Have you ever watched a movie trailer that made you look forward to the release of the entire movie on your preferred movie theater or streaming service? I know you’ve experienced the powerful effect of a good movie trailer. This is the same effect a good thesis statement has on a reader. I am also certain that this is the effect you’d desire for your thesis statement to have on your readers.
We put this article with you in mind to assist you in writing a strong thesis statement that will make your reader understand the main idea of your essay and look forward to immediately reading the entire essay. This article will help you:
- Know what a thesis statement is and understand its importance in an essay.
- Recognize the characteristics of a strong thesis statement.
- Understand the elements of a good thesis statement.
- Learn how to write a great thesis statement using our thesis checklist.
What is a Thesis Statement?
A thesis statement is a brief statement that states the main point or argument of an essay and reflects the writer’s point of view. It is the road map of the entire essay as it informs the reader about what to expect from the write-up. In addition, every other data in the rest of the essay derives its root from the thesis statement.
It is typically one sentence or two sentences long and should be in the first paragraph of the essay. It is commonly described as the most important sentence in any research paper because it summarizes the very essence of the entire paper. Apart from this, there are other reasons the thesis statement plays a unique role in an essay. These are:
- It helps to organize your essay. A well-written thesis statement directs the writer to focus on the reason for writing the essay and guides the reader towards this reason.
- It also allows the reader to understand explicitly the one idea that the writer wants to say.
A working thesis statement should have certain characteristics that differentiate it from a weak thesis statement. We will explain this in the next section.
Characteristics of a Good Thesis Statement
Every good thesis statement should have these characteristics:
Specific
Every good thesis statement should be very specific. You don’t want your professor guessing what the rest of the paper is all about. A clearly written thesis shows the writer has carried out thorough research on the topic and properly understands the topic he is writing on. Try to avoid the use of vague words like “many”, “interesting”, “good” etc. Instead, write about why your stance is interesting or why the solution you are providing is good.
Another way to achieve specificity in your thesis is to write on a topic that is narrow. Broader topics make it difficult to formulate a specific thesis. For example, let’s say your professor gives you the assignment to analyze the compensation of athletes. It is best to develop a topic that is more specific, say, “Analysis on the compensation of athletes who represent the US in international competitions.” This will also help you in writing a more precise thesis.
Express the Point of View of the Writer
This is an essential attribute of a working thesis statement. Remember the analogy we gave earlier about the movie trailer, in which you have some idea about what to expect in the movie? This is exactly what your thesis should do. It should give your reader some idea about what to expect in your essay.
Apart from writing about what your topic is about, you should also include your position on the topic. State your position clearly in your thesis, note that you will provide pieces of evidence to back up your position in the body of your paper. This is essential, especially in an argumentative essay, where you need to convince your reader about accepting your point of view.
You should express your point of view with some level of assertion in order to persuade your readers to believe in your argument and be willing to accept your stance.
Arguable
Your thesis statement should be debatable therefore, we cannot view a statement of fact as a thesis statement. Your readers should be able to agree or could disagree with the point of view stated in your thesis.
Now, you know the attributes of a thesis statement. It’s time to look at the various elements that should be present in your thesis.
Elements of a Thesis Statement
Your thesis statement should contain the following elements:
- Topic: Your thesis should take its bearing from your topic and so, it contains some parts of your topic.
- Your position in relation to the topic: It is important that your thesis clearly states your position, as this will help your professor look out for a logical flow when reading through your essay assignment.
- Primary evidence: Your thesis statement should include the key evidence that will back up your position in relation to the topic you are writing about.
You now know the elements that should be present in your thesis statement. Next, we will review the location of your thesis statement in the essay.
Should you Include your Thesis Statement in your Essay Introduction?
Of course! Your thesis statement should be in the introductory paragraph of your essay, as it prepares your reader about what to expect. Your essay introduction should have three parts: the opening hook, a relevant background, and the thesis statement. The thesis sets the tone for the essay and summarizes your argument.
Ensure that you include your thesis statement at the end of the introduction just after the background. After this, you can include a transition that will lead into the body of your essay.
Step-by-step Guide to Write a Thesis Statement
This practical guide will walk you through developing your thesis statement. The first step is to brainstorm.
Brainstorm:
The aim of brainstorming at this stage is to get a topic for your essay and gather as many ideas as you can to help you when writing your thesis. There are various brainstorming techniques to available to help you: mind mapping, listing, or freewriting. These techniques will also be useful when writing your essay.
Choose your position based on your topic:
As we’ve discussed in previous sections, your position determines the direction your thesis and essay would be written. Your stance on the topic should be clear and persuasive to your reader so that he can view the topic from your perspective.
Research:
The next step is to research your topic based on the position you are taking. You should include the evidence you get from your research in the claim you want to make in your thesis. Remember that you will need to cite the sources of whatever pieces of evidence are used in your thesis and/or essay.
Develop a Draft:
At this stage, you have gotten the three elements you need to make up a solid thesis statement. It is time to infuse all three to come up with a draft. We have put together a checklist to guide you through this phase.
Thesis Statement Checklist
- Does your thesis statement contain the three elements, which are: Topic, Position, and Primary Evidence?
- Is my position in relation to the topic clear?
- Does my primary evidence support my position?
Example of thesis statement
Let’s use an example to help you interpret the checklist better.
We have a topic: “Homeschooling or Traditional Schooling: which is better for high school students preparing for standardized assessments?”
We can brainstorm to get ideas about each method of schooling. Next, we’ve got to choose our point of view. Let’s say we choose to support homeschooling over traditional schooling.
In other to convince our readers, we need to research to get concrete evidence to back up our claim.
After our research, we discover that “Only homeschooled students who use an organized lesson plan actually perform better than students who go to traditional schools in standardized assessments, the reason is that these students study in a structured way to complete their set curriculum in time for the assessments.”
Now, we head back to our checklist.
- Does your thesis statement contain the three elements, which are: Topic, Position, and Primary Evidence?
- Is my position in relation to the topic clear?
- Does my primary evidence support my position?
We have all three elements.
Topic: “Homeschooling or Traditional Schooling: which is better for high school students preparing for standardized assessments?”
Position: “High school students who are home-schooled perform better than traditionally schooled students in standardized assessments.”
Primary evidence based on our research is that: “Only homeschooled students who use an organized lesson plan actually perform better than students who go to traditional schools in standardized assessments, the reason is that these students study in a structured way to complete their set curriculum in time for the assessments.”
Putting all three elements, we can come up with our first draft: “Home-schooled high school students are more likely to perform better than traditional schooled high school students in standardized assessments, only when the home-schooled students use an organized lesson plan, the reason is that these students study in a structured way to complete their set curriculum in time for the assessments”.
This is a rather long statement with a lot of repeated words. We can refine our first draft to make the thesis statement clearer and ensure that the evidence clearly supports your position.
Refine your Draft
This is a continuous phase that helps you make your first draft better. Using the previous example, we can refine our first draft to make a specific and clear thesis statement, such as this:
“Home-schooled high school students perform better than traditional schooled high school students in standardized assessments when they are taught with organized lesson plans because it ensures that the students study in a structured way to complete their set curriculum in time for the assessments”.
Writing a solid thesis statement requires some research and lots of practice. Luckily, you’ve got this simple guide to assist you every step of the way. Which topic would you be writing your next thesis statement about? I will be glad to know about it.
