Judaism

ESSAY TOPIC:

Christianity changed the day that Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the door of that church. In this essay, you are asked to consider the significance of the Protestant Reformation. What took place after Luther’s initial protest, and what changed for Christianity on account of this new way of understanding the religion?

How to Write Your Essay Outline

THE BASICS

The list of topics are only topics. Your task is to choose a topic, and from there, craft your own particular thesis statement. Since you aren’t currently writing your doctoral dissertation, you don’t have to worry about writing the kind of thesis statement that you could defend in front of a committee of experts, but you do need to narrow the focus of your essay to a primary argument or theme that you commit to addressing in the essay.

YOUR THESIS STATEMENT

A thesis statement can be your most helpful tool in writing an outline and a research essay. It functions as a signpost, reminding yourself and your readers of your primary task in the essay. Each supporting point that you develop in your essay should reflect your thesis, so ask yourself, how does this idea I’m discussing highlight or prove what I’ve argued in my thesis statement.
Finally, thesis statements don’t have to be static as you’re writing—they might change or develop as you write, and that’s okay. But by the end of your essay writing your thesis statement should direct everything you’ve written, and vice versa.
Here are two thesis statements:

1. Covenants are very important in Judaism.
2. In this essay I will argue that covenants established a reciprocal relationship between the Jews and their God, as we see in the covenants made with Noah, Abraham, and Moses, and these covenants shaped future Jewish understanding of their place in the world.

Do you see the difference between these two thesis statements? The first one is a topic, not a thesis. It is general and not very specific. It could potentially function as a (not very interesting) first sentence of an introduction to your essay. The second thesis statement tells the
reader exactly what the author is going to argue (that covenants establish the
relationship) and how they will do it (by examining the three major covenants in the Torah and looking at how Jews themselves understand their relationship with God). This difference in these statements makes a world of difference.

How to Write an Annotated Bibliography
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/common_writing_assignments/annotated_bibliog raphies/index.html

What to submit?
• An outline that is one-page, single-spaced (not including the annotated bibliography), carefully edited for grammatical and stylistic errors. The supporting points can be listed as bullet points.
• Annotated bibliography, following the MLA or APA style guidelines that includes a minimum of four scholarly sources (books, academic journals). Websites are not permitted (with the exception of academic journals accessed online). One of the four sources can come from course readings. Your annotations should each be 150-200 words long.