If you are looking to write a thesis statement, you definitely know that it isn’t a research paper
but a part of an essay you have been asked to write. Now, the general idea of a thesis statement
is to, in as few words as possible, summarize the idea of your topic and then declare your
stance where necessary. It is actually a very short part of any essay but is very important
because it helps your reader to decide whether or not the essay is something they want to read.
And for school, it basically contributes to your marks. So,
in this video, we’ll look at tips for writing a strong and persuasive thesis statement.
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The first thing to note is that your thesis statement must match the kind of essay that
you are writing. That is, if you are writing an informative essay, no need trying to argue
or persuade with your thesis statement; just present the idea that your essay is going to be
explaining. On the other hand, if you are writing an argumentative essay or a persuasive essay
or a compare and contrast essay, your thesis statement should be persuasive. That is,
you should state your stance and briefly explain why you have chosen that stance.
Something else you want to pay attention to is the style of the thesis statement,
and the style is usually dependent on how long the essay will be. If it will be a short one,
say 5 paragraphs, you want to state your topic sentence, declare your stance if it applies,
and then briefly explain it with just 2 or 3 points. These 2 or 3 points would then be what
you’ll expound upon in the body of your essay. But on the other hand, if your essay will be
longer, you won’t be able to cram in a summary of all the points your essay will
be addressing in your thesis statement. What you should do, instead, is to state your topic,
declare your stance if it applies and then use one blanket statement that summarizes the
essence of your essay. Remember that the thesis statement is a very short part of your essay,
there’s no need to make it longer than it needs to be.
Armed with all that knowledge, you can go ahead and write your thesis statement.
Now, if you’ve been given a topic in the form of a statement, the first thing you want to do is
to turn that topic into a question. For instance, if your essay is on the role of humans in global
warming, the first thing to do is to ask yourself “what are the roles of humans in global warming?”
or “how have human beings affected global warming?”. Then go ahead and answer the
question. Of course, there would usually be more than one answer to that question; just go ahead
and write all the answers that you can find. Then you can now condense or summarize where necessary.
But on the other hand, if you have not been given a topic, the first thing you
want to do is to look for a topic. You can pick something that has been touched on in class that
you really find interesting or just scour the internet for a topic that relates to what you
guys have been discussing in class. The former would probably be more interesting to write but
the latter would probably have more information on it. However, the keyword here is ‘probably’
because nothing says that you won’t be able to find enough information on a topic that actually
interests you. Now, armed with your topic of choice, you can then go through the process of
turning it into a question and then answering it. That said, you might find out at this point that
you have quite a number of answers to that your question, and you might start to wonder how you
will fix all of them into your thesis statement. The short explanation is that you don’t have to.
The long explanation is that you must bear in mind that your thesis statement should not be more than
one sentence; it can be a complex sentence or a compound-complex sentence, but it should be just one.
if you will be writing a short essay, you’ll only need about 3 of those answers for
your thesis statement and an exposition of those answers would then form the body of your essay.
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But if your essay will be a long one, you want to find a way to compress the ideas of all of those
answers into one statement. Whatever the length of your essay, though, the thesis statement should go;
topic, stance (where it applies), and point or points explaining the topic and/or stance.
Something else you should look out for when writing your thesis statement
is it shouldn’t just be a statement of fact that everybody knows, even if you are writing an
informative essay. Starting your essay with a fact that everybody knows is basically building
yourself a dead end; there’s really nowhere to go from there and that could practically render your essay useless.
So, write a statement that can be contended; a statement that will make your readers
actually want to read the essay. In addition to that,
you want to make sure that every point you mention in your thesis statement is properly explained
in the body of the essay. Also, a thesis statement should typically be a part of your introduction;
probably the last sentence of your introduction. Remember that the idea is to get your audience
interested in the essay; so, putting it elsewhere might defeat the purpose. However, some teachers
might request that it be put elsewhere; don’t go rebelling against your teacher on that one.
Finally, while your thesis statement should be a kind of summary of the idea of your essay,
it shouldn’t be obscure. For instance, you cannot write something like “... has negative
and positive consequences”, or “... has a number of functions” and leave it at that
in your thesis statement. You want to be specific and write a summary of
what the negative and positive consequences are or a summary of the functions. For instance,
“while veganism is a healthy and ethical lifestyle, it usually indicates a position
of privilege”. Disclaimer: This is not my stance, it is just used as an example. That said, you will
notice that there are no probability words like ‘could’, ‘might’ etc. You can use those in the
body of your essay but for your thesis statement, you want to state facts and not probabilities.
From all that has been said, you have probably come to the conclusion that writing a strong
thesis statement takes a lot of work, and you would be right. In fact, it might require more
work than some other parts of the essay, but that’s fine because a strong thesis statement
sets the tone for a strong essay. If you get your thesis statement right, it would be easier for
you to write the rest of your essay and it would be easier for your audience to read said essay.
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