Instructor Contact Information
E-mail: EBranch@kaplan.edu
AIM address: EleBranch
Office Hours:
Mondays & Thursdays 9:00 p.m. to
10:00 p.m.
And by appointment
Unit 3 Agenda
1. Drafting a Working
Thesis Statement?
2. Creating Effective
Paragraphs
Getting There…
•
Choose a subject you know and feel
passionately about…
• Choose a subject you know little about and
want to more about…
• Choose a subject that has been in the news
recently
• Develop a research question
• Use the KND Chart
Develop a Research Question
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Should the law protect people who fall prey to Ponzi and other
scams, or should the law just "let the buyer beware"?
What causes more societal harm: white collar crime or street
crime?
Is civil commitment a violation of a sex offender’s civil rights?
Should tougher laws target juvenile youth gangs?
Should prostitution be legalized?
Should marijuana be legalized?
What are some workable solutions for the problem of youth
gangs? prison gangs? international gangs?
Should more legal assistance be given to child victims of
sexual assault?
Should pregnant women who use illicit drugs be held criminally
responsible?
What is a K-N-D Chart?
The K-N-D Chart is a way of
organizing information to help you
clarify what you KNOW, what you
NEED to know, and what you need
to DO in identifying the subject
matter and the specific research
question(s) that will help you
develop a working thesis statement.
The K-N-D Chart
What We
Know
What We
Need to Know
What We
Need to Do
What is a Working Thesis?
Once you’ve chosen a topic, you need to
decide what you’re going to say about it.
Think of the working thesis as a
hypothesis to be tested, as an idea that
will change and become clearer as you
write.
A working thesis should have two parts:
the topic itself and your claim about the
topic.
Sample Thesis Statement
Prostitution should be legalized
because it can potentially
benefit the economy, free up
courts to address more serious
crimes, and reduce crime rates.
Sample Thesis Statement
Tougher laws should target youth gangs because
the number of these gangs is on the rise and the
nature of the violence in which they participate is
a growing threat to society.
Sample Thesis Statement
While white collar crime is not always
considered a crime, its impact on
society is far more criminal than
street crime because of the number
of people who are often hurt
physically and/or financially and the
potential that those people will not
recover.
Remember, A Thesis...
1. Takes a Stance
2. Is Debatable (Think controversy!)
3. Is Specific
4. Is Properly Limited
5. Passes the “so what? test (IT MATTERS)
6. Passes the “duh!” test (It is not OBVIOUS)
Building Effective
Paragraphs
Effective paragraphs are:
1. Unified, or focused on one central idea
2. Coherent, or providing details and examples to
support the central idea
3. Well-developed, or giving enough information for
us to evaluate or even care about the writer’s
assertions.
Classic Paragraph Pattern
Topic Sentence (states the
main idea of the whole
paragraph and usually
comes first.)
Support (backs up your topic
sentence using facts,
examples, statistics to help
you prove your point.)
A wrap-up sentence (a final
sentence that pulls together
the whole paragraph.)
The Topic Sentence
•
All paragraphs have a main idea usually
stated in the topic sentence.
•
The topic sentence is usually the first or
second sentence in the paragraph, but it can also
be placed at the end of the paragraph.
•
Sentences that do not DIRECTLY support the
topic sentence should be deleted or moved to a
more appropriate place.
1. Hypnosis has none of the dangerous side
effects of drugs that relieve tension.
2. Tension-relieving drugs can cause weight
loss or gain, illness or even death.
3. Hypnosis is far superior to drugs for
relieving tension.
4. Hypnosis is nonaddicting.
5. Most of the drugs that relieve tension do
foster addiction.
6.Tension-relieving drugs are expensive.
7. Hypnosis is inexpensive even for people
who have not mastered self-hypnosis.
• Hypnosis is far superior to drugs for
relieving tension.
• Hypnosis is inexpensive even for people
who have mastered self-hypnosis.
• Hypnosis has none of the dangerous side
effects of drugs that relieve tension.
• Hypnosis is nonaddicting.
• Most of the drugs that relieve tension do
foster addiction.
• Tension relieving drugs can cause weight
loss or gain, illness, or even death.
• Tension-relieving drugs are expensive.
The Importance of Transitions
See p. 55 in RFW
• Transitions are bridges in your writing that take the
reader from one idea to the next.
•
You need transitions between paragraphs that show
the movement from one point to the next. Usually
the transition between paragraphs comes in the
first sentence of the new paragraph.
• You also need transitions to connect sentences
within a paragraph.
• You create transitions by using transition
words/phrases, or synonyms, and substituting
pronouns for nouns.
Common transition
words/phrases
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Also
For example
In addition
However
Finally
As a result
Furthermore
In fact
Previously
Nevertheless
Instead
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Likewise
On the contrary
Therefore
Later
Above
Since
Then
Specifically
In short
Thus
Although
Next
Hypnosis is far superior to drugs for relieving
tension. One reason is that hypnosis is
inexpensive even for people who have
mastered self-hypnosis. Moreover,
hypnosis has none of the dangerous side
effects of drugs that relieve tension. In
other words, it is not addictive. On the
other hand, most of the drugs that relieve
tension do foster addiction. They also
cause weight loss or gain, illness, or even
death and are expensive.