A How-To

THESIS STATEMENTS

What a thesis statement is not• It is NOT• A title• A statement of intent• A statement of fact

• These things are all important, but none can be developed into a thesis statement• A title isn’t descriptive enough to orient your readers• A statement of intent can reveal more, but is stylistically

distracting• A statement of fact is a dead end (it’s not arguable)

Thesis Statements• Comprised of two parts – the argument & the mapping of evidence• A thesis is a clear, concise statement of the specific position you will explore in your paper• A thesis should state a position and NOT summarize information.• A thesis is a debatable point, and NOT a readily agreed upon point.• For this course and page length thesis statements should NOT try to argue more than one point.• Should NOT include hypothetical questions (generally should be avoided in ALL academic writing).

Example 1

Title Hybrid Cars: Pro and Con

Announcement of intent I will examine the pros and cons of hybrid cars that use both gasoline and electricity

Statement of fact Hybrid cars are more energy efficient than cars with standard gasoline engines

Thesis statement Hybrid cars that use both gasoline and electricity would decrease our country’s dependence on foreign oil.

Example 2

Title Orwell’s “A Hanging”

Announcement of intent This paper will discuss George Orwell’s attitude toward the death penalty in his essay “A Hanging.”

Statement of fact In his essay, Orwell describes a hanging that he witnessed in Burma.

Thesis statement In “A Hanging,” George Orwell shows that capital punishment is not only brutal but also immoral

Deciding on a Thesis• No rules determine when you formulate your thesis• Depends on scope of assignment• Your knowledge of the subject• Your personal method of writing

• You will learn new things as you write, so don’t consider your first thesis statement set in stone. In fact, your thesis statement probably should change in some way during the course of your writing.

Formulating, Creating, Thinking• A thesis is the result of a lengthy thinking process. Formulating a thesis is not the first thing you do after reading an essay assignment. • Before you develop an argument on any topic, you have to collect and organize evidence, look for possible relationships between known facts (such as surprising contrasts or similarities), and think about the significance of these relationships. • Once you do this thinking, you will probably have a “working thesis,” a basic or main idea, an argument that you think you can support with evidence but that may need adjustment along the way.•Writers use all kinds of techniques to stimulate their thinking and to help them clarify relationships or comprehend the broader significance of a topic and arrive at a thesis statement.

Brainstorming• Do we need help/discussion of brainstorming?

Getting Started•What sort of paper are you writing? This determines a great deal as to how you structure your thesis statement.• Analytical paper: breaks down an issue or an idea into its

component parts, evaluates the issue or idea, and presents this breakdown and evaluation to the audience.• Expository (explanatory) paper: explains something to the

audience.• Argumentative paper makes a claim about a topic and justifies

this claim with specific evidence. The claim could be an opinion, a policy proposal, an evaluation, a cause-and-effect statement, or an interpretation. The goal of the argumentative paper is to convince the audience that the claim is true based on the evidence provided.

• If you are writing a text which does not fall under these three categories (ex. a narrative), a thesis statement somewhere in the first paragraph could still be helpful to your reader.

Analytical Paper• Example of an analytical thesis statement:• An analysis of the college admission process reveals one

challenge facing counselors: accepting students with high test scores or students with strong extracurricular backgrounds.

• The paper that follows should:• explain the analysis of the college admission process• explain the challenge facing admissions counselors

Expository Paper• Example of an expository (explanatory) thesis statement:• The life of the typical college student is characterized by time

spent studying, attending class, and socializing with peers.

• The paper that follows should:• explain how students spend their time studying, attending

class, and socializing with peers

Argumentative Paper• Example of an argumentative thesis statement:• High school graduates should be required to take a year off to

pursue community service projects before entering college in order to increase their maturity and global awareness.

• The paper that follows should:• present an argument and give evidence to support the claim

that students should pursue community projects before entering college

Effective Thesis Statements• Three characteristics• Clearly expresses your essay’s main idea• Communicates your essay’s purpose• Clearly worded

Item 1: Clarity• Does more than state your topic• Indicates what you will say about your topic• Signals how you will approach your material• Example from the essay “Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts” by Bruce Catton follows

Clarity• They [Grant and Lee] were two strong men, these oddly

different generals, and they represented the strengths of two conflicting currents that, through them, had come into final collision.• This statement says that the essay will compare and contrast

Grant and Lee.• Specifically, it says that Catton will present the two Civil War

generals as symbols of two opposing historical currents.• A less developed thesis statement (“Grant and Lee were quite

different from each other”) would have just echoed the title of the essay

Item 2: Communicates your essay’s purpose

• Can be expressive • Conveying a mood or impression

• Can be informative• Listing points you will discuss• Presenting an objective overview of the essay

• Can be persuasive• Taking a strong stand or outlining the position you will argue

More Examples• Expressive• The city’s homeless families live in heartbreaking

surroundings.

• Informative• The plight of the homeless has become so serious that it is a

major priority for many city governments.

• Persuasive• The best way to address the problems of the homeless is to

renovate abandoned city buildings to create suitable housing for homeless families.

Item 3: Clearly Worded• Should be clearly worded and speak for itself.• “My thesis is…”• “The thesis of this paper is…”

• Straightforward and accurate indication of what follows• Don’t mislead readers about the essay’s direction, emphasis, scope, content, or viewpoint• Vague language, confusing abstractions, irrelevant details, and unnecessarily complex terminology

For example…• If your paper is going to discuss just the effects of new immigration laws, your thesis statement should not emphasize the events that resulted in their passage.• Bad thesis statement:• New immigration laws have failed to stem the tide of illegal

immigrants.

• Lack of focus• Good thesis statement:• Because they do not take into account the economic causes of

immigration, current immigration laws do little to decrease the number of illegal immigrants coming from Mexico into the United States.

• Clearly indicates what the writer is going to discuss• Establishes a specific direction for the essay

When Composing a Thesis• Make sure your thesis reflects the full scope of your

argument/position

• Avoid using a thesis that is too broad and too narrow • Your argument should be as conceptually rich as you can

support (ask why and how to enrich your thesis)

• Make sure your readers can identify your thesis (generally the last sentence of introductory paragraph; definitely within the first page)

• Do not just reword the assignment, claim your own position.

• Should show some concrete conclusion about the topic/assignment.

• The goal is to convince the audience that the claim is true based on the evidence provided.

Sample Thesis Statementsbased on Handout from UNC Writing Center• The following samples based on the following assignment:

Compare and contrast the reasons why the North and South fought the Civil War.

• The North and South fought the Civil War for many reasons, some of which were the same and some different. (is this a strong/weak thesis—why?)

• A reader of this weak thesis might think, "What reasons? How are they the same? How are they different?" Ask yourself these same questions and begin to compare Northern and Southern attitudes (perhaps you first think, "The South believed slavery was right, and the North thought slavery was wrong"). Now, push your comparison toward an interpretation—why did one side think slavery was right and the other side think it was wrong? You look again at the evidence, and you decide that you are going to argue that the North believed slavery was immoral while the South believed it upheld the Southern way of life. You write:

• A better/revised thesis is: While both sides fought the Civil War over the issue of slavery, the North fought for moral reasons while the South fought to preserve its own institutions.

• Sample Assignment: Write an analysis of some aspect of Mark Twain's novel Huckleberry Finn.• Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn is a great American novel.

(Is this a strong/weak thesis?)• The question did not ask you to summarize; it asked you to

analyze. Your professor is probably not interested in your opinion of the novel; instead, she wants you to think about why it's such a great novel—what do Huck's adventures tell us about life, about America, about coming of age, about race relations, etc.? First, the question asks you to pick an aspect of the novel that you think is important to its structure or meaning—for example, the role of storytelling, the contrasting scenes between the shore and the river, or the relationships between adults and children.• A better/revised thesis is: In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain

develops a contrast between life on the river and life on the shore. (can it still be improved?)

• Your reader is intrigued, but is still thinking, "So what? What's the point of this contrast? What does it signify?" Perhaps you are not sure yet, either. That's fine—begin to work on comparing scenes from the book and see what you discover. Free write, make lists, jot down Huck's actions and reactions. Eventually you will be able to clarify for yourself, and then for the reader, why this contrast matters.• Here’s a more refined thesis: Through its contrasting river

and shore scenes, Twain's Huckleberry Finn suggests that to find the true expression of American democratic ideals, one must leave "civilized" society and go back to nature.

What About THIS Paper?

• For this paper you are being asked to perform an analysis of a character from one of the texts we have read/will read.

• First, what is being asked? What is the MAIN question to answer?

• In a nutshell – what characteristics does X exhibit, and what is the author trying to say about the character/the world through them?

• Let’s work though the possible answers and how to revise it for clarity, strength, and purpose.

• Examples follow

Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”• If we chose the following method of organization:• Organization around a central characteristic, like kindness, gentleness,

generosity, firmness, or resoluteness of will frustrated by inopportune moments of action, resulting in despondency, doubt, and melancholy. A body containing this sort of material would demonstrate how the literary work brings out each of these qualities.

• We might organize around the central characteristic of insanity brought about by objectification.• What ways does the story reveal this?• She is prevented from doing things important to her such as writing, caring for her children, etc.

(engagement with the world)

• Mocking treatment by husband (John) and the protagonist’s apparent acceptance of it as normal behavior in marriage

• Room = jail cell; wallpaper shaken by woman/prisoner

• How the room is torn up (by previous women in similar situations?)

• Example: • Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s protagonist experiences a decent into

insanity as a result of “the rest cure,” in which she is prevented from engaging with the world as a subjective human being, revealing the negative and damaging views society had of women at that time.

Example 2• Organization around a development or change of character. Here you would attempt to show the character traits a character possesses at the start of the work, and then describe the changes or developments that occur. Try to determine the narrator’s view on such changes; that is, is the change genuine, or does the narrator establish hidden traits in the character which are brought out as the story progresses?• With this sort of organization, we might discuss how she began

as a normal, sane woman, and talk about how she transforms through the story• Evidence• Examples of her behavior

• How her writing changes throughout