Notes on Incorporating Secondary Sources and Essay Structure

Incorporating Secondary Sources

  • Evidence from outside source/lens.
  • Connect international terrorist acts against the US to US actions.
  • Synthesize evidence from secondary sources with primary text.
  • Flight denies incommensurability, demonstrating the US's existence is owed to violence against other nations.
  • Secondary source supports the topic sentence claim.
  • Paragraph structure:
    • Even ratios of claim and evidence.
    • Evidence from the lens outweighs initial claims.
    • One sentence of analysis with lots of evidence.
    • Move quickly over ideas, or slow down and expand.

Example Paragraph Analysis

  • Claim + context from the book.
  • Immediate subclaim: violent acts reframed using self-serving language, paralleling responses to 9/11.
  • Context leading to direct textual evidence.
  • Analysis of evidence: Art's rationale attempts to redefine his sadistic acts.
  • Incorporating Judith Butler:
    • Butler's argument introduced as a claim.
    • Quote from Butler's source.
    • Commentary on Flight ties up the paragraph's threads.
  • Secondary source provides a claim, proven with reasoning using the primary source.
  • Structure: claim, evidence, analysis/synthesis.
  • Secondary source can provide the claim or the evidence.

General Essay Structure

  • Claim, evidence, analysis.
  • Claim, evidence, synthesis, analysis/synthesis.

Introduction Writing

  • Include a sense of problem and the lens.
  • Incorporate a sense of something that doesn't make sense.
  • Hook, summary, problem, lens, thesis.

Generating Questions

  • Questions evolve during writing.
  • Broad questions provide a good flow.
  • Answering a complex question may take multiple paragraphs.

Example Questions:

  • How does pain and suffering influence identity throughout Toni Morrison's work?
  • How is it a representation of our modern society?

Miscellaneous Points

  • Reusing quotes: Allowed, with proper reference (e.g., "as quoted above").
  • Problem lens: Important for framing the introduction.
  • Thesis statements should address the essay's central argument.