Tutorama: Week Nine: Project Writing II

Introduction: Another level of analysis
As you learned in Project Writing I, the best way to construct a project is to ask and answer the two following questions: how and why. These questions help to establish the relationships between the central ideas of your position and the essays themselves.

To make your project even more complex and convincing, however, you need to introduce a second level of analysis: significance. Why is it important to understand the relationship between ideas that you describe? What are the consequences of that relationship?

Using questions to develop significance
You can establish this second level of analysis by practicing the same strategy you've used in the past, but repeating it more often. Here's how it works:

Step 1: Identify a point or main idea for one of your paragraphs.

Ex: the role of shopping in family life

Step 2: Ask a why or how question about that point of argument.

Ex: how has the centrality of family life been affected by shopping?

Step 3: Answer the question.

Ex: Arlie Russell Hochschild claims that shopping, and the mall in particular, are replacing family and community life.

Step 4: Ask another why or how question based on your answer. Focus on the new terms you introduced in your first answer.

Ex: Why can’t the family unit exert as much power as the mall?

Step 5: Answer the question.

Ex: The mall exerts an “emotional draw” (Hochschild) that conflicts with the family unit.

Step 6: Propose a counter-position, either of your own or from another text.

Ex: While Hochschild is concerned about the mall replacing family ties, David Brooks seems to think it’s a natural progression in American culture.

Step 7: Ask a question.

How does Brooks’ view on American culture complicate Hochschild’s view?

Step 8: Develop the complex connection between these two essays in the sentences following your claim.

Step 9: Consider your own position on this mall vs. family issue, and write 1-2 sentences that lay out your position.

Step 10: Re-construct your paragraph using the answers you've written. Construct your paragraph around your own position.

Notice how each additional question clarifies the meanings of the terms in the initial explanation. They also provide the developing paragraph with greater detail. This added detail increases the possibilities for making connections with other texts.

Conclusion
One of the keys to constructing a successful project, paragraph-by-paragraph, is to use your curiosity. Keep asking how and why; it will help you read and write with greater insight.

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