Some suggestions on writing essays
The thesis is the single most important aspect of any writing. You must have a point, and it must be clearly stated at the very beginning of your paper. It's nice if the thesis can be the first sentence of your essay, but as your writing and thinking become more sophisticated, you will often find that you need a few sentences to set up your argument. This is absolutely fine. In all cases, the thesis MUST appear in the first paragraph of your essay. Even though you will not necessarily be presenting it as such, you must be able to articulate your thesis in a single sentence at least as an exercise for yourself. Trouble doing so often indicates that you either don’t yet have a thesis, or the one you have is not yet precise enough.
The thesis must be original, creative, analytical, argumentative, assertive, and lively all at the same time. Please don't be intimidated by this apparent burden, but rather see it as a way of liberating your creative and analytical juices. What a relief you know that you don't have to be timid or orthodox, abstract or inchoate, pretentious or jargon-y! How nice not to have to write plot-summaries, descriptions, or general babble! How inspiring to be able to find something that intrigues, worries, nags, or even annoys you and to write about it with intelligence to a rapt reader! Aah, the joys of writing essays!
If it helps you craft a thesis, consider the following model: "It would seem that… but actually… and therefore…" Your thesis is the "therefore" part of this model. When you have trouble formulating a good conclusion, reconsider the "therefore" part, and ask yourself, "so what?"
In the course of persuading your reader of your thesis, use evidence from the text to support your point. Be selective in the citations you select: a single well-chosen passage with lots of meat on it to pick off in the course of a paper is a lot more effective than a few scattered, random quotes that are not precise, well-directed, or well-chosen. Always avoid using quotes for window dressing or fillers: it will annoy your reader and probably cause her to doze off. You want to find insightful passages and interpret them with verve and vitality so your reader sees how YOU see them and sees also how convincingly they support your thesis. There are no right or wrong interpretations per se: a "right" interpretation is one that is clear and well-substantiated (or well-defended); a "wrong" interpretation is one that is vague, timorous, or unfocused.
As you revise your essay from draft to draft (yes, this is an absolute necessity: remember how ruthlessly Pound revised Eliot's drafts of The Waste Land), do consider language. You are conveying a series of analytically-sophisticated insights in the essay: is your vocabulary up to it? This does not mean that you should use elevated, pretentious language, but it's nice to use a more descriptive verb than a form of "to be" or the overused, "as XYZ said," which is probably imprecise unless you had a personal conversation with the figure you are quoting; to use connectors, subordinators, and coordinators when possible; to use clear, strong adjectives and adverbs that enhance your argument; to use the active voice unless the passive voice underscores a particular portion of your argument; and to vary your sentence patterns. Furthermore, consider crafting paragraphs that present a coherent argument and that flow lucidly from one to another. When you revise, sharpen your transitions from idea to idea, paragraph to paragraph.
Finally, make sure your conclusion does not simply reiterate your thesis or veer off to some platitude or commonplace. It's the place where you might speculate beyond the immediate range of your thesis (the stronger and more clearly articulated your argument, the greater the license you have in your conclusion. You've earned your reader's respect and the right to be bold and speculative here).
EXAMPLE
Consider the following thesis around the very general topic of hunger in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.
[Note how the author has interpreted the topic quite substantially for her purposes; "starvation" and "hunger" frame the argument, but she moves beyond them to something on quite a different level.]
THESIS:
Scarred by a childhood in which she is emotionally and literally starved, Jane's achievement as an adult is not simply the acquisition of material plenitude and communal affection, but the far greater satisfaction of asserting her moral and emotional code upon the adult world around her.
EVIDENCE:
- The fiery and Byronic Edward Rochester is tamed by Jane's ministrations, and Adèle calmed and Anglicized by Jane's influence.
- Compensating for the immense deprivation of a childhood in which she has neither status nor apparent social value, the adult Jane becomes the independently-wealthy care-giver, confidante, and social center of a family (Rochester) who cannot literally or symbolically live without her.
- While rejected by society (Mrs. Reed, Mr. Brocklehurst) for her ways in childhood, Jane has the satisfaction of having those very ways and values validated at the end of the novel whereas Mrs. Reed dies a broken woman and Brocklehurst suffers the ignominy of having mismanaged Lowood with his parsimony and evangelical zeal.
CONCLUSION:
Despite its claims to being an "autobiography," the novel ultimately reads as a profound instance of wish-fulfillment or fantasy. In claiming to record her life ("autobiography"), Jane in fact authors it in such a way as to determine its direction and destiny. The result is a narrative (or fantasy) that serves to validate her terms, her values, and her priorities upon a world initially and insistently hostile to them.
[Note how the author uses the privilege of the conclusion to build something from the thesis that doesn’t restate the thesis but develops upon it in compelling and interesting ways. The conclusion works in part because much of the prior "evidence" supports it, so the author no longer has to substantiate a new point as she is ending her essay. Keep this in mind both when selecting evidence and when determining your conclusion.]