Sarah Paine

Okay, so I have a thesis, which I'm gonna give to you.

When in emails and written work and lectures like this one, you really help people if you explain exactly what you're up to and you do it succinctly at the very beginning.

So here it is.

The Japanese leaders westernized their institutions,

They integrated multiple instruments of national power into a coherent strategy.

And then in the Russo-Japanese War, they quit that one exactly at the culminating point of victory for maximum gains.

And together, these three things overturned the balance of power in their favor.

That's my thesis.

Short, sweet, you've got it.

Whether you agree with it or not, we will get there.

Okay, so now I'm going to go to the first point.

First points.

You should start with a topic sentence.

I'm going to start one.

Why am I doing this?

These are all signposts to orient you to my argument so that you can absorb it.

And also, if you don't like it, you can see very clearly the parts that you don't like, and we can get into a fun conversation.

So my topic sentence for the westernization part is...

Japanese leaders concluded that in order to parry the threat of the Industrial Revolution, of all these imperial powers coming at them, was they needed to westernize their institutions in order to protect their national interests, that this was step one.

So that's my topic sentence.