You could then mention the specific scenes that you will discuss. 2. It must be limited enough so that the paper develops in some depth. Bad thesis: Lily Bart and Clare Kendry are alike in some ways, but different in many others. Beginning the paragraph with someone else's words doesn't allow you to provide this information for the reader. 2. A piece of information that tells the reader something more about the plot of the story. What ways? Better thesis: Lily Bart and Clare Kendry share a desire to "pass" in their respective social worlds, but their need to take risks and to reject those worlds leads to their destruction. Home Literary Movements Timeline American Authors American Literature Sites. Bibliographies Site Updates Thesis Statements and Topic Sentences Thesis Statements. A thesis statement defines the scope and purpose of the paper. It needs to meet three criteria: 1. 3. A sentence that explains your response or reaction to the work, or that describes why you're talking about a particular part of it, rather than why the paragraph is important to your analysis. By failing to assist her on three separate occasions, he is revealed as less a hero of the novel than as the man responsible for Lily's downfall. Note: Sometimes thesis statements are more than one sentence long. 4. Statements such as "In this essay I will discuss " or "I will compare two stories in this paper" or "I was interested in Marji's relationship with God, so I thought I would talk about it in this essay" are not thesis statements and are unnecessary, since mentioning the stories in the introduction already tells the. The House of Mirth. Of course she does. What does she do with these social conventions, and how does she respond to them? What's your argument about this idea? Better thesis: Lily Bart seeks to escape from the social conventions of her class in. The House of Mirth. Note: This is really the beginning of two different thesis statements. Better thesis: In The House of Mirth, Lawrence Selden is a spectator who prefers to watch and judge Lily than to help her.

When you're writing about a piece of literature, it's easy to fall into the habit of telling the plot of the story and then adding a sentence of analysis, but such an approach leaves the reader wondering what the point of the paragraph is supposed to be; it also doesn't leave you sufficient room to analyze the.

Topic Sentences Good topic sentences can improve an essay's readability and organization. They usually meet the following criteria: 1. First sentence. A topic sentence is usually the first sentence of the paragraph, not the last sentence of the previous paragraph.