Revising Towards More Effective Argument

Purpose: the function of the essay; the reason you are writing about a subject; determines how you structure your points.

• informative point: simply highlight key ideas

• analytical/argumentative point: tells the reader through your claims how to take the key ideas; opinion; interpretation; what is implied in your thoughts, not what is on the page but how you see the idea

How?

• Answer the prompt questions directly. Listen to the prompt. What is it asking you? What angle is it asking you to come at your subject?
• What are key phrases in the prompt?
• What verbs? 
• What actions are you supposed to comment on? Do the people acting exist in the source, or are you supposed to imagine those people? 
• Imagine that you are the cinematographer, the director--how are you supposed to frame each scene, each point? 

There is a difference in thesis and topics sentence purposes between:

Griswold argues that landays allow Afghan women...  (restating what author thinks/restating a fact)

AND making arguments like...

Many Americans would perceive that Afghan women desire...  (framing perceptions with an imagined set of people who may hold them)

or

Landays portray Afghan women as desiring... (framing the perception from the focus text that gives perception)