Professor Stanley Fish is a professor at Florida International University, in Miami. In his article he wrote for the NY times, “what college writing should teach us part 3”, he made sure to get across that he believes firmly that sentence structure plays the most important part in college writing. He states, “Basically, there is only one thing to be learned, that a sentence is a structure of logical relationships; everything else follows.” I do agree somewhat with this strong statement, but he is leaving out the key fact that a college writer also needs a strong thesis. Doing this helps your paper produce your main claim with a road map that can be followed easily.
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| A thesis shouldn't be confusing!! |
I spent eight weeks in the Writers Studio at The Ohio State University. I observed a student and a tutor. My objective was to get a vivid understanding of what college writing should entail. During those observations I came to the conclusion that a thesis should be the most important in an essay. I came to this aspect, after the many times the student had trouble with the grasp of what a thesis was and how to create one. This in turn always had the professor making comments about his paper like it needs to be more specific, clearer, etc. I believe strongly that college writing should always have a strong thesis, in order to catch that big fish at the end. It’s like the prize at the end of a fishing trip.
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| The BIG catch (thesis) is worth all the pain!! hang in there buddy!! |
During my time in the Writer’s Studio I will never forget what the PWC said about a thesis, he stated, “Your thesis should be a road map”. This makes it very clear the direction you want someone reading your paper to take without jumping overboard from being confused and not holding on to that big fish. If you write with the reader in mind you are more likely to communicate successfully. Thus, helping the reader understand the substance of the writing, without having to guess what the writer intended to mean. You have to lead the reader in the right path of your paper with a clear understanding so they don’t become confused and get less interested in reading. You don’t want your reader to jump overboard, so lastly revise your thesis. Revising helps make your thesis stronger. Revision plays a key part in a successful paper because when writing your papers your ideas may change. That’s ok because when your ideas do change it makes you more aware of your thoughts and what direction you clearly wanted to go. Its okay to revise your thesis if it helps you make your paper clearer to your reader. This will make your thesis stronger and that big catch at the end of the day will be worth all the waiting.
Professor Stanley Fish needs to go back fishing. He only caught a trout when he needs to go get that tuna. Yes, sentence structure is important when writing a college paper, but it’s not as important as a thesis. Your paper is basically focused around your thesis, being that it’s your main claim. Without a strong claim with a clear road map you’re basically catching logs all day. I believe that English classes starting from middle school to college should focus more on teaching about thesis and how to develop one because that is indeed your big catch. That would ease the students mind and take the burden off their shoulders when they do start to write. It would make writing a paper much easier by learning the different aspects of a thesis. Knowing how to produce and write a thesis makes your paper ten times better than having good sentence structure. So, Mr. Fish as much as I do agree with your view point on what college writing should teach I must also disagree, because let’s face it a strong paper needs a stronger thesis.
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| Knowledge of a thesis makes things less trippy!!!! |
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