0:00 how do you come up with an interesting
0:01 worthwhile argument
0:03 otherwise known as a thesis for your
0:04 essay in other words how do you go from
0:07 whatever it is you're trying to write
0:09 about to an argument that both you
0:11 and your reader would actually find
0:13 valid interesting
0:14 and persuasive my name is lucia zaitseva
0:16 and i teach writing at harvard
0:17 university
0:18 i'm also the founder of ivywright and in
0:20 today's video i'm going over the top
0:22 three things you need to keep in mind
0:24 so you can go from simply absorbing
0:27 information
0:28 passively from others to actually
0:30 producing original insights of your own
0:32 the first step and some of you are not
0:34 going to like this is to actually reread
0:36 and re-examine
0:37 whatever it is you're trying to write
0:39 about if you read a poem or short story
0:42 or an essay
0:43 go ahead and reread it if you read a
0:45 longer work
0:46 skim the important parts and i hope you
0:48 took good notes
0:50 re-watch the film study the data again
0:52 look at the painting
0:54 after all no worthwhile insight comes
0:56 from looking at something just once
0:57 right
0:58 you should do this a minimum of one time
1:00 before you actually start writing
1:02 and keep in mind that you're going to
1:03 end up revisiting whatever it is you're
1:05 writing about a bunch of times in the
1:07 process
1:08 once you've done that something about
1:09 what you've read should strike you as
1:11 strange
1:12 interesting or noteworthy we'll call
1:15 that thing a snag
1:16 you know like if you put on your
1:18 favorite sweater only to discover that
1:19 there's a loose thread because maybe you
1:21 got stuck on a nail somewhere
1:23 a snag is something that makes you want
1:24 to look again because it catches your
1:26 attention
1:27 if you're writing about a literary text
1:28 it might be a really strange word choice
1:30 to describe a character or
1:32 a particularly striking metaphor that
1:35 catches you off guard
1:36 if you're writing about an essay or
1:37 scholarly text it might be a claim you
1:39 don't think
1:40 is fully substantiated or maybe an
1:42 internal contradiction
1:44 if you're working with data and this
1:45 could be historical
1:47 statistical you name it it could be
1:49 something in the data set that just
1:50 doesn't make sense
1:51 like maybe in a certain population you
1:55 find
1:55 a lower incidence of a disease than you
1:57 would expect or
1:59 perhaps in a primary historical document
2:02 you see an attitude reflected that
2:04 contradicts the popularly held attitude
2:07 you thought people
2:08 had at the time all of those are snags
2:11 and if you think about it the metaphor
2:13 is really an apt one because if you pull
2:15 on the loose thread
2:16 the whole sweater is gonna come apart or
2:18 to put it another way
2:20 you'll unravel whatever mystery it is
2:22 that you've stumbled upon
2:23 whatever you notice trust that unless
2:25 you're just confused about the evidence
2:27 you're probably on to something
2:28 if on the other hand your question can
2:30 be answered by just studying the source
2:32 a little bit more carefully
2:33 then you probably need to dig a little
2:35 bit deeper let's assume you have
2:37 the next step is to ask a question we
2:40 talked a little bit about analytical
2:42 questions in last week's video
2:44 which i'll link here and we'll talk
2:46 about them again
2:47 in next week's video but here are some
2:49 examples based on the snags we just saw
2:51 a moment ago
2:52 and a few new ones in isaac babel's
2:54 short story my first goose
2:56 why does the narrator describe the army
2:58 commander's legs
2:59 as girls sheave to the neck and shining
3:02 riding boots
3:03 how can we draw the line between illness
3:06 and
3:06 simple divergence from the norm in
3:09 harvard professor
3:10 michael sandell's argument about the
3:12 proper uses of genetic enhancement
3:15 is waving patent protection for the
3:16 covid19 vaccine an effective solution to
3:19 unequal access
3:21 you'll notice that all of these
3:22 questions are genuine open-ended
3:24 questions and they're pretty interesting
3:26 too
3:26 the first one opens up a portal into
3:29 questions of
3:30 masculinity and belonging in the writing
3:33 of one of the greatest
3:34 russian authors of the 20th century the
3:36 second helps us think about a pressing
3:38 problem waiting just around the bend of
3:40 human progress
3:41 and the third one well need i really say
3:44 more
3:44 the answer to the question you come up
3:46 with as a result of studying the source
3:48 carefully trusting your gut
3:50 and posing your curiosity or confusion
3:53 as a question
3:54 will be your thesis easy right
3:57 if you work this way though you'll be so
3:59 much more likely to come up with a
4:00 genuinely interesting thesis
4:02 that you actually want to write and
4:04 other people want to read in next week's
4:06 video we'll go over the nitty-gritty
4:07 details of how to evaluate the answer to
4:10 your question
4:10 once you've actually got it this is
4:12 what's called the thesis
4:14 test have you encountered other helpful
4:16 ways for coming up with a thesis
4:18 let me know down in the comments below
4:20 and like and subscribe to the channel if
4:22 you found this video helpful
4:24 so you'll know when i come out with the
4:25 next one see you next time
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