Chapter 1 Strategies for Making Your Point

As you pursue your education, no doubt you will be called on to write essays. The word comes from the French essai, which means a trial or an attempt. To essay is to venture, speculate, try one’s hand, take a chance, give it a whirl. An essayA piece of nonfiction writing in which the writer ventures an idea or an opinion., then, is a piece of nonfiction writing that requires the writer to advance his or her own ideas and risk appearing weak or wrong in the opinion of a skeptical reader. The question is, will you say yes to the adventure of writing original essays—to giving it a whirl?

Foremost among the strategies for making our ideas understood is formulating a thesisThe main point of a rhetorical work (an essay, book, speech, etc.). statement. This statement rarely arrives in our minds perfectly formed. Ideas are complex, and the process for arriving at a statement that articulates an idea succinctly is complex. If it were easy, it wouldn’t be an essay.

This chapter of What’s Your Point? introduces the concept of the thesis as well as strategies for generating and supporting the thesis that will apply no matter what the purpose of your essay—to narrate, describe, analyze, or argue.