Example of an Essay That Never Uses First, Second, Third, Fourth, Etc., for Transitions But Relies on "Paragraph Links"
Stupid Reasons for Getting Married
People should get married because they are ready to do so, meaning they're mature and truly love one another, and most importantly are prepared to make the compromises and sacrifices a healthy marriage entails. However, most people get married for the wrong reasons, that is, for stupid, lame, and asinine reasons.
Alas, needy narcissists, hardly candidates for successful marriage, glom on to the most disastrous reasons for getting married and those reasons make it certain that their marriage will quickly terminate or waddle precariously along in an interminable domestic hell.
A common and compelling reason that fuels the needy into a misguided marriage is when these fragmented souls see that everyone their age has already married—their friends, brothers, sisters, and, yes, even their enemies. Overcome by what is known today as "FOMO," they feel compelled to “get with the program" so that they may not miss out on the lavish gifts bestowed upon bride and groom. Thus, the needy are rankled by envy and greed and allow their base impulses to be the driving motivation behind their marriage.
When greed is not impelling them to tie the knot, they are also chafed by a sense of being short-changed when they see their recently-married dunce of a co-worker promoted above them for presumably the added credibility that marriage afforded them. As singles, they know they will never be taken seriously at work.
If it's not a lame stab at credibility that's motivating them to get married, it's the fear that they as the years tick by they are becoming less and less attractive and their looks will no longer obscure their woeful character deficiencies as age scrunches them up into little pinch-faced, leathery imps.
A more egregious reason for marrying is to end the tormented, off-on again-off-on again relationship, which needs the official imprimatur of marriage, followed by divorce, to officially terminate the relationship. I spoke to a marriage counselor once who told me that some couples were so desperate to break-up for good that they actually got married, then divorced, for this purpose.
Other pathological reasons to marry are to find a loathsome spouse in order to spite one’s parents or to set a wedding date in order to hire a personal trainer and finally lose those thirty pounds one has been carrying for too long.
Envy, avarice, spite, and vanity fuel both needy men and woman alike. However, there is a certain type of needy man, whom we'll call the Man-Child, who finds that it is easier to marry his girlfriend than it is to have to listen to her constant nagging about their need to get married. His girlfriend’s constant harping about the fact their relationship hasn’t taken the “next logical step” presents a burden so great that marriage in comparison seems benign. Even if the Man-Child has not developed the maturity to marry, even if he isn’t sure if he’s truly in love, even if he is still inextricably linked to some former girlfriend that his current girlfriend does not know about, even if he knows in his heart of hearts that he is not hard-wired for marriage, even if he harbors a secret defect that renders him a liability to any woman, he will dismiss all of these factors and rush into a marriage in order to alleviate his current source of anxiety and suffering, which is the incessant barrage of his girlfriend’s grievances about them not being married.
Indeed, some of needy man’s worst decisions have been made in order to quell a discontented woman. The Man-Child's eagerness to quiet a woman’s discontent points to a larger defect, namely, his spinelessness, which, if left unchecked, turns him into the Go-With-the-Flow-Guy. As the name suggests, this type of man offers no resistance, even in large-scale decisions that affect his destiny. Put this man in a situation where his girlfriend, his friends, and his family are all telling him that “it’s time to get married,” and he will, as his name suggests, simply “go with the flow.” He will allow everyone else to make the wedding plans, he’ll let someone fit him for a wedding suit, he’ll allow his mother to pick out the ring, he’ll allow his fiancé to pick out the look and flavor of the wedding cake and then on the day of the wedding, he simply “shows up” with all the passion of a turnip.
The Man-Child's passivity and his aversion to argument insure marital longevity. However, there are drawbacks. Most notably, he will over time become so silent that his wife won’t even be able to get a word out of him. Over the course of their fifty-year marriage he’ll go with her to restaurants with a newspaper and read it, ignoring her. His impassivity is so great that she could tell him about the “other man” she is seeing and he wouldn’t blink an eye. At home he is equally reticent, watching TV or reading with an inexpressive, dull-eyed demeanor suggestive of a half dead lizard.
Whatever this reptilian man lacks as a social animal is made up by the fact that he is docile and is therefore non-threatening, a condition that everyone, including his wife, prefers to the passionate male beast whose strong, irreverent opinions will invariably rock the boat and deem that individual a trouble maker. The Go-With-the-Flow-Guy, on the other hand, is reliably safe and as such makes for controlling women a very good catch in spite of his tendency to be as charismatic and flavorful as a cardboard wafer.
A desperate marriage motivation exclusively owned by needy, immature men is the belief that since they have pissed off just about every other woman on the planet, they need to find refuge by marrying the only woman whom they haven’t yet thoroughly alienated—their current girlfriend. According to sports writer Rick Reilly, baseball slugger Barry Bonds’ short-lived reality show was a disgrace in part because for Reilly the reality show is “the last bastion of the scoundrel.” Likewise, for many men who have offended over 99% of the female race with their pestilent existence, marriage is the last sanctuary for the despised male who has stepped on so many women’s toes that he is, understandably, a marked man.
Therefore, these men aren’t so much getting married as much as they are enlisting in a “witness protection program.” They are after all despised and targeted by their past female enemies for all their lies and betrayals and running out of allies they see that marriage makes a good cover as they try to blend in with mainstream society and take on a role that is antithetical to their single days as lying, predatory scoundrels.
The analogy between marriage and a witness protection program is further developed when we see that for many men marriage is their final stab at earning public respectability because they are, as married men, proclaiming to the world that they have voluntarily shackled themselves with the chains of domesticity in order that they may be spared greater punishments, the bulk of which will be exacted upon by the women whom they used and manipulated for so many years.
Because it is assumed that their wives will keep them in check, their wives become, in a way, equivalent to the ankle bracelet transmitters worn by parolees who are only allowed to travel within certain parameters. Marriage anchors man close to the home and, combined with the wife’s reliable issuing of house chores and other domestic duties, the shackled man is rendered safely tethered to his “home base” where his wife can observe him sharply to make sure he doesn’t backslide into the abhorrent behavior of his past single life.
Many men will see the above analysis of marriage as proof that their fear of marriage as a prison was right all along, but what they should learn from the analogy between marriage and prison is that they are more productive, more socialized, more softened around his hard edges, and more protected, both from the outside world and from themselves by being shackled to their domestic duties. With these improvements in their lives, they have actually, within limits, attained a freedom they could never find in single life.
Chapter 5: How We Work Typed Essay Options
In a 5-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that compares the way Louis Uchitelle (342) and Matthew Crawford (368) explore the emotional life of work and how work affects our happiness, contentment, and self-esteem. To what extent does Uchitelle's argument about the psychological damage wrought by unemployment recall or help reinforce Crawford's claims about the emotional satisfactions afforded by working with your hands?
Sample Thesis
Reading Crawford and Uchitelle, we must face the terrifying fact that our sense of self is so inextricably linked to our job that failure to choose a job compatible with our personality can result in alienation, self-loathing, crippling depression, and even death.
In a 5-page essay with 3 sources, write a review of DePalma's essay that you think Uchitelle might offer. To what extent would Uchitelle's review find parallels in the social and economic hardships profiled here and his argument regarding the emotional costs of unemployment?
Sample Thesis
Uchitelle's tragic view of unemployment would compel him to see DePalma's essay as a complement to his own as DePalma's essay reinforces the learned helplessness, depression, stagnation, and family dysfunction rendered by low-income work and unemployment.
In a 5-page essay with 3 sources, write an assessment of how the messages in Catherine Rampell's essay (388) and Matthew Crawford's (368) compare with one another. Does Rampell's attempt to explode the myth of the "slacker generation" remind you in any way of Crawford's desire to rewrite the boundary between white-collar and manual labor? Do these writers challenge such stereotypes in order to say similar or different things about the meaning and value of work?
In a 5-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that compares the way DePalma (353) profiles immigrant workers with the way Ehrenreich (380) explores the working poor. Based on the argument she makes here, which specific aspects of DePalma's essay do you think Ehrenreich would find most persuasive? Why?
In a 5-page essay with 3 sources, show how McClelland's examination of the psychological pressures she experienced on the job (394) compare to the portrait of the unemployed Louis Uchitelle (342) presents? Do you find any similarities or parallels in the ways each essay explores this issue?
In a 5-page essay with 3 sources, develop an argumentative thesis that addresses whether it is appropriate, or not, to use the business model described in Hochschild's essay (418) as a way of making the "mutually beneficial transaction" between parents and a surrogate mother. Consider Barbara Ehrenreich's essay (380) about how the experience of being poor complicates this business model.
Outlining Your Essay
Press tab key to make subdivisions.
Press shift-tab to reverse subdivisions.
Here's a good example.
Here's an outline template.
Outline
Jefferino Manderlin
Instructor McMahon
English 1A, Section____
Date
American Inequality Is the Mother of Obesity
Introduction:
Thesis: The obesity in crisis has little to do with “sin,” “mental illness,” or “character defect” and everything to do with America’s economic inequality, which exacts the most devastating causes of obesity.
Body Paragraphs
- Topic Sentence stated as a complete sentence
A. Phrase that explains a proof
1. Specific support like a statistic
2. Specific support
MLA Outline
Jack Manderlin
Professor McMahon
English 1A Section _______
March 17, 20XX
Catastrophic Obesity Is Mostly About Economic Injustice
Introduction: I will write about the mass delusion we have regarding obesity, which is that its causes are too many to pinpoint, when in fact there is a dominant cause to obesity: poverty.
Thesis: Thesis: The obesity in crisis has little to do with “sin,” “mental illness,” or “character defect” and everything to do with America’s economic inequality, which exacts the most devastating causes of obesity.
I. Food insecure people often live fast-paced lives that don’t allow for cooking real food.
II. Food insecure are more prone to making bad eating decisions along with all other kinds of decisions.
III. Food insecure communities suffer from stress and hormonal changes that result in obesity.
IV. Another obesity risk for food insecure communities is a lack of education.
V. Perhaps the highest risk factor for the food insecure is that they lack the money and access to nutritional food.
VI. My opponents will counter-argue that the poor choose to be poor and live in impoverished neighborhoods and in general the poor make “bad decisions.”
Conclusion: I will restate my thesis in more powerful form.
"The Consequences--Undoing Sanity" by Louis Uchitelle
One. Is it enough to say unemployment kills self-esteem?
No, it's not. That's an understatement. Unemployment kills the former self. We become a ghost of our former self. Stacy Brown missed her husband, the one who had a job. The new one was insufferable.
Erin suffers from learned helplessness, the sense that he is trapped in a cycle of futility that compels him to give up on getting a job, himself, his wife, and Life.
Studies show after three years without a job we become unemployable.
We read that for men especially, but women also, "incapacitating illness" takes over the mind and soul.
We further read about a close correlation between unemployment and suicide rates.
Even in the face of being a good person and a good worker, the unemployed take a "blow" that "erodes human capital" and eats away at them like a pernicious, ongoing disease.
You've heard the cliche: "I'll define you not how you fall off the horse, but what you do AFTER you fall off the horse."
But for the unemployed, falling off the horse is easy compared to the shame and self-loathing that follows. How do you get back on the horse again when you're hit with a "blow" to the guts?
Two. What happens to the stay-at-home dad?
Rather than connect with his family, a huge barrier separates him and his family as he withdraws into his world of shame and depression.
We read that men don't communicate their feelings of depression well, so they just suffer a slow rot in isolation.
The American Psychiatric Association has officially declared being laid-off has dangerous to your mental health.
The disease spreads from the laid-off parent to the children who too are overcome by shame, depression, and low self-esteem.
Lexicon
- Anhedonia: you reach a state of unhappiness from which there is no return. Once you wear this quality on your sleeve, you become unemployable.
- What’s harder on a man, begging for love or work? Work. Humiliation results in anhedonia.
- Inertia (resistance to change); paralysis that feeds on itself.
- Male vs. female hardwiring and their different effects in the workplace: Women are more adaptable, take more risks, and seek change. In contrast, men like routine, comfort, and stability.
- Unemployment is referred to as the “acuteness of the blow." One person in the essay is so traumatized he cannot face the anxieties, the rejection, and the sense of insignificance all over again, so he sabotages future prospects.
- The double hit of unemployment: The feeling of being worthless coupled with self-blame. Let's add a third hit: You lose your medical coverage.
- “Finessing layoffs”: The attempt to “finesse” a layoff is futile.
- The layoff is followed by a breaking of emotional bonds with others; it has a rippling effect. The person withdraws into depression.
- Despondence and apathy set in.
- Ennui (the cycle: despondence, apathy and inertia, ennui, and then anhedonia)
- Husband’s unemployment devastates the wife: She has to carry her soul, and his, up the mountain. She can't do it forever. Eventually, she gives up. Divorce is the common result.
- “Going postal”
- Unemployment spreads shame through the entire family. We read that the rippling effects spread in unforgiving fashion. Children lose confidence that they can achieve. They fear they will fail like their parents.
- Shell-shocked: You become so traumatized that you build a defensive wall that is worse than the problem that made you shell-shocked in the first place. (describe the student with the scowl on her face)
Summary of Unemployment Effects
1. family withdraws from one another
2. children are "emotional sponges" and internalize and absorb their parents' emotional trauma.
3. alcoholism increases
4. divorce increases
5. suicide (murder-suicide in Wilmington)
6. long-term stigma
7. long-term low self-esteem and self-blame
8. long-term physical ailments including hypertension, ulcers, chronic fatigue, etc.
9. women reach out for social support more than men so women tend to fare better.
10. Vicious cycle of unemployment: You become depressed, which makes you less employable, which makes you more depressed, and so on and so on. "Layoffs deplete life."
Writing Prompt from Page 352
Some of the psychological or emotional effects of being laid off that Uchitelle lists are low self-esteem, nervousness, inability to form close bonds, and fear of trying new things. Do you think it is reasonable for employers to consider the emotional costs of layoffs in determining whether to let workers go? How might an employer address the criticisms that Uchitelle is making? Ultimately, is a company responsible for the emotional well-being of its employees? Why or why not?
McMahon's problem with the above prompt from the book is that while I agree it would be great if employers followed the prompt's recommendations, it's doubtful it would ever happen, so what's the point of writing the essay?
Your Government Owes You a Job from The Nation
Five Economic Reforms Millennials Should be Fighting For
The above probably won't happen since we live in a corporatocracy.
"Fifteen Years on the Bottom Rung" by Anthony DePalma
One. How is this essay about class divisions in America?
John Zannikos represents upward mobility: You come to America with hardly anything and you become a somebody. Zannikos is one of the three Greek owners.
In contrast, for the Mexican immigrants who work in the back of the kitchen the job is a dead end. Despite Zannikos' efforts to help them, "they risk becoming stuck in a permanent underclass of the poor, the unskilled, and the uneducated."
Some immigrants do make it, but the competition is staggering. Every year 400,000 immigrants arrive in the US to make a living.
Juan Manuel Peralta is one such man. He arrived in America 40 years after Zannikos, and opportunities are more difficult.
"But monumental changes in the economy and in attitudes toward immigrants have made it far less likely that Peralta and his children will experience the same upward mobility as Zannikos and his family."
The biggest obstacle is immigration status. The "illegal" designation shuts many doors to opportunities in jobs and education. Remember, Zannikos arrived in the US 40 years earlier with legal papers. He made it. Now the legal obstacles are higher.
Zannikos, however, is under the belief that today's immigrants have it easier because "today they give you credit cards in the mail."
But la pobreza, the poor, don't receive such mailings, Peralta reminds us.
Today's poor are scared their illegal status will be discovered, so they don't organize their labor; they hide.
Today's poor with illegal status can be exploited by landlords and employers.
We learn that in many Latino cultures, family expects financial help from those who are working in the US. I've heard this first-hand at Puente's Noche de Consejos (Night of Consultation or Advice). "Everyone wants my money. The guilt if I don't give the money will kill me."
Two. Why is legal status so important?
We read that within a few years, incomes rise 20 percent and English speaking skills improve greatly (361).
So we see a business incentive for employers wanting their employees to remain in illegal status: The employers can pay the workers less.
Essay Prompt from Page 367
How much of DePalma's discussion here reminds you of what Louis Uchitelle says about the kinds of psychic harm job-related struggles can inflict? Write a review of DePalma's essay that you think Uchitelle might offer. To what extent would Uchitelle's review find parallels in the social and economic hardships profiled here and his argument regarding the emotional costs of unemployment?
When you're beaten down by unemployment and poverty, you succumb to a provisional, short-term existence with no long-term vision for a happy, meaningful future.
This existence is perhaps best explained Linda Tirado's famous viral essay.
There's no way to structure this coherently. They are random observations that might help explain the mental processes. But often, I think that we look at the academic problems of poverty and have no idea of the why. We know the what and the how, and we can see systemic problems, but it's rare to have a poor person actually explain it on their own behalf. So this is me doing that, sort of.
Rest is a luxury for the rich. I get up at 6AM, go to school (I have a full course load, but I only have to go to two in-person classes) then work, then I get the kids, then I pick up my husband, then I have half an hour to change and go to Job 2. I get home from that at around 12:30AM, then I have the rest of my classes and work to tend to. I'm in bed by 3. This isn't every day, I have two days off a week from each of my obligations. I use that time to clean the house and soothe Mr. Martini and see the kids for longer than an hour and catch up on schoolwork. Those nights I'm in bed by midnight, but if I go to bed too early I won't be able to stay up the other nights because I'll fuck my pattern up, and I drive an hour home from Job 2 so I can't afford to be sleepy. I never get a day off from work unless I am fairly sick. It doesn't leave you much room to think about what you are doing, only to attend to the next thing and the next. Planning isn't in the mix.
When I got pregnant the first time, I was living in a weekly motel. I had a minifridge with no freezer and a microwave. I was on WIC. I ate peanut butter from the jar and frozen burritos because they were 12/$2. Had I had a stove, I couldn't have made beef burritos that cheaply. And I needed the meat, I was pregnant. I might not have had any prenatal care, but I am intelligent enough to eat protein and iron whilst knocked up.
I know how to cook. I had to take Home Ec to graduate high school. Most people on my level didn't. Broccoli is intimidating. You have to have a working stove, and pots, and spices, and you'll have to do the dishes no matter how tired you are or they'll attract bugs. It is a huge new skill for a lot of people. That's not great, but it's true. And if you fuck it up, you could make your family sick. We have learned not to try too hard to be middle-class. It never works out well and always makes you feel worse for having tried and failed yet again. Better not to try. It makes more sense to get food that you know will be palatable and cheap and that keeps well. Junk food is a pleasure that we are allowed to have; why would we give that up? We have very few of them.
The closest Planned Parenthood to me is three hours. That's a lot of money in gas. Lots of women can't afford that, and even if you live near one you probably don't want to be seen coming in and out in a lot of areas. We're aware that we are not "having kids," we're "breeding." We have kids for much the same reasons that I imagine rich people do. Urge to propagate and all. Nobody likes poor people procreating, but they judge abortion even harder.
Convenience food is just that. And we are not allowed many conveniences. Especially since the Patriot Act passed, it's hard to get a bank account. But without one, you spend a lot of time figuring out where to cash a check and get money orders to pay bills. Most motels now have a no-credit-card-no-room policy. I wandered around SF for five hours in the rain once with nearly a thousand dollars on me and could not rent a room even if I gave them a $500 cash deposit and surrendered my cell phone to the desk to hold as surety.
Nobody gives enough thought to depression. You have to understand that we know that we will never not feel tired. We will never feel hopeful. We will never get a vacation. Ever. We know that the very act of being poor guarantees that we will never not be poor. It doesn't give us much reason to improve ourselves. We don't apply for jobs because we know we can't afford to look nice enough to hold them. I would make a super legal secretary, but I've been turned down more than once because I "don't fit the image of the firm," which is a nice way of saying "gtfo, pov." I am good enough to cook the food, hidden away in the kitchen, but my boss won't make me a server because I don't "fit the corporate image." I am not beautiful. I have missing teeth and skin that looks like it will when you live on B12 and coffee and nicotine and no sleep. Beauty is a thing you get when you can afford it, and that's how you get the job that you need in order to be beautiful. There isn't much point trying.
Cooking attracts roaches. Nobody realizes that. I've spent a lot of hours impaling roach bodies and leaving them out on toothpick pikes to discourage others from entering. It doesn't work, but is amusing.
"Free" only exists for rich people. It's great that there's a bowl of condoms at my school, but most poor people will never set foot on a college campus. We don't belong there. There's a clinic? Great! There's still a copay. We're not going. Besides, all they'll tell you at the clinic is that you need to see a specialist, which seriously? Might as well be located on Mars for how accessible it is. "Low-cost" and "sliding scale" sounds like "money you have to spend" to me, and they can't actually help you anyway.
I smoke. It's expensive. It's also the best option. You see, I am always, always exhausted. It's a stimulant. When I am too tired to walk one more step, I can smoke and go for another hour. When I am enraged and beaten down and incapable of accomplishing one more thing, I can smoke and I feel a little better, just for a minute. It is the only relaxation I am allowed. It is not a good decision, but it is the only one that I have access to. It is the only thing I have found that keeps me from collapsing or exploding.
I make a lot of poor financial decisions. None of them matter, in the long term. I will never not be poor, so what does it matter if I don't pay a thing and a half this week instead of just one thing? It's not like the sacrifice will result in improved circumstances; the thing holding me back isn't that I blow five bucks at Wendy's. It's that now that I have proven that I am a Poor Person that is all that I am or ever will be. It is not worth it to me to live a bleak life devoid of small pleasures so that one day I can make a single large purchase. I will never have large pleasures to hold on to. There's a certain pull to live what bits of life you can while there's money in your pocket, because no matter how responsible you are you will be broke in three days anyway. When you never have enough money it ceases to have meaning. I imagine having a lot of it is the same thing.
Poverty is bleak and cuts off your long-term brain. It's why you see people with four different babydaddies instead of one. You grab a bit of connection wherever you can to survive. You have no idea how strong the pull to feel worthwhile is. It's more basic than food. You go to these people who make you feel lovely for an hour that one time, and that's all you get. You're probably not compatible with them for anything long-term, but right this minute they can make you feel powerful and valuable. It does not matter what will happen in a month. Whatever happens in a month is probably going to be just about as indifferent as whatever happened today or last week. None of it matters. We don't plan long-term because if we do we'll just get our hearts broken. It's best not to hope. You just take what you can get as you spot it.
I am not asking for sympathy. I am just trying to explain, on a human level, how it is that people make what look from the outside like awful decisions. This is what our lives are like, and here are our defense mechanisms, and here is why we think differently. It's certainly self-defeating, but it's safer. That's all. I hope it helps make sense of it.
Additions have been made to the update below to reflect the responses received.
UPDATE: The response to this piece is overwhelming. I have had a lot of people ask to use my work. Please do. Share it with the world if you found value in it. Please link back if you can. If you are teaching, I am happy to discuss this with or clarify for you, and you can freely use this piece in your classes. Please do let me know where you teach. You can reach me on Twitter, @killermartinis. I set up an email at killermartinisbook@ gmail as well.
This piece has gone fully viral. People have been asking me to write, and how they can help. After enough people tried to send me paypal money, I set up a gofundme. Find it here. It promptly went insane. I have raised my typical yearly income as of this update. I have no idea what to say except thank you. I am going to speak with some money people who will make sure that I can't fuck this up, and I will use it to do good things with.
I've also set up a blog, which I hope you will find here.
Understand that I wrote this as an example of the thought process that we struggle with. Most of us are clinically depressed, and we do not get therapy and medication and support. We get told to get over it. And we find ways to cope. I am not saying that people live without hope entirely; that is not human nature. But these are the thoughts that are never too far away, that creep up on us every chance they get, that prey on our better judgement when we are tired and stressed and weakened. We maintain a constant vigil against these thoughts, because we are afraid that if we speak them aloud or even articulate them in our heads they will become unmanageably real.
Thank you for reading. I am glad people find value in it. Because I am getting tired of people not reading this and then commenting anyway, I am making a few things clear: not all of this piece is about me. That is why I said that they were observations. And this piece is not all of me: that is why I said that they were random observations rather than complete ones. If you really have to urge me to abort or keep my knees closed or wonder whether I can fax you my citizenship documents or if I really in fact have been poor because I know multisyllabic words, I would like to ask that you read the comments and see whether anyone has made your point in the particular fashion you intend to. It is not that I mind trolls so much, it's that they're getting repetitive and if you have to say nothing I hope you can at least do it in an entertaining fashion.
If, however, you simply are curious about something and actually want to have a conversation, I do not mind repeating myself because those conversations are valuable and not actually repetitive. They tend to be very specific to the asker, and I am happy to shed any light I can. I do not mind honest questions. They are why I wrote this piece.
Thank you all, so much. I don't know what life will look like next week, and for once that's a good thing. And I have you to thank.
Essay Option:
In a 4-page essay, explain how Linda Tirado's essay complements DePalma's.
Sample Thesis
DePalma and Tirado's essays address the major causes behind the cycle of poverty, which include ____________, ___________,____________, and _______________.
Improved Thesis (framed in an argument)
While I concede that showing initiative to lift oneself out of poverty is a virtue, it would appear that the argument of free will to move up the economic ladder collapses in the face of evidence abundant in DePalma and Tirado's essays. This evidence includes _________, __________, _____________, and ______________.
MLA Outline
Mike Manderlin
Instructor McMahon
English 1A Section ______
March XX
It Is Vile and Morally Bankrupt to Accuse the Poor of “Choosing” to be Poor
Thesis: Linda Tirado’s viral essay and Anthony DePalma’s “Fifteen Years on the Bottom Rung” show that the sentiments against the poor are rooted in willful ignorance and selfish delusion.
I. The poor through no fault of their own suffer the consequences of sleep and rest deprivation.
II. The poor have no time, money or energy for self-improvement and job training.
III. The poor don’t have time or access for healthy food, which also compromises their general wellbeing.
IV. Helplessness reinforces bad financial decisions.
V. Poverty cuts off long-term goals.
Conclusion: Restate your thesis in more dramatic form and show the broader importance of your argument.
Grammar: Dangling Modifiers
Rewrite the following sentences to correct the dangling modifiers:
1. Larded with greasy fries, the waiter served me burnt steak.
2. Mr. McMahon returned her essay with a wide grin.
3. To finish by the 4 P.M. deadline, the computer keyboard blazed with the student's fast typing fingers.
4. Chocolate frosted with caramel sauce, John devoured the cupcakes.
5. Tapping the desk with his fingers, the school clock's hands moved too slowly before recess.
6. Showering the onion rings with garlic salt, his sodium count spiked.
7. The girl walked her poodle in high heels.
8. Struggling with the tight jeans, the fabric ripped and made an embarrassing sound.
9. Turning off the bedroom lights, the long, hard day finally came to an end.
10. Piled high above the wash machine, I decided I had better do a load of laundry.
11. Standing on the hotel balcony, the ocean view was stunning.
12. Running across the floor, the rug slipped and I collapsed.
13. Writing anxiously, the essay looked littered with errors.
14. Mortified by my loss to my opponents, my baseball uniform sagged.
15. Hungry after a day of football, the stack of peanut butter sandwiches on the table quickly disappeared.
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