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R E V I S I N G :   T H E   B I G   P I C T U R E
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Support That’s Directly Related to the Thesis
As important as the amount of support is its relevance to the thesis. What good are ten supporting paragraphs if
they’re not supporting the right idea? Read the following essay carefully, paying particular attention to the sup-
port provided for the thesis.
When was the last time you told a lie? If you’re like most people, it was probably recently. Did you know that you can
also lie without even saying a word? This kind of lie can be even more devastating.
The poet Adrienne Rich said, “Lying is done with words and also with silence.” To lie means “to tell something
that is untrue.” But it also means “to be deceptive.” We often use silence to deceive. Rich is right. We lie with words, but
also with silence.
For example, a man buys a necklace for his girlfriend from a thief. He knows the necklace is stolen and doesn’t
tell his girlfriend. As a result, she finds out it’s a stolen necklace when she tries to take the necklace back to the store for
repairs.
I’m guilty, too. I knew my friend’s boyfriend was seeing someone else. But I kept quiet. I helped keep her in the
dark. Then, when she found him out—and found out that I’d known about it—it was terrible. It destroyed their rela-
tionship and our friendship.
Looking closely at the two supporting examples, you can see that neither example addresses how these silent
lies are more devastating than a spoken lie. Now the writer must make a decision. Should she expand each para-
graph to explain how keeping silent was worse than lying aloud? Or should she revise her thesis to eliminate the
idea that silent lies are “more devastating” than regular lies?
Choosing the latter, she revised her thesis once more and created the following thesis statement:
We lie with words, but also with silence. And these lies can be equally devastating.
Now the writer has two solid supporting examples for her thesis. But she should probably add as least one,
and preferably two more, to strengthen her essay.