Arrangement (+ a review of analysis)

WRITING ANALYSES

One good way to organizing a paragraph of analysis (though not the only one):

• State your claim.

• Present the relevant evidence.

• Draw upon the concepts you’re using to show how the evidence supports your claim.

• Indicate what the argument you’ve made in this paragraph contributes to your thesis overall.

Some bad ways to organize a paragraph of analysis include:

• Summarizing rather analyzing.

• Neglecting to present the evidence, or at least not directly.

• Neglecting to use the conceptual terminology.

• Cramming multiple claims and/or pieces of evidence into a single paragraph.

Arrangement

Or, Death to the 5-Paragraph Essay!

Google Glass thesis #1

If the popularity of the epistolary novel and realist portraiture

were responsible for the evolution of the modern social order, then how are contemporary cultural artifacts affecting who we are becoming

today? Consider Google Glass: the computer that you wear like a pair

of glasses. Google Glass captures everything you see, hear, and say,

projecting your thoughts and perceptions to the world, while also

sending to you what others are recording and allowing you to gather still more information from the web. To wear Google Glass, then, is to

turn yourself into a global transmitter and receiver of information. As

such, this technology is teaching users a new way of being human: what

I will call “iHumanism.” Whereas, per Hunt, the Enlightenment notion

of “the human” understood selves to be fundamentally individualistic and private, iHumans see the self as fundamentally social, i.e., a source

and destination for shared information, and mediating, i.e., a public

broadcasting and archiving service. On the one hand, iHumanism may

lead to positive, potentially revolutionary changes in the social order, as

artifacts such as Google Glass teach us to see ourselves not as isolated individuals but as nodes in an open-ended, interconnected human web.

On the other hand, however, iHumanism threatens equally

revolutionary, but potentially very negative changes, too, potentially

trapping us in a world where no experience is truly our own, and the

twin “Big Brothers” of government and the market are always watching us.

Google Glass thesis #1

If the popularity of the epistolary novel and realist portraiture

were responsible for the evolution of the modern social order, then how are contemporary cultural artifacts affecting who we are becoming

today? Consider Google Glass: the computer that you wear like a pair

of glasses. Google Glass captures everything you see, hear, and say,

projecting your thoughts and perceptions to the world, while also

sending to you what others are recording and allowing you to gather still more information from the web. To wear Google Glass, then, is to

turn yourself into a global transmitter and receiver of information. As

such, this technology is teaching users a new way of being human: what

I will call “iHumanism.” Whereas, per Hunt, the Enlightenment notion

of “the human” understood selves to be fundamentally individualistic and private, iHumans see the self as fundamentally social, i.e., a source

and destination for shared information, and mediating, i.e., a public

broadcasting and archiving service. On the one hand, iHumanism may

lead to positive, potentially revolutionary changes in the social order, as

artifacts such as Google Glass teach us to see ourselves not as isolated individuals but as nodes in an open-ended, interconnected human web.

On the other hand, however, iHumanism threatens equally

revolutionary, but potentially very negative changes, too, potentially

trapping us in a world where no experience is truly our own, and the

twin “Big Brothers” of government and the market are always watching us.

MOST SPACE TO THE MOST ORIGINAL,

INTERESTING, AND OR

CONTROVERSIAL IDEAS

TRANSITIONAL WORDS AND

PHRASES

DEVELOPSTHE THESIS

LOGICALLY PROGRESSIVE

BUILDS TO A CLIMAX

features of a strong

arrangement

A “climactic” sequence has an underlying organizing principle. For example:

• Simple to complex• Cause to effect• Problem to solution• Least controversial to most controversial• Etc., etc.

Google Glass thesis #1

If the popularity of the epistolary novel and realist portraiture

were responsible for the evolution of the modern social order, then how are contemporary cultural artifacts affecting who we are becoming

today? Consider Google Glass: the computer that you wear like a pair

of glasses. Google Glass captures everything you see, hear, and say,

projecting your thoughts and perceptions to the world, while also

sending to you what others are recording and allowing you to gather still more information from the web. To wear Google Glass, then, is to

turn yourself into a global transmitter and receiver of information. As

such, this technology is teaching users a new way of being human: what

I will call “iHumanism.” Whereas, per Hunt, the Enlightenment notion

of “the human” understood selves to be fundamentally individualistic and private, iHumans see the self as fundamentally social, i.e., a source

and destination for shared information, and mediating, i.e., a public

broadcasting and archiving service. On the one hand, iHumanism may

lead to positive, potentially revolutionary changes in the social order, as

artifacts such as Google Glass teach us to see ourselves not as isolated individuals but as nodes in an open-ended, interconnected human web.

On the other hand, however, iHumanism threatens equally

revolutionary, but potentially very negative changes, too, potentially

trapping us in a world where no experience is truly our own, and the

twin “Big Brothers” of government and the market are always watching us.