Colleen M. Richardson
Week 6: Proposing Solutions Writing an Essay Illustrating a Thesis with Examples Although censorship has a long history, the development of electronic communications has only added fuel to the fire. The topic has been covered extensively in print and on the internet. Do some background reading and research on the topic of censorship, narrow the subject to a limited area, and then come to an informed conclusion about some aspect of the topic. Compile a list of examples from your research, determine which of your examples are the most convincing, and then arrange them so that they form a logical and dramatic sequence. Your informed conclusion will be the thesis sentence of your paper. Each developed (fully described and discussed) example will constitute a paragraph. Separate introductory and concluding paragraphs will open and close the paper. Pay careful attention to connectives (transitions) between paragraphs in order to insure coherence. Consult the Structural Outline for Themewriting for organization. Following are some more specific areas which you may wish to research with reference to censorship: movies, the Internet, textbooks, libraries, public schools, the First Amendment, etc. Of course you are not limited to these topics. Although you may choose your own topic, some topics are clearly better for this assignment than others. Part of your grade will depend on the originality and level of difficulty of your topic. One of the most common problems students have with this assignment is mistaking REASONS for EXAMPLES. Do not try to explain why something happens or should happen. Instead, provide specific, vivid examples or instances which the reader can visualize. A paper supported by reasons (explaining why) instead of examples (helping the reader imagine an instance) will not do as well. Email the completed assignment. The internet provides extensive information about censorship in many forms. If you can
locate the following search engine called Inference Find, enter words or phrases like
censorship, school censorship, government censorship, First Amendment, etc., and you will
locate hundreds of sources related to the topic of censorship. The address is Other information about searching and search engines that you may want to try include the following:
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