English 100 - Professor Mason Boyer
Developing a Claim (Thesis) and Support (Reasons) for Essay #3
STEP ONE: develop your CLAIM/THESIS
First, you need to settle on a claim/thesis/main idea. Remember, the thesis should make 2 things
clear: your subject (the thing or things) your essay is about, and your main point about that thing
(those things).
The subject is usually established by the prompt, and remember that you should assume a
prompt’s words are chosen very carefully. You always want to ask yourself: What is the
prompt asking me to write about?
For Essay #3, the thing the prompt is asking you about is: efforts to regulate hate speech. Also,
as discussed in class, there are two main different categories of regulation, so you may choose to
narrow your focus a bit. So, for your subject for Essay #3, you have essentially 3 choices:
Efforts to regulate hate speech
Legal efforts to regulate hate speech
Social efforts to regulate hate speech
This is up to you. Focus on one category or the other (the 2nd or 3rd options), or go with the
fist option if your evaluation of both categories is the same, or you could even combine both the
2nd and 3rd (example below). This prompt allows a bit of variety here, so you must decide for
yourself what you want to focus on while staying within the boundaries of the prompt.
Now, you have the foundation of a sentence (a grammatical subject - “efforts” in all three
options) and the foundation of a thesis/claim (the subject of the writing overall).
Next, you need a verb to complete the sentence and a claim/main point about the subject to
focus/unify your writing.
In this case, the prompt is demanding that you evaluate (judge) efforts to regulate hate speech.
Whereas persuasion, like Essay #2, is very limited (should or should not), evaluation is much
more varied. There are thousands of ways you could evaluate/judge something:
X is right/wrong. X is good/bad. X is proper/improper. X is legal/illegal. X is
effective/ineffective. X is cool/lame. X is fun/boring. X is constitutional/unconstitutional.
This is not a complete list of possibilities; there are literally thousands of ways to evaluate
something. All possibilities will not be viable in all situations. For example, would be rather
odd to claim that Efforts to regulate hate speech are amazing! Yes, amazing is an evaluative
judgment, but that seems like a rather, umm, silly way to evaluate that particular subject. See, I
judged “amazing” to be a “silly” way to judge the subject of Essay #3.
So, decide how you want to judge either of the three subject options listed above:
Efforts to regulate hate speech are a good idea.
Efforts to regulate hate speech would be ineffective.
Legal efforts to regulate hate speech are unconstitutional.
Legal efforts to regulate hate speech are appropriate.
Social efforts to regulate hate speech are healthy for our society.
Social efforts to regulate hate speech are counterproductive.
It is possible to get more complex with your thesis/claim. As it is possible to have multiple
judgments about the same thing (you might think somebody is simultaneously a jerk and
attractive, for example), it is possible to make a complex judgment about efforts to regulate hate
speech:
Efforts to regulate hate speech are proper but ineffective.
(2 judgments: proper/ineffective)
Efforts to regulate hate speech are unconstitutional but would be helpful.
(2 judgments: unconstitutional/helpful)
Or, you could have differing judgments about the different categories of efforts to regulate hate
speech:
Social efforts to regulate hate speech are appropriate, but legal efforts to regulate hate
speech would cause more harm than good.
Notice: 1) the grammatical subject is identical in every above example, and is identical to the
carefully chosen phrasing of the prompt itself. This is not required, but is generally a very
practical and effective way to handle prompt-based writing! 2) each above example contains at
least one evaluative opnion/judgement.
So, you need to figure out what you want to say about the given subject, and there are many
many possibilities available to you while still staying within the defined boundaries of the
prompt. This is an important choice because every other sentence in your essay should be
focused on explaining/proving this thesis/claim (global unity), and every evaluation is a bit
different. A claim that efforts to regulate hate speech are effective needs to be proven (body
paras) differently than a claim that efforts to regulate hate speech are proper, for example.
STEP TWO: SUPPORT your claim/thesis
Once you have decided on your main idea, you can start developing your support.
Remember: an argumentative claim is primarily supported by REASONS. The hierarchy should
generally look like this:
CLAIM (thesis) <-- REASONS (topic sentences) <-- EVIDENCE
Your claim is your main opinion. Your reasons support your claim. Make your reasons
convincing by proving them with evidence.
Reasons generally answer the question “Why?”
Regulating hate speech is a good idea. Why? One reason efforts to regulate hate
speech
are a good idea is because doing so would help to reduce instances of hate crimes.
Fill
out the rest of the paragraph with explanation of and evidence for the reason.
Regulating hate speech is a bad idea. Why? One reason efforts to regulate hate speech
are a bad idea is because very few people can even agree on what is or is not to be
considered hate speech. Fill out the rest of the paragraph with explanations of and
evidence for the stated reason.
Why is it proper? Why is it helpful? Why is it justified? Why is it moral? Why is it a good
thing for us to try to do?
Why is it improper? Why is it unhelpful? Why is it unjustified? Why is it immoral? Why is
it a bad thing for us to try to do?
Tip: read Gerald Uelmen’s article for a good list of reasons for both sides. Might get some good
ideas for body paragraphs (reasons) from the article.
And, of course, one reason per paragraph (local unity)!
You will also need at least one counterargument. Opposing reasons answer the question: “Why
would a reasonable person disagree with me?”
My claim: Efforts to regulate hate speech are healthy for society.
Opposing reason: Some people might argue that efforts to regulate hate speech are
unhealthy for society because____________________.
My claim: Efforts to regulate hate speech are destructive to social relations.
Opposing reason: Those who believe that efforts to regulate hate speech are constructive
for society say that ________________________.
Also, keep in mind that if you make a complex claim, you will need to prove all of it in your
essay. For example:
Claim: Efforts to regulate hate speech are immoral but effective.
Body 1: reason it is immoral
Body 2: another reason it is immoral
Body 3: counterargument: a reason others think it is moral
Body 4: reason it is effective
Body 5: another reason it is effective
Body 6: counterargument: a reason others think it is ineffective
Claim: Social efforts to regulate hate speech are permissable, but legal efforts to regulate
hate speech are impermissable.
Body 1: reason social efforts are permissable
Body 2: counterargument: a reason some would say it is impermissable
Body 3: reason legal efforts are impremissable
Body 4: counterargument: a reason others would claim legal efforts to be permissable
Notice 2 things in the above examples of more complex arguments: 1) in each, the claim makes
two evaluative statements, and both are addressed in the body paragraphs outline; 2) each
example follows parallelism: the body paragraphs address the different evaluations in the same
order (parallel) that they appear in the thesis.
Of course, you will make your life easier by going with a single evaluation in your claim: I just
want to show you that it is possible to get much more nuanced, if you would like to, as this is a
difficult and complex subject and may have mixed feelings (evaluative judgments) about it.
Also, the two more complex example outlines above are not your only options. There are many
many many ways to put this all together -- I am trying to show you a couple fairly
straightforward possibilities, applying our most important class concepts.
Final Word: this might look complex and perhaps intimidating, but, at the end of the day, keep
in mind that success in formal writing all boils down to about 4 things:
1) is there a clear (and proper, when there is a prompt) main idea, and does the whole essay stay
tightly unified with that main idea? -GLOBAL UNITY
2) do your supporting paragraphs clearly and tightly focus on one point at a time? -LOCAL
UNITY
3) are your various points arranged in a logical, smoothly flowing sequence from the reader’s
point of view? -FLOW
4) do you explain your various points clearly and thoroughly and provide specific details,
examples, and evidence to illustrate and prove them to the reader? -DEVELOPMENT