Draft Thesis Statements

In the following blog post I will have written a couple thesis statements for my rhetorical analysis. It is important that my thesis explains how the author is attempting to achieve a specific purpose while avoiding sounding like a summary, it is an analysis.

Anderson, Paul. "funny pictures - Thesis still not done, huh?". 11 April 2011. Public Domain.

Thesis 1:

In the article "Why open architecture competitions are good for Architects, a counter argument" from the website ArchDaily, author Karen Cilento acknowledges counterarguments, appeals to values shared by her audience, and uses specific examples such as the Vietnam Memorial to convince her peers of the importance of architecture competitions and their positive impact on creativity and innovation in the workforce. Cilento successfully constructed an argument in which she appears credible; her understanding of her audience and acknowledgement of other's ideas strengthens her viewpoint into a convincing article.

Thesis 2: 

In the article "Why open architecture competitions are good for Architects, a counter argument" from the website ArchDaily, author Karen Cilento uses her own experience as well as her knowledge of the values and beliefs shared by her audience to convey the importance of competitions in the architecture world. Cilento effectively conveys her viewpoint in a concise yet detailed article that appears credible and is easy to follow.

I am already leaning towards my first thesis. I think it is the most clear without being too repetitive, while having the clearest idea of how the author successfully crafted her argument. I think writing my outline will be fairly easy with this thesis because I have already listed some examples.

Reflection:

After reading both of Nick's and Jayni's thesis statements, I noticed that my thesis statement is much longer than any of theirs. However, mine followed the example in the book pretty closely so I'm not too worried. Nick can improve his thesis statement by incorporating more analysis while Jayni just needs to combine her two thesis statements to create a more well-rounded thesis.