use thesis in the sentence

Developing a Thesis Statement

Many papers you write require developing a thesis statement. In this section you’ll learn what a thesis statement is and how to write one.

Keep in mind that not all papers require thesis statements . If in doubt, please consult your instructor for assistance.

What is a thesis statement?

A thesis statement . . .

• Makes an argumentative assertion about a topic; it states the conclusions that you have reached about your topic.
• Makes a promise to the reader about the scope, purpose, and direction of your paper.
• Is focused and specific enough to be “proven” within the boundaries of your paper.
• Is generally located near the end of the introduction ; sometimes, in a long paper, the thesis will be expressed in several sentences or in an entire paragraph.
• Identifies the relationships between the pieces of evidence that you are using to support your argument.

Not all papers require thesis statements! Ask your instructor if you’re in doubt whether you need one.

Identify a topic

Your topic is the subject about which you will write. Your assignment may suggest several ways of looking at a topic; or it may name a fairly general concept that you will explore or analyze in your paper.

Consider what your assignment asks you to do

Inform yourself about your topic, focus on one aspect of your topic, ask yourself whether your topic is worthy of your efforts, generate a topic from an assignment.

Below are some possible topics based on sample assignments.

Sample assignment 1

Analyze Spain’s neutrality in World War II.

Identified topic

Franco’s role in the diplomatic relationships between the Allies and the Axis

This topic avoids generalities such as “Spain” and “World War II,” addressing instead on Franco’s role (a specific aspect of “Spain”) and the diplomatic relations between the Allies and Axis (a specific aspect of World War II).

Sample assignment 2

Analyze one of Homer’s epic similes in the Iliad.

The relationship between the portrayal of warfare and the epic simile about Simoisius at 4.547-64.

This topic focuses on a single simile and relates it to a single aspect of the Iliad ( warfare being a major theme in that work).

Developing a Thesis Statement–Additional information

Your assignment may suggest several ways of looking at a topic, or it may name a fairly general concept that you will explore or analyze in your paper. You’ll want to read your assignment carefully, looking for key terms that you can use to focus your topic.

Sample assignment: Analyze Spain’s neutrality in World War II Key terms: analyze, Spain’s neutrality, World War II

After you’ve identified the key words in your topic, the next step is to read about them in several sources, or generate as much information as possible through an analysis of your topic. Obviously, the more material or knowledge you have, the more possibilities will be available for a strong argument. For the sample assignment above, you’ll want to look at books and articles on World War II in general, and Spain’s neutrality in particular.

As you consider your options, you must decide to focus on one aspect of your topic. This means that you cannot include everything you’ve learned about your topic, nor should you go off in several directions. If you end up covering too many different aspects of a topic, your paper will sprawl and be unconvincing in its argument, and it most likely will not fulfull the assignment requirements.

For the sample assignment above, both Spain’s neutrality and World War II are topics far too broad to explore in a paper. You may instead decide to focus on Franco’s role in the diplomatic relationships between the Allies and the Axis , which narrows down what aspects of Spain’s neutrality and World War II you want to discuss, as well as establishes a specific link between those two aspects.

Before you go too far, however, ask yourself whether your topic is worthy of your efforts. Try to avoid topics that already have too much written about them (i.e., “eating disorders and body image among adolescent women”) or that simply are not important (i.e. “why I like ice cream”). These topics may lead to a thesis that is either dry fact or a weird claim that cannot be supported. A good thesis falls somewhere between the two extremes. To arrive at this point, ask yourself what is new, interesting, contestable, or controversial about your topic.

As you work on your thesis, remember to keep the rest of your paper in mind at all times . Sometimes your thesis needs to evolve as you develop new insights, find new evidence, or take a different approach to your topic.

Derive a main point from topic

Once you have a topic, you will have to decide what the main point of your paper will be. This point, the “controlling idea,” becomes the core of your argument (thesis statement) and it is the unifying idea to which you will relate all your sub-theses. You can then turn this “controlling idea” into a purpose statement about what you intend to do in your paper.

Look for patterns in your evidence

Compose a purpose statement.

Consult the examples below for suggestions on how to look for patterns in your evidence and construct a purpose statement.

• Franco first tried to negotiate with the Axis
• Franco turned to the Allies when he couldn’t get some concessions that he wanted from the Axis

Possible conclusion:

Spain’s neutrality in WWII occurred for an entirely personal reason: Franco’s desire to preserve his own (and Spain’s) power.

Purpose statement

This paper will analyze Franco’s diplomacy during World War II to see how it contributed to Spain’s neutrality.

• The simile compares Simoisius to a tree, which is a peaceful, natural image.
• The tree in the simile is chopped down to make wheels for a chariot, which is an object used in warfare.

At first, the simile seems to take the reader away from the world of warfare, but we end up back in that world by the end.

This paper will analyze the way the simile about Simoisius at 4.547-64 moves in and out of the world of warfare.

Derive purpose statement from topic

To find out what your “controlling idea” is, you have to examine and evaluate your evidence . As you consider your evidence, you may notice patterns emerging, data repeated in more than one source, or facts that favor one view more than another. These patterns or data may then lead you to some conclusions about your topic and suggest that you can successfully argue for one idea better than another.

For instance, you might find out that Franco first tried to negotiate with the Axis, but when he couldn’t get some concessions that he wanted from them, he turned to the Allies. As you read more about Franco’s decisions, you may conclude that Spain’s neutrality in WWII occurred for an entirely personal reason: his desire to preserve his own (and Spain’s) power. Based on this conclusion, you can then write a trial thesis statement to help you decide what material belongs in your paper.

Sometimes you won’t be able to find a focus or identify your “spin” or specific argument immediately. Like some writers, you might begin with a purpose statement just to get yourself going. A purpose statement is one or more sentences that announce your topic and indicate the structure of the paper but do not state the conclusions you have drawn . Thus, you might begin with something like this:

• This paper will look at modern language to see if it reflects male dominance or female oppression.
• I plan to analyze anger and derision in offensive language to see if they represent a challenge of society’s authority.

At some point, you can turn a purpose statement into a thesis statement. As you think and write about your topic, you can restrict, clarify, and refine your argument, crafting your thesis statement to reflect your thinking.

As you work on your thesis, remember to keep the rest of your paper in mind at all times. Sometimes your thesis needs to evolve as you develop new insights, find new evidence, or take a different approach to your topic.

Compose a draft thesis statement

If you are writing a paper that will have an argumentative thesis and are having trouble getting started, the techniques in the table below may help you develop a temporary or “working” thesis statement.

Begin with a purpose statement that you will later turn into a thesis statement.

Assignment: Discuss the history of the Reform Party and explain its influence on the 1990 presidential and Congressional election.

Purpose Statement: This paper briefly sketches the history of the grassroots, conservative, Perot-led Reform Party and analyzes how it influenced the economic and social ideologies of the two mainstream parties.

Question-to-Assertion

If your assignment asks a specific question(s), turn the question(s) into an assertion and give reasons why it is true or reasons for your opinion.

Assignment : What do Aylmer and Rappaccini have to be proud of? Why aren’t they satisfied with these things? How does pride, as demonstrated in “The Birthmark” and “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” lead to unexpected problems?

Beginning thesis statement: Alymer and Rappaccinni are proud of their great knowledge; however, they are also very greedy and are driven to use their knowledge to alter some aspect of nature as a test of their ability. Evil results when they try to “play God.”

Write a sentence that summarizes the main idea of the essay you plan to write.

Main idea: The reason some toys succeed in the market is that they appeal to the consumers’ sense of the ridiculous and their basic desire to laugh at themselves.

Make a list of the ideas that you want to include; consider the ideas and try to group them.

• nature = peaceful
• war matériel = violent (competes with 1?)
• need for time and space to mourn the dead
• war is inescapable (competes with 3?)

Use a formula to arrive at a working thesis statement (you will revise this later).

• although most readers of _______ have argued that _______, closer examination shows that _______.
• _______ uses _______ and _____ to prove that ________.
• phenomenon x is a result of the combination of __________, __________, and _________.

What to keep in mind as you draft an initial thesis statement

Beginning statements obtained through the methods illustrated above can serve as a framework for planning or drafting your paper, but remember they’re not yet the specific, argumentative thesis you want for the final version of your paper. In fact, in its first stages, a thesis statement usually is ill-formed or rough and serves only as a planning tool.

As you write, you may discover evidence that does not fit your temporary or “working” thesis. Or you may reach deeper insights about your topic as you do more research, and you will find that your thesis statement has to be more complicated to match the evidence that you want to use.

You must be willing to reject or omit some evidence in order to keep your paper cohesive and your reader focused. Or you may have to revise your thesis to match the evidence and insights that you want to discuss. Read your draft carefully, noting the conclusions you have drawn and the major ideas which support or prove those conclusions. These will be the elements of your final thesis statement.

Sometimes you will not be able to identify these elements in your early drafts, but as you consider how your argument is developing and how your evidence supports your main idea, ask yourself, “ What is the main point that I want to prove/discuss? ” and “ How will I convince the reader that this is true? ” When you can answer these questions, then you can begin to refine the thesis statement.

Refine and polish the thesis statement

To get to your final thesis, you’ll need to refine your draft thesis so that it’s specific and arguable.

• Ask if your draft thesis addresses the assignment
• Question each part of your draft thesis
• Clarify vague phrases and assertions
• Investigate alternatives to your draft thesis

Consult the example below for suggestions on how to refine your draft thesis statement.

Sample Assignment

Choose an activity and define it as a symbol of American culture. Your essay should cause the reader to think critically about the society which produces and enjoys that activity.

• Ask The phenomenon of drive-in facilities is an interesting symbol of american culture, and these facilities demonstrate significant characteristics of our society.This statement does not fulfill the assignment because it does not require the reader to think critically about society.

Drive-ins are an interesting symbol of American culture because they represent Americans’ significant creativity and business ingenuity.

Among the types of drive-in facilities familiar during the twentieth century, drive-in movie theaters best represent American creativity, not merely because they were the forerunner of later drive-ins and drive-throughs, but because of their impact on our culture: they changed our relationship to the automobile, changed the way people experienced movies, and changed movie-going into a family activity.

While drive-in facilities such as those at fast-food establishments, banks, pharmacies, and dry cleaners symbolize America’s economic ingenuity, they also have affected our personal standards.

While drive-in facilities such as those at fast- food restaurants, banks, pharmacies, and dry cleaners symbolize (1) Americans’ business ingenuity, they also have contributed (2) to an increasing homogenization of our culture, (3) a willingness to depersonalize relationships with others, and (4) a tendency to sacrifice quality for convenience.

This statement is now specific and fulfills all parts of the assignment. This version, like any good thesis, is not self-evident; its points, 1-4, will have to be proven with evidence in the body of the paper. The numbers in this statement indicate the order in which the points will be presented. Depending on the length of the paper, there could be one paragraph for each numbered item or there could be blocks of paragraph for even pages for each one.

Complete the final thesis statement

The bottom line.

As you move through the process of crafting a thesis, you’ll need to remember four things:

• Context matters! Think about your course materials and lectures. Try to relate your thesis to the ideas your instructor is discussing.
• As you go through the process described in this section, always keep your assignment in mind . You will be more successful when your thesis (and paper) responds to the assignment than if it argues a semi-related idea.
• Your thesis statement should be precise, focused, and contestable ; it should predict the sub-theses or blocks of information that you will use to prove your argument.
• Make sure that you keep the rest of your paper in mind at all times. Change your thesis as your paper evolves, because you do not want your thesis to promise more than your paper actually delivers.

In the beginning, the thesis statement was a tool to help you sharpen your focus, limit material and establish the paper’s purpose. When your paper is finished, however, the thesis statement becomes a tool for your reader. It tells the reader what you have learned about your topic and what evidence led you to your conclusion. It keeps the reader on track–well able to understand and appreciate your argument.

Writing Process and Structure

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Getting Started with Your Paper

Interpreting Writing Assignments from Your Courses

Generating Ideas for

Creating an Argument

Thesis vs. Purpose Statements

Architecture of Arguments

Working with Sources

Quoting and Paraphrasing Sources

Using Literary Quotations

Citing Sources in Your Paper

Drafting Your Paper

Generating Ideas for Your Paper

Introductions

Paragraphing

Developing Strategic Transitions

Conclusions

Revising Your Paper

Peer Reviews

Reverse Outlines

Revising an Argumentative Paper

Revision Strategies for Longer Projects

Finishing Your Paper

Twelve Common Errors: An Editing Checklist

How to Proofread your Paper

Writing Collaboratively

Collaborative and Group Writing

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How to Write a Strong Thesis Statement: 4 Steps + Examples

What’s Covered:

What is the purpose of a thesis statement, writing a good thesis statement: 4 steps, common pitfalls to avoid, where to get your essay edited for free.

When you set out to write an essay, there has to be some kind of point to it, right? Otherwise, your essay would just be a big jumble of word salad that makes absolutely no sense. An essay needs a central point that ties into everything else. That main point is called a thesis statement, and it’s the core of any essay or research paper.

You may hear about Master degree candidates writing a thesis, and that is an entire paper–not to be confused with the thesis statement, which is typically one sentence that contains your paper’s focus. 

Read on to learn more about thesis statements and how to write them. We’ve also included some solid examples for you to reference.

Typically the last sentence of your introductory paragraph, the thesis statement serves as the roadmap for your essay. When your reader gets to the thesis statement, they should have a clear outline of your main point, as well as the information you’ll be presenting in order to either prove or support your point. 

The thesis statement should not be confused for a topic sentence , which is the first sentence of every paragraph in your essay. If you need help writing topic sentences, numerous resources are available. Topic sentences should go along with your thesis statement, though.

Since the thesis statement is the most important sentence of your entire essay or paper, it’s imperative that you get this part right. Otherwise, your paper will not have a good flow and will seem disjointed. That’s why it’s vital not to rush through developing one. It’s a methodical process with steps that you need to follow in order to create the best thesis statement possible.

Step 1: Decide what kind of paper you’re writing

When you’re assigned an essay, there are several different types you may get. Argumentative essays are designed to get the reader to agree with you on a topic. Informative or expository essays present information to the reader. Analytical essays offer up a point and then expand on it by analyzing relevant information. Thesis statements can look and sound different based on the type of paper you’re writing. For example:

• Argumentative: The United States needs a viable third political party to decrease bipartisanship, increase options, and help reduce corruption in government.
• Informative: The Libertarian party has thrown off elections before by gaining enough support in states to get on the ballot and by taking away crucial votes from candidates.
• Analytical: An analysis of past presidential elections shows that while third party votes may have been the minority, they did affect the outcome of the elections in 2020, 2016, and beyond.

Step 2: Figure out what point you want to make

Once you know what type of paper you’re writing, you then need to figure out the point you want to make with your thesis statement, and subsequently, your paper. In other words, you need to decide to answer a question about something, such as:

• What impact did reality TV have on American society?
• How has the musical Hamilton affected perception of American history?
• Why do I want to major in [chosen major here]?

If you have an argumentative essay, then you will be writing about an opinion. To make it easier, you may want to choose an opinion that you feel passionate about so that you’re writing about something that interests you. For example, if you have an interest in preserving the environment, you may want to choose a topic that relates to that. 

If you’re writing your college essay and they ask why you want to attend that school, you may want to have a main point and back it up with information, something along the lines of:

“Attending Harvard University would benefit me both academically and professionally, as it would give me a strong knowledge base upon which to build my career, develop my network, and hopefully give me an advantage in my chosen field.”

Step 3: Determine what information you’ll use to back up your point

Once you have the point you want to make, you need to figure out how you plan to back it up throughout the rest of your essay. Without this information, it will be hard to either prove or argue the main point of your thesis statement. If you decide to write about the Hamilton example, you may decide to address any falsehoods that the writer put into the musical, such as:

“The musical Hamilton, while accurate in many ways, leaves out key parts of American history, presents a nationalist view of founding fathers, and downplays the racism of the times.”

Once you’ve written your initial working thesis statement, you’ll then need to get information to back that up. For example, the musical completely leaves out Benjamin Franklin, portrays the founding fathers in a nationalist way that is too complimentary, and shows Hamilton as a staunch abolitionist despite the fact that his family likely did own slaves. 

Step 4: Revise and refine your thesis statement before you start writing

Read through your thesis statement several times before you begin to compose your full essay. You need to make sure the statement is ironclad, since it is the foundation of the entire paper. Edit it or have a peer review it for you to make sure everything makes sense and that you feel like you can truly write a paper on the topic. Once you’ve done that, you can then begin writing your paper.

When writing a thesis statement, there are some common pitfalls you should avoid so that your paper can be as solid as possible. Make sure you always edit the thesis statement before you do anything else. You also want to ensure that the thesis statement is clear and concise. Don’t make your reader hunt for your point. Finally, put your thesis statement at the end of the first paragraph and have your introduction flow toward that statement. Your reader will expect to find your statement in its traditional spot.

If you’re having trouble getting started, or need some guidance on your essay, there are tools available that can help you. CollegeVine offers a free peer essay review tool where one of your peers can read through your essay and provide you with valuable feedback. Getting essay feedback from a peer can help you wow your instructor or college admissions officer with an impactful essay that effectively illustrates your point.

Related CollegeVine Blog Posts

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How to write a thesis statement + examples

What is a thesis statement?

Is a thesis statement a question, how do you write a good thesis statement, how do i know if my thesis statement is good, examples of thesis statements, helpful resources on how to write a thesis statement, frequently asked questions about writing a thesis statement, related articles.

A thesis statement is the main argument of your paper or thesis.

The thesis statement is one of the most important elements of any piece of academic writing . It is a brief statement of your paper’s main argument. Essentially, you are stating what you will be writing about.

You can see your thesis statement as an answer to a question. While it also contains the question, it should really give an answer to the question with new information and not just restate or reiterate it.

Your thesis statement is part of your introduction. Learn more about how to write a good thesis introduction in our introduction guide .

A thesis statement is not a question. A statement must be arguable and provable through evidence and analysis. While your thesis might stem from a research question, it should be in the form of a statement.

Tip: A thesis statement is typically 1-2 sentences. For a longer project like a thesis, the statement may be several sentences or a paragraph.

A good thesis statement needs to do the following:

• Condense the main idea of your thesis into one or two sentences.
• Answer your project’s main research question.
• Clearly state your position in relation to the topic .
• Make an argument that requires support or evidence.

Once you have written down a thesis statement, check if it fulfills the following criteria:

• Your statement needs to be provable by evidence. As an argument, a thesis statement needs to be debatable.
• Your statement needs to be precise. Do not give away too much information in the thesis statement and do not load it with unnecessary information.
• Your statement cannot say that one solution is simply right or simply wrong as a matter of fact. You should draw upon verified facts to persuade the reader of your solution, but you cannot just declare something as right or wrong.

As previously mentioned, your thesis statement should answer a question.

If the question is:

What do you think the City of New York should do to reduce traffic congestion?

A good thesis statement restates the question and answers it:

In this paper, I will argue that the City of New York should focus on providing exclusive lanes for public transport and adaptive traffic signals to reduce traffic congestion by the year 2035.

Here is another example. If the question is:

How can we end poverty?

A good thesis statement should give more than one solution to the problem in question:

In this paper, I will argue that introducing universal basic income can help reduce poverty and positively impact the way we work.

• The Writing Center of the University of North Carolina has a list of questions to ask to see if your thesis is strong .

A thesis statement is part of the introduction of your paper. It is usually found in the first or second paragraph to let the reader know your research purpose from the beginning.

In general, a thesis statement should have one or two sentences. But the length really depends on the overall length of your project. Take a look at our guide about the length of thesis statements for more insight on this topic.

Here is a list of Thesis Statement Examples that will help you understand better how to write them.

Every good essay should include a thesis statement as part of its introduction, no matter the academic level. Of course, if you are a high school student you are not expected to have the same type of thesis as a PhD student.

Here is a great YouTube tutorial showing How To Write An Essay: Thesis Statements .

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Writing a Paper: Thesis Statements

Basics of thesis statements.

The thesis statement is the brief articulation of your paper's central argument and purpose. You might hear it referred to as simply a "thesis." Every scholarly paper should have a thesis statement, and strong thesis statements are concise, specific, and arguable. Concise means the thesis is short: perhaps one or two sentences for a shorter paper. Specific means the thesis deals with a narrow and focused topic, appropriate to the paper's length. Arguable means that a scholar in your field could disagree (or perhaps already has!).

Strong thesis statements address specific intellectual questions, have clear positions, and use a structure that reflects the overall structure of the paper. Read on to learn more about constructing a strong thesis statement.

Being Specific

This thesis statement has no specific argument:

Needs Improvement: In this essay, I will examine two scholarly articles to find similarities and differences.

This statement is concise, but it is neither specific nor arguable—a reader might wonder, "Which scholarly articles? What is the topic of this paper? What field is the author writing in?" Additionally, the purpose of the paper—to "examine…to find similarities and differences" is not of a scholarly level. Identifying similarities and differences is a good first step, but strong academic argument goes further, analyzing what those similarities and differences might mean or imply.

Better: In this essay, I will argue that Bowler's (2003) autocratic management style, when coupled with Smith's (2007) theory of social cognition, can reduce the expenses associated with employee turnover.

The new revision here is still concise, as well as specific and arguable.  We can see that it is specific because the writer is mentioning (a) concrete ideas and (b) exact authors.  We can also gather the field (business) and the topic (management and employee turnover). The statement is arguable because the student goes beyond merely comparing; he or she draws conclusions from that comparison ("can reduce the expenses associated with employee turnover").

Making a Unique Argument

This thesis draft repeats the language of the writing prompt without making a unique argument:

Needs Improvement: The purpose of this essay is to monitor, assess, and evaluate an educational program for its strengths and weaknesses. Then, I will provide suggestions for improvement.

You can see here that the student has simply stated the paper's assignment, without articulating specifically how he or she will address it. The student can correct this error simply by phrasing the thesis statement as a specific answer to the assignment prompt.

Better: Through a series of student interviews, I found that Kennedy High School's antibullying program was ineffective. In order to address issues of conflict between students, I argue that Kennedy High School should embrace policies outlined by the California Department of Education (2010).

Words like "ineffective" and "argue" show here that the student has clearly thought through the assignment and analyzed the material; he or she is putting forth a specific and debatable position. The concrete information ("student interviews," "antibullying") further prepares the reader for the body of the paper and demonstrates how the student has addressed the assignment prompt without just restating that language.

Creating a Debate

This thesis statement includes only obvious fact or plot summary instead of argument:

Needs Improvement: Leadership is an important quality in nurse educators.

A good strategy to determine if your thesis statement is too broad (and therefore, not arguable) is to ask yourself, "Would a scholar in my field disagree with this point?" Here, we can see easily that no scholar is likely to argue that leadership is an unimportant quality in nurse educators.  The student needs to come up with a more arguable claim, and probably a narrower one; remember that a short paper needs a more focused topic than a dissertation.

Better: Roderick's (2009) theory of participatory leadership  is particularly appropriate to nurse educators working within the emergency medicine field, where students benefit most from collegial and kinesthetic learning.

Here, the student has identified a particular type of leadership ("participatory leadership"), narrowing the topic, and has made an arguable claim (this type of leadership is "appropriate" to a specific type of nurse educator). Conceivably, a scholar in the nursing field might disagree with this approach. The student's paper can now proceed, providing specific pieces of evidence to support the arguable central claim.

Choosing the Right Words

This thesis statement uses large or scholarly-sounding words that have no real substance:

Needs Improvement: Scholars should work to seize metacognitive outcomes by harnessing discipline-based networks to empower collaborative infrastructures.

There are many words in this sentence that may be buzzwords in the student's field or key terms taken from other texts, but together they do not communicate a clear, specific meaning. Sometimes students think scholarly writing means constructing complex sentences using special language, but actually it's usually a stronger choice to write clear, simple sentences. When in doubt, remember that your ideas should be complex, not your sentence structure.

Better: Ecologists should work to educate the U.S. public on conservation methods by making use of local and national green organizations to create a widespread communication plan.

Notice in the revision that the field is now clear (ecology), and the language has been made much more field-specific ("conservation methods," "green organizations"), so the reader is able to see concretely the ideas the student is communicating.

Leaving Room for Discussion

This thesis statement is not capable of development or advancement in the paper:

Needs Improvement: There are always alternatives to illegal drug use.

This sample thesis statement makes a claim, but it is not a claim that will sustain extended discussion. This claim is the type of claim that might be appropriate for the conclusion of a paper, but in the beginning of the paper, the student is left with nowhere to go. What further points can be made? If there are "always alternatives" to the problem the student is identifying, then why bother developing a paper around that claim? Ideally, a thesis statement should be complex enough to explore over the length of the entire paper.

Better: The most effective treatment plan for methamphetamine addiction may be a combination of pharmacological and cognitive therapy, as argued by Baker (2008), Smith (2009), and Xavier (2011).

In the revised thesis, you can see the student make a specific, debatable claim that has the potential to generate several pages' worth of discussion. When drafting a thesis statement, think about the questions your thesis statement will generate: What follow-up inquiries might a reader have? In the first example, there are almost no additional questions implied, but the revised example allows for a good deal more exploration.

Thesis Mad Libs

If you are having trouble getting started, try using the models below to generate a rough model of a thesis statement! These models are intended for drafting purposes only and should not appear in your final work.

• In this essay, I argue ____, using ______ to assert _____.
• While scholars have often argued ______, I argue______, because_______.
• Through an analysis of ______, I argue ______, which is important because_______.

Words to Avoid and to Embrace

When drafting your thesis statement, avoid words like explore, investigate, learn, compile, summarize , and explain to describe the main purpose of your paper. These words imply a paper that summarizes or "reports," rather than synthesizing and analyzing.

Instead of the terms above, try words like argue, critique, question , and interrogate . These more analytical words may help you begin strongly, by articulating a specific, critical, scholarly position.

Read Kayla's blog post for tips on taking a stand in a well-crafted thesis statement.

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Didn't find what you need? Email us at [email protected] .

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Developing Strong Thesis Statements

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The thesis statement or main claim must be debatable

An argumentative or persuasive piece of writing must begin with a debatable thesis or claim. In other words, the thesis must be something that people could reasonably have differing opinions on. If your thesis is something that is generally agreed upon or accepted as fact then there is no reason to try to persuade people.

Example of a non-debatable thesis statement:

This thesis statement is not debatable. First, the word pollution implies that something is bad or negative in some way. Furthermore, all studies agree that pollution is a problem; they simply disagree on the impact it will have or the scope of the problem. No one could reasonably argue that pollution is unambiguously good.

Example of a debatable thesis statement:

This is an example of a debatable thesis because reasonable people could disagree with it. Some people might think that this is how we should spend the nation's money. Others might feel that we should be spending more money on education. Still others could argue that corporations, not the government, should be paying to limit pollution.

Another example of a debatable thesis statement:

In this example there is also room for disagreement between rational individuals. Some citizens might think focusing on recycling programs rather than private automobiles is the most effective strategy.

The thesis needs to be narrow

Although the scope of your paper might seem overwhelming at the start, generally the narrower the thesis the more effective your argument will be. Your thesis or claim must be supported by evidence. The broader your claim is, the more evidence you will need to convince readers that your position is right.

Example of a thesis that is too broad:

There are several reasons this statement is too broad to argue. First, what is included in the category "drugs"? Is the author talking about illegal drug use, recreational drug use (which might include alcohol and cigarettes), or all uses of medication in general? Second, in what ways are drugs detrimental? Is drug use causing deaths (and is the author equating deaths from overdoses and deaths from drug related violence)? Is drug use changing the moral climate or causing the economy to decline? Finally, what does the author mean by "society"? Is the author referring only to America or to the global population? Does the author make any distinction between the effects on children and adults? There are just too many questions that the claim leaves open. The author could not cover all of the topics listed above, yet the generality of the claim leaves all of these possibilities open to debate.

Example of a narrow or focused thesis:

In this example the topic of drugs has been narrowed down to illegal drugs and the detriment has been narrowed down to gang violence. This is a much more manageable topic.

We could narrow each debatable thesis from the previous examples in the following way:

Narrowed debatable thesis 1:

This thesis narrows the scope of the argument by specifying not just the amount of money used but also how the money could actually help to control pollution.

Narrowed debatable thesis 2:

This thesis narrows the scope of the argument by specifying not just what the focus of a national anti-pollution campaign should be but also why this is the appropriate focus.

Qualifiers such as " typically ," " generally ," " usually ," or " on average " also help to limit the scope of your claim by allowing for the almost inevitable exception to the rule.

Types of claims

Claims typically fall into one of four categories. Thinking about how you want to approach your topic, or, in other words, what type of claim you want to make, is one way to focus your thesis on one particular aspect of your broader topic.

Claims of fact or definition: These claims argue about what the definition of something is or whether something is a settled fact. Example:

Claims of cause and effect: These claims argue that one person, thing, or event caused another thing or event to occur. Example:

Claims about value: These are claims made of what something is worth, whether we value it or not, how we would rate or categorize something. Example:

Claims about solutions or policies: These are claims that argue for or against a certain solution or policy approach to a problem. Example:

Which type of claim is right for your argument? Which type of thesis or claim you use for your argument will depend on your position and knowledge of the topic, your audience, and the context of your paper. You might want to think about where you imagine your audience to be on this topic and pinpoint where you think the biggest difference in viewpoints might be. Even if you start with one type of claim you probably will be using several within the paper. Regardless of the type of claim you choose to utilize it is key to identify the controversy or debate you are addressing and to define your position early on in the paper.

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How to write a thesis statement, what is a thesis statement.

Almost all of us—even if we don’t do it consciously—look early in an essay for a one- or two-sentence condensation of the argument or analysis that is to follow. We refer to that condensation as a thesis statement.

Why Should Your Essay Contain a Thesis Statement?

• to test your ideas by distilling them into a sentence or two
• to better organize and develop your argument
• to provide your reader with a “guide” to your argument

In general, your thesis statement will accomplish these goals if you think of the thesis as the answer to the question your paper explores.

How Can You Write a Good Thesis Statement?

Here are some helpful hints to get you started. You can either scroll down or select a link to a specific topic.

How to Generate a Thesis Statement if the Topic is Assigned How to Generate a Thesis Statement if the Topic is not Assigned How to Tell a Strong Thesis Statement from a Weak One

How to Generate a Thesis Statement if the Topic is Assigned

Almost all assignments, no matter how complicated, can be reduced to a single question. Your first step, then, is to distill the assignment into a specific question. For example, if your assignment is, “Write a report to the local school board explaining the potential benefits of using computers in a fourth-grade class,” turn the request into a question like, “What are the potential benefits of using computers in a fourth-grade class?” After you’ve chosen the question your essay will answer, compose one or two complete sentences answering that question.

Q: “What are the potential benefits of using computers in a fourth-grade class?” A: “The potential benefits of using computers in a fourth-grade class are . . .”

A: “Using computers in a fourth-grade class promises to improve . . .”

The answer to the question is the thesis statement for the essay.

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How to Generate a Thesis Statement if the Topic is not Assigned

Even if your assignment doesn’t ask a specific question, your thesis statement still needs to answer a question about the issue you’d like to explore. In this situation, your job is to figure out what question you’d like to write about.

A good thesis statement will usually include the following four attributes:

• take on a subject upon which reasonable people could disagree
• deal with a subject that can be adequately treated given the nature of the assignment
• express one main idea
• assert your conclusions about a subject

Let’s see how to generate a thesis statement for a social policy paper.

Brainstorm the topic . Let’s say that your class focuses upon the problems posed by changes in the dietary habits of Americans. You find that you are interested in the amount of sugar Americans consume.

You start out with a thesis statement like this:

Sugar consumption.

This fragment isn’t a thesis statement. Instead, it simply indicates a general subject. Furthermore, your reader doesn’t know what you want to say about sugar consumption.

Narrow the topic . Your readings about the topic, however, have led you to the conclusion that elementary school children are consuming far more sugar than is healthy.

You change your thesis to look like this:

Reducing sugar consumption by elementary school children.

This fragment not only announces your subject, but it focuses on one segment of the population: elementary school children. Furthermore, it raises a subject upon which reasonable people could disagree, because while most people might agree that children consume more sugar than they used to, not everyone would agree on what should be done or who should do it. You should note that this fragment is not a thesis statement because your reader doesn’t know your conclusions on the topic.

Take a position on the topic. After reflecting on the topic a little while longer, you decide that what you really want to say about this topic is that something should be done to reduce the amount of sugar these children consume.

You revise your thesis statement to look like this:

More attention should be paid to the food and beverage choices available to elementary school children.

This statement asserts your position, but the terms more attention and food and beverage choices are vague.

Use specific language . You decide to explain what you mean about food and beverage choices , so you write:

Experts estimate that half of elementary school children consume nine times the recommended daily allowance of sugar.

This statement is specific, but it isn’t a thesis. It merely reports a statistic instead of making an assertion.

Make an assertion based on clearly stated support. You finally revise your thesis statement one more time to look like this:

Because half of all American elementary school children consume nine times the recommended daily allowance of sugar, schools should be required to replace the beverages in soda machines with healthy alternatives.

Notice how the thesis answers the question, “What should be done to reduce sugar consumption by children, and who should do it?” When you started thinking about the paper, you may not have had a specific question in mind, but as you became more involved in the topic, your ideas became more specific. Your thesis changed to reflect your new insights.

How to Tell a Strong Thesis Statement from a Weak One

1. a strong thesis statement takes some sort of stand..

Remember that your thesis needs to show your conclusions about a subject. For example, if you are writing a paper for a class on fitness, you might be asked to choose a popular weight-loss product to evaluate. Here are two thesis statements:

There are some negative and positive aspects to the Banana Herb Tea Supplement.

This is a weak thesis statement. First, it fails to take a stand. Second, the phrase negative and positive aspects is vague.

Because Banana Herb Tea Supplement promotes rapid weight loss that results in the loss of muscle and lean body mass, it poses a potential danger to customers.

This is a strong thesis because it takes a stand, and because it's specific.

2. A strong thesis statement justifies discussion.

Your thesis should indicate the point of the discussion. If your assignment is to write a paper on kinship systems, using your own family as an example, you might come up with either of these two thesis statements:

My family is an extended family.

This is a weak thesis because it merely states an observation. Your reader won’t be able to tell the point of the statement, and will probably stop reading.

While most American families would view consanguineal marriage as a threat to the nuclear family structure, many Iranian families, like my own, believe that these marriages help reinforce kinship ties in an extended family.

This is a strong thesis because it shows how your experience contradicts a widely-accepted view. A good strategy for creating a strong thesis is to show that the topic is controversial. Readers will be interested in reading the rest of the essay to see how you support your point.

3. A strong thesis statement expresses one main idea.

Readers need to be able to see that your paper has one main point. If your thesis statement expresses more than one idea, then you might confuse your readers about the subject of your paper. For example:

Companies need to exploit the marketing potential of the Internet, and Web pages can provide both advertising and customer support.

This is a weak thesis statement because the reader can’t decide whether the paper is about marketing on the Internet or Web pages. To revise the thesis, the relationship between the two ideas needs to become more clear. One way to revise the thesis would be to write:

Because the Internet is filled with tremendous marketing potential, companies should exploit this potential by using Web pages that offer both advertising and customer support.

This is a strong thesis because it shows that the two ideas are related. Hint: a great many clear and engaging thesis statements contain words like because , since , so , although , unless , and however .

4. A strong thesis statement is specific.

A thesis statement should show exactly what your paper will be about, and will help you keep your paper to a manageable topic. For example, if you're writing a seven-to-ten page paper on hunger, you might say:

World hunger has many causes and effects.

This is a weak thesis statement for two major reasons. First, world hunger can’t be discussed thoroughly in seven to ten pages. Second, many causes and effects is vague. You should be able to identify specific causes and effects. A revised thesis might look like this:

Hunger persists in Glandelinia because jobs are scarce and farming in the infertile soil is rarely profitable.

This is a strong thesis statement because it narrows the subject to a more specific and manageable topic, and it also identifies the specific causes for the existence of hunger.

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Writing Center

Thesis statements, formulating a working thesis.

• Define: Explain a complex term’s meaning. Select words with disputed definitions or words that lend themselves to extended, thoughtful definition, such as “life” or “intelligence.”
• Classify: Explain a topic by categorizing it with like items. Athletes can be placed in the same category as dancers because of their training; plagiarism can be categorized as fraud.
• Compare/Contrast: Illustrate the similarities or differences between set topics, or introduce an outside idea to illuminate a difficult concept. Metaphors can be a powerful method for exploring or explaining. The circulatory system can be compared to geographical structure: it is like rivers but unlike lakes.
• Cause: Consider the cause or root of something. Was a car accident simply driver error? Or was it caused by fatigue? What about our society causes so many people to fall asleep behind the wheel? Do we live in a culture where exhaustion is promoted? Why?
• Effect: Discuss the effects of something. If obesity leads to disease, what does this suggest about policy, laws, or education? How can we avoid bad effects and replicate good ones?
• Evaluate: Determine whether something is good or bad, desirable or undesirable, ethical or unethical, effective or ineffective, etc. Or is it is somewhere in-between?
• Propose: Suggest a necessary action to take, or a solution for a problem.

Types of Thesis Statements

Thesis placement, thesis checklist.

• Specific and precise. “Vouchers are important to schools” is too vague to be useful.
• Arguable. “The Civil War was a crucial event in U.S. history” is too obvious to make a solid thesis.
• The right “size” for the assignment. “The American civil war is the defining event in our country’s history” is arguable, but probably too big to cover in a two-page paper.
• Suited to the assignment. Read back over the assignment prompt to make sure your thesis (and paper as a whole) address the right issue.
• Supported by the content of your paper. Read back over your supporting paragraphs and make sure they demonstrate what your thesis is arguing. If the paper has veered in an unexpected direction during the course of your writing process, revise your thesis to fit your evidence. It may help to write a summary sentence for each key piece of support and then compare those to your thesis statement.

Also recommended for you:

Think of yourself as a member of a jury, listening to a lawyer who is presenting an opening argument. You'll want to know very soon whether the lawyer believes the accused to be guilty or not guilty, and how the lawyer plans to convince you. Readers of academic essays are like jury members: before they have read too far, they want to know what the essay argues as well as how the writer plans to make the argument. After reading your thesis statement, the reader should think, "This essay is going to try to convince me of something. I'm not convinced yet, but I'm interested to see how I might be."

An effective thesis cannot be answered with a simple "yes" or "no." A thesis is not a topic; nor is it a fact; nor is it an opinion. "Reasons for the fall of communism" is a topic. "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe" is a fact known by educated people. "The fall of communism is the best thing that ever happened in Europe" is an opinion. (Superlatives like "the best" almost always lead to trouble. It's impossible to weigh every "thing" that ever happened in Europe. And what about the fall of Hitler? Couldn't that be "the best thing"?)

A good thesis has two parts. It should tell what you plan to argue, and it should "telegraph" how you plan to argue—that is, what particular support for your claim is going where in your essay.

Steps in Constructing a Thesis

First, analyze your primary sources.  Look for tension, interest, ambiguity, controversy, and/or complication. Does the author contradict himself or herself? Is a point made and later reversed? What are the deeper implications of the author's argument? Figuring out the why to one or more of these questions, or to related questions, will put you on the path to developing a working thesis. (Without the why, you probably have only come up with an observation—that there are, for instance, many different metaphors in such-and-such a poem—which is not a thesis.)

Once you have a working thesis, write it down.  There is nothing as frustrating as hitting on a great idea for a thesis, then forgetting it when you lose concentration. And by writing down your thesis you will be forced to think of it clearly, logically, and concisely. You probably will not be able to write out a final-draft version of your thesis the first time you try, but you'll get yourself on the right track by writing down what you have.

Keep your thesis prominent in your introduction.  A good, standard place for your thesis statement is at the end of an introductory paragraph, especially in shorter (5-15 page) essays. Readers are used to finding theses there, so they automatically pay more attention when they read the last sentence of your introduction. Although this is not required in all academic essays, it is a good rule of thumb.

Anticipate the counterarguments.  Once you have a working thesis, you should think about what might be said against it. This will help you to refine your thesis, and it will also make you think of the arguments that you'll need to refute later on in your essay. (Every argument has a counterargument. If yours doesn't, then it's not an argument—it may be a fact, or an opinion, but it is not an argument.)

This statement is on its way to being a thesis. However, it is too easy to imagine possible counterarguments. For example, a political observer might believe that Dukakis lost because he suffered from a "soft-on-crime" image. If you complicate your thesis by anticipating the counterargument, you'll strengthen your argument, as shown in the sentence below.

Some Caveats and Some Examples

A thesis is never a question.  Readers of academic essays expect to have questions discussed, explored, or even answered. A question ("Why did communism collapse in Eastern Europe?") is not an argument, and without an argument, a thesis is dead in the water.

A thesis is never a list.  "For political, economic, social and cultural reasons, communism collapsed in Eastern Europe" does a good job of "telegraphing" the reader what to expect in the essay—a section about political reasons, a section about economic reasons, a section about social reasons, and a section about cultural reasons. However, political, economic, social and cultural reasons are pretty much the only possible reasons why communism could collapse. This sentence lacks tension and doesn't advance an argument. Everyone knows that politics, economics, and culture are important.

A thesis should never be vague, combative or confrontational.  An ineffective thesis would be, "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe because communism is evil." This is hard to argue (evil from whose perspective? what does evil mean?) and it is likely to mark you as moralistic and judgmental rather than rational and thorough. It also may spark a defensive reaction from readers sympathetic to communism. If readers strongly disagree with you right off the bat, they may stop reading.

An effective thesis has a definable, arguable claim.  "While cultural forces contributed to the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the disintegration of economies played the key role in driving its decline" is an effective thesis sentence that "telegraphs," so that the reader expects the essay to have a section about cultural forces and another about the disintegration of economies. This thesis makes a definite, arguable claim: that the disintegration of economies played a more important role than cultural forces in defeating communism in Eastern Europe. The reader would react to this statement by thinking, "Perhaps what the author says is true, but I am not convinced. I want to read further to see how the author argues this claim."

A thesis should be as clear and specific as possible.  Avoid overused, general terms and abstractions. For example, "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe because of the ruling elite's inability to address the economic concerns of the people" is more powerful than "Communism collapsed due to societal discontent."

Copyright 1999, Maxine Rodburg and The Tutors of the Writing Center at Harvard University

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Thesis Sentence Examples

First, we will list the basics of my thesis about the future.

Withers had proposed a disputation against vestments, which the university would not allow; his thesis affirming the excommunicating power of the presbytery was sustained.

The central apologetic thesis is the uniqueness of the "only-begotten"; it is here that " the supernatural " passes into the substance of Christian faith.

As much as I would like to continue with speculations about molecular-sized machines, I have a larger thesis to prove.

Laud early took up a position of antagonism to the Calvinistic party in the church, and in 1604 was reproved by the authorities for maintaining in his thesis for the degree of B.D.

According to him, the Ego posits first itself ( thesis ); secondly, the non-Ego, the other, opposite to itself (antithesis); and, thirdly, this non-Ego within itself (synthesis), so that all reality is in consciousness.

His main thesis is that the actions of men cannot be divided into lower and higher.

Magnus, he turned his attention to physics, and graduated in 1864 with a thesis on the depolarization of light.

So inefficient, indeed, were the reforms as a whole, and so unsuited to the national character and customs, that the Slavophil critics of a later date could maintain plausibly the paradoxical thesis that in regard to internal administration Peter was anything but a national benefactor.

He studied at Berlin University, where he obtained the degree of doctor of philosophy in 1825, his thesis being an analytical discussion of the theory of fractions.

These antinomies are four - two mathematical, two dynamical - connected with (I) the limitation of the universe in respect of space and time, (2) the theory that the whole consists of indivisible atoms (whereas, in fact, none such exist), (3) the problem of freedom in relation to universal causality, (4) the existence of a universal being - about each of which pure reason contradicts the empirical, as thesis and antithesis.

The opposite thesis was maintained by Baronius (Annales Ecclesiastici, 1588 ff.), whose work was continued by a number of Roman Catholic scholars.

This consisted in the delivery of a speech and the defence of a thesis on some point of law, selected by the candidate, against opponents selected from among the students.

Ingenious as this is, there is really very slender ground for Kirchhoff's thesis .

It was to sustain Augustine's thesis that Orosius produced in 417 his Historiarum libri septem, which remained the standard text-book on world history during the middle ages.

In 1793 he contributed to Paulus's Memorabilien a paper "Ãœber Mythus, historische Sagen, and Philosopheme der altesten Welt"; and in 1795 his thesis for his theological degree was DeMarcione Paullinarum epistolarum emendatore.

The medieval candidate for the doctorate in medicine, although required to have attended practice before presenting himself, discussed as his thesis a purely theoretical question, often semi-theological in character, of which as an extreme example may be quoted " whether Adam had a navel."

For the doctorate in law, a thesis and two oral examinations are required.

His French thesis for the doctorate of letters, Etude sur les pamphlets politiques et religieux de Milton (1848), showed that he was attracted towards foreign history, a study for which he soon qualified himself by mastering the Germanic and Scandinavian languages.

In 1878 he followed his thesis by a study called Les Cours royales Bans les Iles N ormandes.

For this latter purpose he had chosen as his thesis the constitution of the free Lombard cities in the middle ages, the province in which he was destined to do most for the scientific study of history.

But he failed in establishing either thesis .

Its conclusions are predetermined, and the initiative of the individual thinker is almost confined, therefore, to formal details in the treatment of his thesis .

In organic chemistry, his study of the ketones and aldehydes, begun in 1857, provided him with the subject of his other doctoral thesis .

But third, we have now an absolute antithesis to our original thesis .

He was educated at the University of Halle, and was made doctor of philosophy in recognition of his thesis De Xenophane, Zenone et Gorgia.

In the faculty of sciences a candidate for the doctorate may submit two theses, or else submit one thesis and undergo an oral examination.

In the faculty of medicine there is no licentiateship, but for the doctorate six examinations must be passed and a thesis submitted.

For the doctor's degree (where this is not an honorary distinction) a thesis or dissertation is generally, though not in.

Of recent years the Thesls thesis has been introduced into lower examinations; it is required for the master's degree at London in the case of internal students, in subjects other than mathematics (1910); both at Oxford and London, the B.Sc. degree, and at Cambridge the B.A.

His student life was, however, broken by the pope's command to preach to the English in Rome; and a course of his lectures, On the Connexion between Science and Revealed Religion, deservedly attracted much attention, his general thesis being that whereas scientific teaching has repeatedly been thought to disprove Christian doctrine, further investigation has shown that a reconstruction is possible.

What is required, therefore, is to readjust our original thesis in such a way as to include and give expression to both the elements in the process.

From Gottingen he proceeded to Berlin, where he graduated in 1833 as doctor with the thesis De tabulis Eugubinis.

But when men set themselves to cultivate skill in disputation, regarding the matter discussed not as a serious issue, but as a thesis upon which to practise their powers of controversy, they learn to pursue, not truth, but victory; and, their criterion of excellence having been thus perverted, they presently prefer ingenious fallacy to solid reasoning and the applause of bystanders to the consciousness of honest effort.

Fichte cannot be said to have developed a logic, but this rhythm of thesis , antithesis and synthesis, foreshadowed in part for Fichte in Spinoza's formula, " omnis determinatio est negatio," and significantly in Kant's triadic grouping of his categories, gave a cue to the thought of Hegel.

Regarding evil simply as privation, Eckhart does not make it the pivot of his thought, as was afterwards done by Boehme; but his notion of the Godhead as a dark and formless essence is a favourite thesis of theosophy.

The leading thesis seems to have been that all the great religions of the world originated from the same supreme source, and that they were all to be regarded as so many divers expressions of one and the same fundamental truth, or "Wisdom Religion," in such form and dress as was best adapted to suit the times and the people for whose spiritual growth and development religious instruction was required.

On leaving the Erasmus school at Rotterdam he gave proof of his ability by an Oratio scholastica de medicina (1685), and at Leiden University in 1689 he maintained a thesis De brutorum operationibus, in which he advocated the Cartesian theory of automatism among animals.

Wimmer supports his thesis with great learning and ingenuity, and when allowance is made for the fact that a script to be written upon wood, as the runes were, of necessity avoids horizontal lines which run along the fibres of the wood, and would therefore be indistinct, most of the runic signs thus receive a plausible explanation.

His valedictory thesis at the Ecole des Chartes, Serie chronologique des gardiens et seigneurs des Iles Normandes (1876), was a definitive work and but slightly affected by later research.

An important motif in magico-religious ritual, which may not have been without effect on the development of sacrifice, is, as Dr Frazer's main thesis in The Golden Bough asserts, the imparting of reproductive energy to animals, plants and man himself, its cessation being suggested by such phenomena as old age and the fall of the year.

In 1842 he wrote a thesis in which he announced the discovery of nerve-cells in ganglia.

The thesis is less interesting to a modern reader - because now generally acknowledged - than the argument by which it is supported.

He received the degree of doctor of law in 1836, and in 1838 that of doctor of letters with a thesis on Dante, which was the beginning of one of his best-known books.

He confessed that his object was "to prove the contrary thesis to Gibbon's," and, although any historian who begins with the desire to prove a thesis is quite sure to go more or less wrong, Ozanam no doubt administered a healthful antidote to -the prevalent notion, particularly amongst English-speaking peoples, that the Catholic church had done far more to enslave than to elevate the human mind.

Dodwell's ingenious thesis , that Christianity is not founded on argument, was certainly not meant as an aid to faith; and, though its starting-point is different from all other deistical works, it may safely be reckoned amongst their number.

They are always written in the author's highest style, a style perfectly eloquent and unaffected; they can only be interpreted (on the free-thinking hypothesis) as allegorical with the greatest difficulty and obscurity, and it is pretty certain that no one reading the book without a thesis to prove would dream of taking them in a non-natural sense.

Both the deposed pontiffs protested against the legality of the council of Pisa; each had numerous partisans, and the thesis , constructed rather to meet the exigencies of the case,.

He became aspirant repetiteur at the lycee of Rheims in 1853, and after holding several intermediate positions was appointed in 1862 to the professorship of chemistry in Sens lycee, where he prepared the thesis on electromotive force which gained him his doctor's degree at Paris in the following year.

The thesis written for his doctorate, Application de l'analyse chimique a la toxicologic (1859), was followed by many papers on chemistry contributed to learned journals, and his Principes de chimie fondes sur les theories modernes (1865) reached its 5th edition in 1890.

Wycliffe at a later period of his life developed views on doctrinal matters, not connected with his original thesis about the relations between Church and State, and foreshadowed most of the leading tenets of the reformers of the 16th century.

Having obtained the degree of doctor of letters in 1877 with a Latin thesis upon C. Asinius Pollion and a French one upon Giacomo Leopardi (whose works he subsequently translated into French), he made a study of parliamentary oratory during the French Revolution, and published two volumes upon Les Orateurs de la constituante (1882) and upon Les Orateurs de la legislative et de la convention (1885).

Not twenty years after Luther's defiance of the pope, the startling thesis " that all that Aristotle taught was false " was prosperously maintained by the youthful Ramus before the university of Paris; and almost contemporaneously the group of remarkable thinkers in Italy who heralded the dawn of modern physical science - Cardanus, Telesio, Patrizzi, Campanella, Bruno - began to propound their Aristotelian theories of the constitution of the physical universe.

But the quasi-theistic assumption that what is natural must be reasonable remained in the minds of Hobbes's most docile readers, and in combination with his thesis that egoism is natural, tended to produce results which were dangerous to social well-being.

Taylor is more persuasive when he is developing his second main thesis - that of the alleged existence of an ultimate dualism in the nature of morality.

In 1875 he published a thesis on the mythology of the Zend Avesta, and in 1877 became teacher of Zend at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes.

Mr. Arlen was a skinny wimp who introduced himself as the author and publisher of the bestselling novel Responsible Drunkdom, his thesis and contention being drunkenness was much maligned in our society.

The center has also supported a PhD thesis on the legal consequences of having the directives implemented.

She is currently writing up her thesis on the feasibility of using virtual reality to treat amblyopia.

In the experimental part of this thesis , a novel method of visualizing flow in a rotating two-layer annulus is implemented.

Be wary of pursuing blind alleys which are not directed toward the principal goals of your thesis plan.

The statement that the ' effectively calculable ' is equivalent to the scope of Turing machines is now generally known as the Church-Turing thesis .

Overview of the thesis Chapter 2 is an introduction to stochastic calculus.

Suppose that you want to publish a PhD thesis on how to wash clothes using your brand of washing machine.

Peacocke himself has recently accepted that arguments from animal cognition do indeed force the acceptance of the Autonomy Thesis (Peacocke 2002 ).

Secondly, there is the more complex technique of presenting counterarguments to the thesis propounded, and then offering arguments which defeat those counterarguments.

Her PhD thesis examines the determinants of the accuracy of analyst earnings forecasts in the UK.

The Three Card Tarot Exercise can be analyzed using the Hegelian dialectic of thesis , antithesis and synthesis.

My thesis title is Studies on the biogenic mediation of sediment dynamics in coastal systems.

My interest in systems was complemented by one in the applied econometrics of aggregation, another aspect of my PhD thesis .

What more can I say, other than that the experience of writing up my thesis is proving quite enjoyable.

Spent the next sixteen years in general veterinary practice being awarded the Fellowship of the RCVS for his thesis entitled Dystocia in the Sow.

Hundreds of anime fans clubbing to sounds of Cruel Angel Thesis on the dancefloor?

The title of my thesis was The modeling of solid oxide fuel cells for power generation, ' writes Ben Todd.

This will be a very brief glimpse of the last chapter of my thesis for about twenty minutes.

What has changed since the " Star Wars " era is that Bush has accepted the experts ' potentially heretical thesis .

The thesis focuses on the development of techniques for the optimal use of the sophisticated instrumentation.

This was an award of postgraduate standard conferred on the presentation of a sufficiently meritorious thesis .

If we follow Iglesias's thesis , this runs from comfortable, bourgeois irrelevance to casual misogyny.

The thesis must be a scholarly monograph dealing mainly with a Canadian topic.

This observation best reflects Lucking's thesis that language is an " unnamed protagonist " in the plays.

My thesis is on the automated assessment of total hip replacements from anteroposterior radiographs.

Ms Fowler is involved in two comparative projects related to her thesis research, on the post-communist centre-right and the 2003 accession referendums.

Challenging some tenets of the resilience thesis , this article seeks to broaden the discussion of welfare-state retrenchment.

The degree requires the preparation of a thesis not exceeding 80,000 words, which must be worthy of publication by a learned society.

The channel sounder is described in detail in my Sub-Surface Communications Book, which is based on my PhD thesis .

But even a less than full belief in an epistemological thesis which showed theism to be unjustified would be damaging.

In many subjects candidates for these degrees are also required to submit a short thesis .

A Doctorate is awarded on the basis of defending a thesis (tesis) as in the UK.

Pinker isn't writing a doctoral thesis or even a research report.

The library does not permit the copying of any unpublished thesis without the prior permission of the author.

Also working on an ma thesis on the impact of off-road vehicles on sensitive areas within the National Park.

This is achieved by theoretical investigation, with readings in cognitive neuropsychology, practice of the relevant research methods, and a research-based thesis .

Depending on the nature of the thesis , students may also be allocated an additional ' thesis supervisor ' .

Hahn was appointed to the teaching staff in Vienna as a privatdozent in 1905 after submitting his habilitation thesis .

The effort will be well worthwhile, not least to appreciate Lyon's radical critique of the secularization thesis .

I wasn't sure then, if I would write my diploma thesis here.

Donate Your thesis Would you like your postgraduate thesis or dissertation on the moving image to reach a wider audience?

Much unhappiness is caused by students ending up with masses of research material, no money, and most of the thesis still unwritten.

Chapter Thesis The conception of welfare used by preference utilitarians and many modern welfare economists is that of want-satisfaction.

On Monday, Neil Pemberton passed the viva for his PhD thesis on the construction of deafness in Britain.

Suppose that you want to publish a PhD thesis on how to wash clothes using your brand of wash clothes using your brand of washing machine.

His thesis on that occasion was devoted to a question in organic chemistry, for he held the opinion that the study of chemistry is an indispensable preliminary to the pursuit of physics, which was his ultimate aim.

When he revised the book in 1875, his modifications were very slight, and it is conceivable that, had he recast it, as he often expressed the desire to do in the last years of his life, he would not have abandoned any part of his fundamental thesis .

Michel Le Tellier having ordered him to refute a thesis of the college of Clermont on the infallibility of the pope, Marca wrote a treatise which was most Gallican in its ideas, but refused to publish it for fear of drawing down "the indignation of Rome."

To him was indirectly due, in the main, that troubling of the Realistic waters which resulted in so many modifications of the original thesis ; and his own somewhat eclectic ruling on the question in debate came to be tacitly accepted in the schools, as the ardour of the disputants began to abate after the middle of the century.

At the Ecole des Chartes, where his career was remarkably brilliant, his valedictory thesis was an Essai sur les revenus publics en Normandie au XII' siècle (1849), and it was to the history of his native province that he devoted his early works.

And yet the Roman Catholic Church had upon its hands one great unsettled question - the thesis of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin.

Studien aus Wurttemberg (1888), p. 36 seq.; Nardin, "Essai sur les prophetes de l'eglise primitive," Thesis , (Paris, 1888); Weinel, "Die Wirkungen des Geistes and der Geister im nachapostolischen Zeitalter bis auf I renaeus," (1899); Selwyn, "The Christian Prophets 1 See Lucian's story about Peregrinus, and that chapter of the OcSax,i where the author labours to establish criteria for distinguishing false prophets from true.

In 1793 he contributed to Paulus's Memorabilien a paper "Ãœber Mythus, historische Sagen, and Philosopheme der altesten Welt"; and in 1795 his thesis for his theological degree was DeMarcione Paullinarum epistolarum emendatore.

There is also a special doctorate, the " doctorat d'Universite," awarded on a thesis and an oral examination; and there are diplomas (Diplo nes d'Etudes superieures) awarded on dissertations and examinations on subjects in philosophy, history and geography, classics or modern languages, selected mainly by the candidate and approved by the faculty.

Thesis , antithesis and synthesis, a Fichtean formula, is generalized by Hegel into the perpetual law of thought.

His graduation thesis was on the ambitious subject of " the historical development of epidemic and contagious diseases all over the world, with the laws of their diffusion," which showed the influence of Schonlein.

Its doctrinal thesis (which is supported with great philosophic acumen and rhetorical power) is the divinity and consubstantiality of the Word; incidentally the character of Basil, which Eunomius had aspersed, is vindicated, and the heretic himself is held up to scorn and contempt.

These analytical methods of research were well known to the second Monro in Edinburgh, and to his pupils, one of whom, William Alexander, wrote a thesis in 1790 entitled "De partibus corporis animalis quae viribus opii parent."

In this thesis we also implement a relaxation oscillator of van der Pol type into an autoparametric system.

His doctoral thesis was concerned with the two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in semiconductor heterostructures.

Three softbound copies of the thesis should be prepared.

Students who go beyond the four-year thesis submission deadline will not be allowed to keep their desk.

Hmm that 's interesting tho, so do you expect supervisors to weed out the plagiarism and before submission of thesis .

I am presently supervising a doctoral thesis on Stephen King.

Unpublished master 's thesis , University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia.

Pinker is n't writing a doctoral thesis or even a research report.

Depending on the nature of the thesis , students may also be allocated an additional ' thesis supervisor '.

The effort will be well worthwhile, not least to appreciate Lyon 's radical critique of the secularization thesis .

I was n't sure then, if I would write my diploma thesis here.

Thesis topic i lawsuits and divorce as saying i said to be.

But hard comparisons raise the issue of the truth of the trichotomy thesis , and it has been challenged in two ways.

The Christian doctrine of the triune creator God cannot be verified scientifically, it is a theological idea, not a scientific thesis .

Would you want to be treated by a doctor who cheated her way through biology or have your children taught by a teacher who bought his/her senior thesis ?

Some will include a thesis , which is similar to a dissertation, but it will be shorter and require less research.

If the graduate course requires a thesis , then the research, the presentation and the level of the work must be up to graduate-level standards.

Thesis work helps students combine these critical areas of learning, and makes it possible for professional designers to take their work to the next level.

Students are not required to take a final test or to complete a master's level thesis as part of the requirements to complete this degree.

Rather than writing a thesis , all students are required to create a final Engineering Report.

A dissertation in support of a thesis on public health issues is also a typical requirement at the completion of the degree program.

The game is actually part of a thesis developed by developers at the University of Southern California.

Its overt thesis is that there are some studies, such as the creation of life, that should be left solely to the province of God the Creator.

Sandburg believes that Ellison is the living embodiment of his thesis topic, a Sentinel.

The more celebrated and central thesis of the book - this finite universe, the best of all such that are possible - also restates positions of Augustine and Aquinas.

This thesis he further developed in a magazine article written in view of the colonial conference held in London in 1907.

On the occasion of his inauguration he maintained for thesis De Sacerdotio Christi.

On the occasion of taking his degree (1536) he actually took as his thesis "Everything that Aristotle taught is false."

The student desiring to proceed to the doctorate is free from examinations thereafter until he presents his thesis for the doctor's degree,' when, if it is accepted, he is submitted to a public oral examination not only in his principal subject (Haupt f ach), but also as a rule in two or more collateral subjects (Nebenfeicher).

Among the other works of Griesbach (which are comparatively unimportant) may be mentioned his university thesis De codicibus quatuor evangelistarum Origenianis (Halle, 1771) and a work upon systematic theology (Anleitung zur Kenntniss der popularen Dogmatik, Jena, 1779).

Unpublished master's thesis , University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia.

And it is hard to say whether Lamarck or Treviranus has the priority in propounding the main thesis of the doctrine of evolution; for though the first volume of Treviranus's Biologie appeared only in 1802, he says, in the preface to his later work, the Erscheinungen and Gesetze des organischen Lebens, dated 1831, that he wrote the first volume of the Biologie " nearly five-and-thirty years ago," or about 1796.

In 1669, when the chair of philosophy at the College Royal fell vacant, one of the four selected candidates had to sustain a thesis against " the pretended new philosophy of Descartes."

Meckel proceeds to exemplify the thesis , that the lower forms of animals represent stages in the course of the development of the higher, with a large series of illustrations.

His Reasonableness of Christianity (1695) is the thesis of " a whole century " of theologians.

While this sceptical thesis was embraced by philosophers who had lost their interest in religion, the spiritually minded sought their satisfaction more and more in a mysticism which frequently cast itself loose from ecclesiastical trammels.

Young Adams graduated from Harvard College in 1740, and three years later, on attaining the degree of A.M., chose for his thesis , "Whether it be Lawful to resist the Supreme Magistrate, if the Commonwealth cannot otherwise be preserved."

After the Franco-Prussian War Lavisse studied the development of Prussia and wrote Etude sur l'une des origines de la monarchie prussienne, ou la Marche de Brandebourg sous la dynastie ascanienne, which was his thesis for his doctor's degree in 1875, and Etudes sur l'histoire de la Prusse (1879).

Some have questioned whether Friedman's thesis is 100 percent true, mentioning NATO air strikes against Yugoslavia as a potential exception.

His graduation thesis , published in 1819, on the history of the Merovingian mayors of the palace, attracted the attention of Baron Stein, by whom he was engaged in 1820 to edit the Carolingian chroniclers for the newly-founded Historical Society of Germany.

This thesis he sustained brilliantly in his Histoire des institutions politiques de l'ancienne France, the first volume of which appeared in 1874.

This conception of will, though consistent and convenient to the main thesis , must be rigidly distinguished from the ordinary significance of will, i.e.

For his degree as doctor he presented a thesis on the Histoire poetique de Charlemagne (1865).

At the Ecole des Chartes, where his career was remarkably brilliant, his valedictory thesis was an Essai sur les revenus publics en Normandie au XII' siècle (1849), and it was to the history of his native province that he devoted his early works.

In Part II., ch i., he makes three assumptions about the senses, and, without stopping to prove them, or even to make them consistent, deduces from them his thesis that the evidence of the senses is not a foundation of belief in Nature.

Presently, labeling of GMO content isn't a requirement—and since labeling is a complex and controversial issue that has no bearing on my thesis , I will pass it by.

After studying law for a time he took up medicine; his graduation thesis De Somno was well received.

She wrote a la diable, starting with some central thesis to set forth or some problem to investigate, but with no predetermined plot or plan of action.

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If you’ve ever summed up your feelings about your favorite croissant or reflected on the moral of a story about your grandfather, you’re already familiar with the basics of a thesis! There are some nuances, but you already have the foundations of thesis statements in mind. With a little refining, you’ll have no problems coming up with a thesis for your next essay.

Unsurprisingly, graduate school is immensely challenging, forcing you to learn some real skills that will help you in your career while building new connections with other people in your field. If it was easy, everyone would have a graduate degree, but to really prove that you learned something in your graduate studies, schools will require you to write a dissertation or thesis to move on to the next phase of your life. But what is a dissertation or thesis?

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Words near thesis in the Dictionary

• the shirt off one's back
• the shoemaker's children go barefoot
• the show must go on
• the sky is the limit
• the-shoe-is-on-the-other-foot
• the-snow-queen
• thesmothete

Writing Studio

How do i write a thesis statement.

This page is Part 1 of a two-part handout that continues with our Thesis Statement Checklist .

What is a Thesis Statement?

In an effort to make our handouts more accessible, we have begun converting our PDF handouts to web pages. Download this page as a PDF: See p. 1 of How Do I Write a Thesis Statement Return to Writing Studio Handouts

A thesis statement is a very specific argument that guides your paper. Generally, a thesis statement consists of two parts :

• A clearly identifiable topic or subject matter
• A succinct summary of what you have to say about that topic

For your reader, a thesis functions like the case a lawyer has to make to the judge and jury in a courtroom. An effective thesis statement explains to your reader the case you are going to make and how you are going to make it.

For you as the author, your thesis can also help you to stay focused as a writer and determine what information you do (and don’t) need to include in your analysis.

Traditionally, the thesis statement is found near the end of your introduction , though this may change depending on the assignment and context. Don’t be afraid to draft a thesis statement that is more than one sentence.

A Note on Writing Process

You do not need a perfect thesis statement before you draft the rest of the paper. In fact, you will likely need to modify your thesis once you have a complete draft to make sure that your draft and your thesis match one another. If your argument evolves in productive ways as you write, your thesis should, too.

Honing and tweaking a thesis statement during the revision process is ultimately more important than having it exact and precise during the drafting process.

Characteristics of a WEAK thesis statement

• Vague: Raises an interesting topic or question but doesn’t specify an argument
• Offers plot summary, statement of fact, or obvious truths instead of an argument
• Offers opinion or conjecture rather than an argument (cannot be proven with textual evidence)
• Is too broad or too complex for the length of the paper
• Uses meaningful-sounding words, but doesn’t actually say anything of substance

Disclaimer: This is not a complete list! You can probably think of many more characteristics of a weak thesis statement.

Characteristics of a STRONG thesis statement

• Answers a specific question
• Takes a distinct position on the topic
• Is debatable (a reasonable person could argue an alternative position)
• Appropriately focused for the page length of the assignment
• Allows your reader to anticipate the organization of your argument

Having trouble drafting a thesis? Try filling in the blanks in these template statements:

• In this paper, I argue that _____, because/by _____.
• While critics argue _____, I argue _____, because _____.
• By looking at _____, I argue that _____, which is important because _____.
• The text, _____, defines _____ as _____, in order to argue _____.

Disclaimer: These are only models. They’ll be useful to help you to get started, but you’ll have to do quite a bit of tweaking before your thesis is ready for your paper.

For more on thesis statements, check out part 2: Our Thesis Statement Checklist .

Last revised: 07/15/2008 | Adapted for web delivery: 5/2021

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The Thesis Sentence

The thesis sentence is arguably the most important sentence in an academic paper. Without a good, clear thesis that presents an intriguing arguable point, a paper risks becoming unfocused, aimless, not worth the reader's time.

The Challenge of the Thesis Sentence

Because the thesis sentence is the most important sentence of a paper, it is also the most difficult to write. Readers expect a great deal of a thesis sentence: they want it to powerfully and clearly indicate what the writer is going to say, why she is going to say it, and even how it is that she is going to go about getting it said. In other words, the job of the thesis sentence is to organize, predict, control, and define the paper's argument.

In many cases, a thesis sentence will not only present the paper's argument, it will also point to and direct the course that the argument is going to take. In other words, it may also include an "essay map" - i.e., phrases or clauses that map out for the reader (and the writer) the argument that is to come. In some cases, then, the thesis sentence not only promises an argument, it promises the structure of that argument as well.

The promises that a thesis sentence makes to a reader are important ones and must be kept. It's helpful sometimes to explain the thesis as a kind of contract between reader and writer: if this contract is broken, the reader will feel frustrated and betrayed. Accordingly, the writer must be very careful in the development of the thesis.

Working on the Thesis Sentence

Chances are if you've had trouble following or deciphering the argument of a paper, there's a problem with the thesis. If a tutor's first response to a paper is that he doesn't know what the paper is about, then the thesis sentence is either absent from the paper, or it's hiding. The first thing you might wish to do is to ask the writer what his thesis is. He may point to a particular sentence that he thinks is his thesis, giving you a very good place to start.

Let's say that you've read a paper in which you've encountered this thesis:

Although heterosexuality has long been regarded as the only natural expression of sexuality, this view has been recently and strongly challenged by the gay rights movement.

What's wrong with this sentence? Many things, the most troublesome of which is that it argues nothing. Who is going to deny that the heteronormative view has been challenged by the gay rights movement? At this point, you need to ask the writer some questions. In what specific ways has the gay rights movement challenged heterosexuality? Do these ways seem reasonable to the writer? Why or why not? What argument does he intend to make about this topic? Why does he want to make it? To whom does he want to make it?

After giving the writer some time to think about and talk about these questions, you'll probably want to bring up another problem that is certain to arise out of a thesis like this one: the matter of structure. Any paper that follows a thesis like this one is likely to ramble. How can the reader figure out what all the supporting paragraphs are doing when the argument itself is so ill-defined? You'll want to show the writer that a strong thesis suggests - even helps to create - strong topic sentences. (More on this when we consider matters of structure, below).

But before we move on to other matters, let's consider the problem of this thesis from another angle: its style. We can see without difficulty that the sentence presents us with at least two stylistic problems: 1) this thesis, which should be the most powerful sentence of the paper, employs the passive voice, and 2) the introductory clause functions as a dangling modifier (who regards heterosexuality as the only natural way to express sexuality?).

Both stylistic problems point to something at work in the sentence: the writer obliterates the actors - heterosexuals and homosexuals alike - by using the dangling modifier and the passive voice. Why does he do that? Is he avoiding naming the actors in these sentences because he's not comfortable with the positions they take? Is he unable to declare himself because he feels paralyzed by the sense that he must write a paper that is politically correct? Or does he obliterate the actors with the passive voice because he himself wishes to remain passive on this topic?

These are questions to pose to the writer, though they must be posed gently. In fact, you might gently pose these questions via a discussion of style. For instance, you might also suggest that the writer rewrite the sentence in the active voice:

Although our society has long regarded heterosexuality as the only natural expression of sexuality, members of the gay rights movement have challenged this view strongly.

This active construction helps us to see clearly what's missing:

Although our society has long regarded heterosexuality as the only natural expression of sexuality, members of the gay rights movement have challenged this view strongly, arguing XYZ.

This more active construction also makes it clear that merely enumerating the points the author wants to make is not the same thing as creating an argument. The writer should now be able to see that he needs to go one step further - he needs to reveal his own position on the gay rights movement. The rest of the paper will develop this position.

In short, there are many ways to begin work on a writer's thesis sentences. Almost all of them will lead you to other matters important to the paper's success: its structure, its language, its style. Try to make any conversation you have about thesis sentences point to other problems with the writing. Not only is this strategy efficient, but it also encourages a writer to see how important a thesis is to the overall success of his essay.

Talking Your Way to a Workable Thesis

For the sake of making (we hope) a somewhat humorous illustration of the matter at hand, we offer the following scenario, which shows how tutor and tutee can talk their way to a workable thesis - and, indeed, to a good essay. So sit back, and enjoy this "break" in your training.

Imagine (though it is indeed quite a stretch) that a freshman composition teacher has the audacity to assign a paper on cats (the animals, not the play). The students may write any kind of paper they like - narration, description, compare/contrast, etc. - as long as their essays contain a thesis (that is, that they argue some point) concerning cats. A writer comes to you for help in developing her thesis. You read the assignment, and then you tell the writer that she first must choose the kind of paper she would like to do. She decides to do a narrative because she thinks she has more freedom in the narrative form. Then you ask her what she has to say about cats. "I don't like them," is her reply.

"OK," you say, "that's a start. Why don't you like them?" The writer has lots of reasons: they smell, they're aloof, they shed, they keep you up nights when they're in heat, they're very middle class, they steal food off of the table, they don't get along with dogs (the writer loves dogs), and on, and on. After brainstorming for a while, you tell the writer to choose a few points on which she'd like to focus - preferably those points that she feels strongly about or those which seem unusual. She picks three: cats smell, they steal food, and they are middle class. She offers her thesis: "I don't like cats because they are smelly, thieving, and middle class."

"O.K.," you say, "It's not a very sophisticated thesis but we can use it for now. After all, it defines your stance, it controls your subject, it organizes your argument, and it predicts your strategy - all the things that a thesis ought to do. Now let's consider how to develop the thesis, point by point."

You begin to ask questions about cats and their smell. "What do they smell like?" you say. The writer thinks awhile, and then says, "They smell like dirty gym shorts, like old hamburgers, like my eighth-grade math teacher's breath." The writer laughs, particularly fond of the final simile. Then she adds, "My boyfriend has a cat. A Tom. When he moved into his first apartment, that cat sprayed all over the place, you know, marking his territory. The place stunk so bad that I couldn't even go there for a week. Can you imagine? Your boyfriend gets his first apartment, and you can't even go in the place for a week?"

The writer has sparked your imagination; you think that she can spark her teacher's imagination as well. "Why don't you do your narrative about your boyfriend's cat? You could tell the story - or you could make up a story - about going over there for dinner, hoping for a romantic evening, and being put off by the cat." The writer likes this idea and goes off to write her draft. She returns with the following story about her boyfriend and his cat.

She was hoping for a romantic dinner; he was making her favorite meal. She could smell the T-bone and the apple pie before she even got to his door. But when she opened the door, her appetite was obliterated: the smell of cat spray smelled worse than her eighth-grade math teacher's breath. Of course, because she remained hopeful for a romantic evening, she put on her best face, tried not to grimace, and gave her boyfriend the flowers she'd picked up on the way. They chat; everything is going fine; he goes to the kitchen to check on dinner; she hears his shriek. The cat has stolen all of the food! Upon searching, they find the cat under the sofa, not only with their dinner, but with the writer's wallet, her favorite picture of her mom torn in half, her new leather jacket now full of cat hairs. This cat not only stinks, he's a thief as well. Still, the evening need not be a total waste. They order pizza, have some wine. She and her man talk; their moods improve, and she decides that it might be a nice time to kiss. She pulls the old yawn trick to get her arm around him, and just as she's ready to kiss him the cat jumps into his lap. "Oh, Pookie, Pookie, Pookie," her boyfriend says, giving himself over to the purring cat. "Damn lap cat," the writer says to herself, and leaves it at that. She has written a paper illustrating that cats are smelly, thieving, and middle class. She has fulfilled her thesis.

Now, you like this paper. It's got a great voice, and it's got humor. You feel, however, that the writer should refine the thesis. It has served the writer well in helping her to organize, control, predict, and define her essay; however, she needs now to consider how to choose words and a tone which will hook the reader and reel him in. You explain to the writer that her thesis can be humorous, that she can feel free to be extreme, because a funny, exaggerated thesis would suit this funny, exaggerated paper.

After some doodling and some dialogue, the writer comes up with the following thesis: "All cats should be exterminated because they are the stinking, kleptomaniacal darlings of the bourgeoisie." You laugh; you like it. Moreover, the thesis has given the writer an ending for her essay: she exterminates the cat in her boyfriend's microwave, convinces him to get a goldfish instead, and the two of them live happily ever after. The writer is happy. The tutor is happy. The paper works.

While you will likely not encounter a "cat" assignment at Dartmouth, this sort of experience with writing a thesis is a common one. Even when papers are more sophisticated than this one - even when the subject is Hitler's rise to power, or Freud's treatment of taboo - writers will often write a working thesis, one that guides them through the writing process. Then they will return to the thesis, sometimes several times before their paper is finished, revising it to better fit their paper's increasingly refined argument and tone.

Polishing the Thesis Sentence

Look at the sentence's structure. Is the main idea of the paper placed appropriately in the main clause? If there are parallel points made in the paper, does the thesis sentence signal this to the reader via some parallel structure? If the paper makes an interesting but necessary aside, is that aside predicted - perhaps in a parenthetical element? Remember: the structure of the thesis sentence also signals much to the reader about the structure of the argument. Be sure that the thesis reflects, reliably, what the paper itself is going to say.

As to the style of the sentence: hold the thesis sentence to the highest stylistic standards. Help a writer to make sure that it is as clear and concise as it can be, and that its language and phrasing reflect confidence, eloquence, and grace.

Biden pardons 11 people and shortens the sentences of 5 others convicted of non-violent drug crimes

President Joe Biden speaks before signing a $95 billion Ukraine aid package that also includes support for Israel, Taiwan, and other allies, in the State Dining Room of the White House, Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)[ASSOCIATED PRESS/Evan Vucci]

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has granted clemency to 16 people who were convicted of non-violent drug crimes, issuing pardons to 11 men and women and commuting the sentences of five other people in the latest use of his clemency power to address racial disparities in the justice system.

Biden said in a statement Wednesday that April is Second Chance Month and that many of the individuals getting clemency had received “disproportionately longer” sentences than they would have under current law.

The Democratic president is campaigning for reelection in November and is grappling with how to boost support from communities of color that heavily supported him over Republican Donald Trump in the 2020 election. The two rivals are headed for a likely rematch in November.

“Like my other clemency actions, these pardons and commutations reflect my overarching commitment to addressing racial disparities and improving public safety,” Biden said.

Biden said those receiving pardons had shown a commitment to bettering their lives and doing good in their communities. He said those who had their sentences commuted, or shortened, had shown they were worthy of forgiveness and the chance to build a future outside of prison.

The president issued his most recent pardons in December 2023 to thousands of people who were convicted of the use and simple possession of marijuana on federal lands and in the District of Columbia.

An Associated Press analysis of Justice Department data shows that Biden has granted 129 commutations, more than any predecessor in their first term, dating to Richard Nixon. Nixon issued the most pardons at 691.

A pardon is an expression of forgiveness by the president, commonly granted to recognize that a person convicted of a crime has accepted responsibility for their actions. A pardon doesn’t mean the person is considered innocent, but does restore some rights, such as voting, that are lost upon conviction. A commutation only reduces a sentence but does not affect a conviction.

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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Word of the day

Word of the Day: hardscrabble

This word has appeared in 31 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?

By The Learning Network

hardscrabble \ ˈhɑrdˌskræbəl \ adjective

: meager or barely meeting a standard

Listen to the pronunciation.

The word hardscrabble has appeared in 31 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Oct. 13 in “ How Jesmyn Ward Is Reimagining Southern Literature ” by Imani Perry:

Her next novel, “Salvage the Bones” (2011), returned readers to Bois Sauvage, introducing them to Esch, a pregnant and motherless teenage girl living with her father and three brothers when Hurricane Katrina upends their world. Esch and her family face the storm the way they face everything else in their lives: trying to make do after losing so much of what little they had. Ward brings the traumatic displacement of natural disaster into focus, describing hardscrabble living with a sensitive terseness. Her prose brings readers inside Esch’s perspective, protecting her against the voyeurism that stories of Black teenage mothers usually encourage, and granting her a vulnerable nobility.

Daily Word Challenge

Can you correctly use the word hardscrabble in a sentence?

Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.

If you want a better idea of how hardscrabble can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com . You can also visit this guide to learn how to use IPA symbols to show how different words are pronounced.

If you enjoy this daily challenge, try our vocabulary quizzes .

Students ages 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, can comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff.

The Word of the Day is provided by Vocabulary.com . Learn more and see usage examples across a range of subjects in the Vocabulary.com Dictionary . See every Word of the Day in this column .

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