Alternate Intros/Theses for Sample Essay:
Evaluate the following examples as Strong, Satisfactory, or Weak intro/thesis combinations. Be
ready to discuss your evaluations!
1. What is the real cost of war? Is it the loss of life? The loss of land or culture? When looking at
the Civil War photograph A Cavalry Orderly, it becomes clear that war wears us down until we
lose ourselves, so that even if we survive or fight for the winning side, we end up with an
emptiness that cannot ever be healed. [Very weak on both counts. Please don’t use rhetorical
questions (or fragments) in your academic writing. You do not need some clever “hook,” either.
Just give us a brief introduction that sets up what you will say in a useful manner. Also, the use
of first person is not helpful in this intro/thesis. Please stick to third person unless the effect of
using first or second is vital to your paper.]
2. War photography tends to focus on scenes of horror, on mangled bodies caught in barbed wire,
soldiers carrying wounded comrades, the flash and bloom of a mushroom cloud, or other such
dramatic moments. But there is a subtler, and in some ways more disturbing side of war captured
in photographs like The Cavalry Orderly. Here, in a quiet moment after a battle, a soldier poses
with his horse, but without any sense of victory, pride, or relief, only blank resignation and the
silence of incalculable loss. [This is a pretty strong example. It is like a more specific version of
#5. Instead of starting with generalizations about the Civil War, this one at least focuses on war
photography, and makes an interesting contrast between usual war photographs and this one. A
very nice thesis at the end of this one! Eloquent and even a little poetic while still being clear.]
3. Stereographs, two pictures taken of the same subject at slightly different angles, look almost
three-dimensional when seen through a stereoscope, and create an eerie illusion of life that must
have seemed magical when they became popular during the Civil War. Frequently, however, this
marvel of technology seemed designed to transport the viewer not to a place of wonder, but to a
dark and disquieting reality few had to confront face to face. An excellent example of this trend
is a cracked and faded stereograph photo from 1862, which captured a soldier standing in a
desolate field, holding the rein of an exhausted-looking horse. Both man and horse are
anonymous, not just because the stereograph caption gives them no names, but because war
seems to have stripped them of almost all individuality, leaving them husks of their former selves,
hopeless and hollow. [Rather weak intro paired with an acceptable thesis. This stereograph
information, while true and interesting, is not useful for the paper unless you were going to talk
about the stereograph aspect of the photograph in the body of the paper. Right now it is just a
bunch of fluff taking up space. This intro is too long for a 2-page paper.]
4. Alexander Gardner made a name for himself photographing the battles and the dead of the Civil
War. A Cavalry Orderly, however, is a strange aberration in Gardner’s portfolio, as it includes no
contorted corpses, no macabre scene of slaughter. It is a simple photograph of a soldier standing
beside his horse, but the anguish that rises like a scream from those other pictures still echoes
here in the pair’s grim and forlorn silence. [This is the best of the intro/thesis combinations. A
strong A. It is like a more specific version of #2. Such an intro isn’t always possible, but this
works very well.]
5. The Civil War rent the nation asunder. Brother fought against brother. Sons fought against
fathers. It was a time of great strife, where in the course of trying to win the war, many felt as if
they had to sacrifice not only life or limb, but morals and a sense of self as well. A teacher was
now forced to shoot at boys young enough to have been in his classroom a month before. The
army took good, kind men, dressed them uniforms, trained them to march in rank and file, and
spat them out as automatons who blindly followed orders, no longer individuals who made
decisions about right and wrong for themselves. This systematic stripping away of self and
softness and hope is on clear display in the photograph A Cavalry Orderly, as a soldier stands
numbly at attention beside his horse, bereft of expression. [Very weak intro paired with an
acceptable thesis. Please don’t start your paper so generally. I don’t need your generalizations
about the Civil War. This intro is so broad at the beginning that it is only marginally better than
starting “since the beginning of time…” This is also way too long. Keep it short and relevant.]
6. War is often a strange combination of furious moments filled with fear and adrenaline and then
dull stretches of boredom. However, even the periods of inaction thrum with the threat of
approaching danger. The photograph A Cavalry Orderly captures the essence of this troubled
calm. In the lull after battle, a soldier and his horse pose uneasily for the camera, as if fearing the
enemy will return while they stand frozen at attention. [Not amazing, but satisfactory intro and
thesis. A bit general about war in the opening, but at least it doesn’t go on for very long about it.
The thesis and intro, however, do sort of go off in a direction slightly different from the actual
paper, which was not so focused on fear and apprehension.]