Microdraft
Subject: What is the subject of your paper? The answer should include the name of the text or texts that you are considering and what about them you will be analyzing.
My subject is John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” Book IX lines 795 – 833 (Eve’s “awakening” after she’s eaten the fruit). I’ll be addressing her metamorphosis from something pure, and consequently foreign to the reader, into a creature recognizable – a flawed human.
Objective or purpose: Why are you analyzing this or these particular things in this or these particular works? What do you hope to show or prove by addressing these?
I hope to further explicate Milton’s method of educating the reader and show how he adds relevance and truth to the actions before Eve’s awakening by providing such an accurate portrayal of self-justification, indulgence, pride and other detrimental human characteristics that are unfortunately an accurate depiction of reality.
Thesis or argument: What is your main point? This differs from subject and purpose by being a concise statement of the end result of your analysis. Your main point is not to show something or find out something; rather, it is what you have shown or what you found out. This can sometimes be difficult to state before you have actually finished writing the paper, and therefore you ought to make tentative claims while in the drafting stage of your argument. Say what you think happens. If, when all is said and done, you find that this in fact does not happen, and that your analysis has led you to a different main point, then change the thesis.
The small passage concerning Eve will provide an example for Milton’s intuitive grasp for not only understanding human nature, but in replicating the multifaceted characters that serve to help his audience better understand, relate to, and involve themselves within this text. This point also serves to demonstrate the works success and prestige in captivating people of Milton’s time as well as today’s.