact itself is true. Instead, your claim is about some aspect of the
“hows and whys” surrounding that fact.
• Be clear and explicit.
– Do not make your reader guess what you are trying to prove.
State what you will prove clearly and specifically in your thesis.
• Be found near the end of your introduction paragraph.
– In US academic writing, you are expected to place your thesis near the end of your introduction. Some of the writers we read may place their thesis statements differently, but remember that they are writing for different audiences in different situations. Your situation requires you to place your thesis in the introduction.

• “Mickey Mouse as Icon:” Thesis placed last, on p.
9. (The sentence that starts with “The point is”)
• “More Representation for LGBT People of Color,” because it is a news/magazine opinion piece, states its thesis in the very first sentence: “A lack of diversity on TV and in Hollywood…” and restates the claim in the last sentence of the 5 th full paragraph: “The lack of visibility is also pronounced…”

• Do I have to know what my thesis is before I start writing a draft?
– Answer: Do you have to? No. Should you? That’s up to you as a writer.
– Knowing your thesis mean you understand exactly what you’re trying to prove, and this will give you direction as you write your rough draft.
– Some students start writing to discover a thesis in the
process of drafting. This is perfectly ok, but be prepared to get rid of sections/paragraphs that don’t fit the thesis you decide on.

• Can my thesis be a question?
– Answer: Absolutely not. A thesis is a thesis statement. It is a
claim that reflects your informed point of view about the issue.
That means that a thesis might be the answer to a question you ask in your introduction, but it is not a question itself.
• My thesis seems very long. Is that ok?
– Because thesis statements are trying to shrink down the argument of an essay into one sentence, they tend to get long.
If you think your thesis is too long, ask me or your peers for a second opinion.
– Thesis statements often contain the skeleton of an outline for your essay. This type of thesis briefly lists the major points that will be discussed more fully in the essay.

• If I were to re-write “TV Diversity: Whose Job Is It Anyway?” as a academic essay, the thesis might look something like this:
• African Americans are often represented poorly or not at all on television for two reasons : first, while there may be notable exceptions, there is a general lack of diversity among the people who make decisions about which stories to tell and which actors to cast ; second, there are misconceptions about the profitability of shows with diverse or primarily black casts that make networks unwilling to take chances on these shows .
• There will probably be at least two or three paragraphs supporting and explaining the blue section, and at least two or three paragraphs supporting and explaining the green section.
• Notice that this thesis is tackling the “why” question when it comes to lack of representation.

• No. If you are still researching and deciding what claim you want to make about your issue, you aren’t ready to write your thesis.
After you do the in-class activity, keep researching/reading/brainstorming/drafting so that you can get ready.

• As you write essay #1, you should ask yourself if you are agreeing, disagreeing, or doing a little of both as you read what you have found. As you interact with the ideas of others in your texts, there are two things you need to remember:
– Place yourself clearly in respect to other arguments by either agreeing, disagreeing, or doing a mixture of both.
– It is not enough just to say that you agree/disagree.
What else do you need to do? The answer is to explain
why and make your agreement or disagreement unique to you.

• The authors of They Say, I Say call the phrases that help distinguish the ideas of your sources from your own ideas “voice markers.” Using these markers will help your reader to know when you are referring to ideas that you do not necessarily agree with.

Introduces article, summarizes point to be discussed, gives credit to author using in-text citation.
Template from page
60 of TSIS.
Voice marker, identifying that these aren’t my ideas.
Further explanation of why I disagree.
• In the article “Why the Odds are Still Stacked against women in Hollywood,” the author interviews several women who believe that women are partially to blame for the gender imbalance in Hollywood, citing women’s tendency not to self-promote and to seek approval in a way that hurts their careers (Masters).
However, by focusing on what women are doing wrong, the article overlooks the deeper problem of a business that seems to deny equal opportunity to women no matter what they do. If a woman acts boldly, “like a man,” in order to be successful, she risks getting a reputation as bossy and hard to work with, thereby missing out on opportunities. But to hear the women Masters interviews tell it , if a woman acts feminine and accommodating, she loses big opportunities to those who are willing to be more pushy. No woman should be forced to make this choice with no right answer, especially in an industry that profits so much from female consumers.

• Option 1
– If one of the sources you will cite in your Essay #1 about diversity says something that you disagree with, and you have that source available to you tonight, use one of the templates from p. 60 of They Say, I Say to make a quote sandwich and explain your disagreement. (A bit of advice: start your quote sandwich with a bit of lead-up/context for the argument.)
• Option 2
– If you do not have any of your sources from your essay with you, find a quote or an idea that you disagree with from any of the essays we have read so far in the class and make your quote sandwich about the idea you choose. You should still use a template from They Say, I Say p. 60

Introduces article, quotes point to be discussed, gives credit to author using in-text citation.
Template from page 64 of TSIS.
Further explanation of why I agree, adding something to the conversation.
• Deryl Hannah argues that representations of gay and lesbian people of color are important because to portray the LBGT community and its allies as entirely white would “inaccurately promote a world in which it would appear that LGBT people of color do not exist, or that acceptance of LGBT people is exclusive to white populations” (Hannah). I agree with
Hannah that inaccurate portrayals of the diversity within the gay and lesbian community are troubling, a point that needs emphasizing because many people still believe that minority communities are backward and intolerant when it comes to their own LBGT members. To portray white communities as “enlightened” and accepting and minority communities as oblivious at best and bigoted at worst perpetuates old, ugly racial stereotypes.

• Option 1
– If one of the sources you will cite in your Essay #1 about diversity says something that you agree with, and you have that source available to you tonight, use one of the templates from p. 62 or 64 of They Say, I Say to make a quote sandwich and explain your disagreement. (A bit of advice: start your quote sandwich with a bit of lead-up/context for the argument.)
• Option 2
– If you do not have any of your sources from your essay with you tonight, find a quote or an idea that you agree with from any of the essays we have read so far in the class and make your quote sandwich about the idea you choose. You should still use a template from They Say, I Say p. 62 or 64.

Introduces article, quotes
• In the article “Tyler Perry’s Money Machine,”
Eugene Robinson argues that even though point to be discussed, gives credit to author using intext citation.
Template from page 65 of
Tyler Perry has been called formulaic, he is successful because he is one of a very small number of film makers who is making films that portray African Americans as “people relating to other people” (347). Although I agree with Robinson up to a point, and I certainly see the importance of films in which minority characters are fully rounded, not
TSIS.
Further explanation of the point on which I disagree.
stereotypes, I cannot accept his overriding assumption that African-American viewers are
“settling” for Perry’s films only because there is nothing better that portrays them positively.
In this time of dwindling ticket sales and increasing ticket prices, Perry’s overwhelmingly black audience must be getting something more out of his movies than positive representation and cliché humor, as Robinson suggests.

• Option 1
– If one of the sources you will cite in your Essay #1 about diversity says something that you agree with parts of, but disagree with other parts, and you have that source available to you tonight, use one of the templates from p. 65-66 of They Say,
I Say to make a quote sandwich and explain your disagreement.
(A bit of advice: start your quote sandwich with a bit of leadup/context for the argument.)
• Option 2
– If you do not have any of your sources from your essay with you tonight, find a quote or an idea that you are of two minds about from any of the essays we have read so far in the class and make your quote sandwich about the idea you choose. You should still use a template from They Say, I Say p. 65-66.