Writing Topic Summary- Ch 52

In Rules for Writers Chapter 52 by Diana Hacker the main idea is supporting a thesis when writing MLA style papers. First you want to develop your thesis by gathering all of your evidence and considering all possible arguments and turning it into one sentence of your main idea. Then, you want to organize your evidence  by starting with an informal rough draft to gather your ideas without getting caught up in the complexity of them, then you can move onto a formal outline. Next, you want to use sources to back up your information in support of your thesis. A good way to do this is by explaining terms or concepts by quoting or paraphrasing a source, supporting claims using factual information, using experts knowledge on your argument, and acknowledge arguments against your own.

This is helpful because it's always important to write a good thesis, it is something I need to work on. Your thesis is like your contract with your reader telling them that this is what I'm going to be writing about, if you don't have a strong thesis you might not have a strong paper. It's important to show evidence of your thesis and to stay on topic, this information is helpful because I need to generate all ideas before I just start writing, and gather research to build my thesis so that I know it is strong.