{"id":713,"date":"2017-08-20T04:01:46","date_gmt":"2017-08-20T04:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writing.wisc.edu\/wac\/?p=713"},"modified":"2017-08-20T04:01:46","modified_gmt":"2017-08-20T04:01:46","slug":"crafting-a-thesis-statement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/wac\/crafting-a-thesis-statement\/","title":{"rendered":"Crafting a Thesis Statement"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Professor David Zimmerman,\nEnglish\n<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Crafting a thesis is hard work. A successful thesis is typically the result of a long process of trying out different claims, selecting a few to refine and elaborate, and choosing an especially promising one to perfect. Here\u2019s an example of this trial-and-error process as it moves from first attempt to a developed thesis:<\/p>

In \u201cBenito Cereno,\u201d Herman Melville suggests<\/p>

In \u201cBenito Cereno,\u201d Herman Melville argues that<\/p>

In \u201cBenito Cereno,\u201d Herman Melville argues that black slaves are equally capable of political symbolism as whites.<\/p>

In \u201cBenito Cereno,\u201d Herman Melville shows how whites fool themselves if they think they alone possess the capacity to enact political theater<\/p>

\u201cBenito Cereno\u201d exposes the racism that makes blacks the passive<\/p>

In \u201cBenito Cereno,\u201d the white<\/p>

In \u201cBenito Cereno,\u201d Captain Delano represents white Americans who confuse authority and power<\/p>

Herman Melville\u2019s \u201cBenito Cereno\u201d is a powerfully subversive work. On first glance, it seems to<\/p>

Herman Melville\u2019s \u201cBenito Cereno\u201d is a powerfully subversive work. It exposes the idiocy and blindness of white antebellum racists who imagine that black slaves are incapable of using political symbolism.<\/p>

Herman Melville\u2019s \u201cBenito Cereno\u201d is a powerfully subversive work. It shows how keenly aware black slaves are of the strategies white slaveholders use to terrify and oppress them. At the same time, it shows how whites refuse to see<\/p>

Herman Melville\u2019s \u201cBenito Cereno\u201d is a powerfully subversive work. It shows how blind white slaveholders are to the imaginative capacities of black slaves<\/p>

Herman Melville\u2019s \u201cBenito Cereno\u201d is a powerfully subversive work. It shows not only that black slaves are keenly aware of the symbolic strategies white slaveholders use to safeguard white power, but also that black slaves can exploit these strategies to secure their own emancipation and authority over their masters.<\/p>

Herman Melville\u2019s \u201cBenito Cereno\u201d is a powerfully subversive work. It demonstrates that black slaves are keenly aware of the symbolic strategies white slaveholders use to safeguard the slave regime. Moreover, it shows how black slaves are capable of exploiting these same strategies to secure their own emancipation and authority at the expense of their former masters.<\/p>

Herman Melville\u2019s \u201cBenito Cereno\u201d is a powerfully subversive work. It shows how the very strategies white slaveholders depend on to safeguard their power over their slaves<\/p>

Herman Melville\u2019s \u201cBenito Cereno\u201d is a powerfully subversive work. It studies how white slaveholders depend upon certain kinds of symbolic displays to safeguard their power and to make their authority over slaves seem natural. It shows not only how black slaves are keenly aware of the ways whites use these displays, but also how slaves are capable of exploiting these displays to fool their masters and to secure their own emancipation. <\/strong><\/p>

Herman Melville\u2019s \u201cBenito Cereno\u201d shows how the blindness of<\/span> racist ideology can lead to its own subversion. <\/strong><\/p>

Herman Melville\u2019s \u201cBenito Cereno\u201d studies how the racist beliefs and stereotypes that white slaveholders rely upon to justify slavery make them incapable of recognizing slaves\u2019 desire and capacity for revolution. The story exposes how this insensitivity not only incites, but also enables slave revolution.<\/strong><\/p>

Herman Melville\u2019s \u201cBenito Cereno\u201d studies how white racism not only incites, but also enables slave revolution.<\/strong><\/p>

Herman Melville\u2019s \u201cBenito Cereno\u201d exposes the racism, hypocrisy, and complacency of liberal abolitionists in the 1850s. <\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Professor David Zimmerman, English Crafting a thesis is hard work. A successful thesis is typically the result of a long process of trying out different claims, selecting a few to refine and elaborate, and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[30,98,96,85],"class_list":["post-713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coaching-students-to-succeed-with-assignments","tag-english","tag-revision","tag-thesis","tag-undergraduate"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/wac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/wac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/wac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/wac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/wac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=713"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/wac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":715,"href":"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/wac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713\/revisions\/715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/wac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/wac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/wac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}