An outlines for Essay & Your Nursing Career
• The purpose of this assignment is to allow you to organize your ideas for Essay 1, and to give you practice with writing a strong thesis statement. As you may know, the thesis statement is the key to your reader understanding where you are taking him or her in your essay. [Be sure to read the “Thesis Statement ”]
An outline is a writer’s tool for organizing his or her ideas into logical order. Creating a formal outline is an important step in the academic writing process. [Go back and read the “Outline ”, if you have not already done so, as well as section C1 in the Hacker textbook.]
Topic: “There are many events we encounter in our lives, and one of more of these events will result in our choosing a life career path.”
• Discuss the encounters, events, or experiences in your life that have led you to a career in nursing.
• Discuss the reasons for which you chose to pursue your nursing degree with Excelsior College.
Specifications:
•Write a thesis statement (1-2 sentences) that summarizes your essay’s main points
• Write a thesis statement (1-2 sentences) that summarizes your essay’s main points. For example, “Choosing a career in nursing, and deciding to pursue my degree at Excelsior College were both the result of life-changing events: one in my childhood and another from just a few years ago.”
•Write an outline – in formal outline format – to demonstrate that you have organized your ideas into a logical order, which can be developed into paragraphs in your rough draft.
If someone were to say to you, “Be ready by 7 – I’ll pick you up then!” there is one important item you’d want to know: just where are you going? Without this information you’d be confused, perplexed, and flummoxed – you would want to know your destination! Well, the same can be said of any reader; he or she gets a bit antsy and uncomfortable if, by the end of your first paragraph, he or she does not know the direction of your paper. To be certain the reader stays on track and knows the thesis / path of your paper, we have something called … a thesis statement.
Now, a thesis statement is really quite a simple thing. First, it ALWAYS is comprised of two parts: a general statement of fact, and your take (opinion) on that general statement. As an example, if I were to write, “There are many wonderful vacation spots in the United States, but my favorite is Maui, in Hawaii,” you can see there are two parts – the general statement (“There are many wonderful vacation spots in the United States”) and the writer’s opinion (“but my favorite is Maui.”) This tells the reader that the essay he or she is about to read will focus on Maui, and most probably on why Maui is the writer’s favorite spot.
Now, having a thesis statement in your first paragraph is one of the “must” rules of writing; without it the reader will not know the direction of your paper and might possibly lose interest in reading it. So that you can always ace the thesis statement, keep in mind the following:
(1) Ideally, the thesis statement should appear in the middle to the end of your first paragraph (and ALWAYS in your first paragraph). The reason for this is a simple one: you want to save your first (and possibly second and third) sentence to “suck” the reader in, i.e., you want to first grab the reader’s attention with text that is intriguing, teasing, and interesting.
Let’s take a look at one example:
Half-naked women dancing around a fire in the evening glow of a deep red sunset … white sands and deep blue water with gentle tropical breezes and bright sun … fish so fresh that the name of
the fisherman who caught it that day, the time it was caught, and where it was caught appear on the menu – and these are just some appetizers. To be honest, it’s something I can’t seem to get enough of! Yes, there are thousands of wonderful places in the world to visit and many hundreds that are worthy of a vacation in the United States, but for me there is no place quite like Maui, one of the Hawaiian islands. And each year I visit it seems that I discover yet another one or two reasons why it is my favorite getaway spot.
You notice that the writer begins with some appealing and very interesting images, but never mentions what he is talking about: both make the reader want to read more. The writer then goes on to mention a generality, then the specific of Maui, ending with an additional introductory thought.
(2) A thesis statement can appear as a statement, a question, or as two sentences. One of the beautiful things about the English language is that it can be bent, twisted, woven, and braided – just as long as you don’t break it! Here is a good example – let’s take a look at the same thesis statement but written in different formats:
Statement (general first, specific at the end): The past one hundred years have presented us with so many tragic and catastrophic events, yet none can compare to the tragedy of September 11th, 2001.
Statement (specific first, general at the end): 9/11/01 is without question the most tragic of world events, and this is really saying something as there have been thousands that could qualify as being “tragic.”
Question: Of the many tragedies that history has witnessed throughout the world can any compare to 9/11/01?
Two sentences: There have been hundreds – perhaps thousands – of wars, natural disasters, mass murders, civil rights violations, and economic collapses in the world that can be labeled “horrific” and “disastrous.” Yet when each is looked at for the overall impact on humanity and a civilization’s change in its psyche none come close to the events of September 11th, 2001.
It is up to you to decide which format to use.
(3) Always remember to have a smooth transition between your first and second paragraph. Some writers, so proud of their thesis statement first paragraph, forget that the flow from the first top the second paragraph (and from all paragraphs to all following paragraphs) must be smooth and logical. You cannot be talking about one subject, then suddenly switch to another; if you are going to switch you must have one or transition sentences that take the reader in a nice, slow, and seamless read from the subject you are leaving to the one you are beginning.
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