9.5–Writing Your First Draft

Once you’ve identified a promising topic for your essay and have identified sources that you plan to incorporate into your essay, it’s time to start drafting. While we often refer to writing as a process, it’s more accurate to refer to writing as a set of processes. The singular word “process” suggests that there is one set of steps that we must complete in a particular order, and once we move through the process from the first step all the way to the last step, we are finished. In reality, writing is iterative or recursive, meaning that we might revisit or return to steps within this process as we move from brainstorming ideas to submitting the final draft. For instance, after writing your first draft, you might need to return to the process of developing and refining your thesis to make sure that it accurately reflects the evidence you’ve presented throughout your paper. Thinking of writing as a set of processes rather than just a singular process is also useful because the steps you take while writing your essay —and the order in which you take them—might not be exactly the same steps that your classmates use to write their essays. The most important aspect of mastering the writing process is finding a set of processes that works for you!

Developing a Thesis

A thesis statement articulates the central idea or main focus of your essay. It is a sentence (or sometimes a couple of sentences in a longer paper) that presents your argument. Usually, the thesis comes at the end of the first paragraph of the paper. A thesis should have two parts, a topic and a comment, so that readers will both know what your paper is about and be able to identify the specific claim that you are making about your chosen topic.

Sample thesis: Topic (what you’re writing about) + comment (why it’s important to write about the topic or what you want to say about it).

Remember that a good thesis statement should also be debatable. No one wants to read an essay in which you make an argument for a claim that is an established fact or for an idea that no one would disagree with. Similarly, you want to make sure that your thesis presents an argument that readers will care about and that changes the way they might think about a given text. In other words, your thesis should matter. If you find yourself asking “so what?” after drafting your thesis, you probably need to revise and refine! Lastly, a thesis statement should be appropriate in scope for the length of the paper. It would be nearly impossible to develop a convincing argument about the use of punctuation in Emily Dickinson’s poetry in a 1,000-word essay, but an essay of that length is well suited to making a claim about Dickinson’s unique use of punctuation in a single poem, perhaps “I’ll tell you how the Sun rose.” A narrow thesis, perhaps even narrower than you might initially anticipate when developing your working thesis, will allow you to develop your argument thoroughly and support it with concrete evidence (i.e., specific quotations and details from the text).

Keep in mind that your thesis is like a thread running through your essay. When hemming a pair of pants, for example, you do not always see the thread as you move the needle through the fabric, stitching from one side to the other. When examining one side of the fabric, you will see a disconnected line; however, there is always a consistent thread holding the hem together. Your thesis functions in the same way as you ‘thread’ it throughout your essay using topic sentences and keywords that relate back to the concepts in your thesis. Some of your body paragraphs might include anecdotal evidence related to your thesis, definitions of key concepts, comparisons to similar concepts, or further details that clarify your thesis.

If you think of your thesis first as a research question, then develop it into a statement that might change as you draft several times, you will see how your thesis should evolve to reflect the research you discover. While your thesis should come in the introductory section of your essay, sometimes you may find it elsewhere in your first draft. Oftentimes, in fact, you may review your first draft and find that your thesis appears most clearly in your concluding paragraph and that this final paragraph may even work better as your introductory paragraph. Keep an open mind and be prepared to revise in order to clarify your argument and strengthen your entire essay.

Identifying Problematic Thesis Statements

Now that we’ve discussed the features of a strong thesis, it’s important to identify some of the most common characteristics of weak thesis statements and to consider how to address these weaknesses.

Many students learned the five-paragraph essay form in middle or high school. When using this form, writers draft an introductory paragraph that concludes with a three-pronged thesis, then write three body paragraphs with one paragraph devoted to each of the three points mentioned in the thesis, and then wrap up the paper with a conclusion paragraph. Many students had great success employing this form in writing assignments and standardized tests prior to college, so why give it up now? Simply put, a five-paragraph essay structure does not accommodate the habits of mind and rhetorical strategies that we need to develop as growing writers. Complexity, uncertainty, tension, risk, and revision are all parts of writing, and the five-paragraph essay structure encourages us only to examine evidence to the degree that we can slot that evidence into one of our three predetermined categories/paragraphs. Good writing occurs when we consider the ways in which evidence confirms—but also complicates—our ideas. Additionally, five-paragraph essays are usually quite boring to read. When you tell your readers in the thesis statement the three main ideas that your paper will discuss, readers have little motivation to read beyond the thesis. You have effectively revealed all your evidence in the first paragraph and have confirmed to your readers that there will be no complications or complexity in your ideas.

Thesis statements that are overly broad, that do not accurately reflect the arguments and evidence of the rest of the paper, or that make a claim with which no one would disagree are the other most common types of weak thesis statements. Consider the following thesis statement problems:

• Too broad or vague: If you can’t successfully make your argument with the available time, space, and resources, you’ve probably made your thesis too broad. Think about narrowing the scope of your argument or qualifying your claim so that you will be successful in proving your claim.
• Simply factual instead of debatable: If you have a hard time imagining anyone disagreeing with your thesis, you’ve probably developed a thesis that is not debatable. Interrogating the interesting, the unusual, the unexpected, and the seemingly out of place in your chosen text(s) will help you move toward a claim that is debatable and that will inspire your readers to join in the conversation with you.
• Not relevant: If you write your working thesis, draft your paper, and never revisit your thesis during the process of revision, there is a high likelihood that your thesis does not accurately reflect the rest of the paper. As we encounter and make sense of evidence throughout the process of writing a draft, our understanding of our topic grows and becomes increasingly nuanced. Make sure that your thesis is always reflecting your most up-to-date understanding of your topic by revisiting your thesis often while drafting and revising.

Below you’ll find three problematic thesis statements. Which of the above problems does each thesis statement struggle with, and how might you revise each in an attempt to remedy that problem (keeping in mind that the following might present more than one problem)?

Is this first thesis statement debatable? If it isn’t, what might the author add to make it so?

This second thesis statement presents three topics (images of music, lovesickness, and madness). Already, we are able to predict that the essay that follows will have a body paragraph dedicated to each of these topics. If that essay’s scope is ~1000 words, it is highly unlikely that the essay writer can actually develop an interesting argument about all three of these topics in the space provided. Yet even if they could, the thesis statement contains no comment on any of the topics. Yes, Shakespeare includes these images in his play, but so what? Why should we care? What’s interesting about them? What is the rationale for the writer including these three topics in the same essay? How are they related to one another?

This third thesis statement is way too broad and is also limited to a topic without elaborating on the significance of that topic. The essay writer needs to focus this thesis and include a comment about the topic. In narrowing the focus of the thesis and in making sure that it has a comment, they might try something like the following:

In Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare emphasizes the limited opportunities afforded to early modern women through Viola’s crossdressing and disguise as the page boy Cesario.

Now the topic is narrow and there is a comment about the topic; the writer is no longer discussing gender in an overly broad way but is instead focused on how Shakespeare’s play engages with ideas about gender through Viola’s disguise as Cesario. There is plenty to argue about both for and against this thesis, but now it is debatable, and we will expect the essay writer to demonstrate to us how they analyze evidence in order to support this thesis.

Organizing Your Essay

Once you’ve developed a working thesis, it’s time to consider the organization or structure of your essay. A good organizational structure is paramount in academic writing; without clear and thoughtful organization, your essay will not be as persuasive as it could be. A strong essay will have its evidence arranged into paragraphs that are cohesive and that flow logically. To make sure your paper is organized effectively, you might create an outline in which you organize your thesis, sub-topics, and evidence using a series of headings and subheadings. Depending on the assignment, your instructor might require such an outline. You might also choose to sketch out your paper’s organization in a less formal way; writing down all the points you plan to address or even drawing a schematic in which you group points and evidence together will ensure that you have a plan of action for the paper’s overall organization and for the organization of each paragraph.

Essays typically have three sections: an introduction, a body (composed of body paragraphs), and a conclusion. You might not necessarily draft the paragraphs in this order, but it’s important to know how each section of the essay functions so that you can make sure each and every paragraph is in its most effective place by the time that you submit your final draft.

Introduction

The introduction, as the name suggests, should introduce readers to your topic, contextualize the topic, and present your thesis as clearly as possible. The introduction will often be a single paragraph, but in longer papers, two or even three paragraphs might make up the introductory section. In any case, the thesis should come at the end of the introduction, regardless of whether the introduction is a single paragraph or a small cluster of paragraphs. As you set out to write your introduction, make sure that you do not start your paper with an overly broad statement. Claims about all of human history or universal experiences at the beginning of your essay don’t give your readers any sense of what your paper is really about. Skip the “since the beginning of time” or “in that day and age” type statements and get straight to the topic of the paper. A well-crafted introduction will pique its readers’ interest without having to depend on sweeping statements or empty truisms.

Body

Body paragraphs in literary essays function like pieces of a puzzle. When you put all of the pieces of the puzzle together, you get a clear picture of the entire argument AND you are able to see how the pieces connect together. Each body paragraph provides a necessary and discrete part of the overall argument, and no two body paragraphs deal with the same sub-topic. To extend the puzzle simile, each piece of the puzzle provides a unique piece of the overall picture of the puzzle’ design, and no two puzzle pieces should be identical.

So, how do you build a good body paragraph? Try to remember focus, coherence, and content!

First, make sure that the entire paragraph has one, and only one, focus. The topic sentence should accurately communicate the main point of the paragraph, and all of the content in the paragraph should clearly connect back to the topic sentence. In this way, the topic sentence functions for the paragraph similarly to how the thesis functions for the entire essay.

Second, create coherence within the paragraph so that readers understand the logical flow of your argument. You might ask yourself why a particular sentence follows the one before it or why you presented evidence in a specific order. You can enhance the coherence of your paragraph by using transitional words and phrases to signal to readers the relationships between individual sentences or ideas. For example, using the transition “however” alerts readers that you are preparing to say something that contrasts with the idea communicated in the previous sentence. Similarly, the use of “moreover” or “additionally” lets readers know that you are adding more detail, or extra layers, to the ideas articulated in the previous sentence.

Lastly, ensure that the paragraph has enough content. A body paragraph needs several sentences to develop sufficiently. Provide ample evidence in each paragraph, and make sure you follow each piece of evidence with clear analysis. This evidence and analysis will function as content of the body paragraph, which will in turn ensure the idea presented in your topic sentence is thoroughly developed. When writing a literary essay, remember to include specific quotations from the text (and analysis) that support your topic sentence (and therefore support your thesis).

Developing Body Paragraphs

In developing the paragraphs that make up the body of your essay, you will consider several elements: topic sentences, evidence, analysis, and transitions.

Topic Sentences

As described above, each body paragraph should begin with a topic sentence. The topic sentence’s most obvious function is to present the topic of the body paragraph. Each body paragraph should have one (and only one) main idea, and the topic sentence should clearly communicate this main idea.

The more closely we examine good topic sentences, however, the more we realize that topic sentences are the heavy lifters of body paragraphs. Good topic sentences allow your evidence to work effectively and allow your argument to develop clearly and logically. In addition to presenting the main topic of the paragraph, topic sentences should also clarify the relationship between the paper’s thesis and the specific evidence explored within the paragraph. In other words, a good topic sentence should signpost the specific part of the thesis that an individual body paragraph addresses. Lastly, a good topic sentence should aid in the transition process as readers move from the preceding paragraph to the paragraph that the topic sentences opens.

Let’s return to the revised thesis sentence we considered above: “In Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare emphasizes the limited opportunities afforded to early modern women through Viola’s crossdressing and disguise as the page boy Cesario.” The topic sentence for your first body paragraph should signal to readers the movement from the introductory section of the paper to the body section of the paper. Given the thesis, the topic sentence could be something like the following: “Audiences first encounter Viola as a shipwrecked maiden with no male companion in a foreign land, and Shakespeare highlights in this opening scene that Viola’s gender puts her in a precarious, and potentially dangerous, position.” Similarly, the topic sentence for a body paragraph that follows another body paragraph should help elucidate the connection between, or logical progression from, one main idea to the next. For example, the body paragraph that follows the paragraph about the potential dangers Viola’s gender presents when she first arrives in Illyria might mention these challenges and then make the move to the freedom that her disguise as the page boy Cesario quickly affords her in Illyria: “While Viola initially was unable to find a space into which she could safely integrate herself in Illyria, she quickly finds safety, autonomy, and companionship once she dons her disguise as the male Cesario.” We would then expect the body of this paragraph to develop the idea of Viola’s newfound freedom in Illyria once disguised as Cesario and such development will then depend on the writer’s use of evidence, analysis, and transitions, as discussed in detail in the following sections.

Evidence

No matter the texts you analyze and the literary conversations into which you enter, your use of evidence serves the crucial function of supporting your argument. Without convincing evidence, every argument crumbles. Depending on the type of writing you are doing, evidence can come in a variety of forms including, but not limited to, data or statistics, anecdotes or stories, expert opinions, examples, and definitions. When writing a literary essay, you will frequently use textual evidence in which you draw specific quotations from and create summaries or paraphrases of small sections of your chosen primary text(s). Further, if you include research in your essay, you similarly will draw appropriate quotations from or create summaries or paraphrases of ideas from the secondary sources you find during your research to provide evidence in support of your thesis. Note: Each and every time you quote, summarize, or paraphrase a text, you must cite that text clearly and correctly, both in the body of your essay in parenthetical citations and at the end of your essay on the Works Cited page.

Summary, paraphrase, and quotation each serve different functions, so make sure that you choose carefully your method of incorporating evidence into your paper.

When you summarize, you use your own words to communicate the main ideas of someone else’s text in a condensed form. Remember that because you are communicating someone else’s ideas, even though you are using your own words, you need to include a citation each time you summarize. Summary works best as a way of incorporating evidence into your paper when you are focusing on big ideas.

When you paraphrase, you reword a portion of someone else’s text, putting it into your own words and using your own sentence structure. The original text and your paraphrase should be around the same number of words. As is the case with summary, you need to include a citation for each paraphrase because you are communicating the ideas of someone else. Paraphrases work best when you want to focus on the details of a passage of text but don’t need to draw attention to the specific words or sentence structure.

When you include a quotation in your essay, you incorporate into your text a portion of someone’s else text using their exact words. As is the case with summary and paraphrase, all quotations should include citations since you are communicating someone else’s ideas and using their language to do it. Quotation works best when you want to draw attention to the words themselves or when you cannot communicate the idea as effectively in your own words. Each time you include a quotation in your text, make sure that you frame it with your own words. Do not simply drop the quotation into your essay in between two sentences of your own writing. The passages below illustrate the difference between a properly a dropped or floating quotation and an incorporated or framed quotation:

Notice how the floating quotation doesn’t make sense when it is dropped in after the essay writer’s sentence instead of being smoothly incorporated smoothly into the writer’s own introduction of the quotation.

Notice how the essay writer introduces the quotation so that the reader has an idea of what is happening in it and why it is being used. Note also the bracketed ellipses ([. . .]) that indicate that the essay writer has omitted a small section of the text, deeming it not necessary to their use of this quotation as a piece of evidence. As long as the writer has not changed the fundamental meaning of the quotation, they can choose to omit a few words, here and there, that may make the quotation unnecessarily long for their purposes.

The paragraph, however, is not complete yet. If the writer simply ends the paragraph after giving the quotation, the reader has little to no idea how the writer means for that quotation to support the thesis argument. This problem then leads us to the need to include analysis following the quotation in order to make clear how the quotation develops the writer’s main argument.

Analysis

Analysis is the process by which you explain to your readers how your evidence functions to support your argument. One of the most common pitfalls of college writers is the tendency to present readers with large quantities of evidence yet very little analysis. They assume the evidence speaks for itself. As a writer, you cannot assume that your readers will intuit how your evidence functions to support your claim. You have to explain to your readers both how you are interpreting your evidence and how these interpretations in turn bolster your thesis.

Imagine two maps leading to treasure. The first map has inscrutable symbols all over it. It does, in fact, show the path to the treasure, but it is difficult to navigate with the map without knowing the meaning of the symbols. Does X mark the spot of the treasure? Or does X mark “you are here”? The second map is identical to the first but with one significant difference. The second map also includes a key detailing the meaning of each symbol on the map. Someone might find their way to the treasure using the map without the key, but they are much more likely to find the treasure, and have a more enjoyable time doing it, if they have access to the map with the key. An essay without sufficient analysis is like the map without the key. It forces your readers to try to make sense of the evidence in your paper without any guidance. An essay with sufficient analysis, on the other hand, guides readers through the evidence so that they can easily reach the same conclusions as the writer.

Consider again the quotation in which Viola questions what she will do in Illyria and mourns her lost brother. As discussed above, the essay writer has introduced the quotation and incorporated it into their own writing through proper framing. The writer’s work with this piece of evidence, however, is not yet finished. Instead of assuming that the meaning of Shakespeare’s text is self-evident and they can move on to the next part of their argument, the essay writer must analyze the quotation by explaining how it functions to support their thesis. Take a look at how the analysis that follows the quotation develops the paragraph’s main point:

The discussion after the quotation provides an analysis concerning what is happening on a textual level when Viola connects her uncertain future in Illyria to the loss of her brother, and how this relates to the writer’s topic sentence that Viola’s gender as female puts her at risk in Illyria. The analysis begins to argue that Viola has few options in Illyria while dressed as a woman. In this way, the essay writer begins to convince the reader that the thesis is sound (and therefore should be taken seriously) and that it adds something interesting to the critical conversations about this play.

Transitions between and within paragraphs

While each body paragraph does not need a robust conclusion in which you summarize or restate that main point(s) of the paragraph, you do need to make sure that none of your paragraphs end abruptly. Think about creating a smooth transition between ideas as you conclude one paragraph and move on to the next. As stated above, and considering the points above about the relationship between evidence and analysis, you don’t want to end a paragraph with a quotation. A quotation at the end of the paragraph is evidence without analysis. As you wrap up each body paragraph, you should think of putting yourself in a position where it logically makes sense to pick up with your next body paragraph. Ask yourself: how are what I’ve just said and what I’m about to say related?

Even within a body paragraph, you will probably need to transition between ideas as you move back and forth between evidence and analysis. Simple words and phrases can do most of this transitional work for you. Some words and phrases signal that you are arguing in the same direction that you were previously arguing (“additionally,” “moreover,” “furthermore,” etc.) while other words and phrases signal that you are changing directions (“nevertheless,” “but,” “however,” “on the other hand,” etc.). Let’s take one final look at the sample paragraph we started drafting above—this time in its complete form—and notice how the paragraph and the one that follows it connect to one another both through their content and by using transitions at the beginning and throughout the rest of the paragraph (transitions are bolded):

Consider how the first transition in this paragraph forges a relationship between it and the preceding paragraph. The connection is one based on difference, as clearly stated in the transitional phrase “In contrast to.” Now take a look at the transitions within the paragraph. These ensure that the content flows by making clear connections between the sentences. The transitional phrases “however” and “yet” signal that the essay writer is bringing in new information that contrasts with what came before in the paragraph. “Even more to the point” tells the readers both that the essay writer is adding new information and that we should pay very close attention to this additional analysis.

Conclusion

A conclusion functions to wrap up your essay and signals to readers that you have persuasively constructed an argument that is worthy of continued consideration. To remind readers of the care with which you have built your argument, you should gesture back to your thesis and the body of the essay, but refrain from repeating your thesis and topic sentences verbatim. Lastly, make sure that you do not introduce completely new ideas into the conclusion; doing so can distract readers from the actual focus of your essay.

Let’s return one last time to the argument about how Viola’s disguise as Cesario in Twelfth Night brings attention to the limited opportunities of early modern women. Observe how the following concluding paragraph reiterates the essay’s main thesis, includes a recap of the big points made in the body paragraphs, and incorporates two short, pertinent quotations from the text in order to cement the thesis argument:

If we look at this concluding paragraph, we will see that it points back to and confirms the thesis in the first sentence without simply restating the thesis or reusing all of the same language from the thesis. Next, the paragraph reminds readers of the main points of the body paragraphs without simply recycling each body paragraph’s topic sentence. Finally, the writer brings the essay to a close with a powerful final thought that both wraps up the essay as a whole and encourages the readers to keep thinking.

The fact that your writing is participating in one or more conversations impacts the way you approach your conclusion. Your argument does not exist in a vacuum, so neither should your conclusion. Think of the conclusions as the place in your essay where you not only remind your readers of your argument and how you’ve developed it, but also the place in which you prepare for the next person to join the conversation that you’ve shaped and refined through your contributions to the conversation. Essentially, your conclusion is like an exchange zone in a relay race: it’s the space in which you wrap up your leg of the race and pass the baton to the next runner on your relay team. Even if you run a fast leg of your race, the relay team won’t be successful if you don’t have a smooth handoff of the baton. Similarly, a good conclusion should both remind us of the good work you’ve done throughout the essay and position your argument so that it’s clear how readers and writers might pick up your argument and continue the conversation by putting in their own oars!