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LEO: Literacy Education Online Thesis
Statement |
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A thesis
statement in an essay is a sentence that explicitly identifies the purpose of
the paper or previews its main ideas. |
A thesis statement is an assertion, not a statement of
fact or an observation.
- Fact or observation:
People use many lawn chemicals.
- Thesis: People
are poisoning the environment with chemicals merely to keep their lawns
clean.
A thesis takes a stand rather than announcing a subject.
- Announcement: The
thesis of this paper is the difficulty of solving our environmental
problems.
- Thesis: Solving
our environmental problems is more difficult than many environmentalists
believe.
A thesis is the main idea, not the title. It must be a
complete sentence that explains in some detail what you expect to write about.
- Title: Social
Security and Old Age.
- Thesis:
Continuing changes in the Social Security System makes it almost
impossible to plan intelligently for one's retirement.
A thesis statement is narrow, rather than broad. If the
thesis statement is sufficiently narrow, it can be fully supported.
- Broad: The
American steel industry has many problems.
- Narrow: The
primary problem if the American steel industry is the lack of funds to
renovate outdated plants and equipment.
A thesis statement is specific rather than vague or
general.
- Vague:
Hemingway's war stories are very good.
- Specific:
Hemingway's stories helped create a new prose style by employing extensive
dialogue, shorter sentences, and strong Anglo-Saxon words.
A thesis statement has one main point rather than several
main points. More than one point may be too difficult for the reader to
understand and the writer to support.
- More than one main
point: Stephen Hawking's physical disability has not prevented him
from becoming a world-renowned physicist, and his book is the subject of a
movie.
- One Main point:
Stephen Hawking's physical disability has not prevented him from becoming
a world renowned physicist.
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You can
revise your thesis statement whenever you want to while you are writing your
essay. Writers often discover what their real purpose and point is in the
process of putting their thoughts into words and then reading what they've
written. |
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Catalogue
© 1995-2003 The Write Place
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This
handout was adapted by Libby Brunsvold from The Scott Foresman Handbook for
Writers, 3rd ed., by Maxine Hairston and John J. Ruszkiewice, NY: Harper
Collins, 1993, and Writing with a Thesis, 5th ed., by David Skwire, NY:
Holt, 1990; Joe Mathison completed the html markup for the Write Place and LEO,
St. Cloud State University. This document may be copied for educational
purposes only. If you copy this document, please include our copyright notice
and the name of the writer; if you revise it, please add your name to the list
of writers.
Last
update: 14 October 2003
URL:
http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/acadwrite/thesistatement.html