What Is a Thesis?
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The Thesis
By Adam Jortner
Your thesis is your essay answer or paper boiled down to one sentence. Get it right and the paper will follow. Flub it, and your reader wont know what youre talking about.
What is a thesis?
The thesis statement is a sentence, usually in the first paragraph of an essay, which encapsulates the essays argument. Thesis are found in essays of all kinds, as well as textbooks. Poor thesis statements suffer from vagueness; the more precise a writer can be, the better the sentence and the stronger the essay.
An udeal thesis is not only a guide for the reader, it is a guide for the writer. If you become stuck or find yourself writing in circles, a good thesis can be tonic to remind you exactly what youre after. The thesis sentence answers the question, “What is the Heart of the essay?”
How to write a thesis:
Make a splash!
A thesis statement must be something a person could agree or disagree with. Do not include vague words or instances that everyone agrees with, or worse, phrases that dont say anything about the paper itself. A very general thesis gives the reader no information. Give your thesis shape.
Vague:
Charlotte Perkins Gilmans novel Herland offered a
view of society that differed from her own culture.
Specific:
Charlotte Perkins Gilmans novel Herland presented a fictional society whose philosophy, economics, and legal system improved upon the real-life society og Gilmans day.
Vague:
Shakespeares play Macbeth and Kurasawas film
Throne of Blood have many similarities and differences.
Specific:
Kurusawas film Throne of Blood shares the plot and
themes of Shakespeares Macbeth, but the two works
differ in their cultural setting and valuation of the
central character.
An Essay must be organized. The thesis is a mini version of the essay. If the essay isnt organize, the thesis wont be either. An outline forces a writer to put the facts in the way in which they want them to be. The thesis isnt going to organize your facts for you. You have to organize the facts, and when thats done, your thesis will be waiting for you.
A good thesis hits the main point of an essay, not every point. In longer papers, its especially tempting to create a thesis by stringing together the topic sentence of each paragraph. This approach bogs down the opening paragraph; like any run-on sentence, the run-on thesis is a weak approach to writing.
A good way to test for a run-on thesis is to read or have a friend read it aloud. Concise thesis statements