The purpose of a writing class is to develop a meaningful thesis, direct or implied, that will generate a compelling essay. Most importantly, a meaningful thesis will have a strong emotional connection between you and the material. In fact, if you don’t have a “fire in your belly” to write the paper, your essay will be nothing more than a limp document, a perfunctory exercise in futility. A successful thesis will also be intellectually challenging and afford a complexity worthy of college-level writing. Thirdly, the successful thesis will be demonstrable, which means it can be supported by examples and illustrations in a recognizable organizational design.
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Example of a Personal Anecdote for Your Introduction:
I was at this college party back when I was in my early twenties and an attractive girl who knew me from Introduction to Art class walked up to me, not because she liked me, but because she needed to get something off her chest. She said, “I need to tell you something. You’re not the kind of person people gravitate to. You have this face that makes people feel stupid and you look like you’re always inhaling foul odors.”
Then keeping her head turned toward me, she walked backwards across the room and put her arm around this evenly tanned guy who was the type of person presumably free of my sour expression and she smiled contemptuously at me as if to say, “See you later, loser.” And to add to the insult, she made this face at me as if being in my presence had afflicted her with a dark cloud of stench and now she was leaving that stench and entering a more fragrant world where everyone smiled at each other because everyone smelled like fresh lilac.
I was stunned by the raw disdain she expressed toward me and I was equally stunned by the truth that I didn’t want to hear: I do have a way of looking at people like I’m judging them severely and that I’m smelling foul odors from them as if I disapprove of their entire existence.
I don’t think I asked to be this way. Look at my childhood photos and look at me today and it’s the same face: a brooding creature forced to endure This Mistake We Call Life. My parents tried to cheer me up when I was a kid. They took me to circuses, carnivals, puppet shows, but these entertainments only made me worse. Frustrated by my gloominess, my father would say, “Jesus, son, it looks like a birdy went poo-poo on your lip.”
My father was taken back perhaps by my churlish attitude, which he didn’t want to see in me. Thankfully, over time I became a little less angry so that whereas before I ranked a 10 on the Pissed-Off Scale, I have over the years tempered my ranking to a 6 or a 7. This isn't ideal, of course, but it's better than raging full-volume. In life we take improvement wherever we can get it. We may not be totally free of our afflictions, but we can say we've made progress.
The same could be said of Shin, who escaped a North Korean prison, so wonderfully chronicled in Escape from Camp 14. Our professor Jeff McMahon has asked us to argue whether or not Shin has achieved mental freedom or is still a prisoner of his past demons for our first research paper. The answer to McMahon's inquiry is a bit of both, for while Shin continues to wrestle arduously with the demons of his past, we can make a compelling case that his new life outside of prison points to one of freedom evidenced by his growing self-awareness, his devotion to using his platform to expose humanitarian crises throughout the world, and by examining his struggle, not only as a personal pathology, but as a universal affliction, which connects Shin with the entire human race.
North Korean refugees tend to be paranoid, depressed, distrusful, and afflicted with nighmares. (nightmare-afflicted)
A person brutalized in the North Korean camps, subject to torture, ordered to snitch on the prisoners, and not getting ample food is doomed to a life of PTSD. (afflicted with starvation)
Example of thesis statements with parallel structure errors:
The implementation of the death penalty is barbaric, cruel and evidences racism against non-whites. (racist)
While I don't personally use marijuana, this common drug should be legalized to reduce crime, to allow law enforcement to focus on real criminal activity, and its many benefits for people with health issues. (to provide relief for those who are suffering with health problems.)
Applying Parallelism to Two of Our Essay Topics
Forces that Impede Shin from Enjoying Freedom
One. Ignorance of love, Shine never had it or experienced it. See pages, 6,7: He was not allowed contact with a woman.
Two. He struggles to trust others, to reach out to others. See page 10. On page 167, we see he hides in a cocoon, refusing to join society.
Three. People struggle to trust him. No fact checking system for claims about North Korea. And Shin has changed his story, especially the story about the death of his mother. See page 10.
Four. He suffers from survival shame. See page 13. "Why did I make it while everyone else has to suffer?"
Five. On page 18 we see he was raised to hate himself, to see himself as the product of his parents' sinful union. On page 181 we see that he suffers from "contaminated identity" and is "preoccupied with shame, self-loathing, and a sense of failure."
Six. He was raised to be indifferent about history so he doesn't learn about real history when he moves to South Korea. He just zones out on the internet. Acclimation to a new environment means getting to know its history. See page 163.
Seven. On page 164 we see he suffers from paranoia, which South Koreans interpret as rude or weird behavior, so he remains isolated.
Eight. On pages 164 and 165, we see he has panic attacks that make everyday life almost impossible. Chronic nightmares remind him of his horror. See page 166.
Nine. On page 167, we see he has no work ethic since work is associated with punishment in North Korea. A strong work ethic is essential in most countries, including South Korea.
Ten. On page 167 we see he has a lack of family connections and this reinforces his isolation.
Class Exercise: Get into groups of 2 or 3 and write a thesis with 4 mapping components that show parallel structure.
A logical introduction would be to define PTSD in the general sense and then transition to its specifica application to Shin.