Compare and Contrast the Reasons Essay

Suppose you are victorious a course on 19th-century America, and the instructor hands out the future(a) audition assignment equate and contrast the cogitates why the North and confederation fought the Civil War. You turn on the computer and type out the sideline The North and southwest fought the Civil War for many reasons, nearly of which were the identical and some different. This faint-hearted dissertation restates the question without providing any additional information. You go away expand on this new information in the body of the essay, but it is important that the ratifier know where you are heading.A reader of this weakly thesis might trust, What reasons? How are they the same? How are they different? carry yourself these same questions and lead off to compare Northern and Southern attitudes (perhaps you first think, The South believed slavery was justifiedly, and the North thought slavery was wrong). Now, push your relation toward an interpretationwhy did one side think slavery was good and the other side think it was wrong?You look again at the march, and you decide that you are going to argue that the North believed slavery was illegal magic spell the South believed it upheld the Southern way of life history.You spell out While both(prenominal)(prenominal) sides fought the Civil War over the issue of slavery, the North fought for moral reasons while the South fought to preserve its own institutions. Now you have a work thesis Included in this working(a) thesis is a reason for the war and some idea of how the two sides disagreed over this reason. As you import the essay, you will probably begin to characterize these differences more precisely, and your working thesis may start to seem too vague. Maybe you decide that both sides fought for moral reasons, and that they just focused on different moral issues.You finale up revising the working thesis into a final thesis that really captures the argument in your paper Wh ile both Northerners and Southerners believed they fought against shogunate and oppression, Northerners focused on the oppression of slaves while Southerners defended their own right to self-government. Compare this to the original weak thesis.This final thesis presents a way of interpret yard that illuminates the significance of the question. Keep in mind that this is one of many possible interpretations of the Civil Warit is not the one and only right answer to the question.There isnt one right answer on that point are only strong and weak thesis statements and strong and weak uses of evidence. Lets look at another example. Suppose your belles-lettres professor hands out the following assignment in a class on the American novel Write an analysis of some brass of Mark Twains novel Huckleberry Finn. This will be easy, you think. I loved Huckleberry Finn You grab a pad of paper and bring out Mark Twains Huckleberry Finn is a great American novel. wherefore is this thesis weak ? Think or so what the reader would expect from the essay that follows you will most likely provide a general, appreciative abbreviation of Twains novel.The question did not ask you to summarize it asked you to analyze. Your professor is probably not interested in your opinion of the novel instead, she wants you to think about whyits such a great novelwhat do Hucks adventures tell us about life, about America, about coming of age, about race relations, etc.? First, the question asks you to pick an aspect of the novel that you think is important to its structure or meaningfor example, the voice of storytelling, the contrasting scenes between the shore and the river, or the relationships between adults and children.Now you write In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain develops a contrast between life on the river and life on the shore. Heres a working thesis with potential you have highlighted an important aspect of the novel for investigation however, its still not clear what your analysi s will reveal. Your reader is intrigued, but is still thinking, So what? Whats the point of this contrast? What does it hold still for? Perhaps you are not sure yet, either. Thats finebegin to work on comparing scenes from the book and see what you discover. Free write, gravel lists, jot down Hucks actions and reactions.Eventually you will be able to clarify for yourself, and then for the reader, why this contrast matters. After examining the evidence and considering your own insights, you write Through its contrasting river and shore scenes, Twains Huckleberry Finn suggests that to find the true expression of American democratic ideals, one must leave civilized society and go back to nature. This final thesis statement presents an interpretation of a literary work based on an analysis of its content. Of course, for the essay itself to be successful, you must now present evidence from the novel that will convince the reader of your interpretation.