Thesis Essay Outline
I. Introduction
II. Body Paragraphs
A. Quotations
III. Conclusion
Introduction
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Author and Title in the opening
sentence
General background information on
literature piece
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Examples include short plot
summary, character development,
description of theme(s), and
relation to other topics
Should be relatively brief and
concise: 5 to 7 sentences
Should relate to thesis statement
Thesis statement placed in final
sentence of introduction
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Example:
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In Mark Twain’s novel, The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn, a young boy named
Huck Finn decides to escape the confines
of society and flees down the Mississippi
River with Jim, an escaped slave. As they
both travel down the river, there emerges a
definite conflict between the shore and the
river. For example, on shore both Jim and
Huck experience the most base of human
emotions: greed, pride, murder, and
revenge; moreover, freedom and happiness
are experienced while on the river. Both
Jim and Huck only feel truly free while on
the water and nervous and afraid while on
shore.
Body Paragraphs
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Review of Basic
Paragraph Template
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Topic Sentence: explains
what entire paragraph is
about
Body: supporting sentences
that explain, prove,
describe, or illustrate topic
sentence
Clincher: restates topic
sentence in a slightly
different manner
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Thesis Body
Paragraph
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Topic Sentence should
relate specifically back to
one aspect of your thesis
statement, not the whole
thesis
Need to prove your thesis
through specific examples
and quotes
Clincher Statement should
relate to topic sentence and
so also thesis
Sample Body Paragraph
Thesis: The three themes present in the movie “The Princess Bride”
are revenge, true love, and good versus evil.
The first theme of “The Princess Bride,” revenge, can be
seen as the character Inigo Montoya searches constantly for the six
fingered man who killed his father many years ago. As a twelve year
old boy, Inigo witnessed his father’s murder at the hands of a six
fingered man over a sword made by Inigo’s father, and in trying to
defend his father, was scarred on his face as a lesson taught to him by
the six fingered man (p. **). During the adventure Inigo asks
everyone, including Wesley, if he has six fingers. Revenge has driven
him for the last 15 years or so on one quest: to track down the six
fingered man. When Inigo discovers that Count Rouen is the six
fingered man, he confronts him and says, “Hello, my name is Inigo
Montoya. You killed my father; prepare to die” (p. **). Even though
he is wounded three times by Count Rouen, Inigo Montoya’s revenge
drives him to continue the fight where he eventually kills Count
Rouen (p. **). With his feeling of revenge finally quenched, Inigo
now has nowhere to turn since he says, “I have been in the revenge
business for so long that I don’t know what to do” (p. **). He
eventually takes over as the Dread Pirate Roberts. Inigo Montoya’s
quest to find the six fingered man who killed his father displays the
theme of revenge in the movie “The Princess Bride.”
Topic sentence
relates to one
aspect of thesis
Indirect quote: no
quotations
necessary
Direct quote:
quotations
necessary
Indirect quotation
Direct quotation
Clincher statement:
restates topic sentence
and hence relates to
thesis
Direct Quotations
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Direct quotes: any quotation taken word for
word from the text
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“Minister Dimmesdale stepped upon the
scaffold for the first time” (p. 172).
Ma Joad was very desperate when she faced off
against the family by saying, “We ain’t abreaking the fambly up” (p. 234).
“’Richard, get in here this minute!’ Granny
yelled at me when I hid underneath the bed
from Grandpa” (p. 97).
Indirect Quotations

Indirect quotes: used when you reference a
scene or event from the work in detail
without using direct quotes (summarizing)
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Huck and Tom attempted to free Jim from the
shed by having Jim write notes on rocks, saw
through the bedpost, dig under the shed, and
face the snakes and rats Tom threw into the
shed (p. 23-27).
Block Quotations
Block quotes: used when direct
quotes are more than three typed lines
No quotation marks are needed; the
blocked quote is single spaced and
indented two tabs from left margin;
page number(s) still needed
Sample Block Quote
In Jack London’s The Call of the Wild, the author sets the atmosphere of hardship
for the reader immediately in the first paragraph of the story:
Notice: Block quote
is tabbed in, is single
spaced, includes the
page number, and
doesn’t utilize
quotation marks.
Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway. The trees had
been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to
lean towards each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence
reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without
movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness.
There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness
- a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the sphinx, a laughter cold as the
frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and
incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort
of life. It was the Wild, the savage, Northland Wild (p. 1).
Conclusion
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Restate thesis in first
sentence
Summarize each main
point of thesis in one
or two sentences
Conclude the essay
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Restate thesis again
Link to current events
Link to other literature
Link to personal lives
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Sample Conclusion
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The three themes present in the movie
“The Princess Bride” are revenge, true
love, and good versus evil. Revenge is
demonstrated when Inigo Momtoya has
searched many years for the six fingered
man who killed his father and finally kills
him to avenge his father’s death. When
Wesley returns as the Dread Pirate
Roberts to keep his beloved Buttercup
from marrying the Prince, the viewer sees
the theme of true love. Finally, good
versus evil is present throughout the
movie as the protagonists must battle
rous’s, the evil Prince, Vinzinni, and
Count Rouen. All three of these themes
relate to many issues seen in the viewers’
lives today.