Draft Thesis Statements

I have drafted two possible thesis statements for my essay, and I will be stating them in this post. Afterwards, I will state my thoughts on them and talk about the future of this project for me.

Meme Generator "Angry Baby" via memegenerator.net.

Thesis One:

In the article "What Do Talking Apes Really Tell Us?", Jane C. Hu attempts to create self doubt in the reader by pointing out the inconsistencies in Koko's signing and Patterson's interpretation of the gorilla's words. Hu layers evidence to support her claims in a way that plays on her audience's fear of manipulation and belief in full disclosure, effectively convincing the reader of the ridiculousness of Koko's speech.


Thesis Two:

In her article "What Do Talking Apes Really Tell Us?", Jane C. Hu emphatically claims Koko the gorilla's communication to be over-exaggerated and shaky at best, and strives to make her audience reanalyze what they have previously been told about Koko's apparent "genius". By providing layers of evidence and playing on the modern American fear of manipulation, Hu effectively convinces her reader that her claims are the logical truth and that their preconceptions were the result of word twisting and human weakness for implausible whimsy.


Thoughts:

I definitely think that the second statement is my stronger thesis. I think that this is largely due to the stronger connotative words in the second thesis. While the first one is straightforward, in my opinion it doesn't make as strong of a claim as the second one. Also, the second one just makes the topic seem more interesting. I think that going forward, making strong claims will be important in this project, as no one is as interested in "kind of" and "sort of" statements.


Reflection:

After reading Carrie Belle and Mathias' thesis statements, I have some insights into a good thesis statement. Carrie Belle was very effective in being straightforward in what she was trying to prove, which is something that my thesis could improve from. Mathias did a good job keeping the audience in mind, but could benefit from some rewording as we all could.

For this particular project it seems like the goal of our thesis should be to identify what the author is trying to do in their article and analyze how they try to do this and whether or not they are effective. We all seem to be on the right track at least, and after this peer review I realize now more than ever how different every author's use of rhetoric can be.