Chapter 1: Time is on Your Side
Thinking Ahead…
When you revise an observational paragraph into your unique and controversial reading of a text, you will need to capture the original text’s main argument and highlight the article’s main points (including any key concepts or theories) while eliminating all extraneous or minor details. Review the observational paragraph you wrote and consider how you might revise it into a purposeful thesis that analyzes the author’s complex argument.
In the next chapter we will be working on revising your observational paragraph into a 2 storey thesis statement. By this we mean that you want to do a little more than summarize or simply restate what is in the text. You want your readers to understand right away that this is your reading of the text that follows from the evidence within the text that you have chosen. You are not summarizing, rather you are persuading your readers to see what they can learn about a text by reading it your way.