I hate thesus papers......

[Branchvillian]

Ugh, I have a 10 page thesus on the Fellowship of the ring, due friday as a rough draft. I also have to read the intire book, of which I am on page 50 right now. The reading shouldn't be a problem, I read quite fast...but I have my thesis statement and that's IT. I'm in 11th grade, and this is the first I have had to write. I have no clue where to go with my statment, and I sure as hell am not sure how I am going to get 10 pages outta this sucker. Here is the statement.

J.R.R Tolkiens charachters in the Lord of the rings are allegorical to help the young and old realize that they can be more than they think.

Now what's the deal, is that my opening sentence? Do I just go right into the differnt charachters and what they stand for? Good god I'm lost. It's sad that I have to ask for internet help.

[RenagadeOfFunk]

guess what....


...i hate school papers in general...

[Will Wood]

I'm working on proving why Voltaire was a product of Jesuit education using the book Candide, and the ideas demonstrated in it. I have to pick four of the Jesuit idealogies and beleives and somehow manage to tie them into the book.

[FooTemps]

Gah, wrote a 3 page paper comparing and contrasting the tone of Invisible Man (the one by Ralph Ellison) against an essay of choice. Took me about 40 minutes to finish the rough draft because I forgot about it... it's crap.

[ZAust]

Re: I hate thesus papers......

Originally posted by Branchvillian
Ugh, I have a 10 page thesus on the Fellowship of the ring, due friday as a rough draft. I also have to read the intire book, of which I am on page 50 right now. The reading shouldn't be a problem, I read quite fast...but I have my thesis statement and that's IT. I'm in 11th grade, and this is the first I have had to write. I have no clue where to go with my statment, and I sure as hell am not sure how I am going to get 10 pages outta this sucker. Here is the statement.

J.R.R Tolkiens charachters in the Lord of the rings are allegorical to help the young and old realize that they can be more than they think.

Now what's the deal, is that my opening sentence? Do I just go right into the differnt charachters and what they stand for? Good god I'm lost. It's sad that I have to ask for internet help.

generally, your thesis goes at the end of your introductory paragraph. a good strategy for writing papers is to come up with 3-5 main points you want to make. your introductory paragraph should briefly address all three, and end with your thesis statement. then write a paragraph(or more! it is a ten page paper) for each one. then, basically rewrite your introductory paragraph in your conclusion.

wait, youre in elelventh grade and youve never had to write a paper before? what kind of school are you going to?

[Branchvillian]

We have to write papers, just not of this size and structure. Thanks for the help. I'm gonna write an outline and see what that can do for me.

[Mikey B]

Im tired and not sure if this is what your looking for but you could try this for an opener
The young and old have always been searching for ways to better themselves, but not untill LOTR they could never conect with a charcter and go through the emosional journy of becoming more then they think.
Then you could just ramble on about how each character did more then they thought, Like Frodo took the ring against his will and thinking he couldnt do it.

[Mango]

[Quickling]

end with your thesis statement

Depends on who your writing for... my philosophy department wants and opening paragraph that contains a thesis statement followed by a quick outline informing the reader how you will be proving it.

For example:

In this paper I will argue that papers are dumb and harmfull to students. I will show this by first illustrating how stupid they are by comparison to more fun activities such as playing paintball, from which I will attempt to show that any activity taking away from paintball is harmful to the student.

Basicly our department gets a lot of gen. ed. takers that wander about in their essays and the professors want them to create a planned format and follow. If the plan changes then change the opening outline.


And yeah theses suck. I am writing my senior honors thesis now which on average are 70-80 pages in length.

[Will Wood]

Yea, as Quick said.. It doens't really matter where the thesis is. (Well it does..., but you get my point) I've been told to put it as the first sentance, and the last. It's all up to your teacher/professor, just ask them.

10 pages ain't that harsh. I did 5 pages of a 10 page assignment due in one night, I could have done more, but we only had to hand in the 4th page to proove we have worked on it at least a little bit.

If all else fails, quote like there's no tomarow. That always takes up space.

[ShooterJM]

In time, young grasshopper, you will wish to be assigned a paper that is only 10 pages long.

[Quickling]

oh one other good thing that adds to read-ability and length. Don't mix explaination and critism. First explain the point.. and make it look as strong as possible. Then feel free to rip it apart in another paragraph, but don't mix the two... it can make the paper confusioning when jumping around.

And with a double space format, adding a new para can buy some valuable space