Writing a paragraph with the aid of a secondary source

 

This article was published a couple of days ago. The current protest at MoMA is so fresh that it would beimpossible to find information about in a scholarly source. Other kinds of research can also be valid, but you have to use them carefully. Most people still think that only written texts (think library, Jstor, etc.) count as secondary research. Wrong. Oral interviews are a valid secondary source, so are certain types of other media such as film, social media, music, television, memes, and so on. 

Here is an example of an introductory paragraph (eight sentences) that I wrote this morning in the space of twenty minutes or so. It's not perfect, nothing ever is, but it does establish a clear thesis or argument. The passage highlighted in red is an example of weaving a secondary source into your essay by use of a signal phrase. The passage highlighted in green is my central argument, the point that I will try to prove throughout my essay. Toward the top of my essay, I will dedicate a solid paragraph to the counter-argument and examine its merits as fairly as possible. Subsequent paragraphs will give examples and evidence, some from my lived experience and some from my direct research, that prove the superiority (maybe validity is a better word) of my argument.

MOCK FIRST PARAGRAPH

It used to be easy to think that censorship was a fairly simple matter; the prime example is Nazis burning books. Who could be in favor of that?  But censorship in the arts today comes from every conceivable political position. In a recent online article published in The Guardian, Edward Helward writes, "“Strike MoMA” protesters, organised by a group called the International Imagination of Anti-National Anti-Imperialist Feelings, want to eliminate private philanthropy at the museum and create a social justice-oriented interpretation of modern art" (73). The name of the group seems to indicate that they don't take themselves seriously; maybe they know that their protest can't stand up to the moneyed interests that rule New York culture and high society. While the goal of promoting art that champions social justice issues seems laudable, on closer inspection it's deeply problematic. Art, and culture in general, needs to be free to examine all sorts of human experience. It can not limit itself to a particular perspective, or else it becomes a type of propaganda.