1) Please read the Guidelines carefully and follow accordingly to write this one page thesis.2) The sources are limited to the ones listed in the guidelines. For this task, it is gonna be Shakespeare'
Tips on Writing
1. Your thesis statement is the first sentence of the essay. A forecasting statement should be the second
sentence of the essay. The forecasting statement gives three of the most important ways you are going to
prove your thesis statement.
- Here is an ex cerpt from an article you will find in the “How To” article called “How and why to include a
forecasting statement in your essay.”
“ A forecasting statemen t gives your readers a mini “outline” of what is to come in the paper. It tells the
readers two things : (1) the name of each of the major ideas in your paper and (2) the order in which those
ideas will appear. Logically, the forecast is the last thing in your introduction. In relatively short papers, the
forecasting statement is often part of the thesis st atement. One of the keys to a successful forecasting
statement is selecting a name (one or two words) for each major idea in your essay. These names are then
listed as part of your forecasting statement. ”
2 . Avoid the second - person “you”:
There are very f ew situations in which the second person “you” is an accepted or suggested narrative voice.
An example: “Shakespeare makes you want to hate Prospero in the play. You see him manipulate his own
daughter as well as the shipwrecked crew, and you are meant to see that he is a great villain.”
3 . Use correct spelling and italics for book titles:
Take an extra second to double check the spelling of book/ play/ story titles. Misspelling the titles or the
characters’ names is sloppy and communicates a tragic lack of care. Book titles and the titles of
Shakespeare’s plays are always italicized: The Tempest, Cymbeline. Article titles, short story titles, and the
titles of poems are not italicized but rather place inside quotation marks. Titles are only underlined If yo u are
hand writing a document.
4 . Theme:
The theme of a work will never be “slavery.” Slavery may be a topic or a subject in a book, but it will never
be a theme. A theme is the statement a text (book, play, poem, short story) makes about a subject or topi c.
For instance, “In Aphra Behn’s novel Oroonoko slavery is exposed as a destructive social force.”
5 . Use an academic tone:
I do not expect any of you to be writing at a professional level, but I do expect you to write with a
professional or academic tone . Every student must learn to avoid what we call “the conversational tone.”
The conversational tone includes phrases such as the following:
- Conversational: It’s so crazy that Prospero manipulates his own daughter.
- Professional: Prospero’s manipulation of his daughter Miranda is outrageous.
- Conversational: I couldn’t believe what an absolute jerk Antonio was at the end of Shakespeare’s play The
Tempest .
- Professional: At the end of Shakespeare’s play The Tempest Antonio acts in a way that shows his dark, evil
side.
- Conversational: Even though Shakespeare’s play The Tempest is kinda confusing in parts, I thought it was
overall really sweet.
- Professional: Avoid making personal statements of feeling like these. If the writing is strange or oddly
complex, you can explain that the language seems intentionally unclear and complex.