Chapter 3: The Full Three Storey Thesis
Your Turn!
Return to the diagnostic essay that you wrote and self-evaluated in response to “The Plot to Privatize Common Knowledge” in the introduction to this textbook.
Activity
First, following the steps detailed below, revise your diagnostic essay into a two-storey thesis focusing on the components laid out and reaffirmed throughout this chapter.
First storey: Identify author’s audience and genre and point to the best two pieces of evidence from the text.
Second storey: Use the components of the first storey to focus your proposed analysis of the author’s complex argument. How is the author trying to convince his audience to consider his perspective?
Now that we have built a two-storey thesis, we are ready to build a third storey. Considering what you believe to be the larger scope of the essay, answer the following questions.
- Is the author arguing that something must be done? Why?
- Is the author offering a solution to a problem raised earlier in the text?
- Is the author warning of specific further consequences that will arise from a problem raised earlier in the text?
- What does the author want the reader to think or do after reading the text?
Now add a third storey to your own thesis. Use other pieces of evidence from the text to support that third storey. Remember that your third storey should not repeat the second storey but rather add to it. The third storey expands the scope of the argument to consider the complete text and the author’s larger purpose.