How Does Our Language Shape The Way We Think

Shimaa Omar

The organization is an imperative facet of any piece of writing. It provides the reader with a framework that shapes their thoughts which carries them throughout the writing piece. Looking at it from the writer's opposition, organization ensures that the writer can freely express their thoughts, opinions, or analysis on an issue without losing the reader in the process. A common struggle for writers in the “writing community” is knowing what they want to say, however, having the uncertainty of how to communicate it effectively. I personally struggled with this whilst writing my unit one paper. Due to the nature of the paper, it is an analytical review, I was provided with a rich volume of content, however, my struggle arises with the question of where do I begin? What do I include or exclude? And most importantly attempting to figure out
the “so what” of the paper what’s the point?

Any well-written piece, whether you are aware of it or not, begins with a thesis statement. What a thesis essentially does is set your reader up for the remainder of the essay. It provides the reader with a brief 10-12 word sentence expressing the author's stance on the issue and dispenses and understanding of what is yet to come in the remainder of your piece. The thesis acts almost like a blueprint for your reader, in where it provides clues as to how the paper will be structured.

Writing my first analytical draft essay on “How Does Our Language Shape the Way We Think?” by Lera Boroditsky I scrambled to create a compelling thesis that would engage the reader to want to read the rest of my essay.
I wanted to include enough information to grab the reader's attention, but not too much to confuse/overwhelm the reader. In addition, I wanted to incorporate a counter-argument in my thesis to strengthen my position. Although I continued to struggle with this for quite a bit, I finally came up with a resolution. I asked myself if I were to describe Boroditsky article in one word I'd be able to establish a persuasive thesis. The word I chose was ‘cognition’. From there I asked myself what was a second word that would be used to describe Boroditsky piece and I chose 'language'. The words ‘language’ and ’cognition’ where the essence of my thesis statement in where I began to fabricate a thesis around the terms. If the reader were to extract a single article of information from my essay, language and cognition should jump out at the reader. The two terms dictate the emphasis of the entirety of the
paper.

An additional demeanor that posed to be a challenge in my writing was fabricating a logical argument and building off from one idea to the next. When reading mentor texts, establishing a topic sentence at the top of your body paragraph acts like a mini-thesis for the paragraph. Similar to a thesis, a topic sentence performs informs the reader of what the writer will be discussing in the paragraph. From a writer's objective, initiating a topic sentence simplifies the process of finding evidence to support your claim. However, when scripting a topic sentence one must keep in mind to generalize the statement but, keeping it tied to the thesis.

The organization is essential to writing anything. From online reviews to college essays, the ability to formulate a sophisticated and complex piece initially comes down to how well an individual is capable of structuring their ideas rather than how much knowledge one contains. Tools such as thesis and topic sentences are a few that allow for more structure and coherence in any academic or leisure writing.