WRIT 121, Academic Essays--Part 2

Academic Essays

Part 2 Thesis statements

(CEL discusses thesis statements in more detail. Check the index for further discussion.)

Most academic essays include a thesis statement. Here are some notes clarifying what a thesis statement is, and what it is not, with some examples of thesis statements that have appeared in some form in earlier classes.

Your thesis statement is the central idea, the main point your entire paper sets out to support.

It is one sentence only.

For longer papers (1500 words plus), a thesis might need to be more fully developed. But for 800-1000 words, you should be able to express the main point in one sentence.

Not a fragment/title:

Why I like video games

Not a question:

Why was GI Joe important to me as a child?

Questions are great ways to come up with ideas, and even your main point. If you think of a question when considering your thesis, simply write the answer in one sentence, and more than likely, that's your main point.

Not a statement of intent:

In this paper I will discuss the effect of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

I will try to explain why I loved my Barbies.

In most academic writing, you should avoid using statements of intent at all. They are redundant. We already know you're going to discuss something.

And by the time you get to a later, or final, draft of a paper, you should travel beyond trying.

As Nike says, "Just do it."

Or as Yoda says, "No try. Only do, or do not."

(How is that for quoting experts in the field?)

Your thesis statement should be an assertion about your topic.

Not just your topic:

GI Joe was one of my favorite toys.

Barbie is found on most girls' shelves.

These examples only identify a topic. They don't give us a point that the writer wants to make about the topic.

The subject and your point about it:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fostered community among my neighborhood friends, breaking my shyness.

Although the Cold War connections with the toy are troublesome, GI Joe fosters creativity and camaraderie among young boys..

How a child plays with a toy is one of the more important influences in what kind of adult he or she becomes.

These thesis statements go beyond just identifying a topic. Instead, we get a sense of the point the writer wants to make about the topic and even the attitude the writer has toward that point.

Your thesis statement should express a point about your topic that is significant, interesting or curious.

You don't want a reader to think SWWC (so what, who cares?) after reading your thesis.

Avoid the obvious:

Children like to play with toys.

My parents bought me toys for Christmas.

Toys reflect our society.

Very few would dispute these. But they are too elementary for an adult, college-level audience.

Or as my teenage daughter would say, "Duh!!!"

Avoid the dull:

There are three ways Nintendo influenced my childhood.

I am going to list my 25 favorite toys from childhood.

I feel three ways about Barbie.

Am I hearing an SWWC out there?

Instead you want to say something that is insightful, unique, a point that presents a fresh perspective.

And usually that is not the first thing you think of when pondering the topic you're going to write about.

Make sure that your thesis is neither too narrow:

Here is the process I went through to paint my model airplane.

Or too broad:

I am going to explain every influence toys have had on me from my first memory of my crib mobile to today, and then ponder the ramifications that these toys have had on my life until I'm one hundred, and I'll not neglect the effects that these influences will have on future generations of my progeny.

Being too broad is usually the problem most students fall into.

Remember that every subject you can think of can be fully developed into a book-length work.

Gary Cross wrote a book several years ago about the influence of toys, Kids' Stuff: Toys and the Changing Worlds of American Childhood and Juliet Schor recently published Born to Buy : The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture with over a dozen of pages about toys.

And there are full encyclopedias about the topic of your upcoming second essay, music.

You've got to make sure that your thesis is narrow enough so that you can deal with your point fully, with examples, quotations, observations, sense detail and such in order to convince us, your audience, of the validity of your position.

Just remember a little lesson in life that we've all learned: nobody cares what you think!

Now, before you go off writing a letter to the editor, let me explain.

There are very few instances in which because you said something, another person will without question accept it.

Maybe your boyfriend or girlfriend will, for the first two weeks you know him or her.

Maybe very young children will (like under two?).

But nobody else will.

The rest of us--especially my oldest son!--are going to say, "Prove it." "What do you base that on?" "Why do you say that?" (Be careful what you teach your children!)

Therefore, an essay of bare assertions with no evidence will not be credible.

Hence, you've got to have a main point that is narrow enough so that you can give us the evidence that what you say appears valid.

Use specific language when writing your thesis.

Although your main point is necessarily going to be more general than the rest of your essay, the more specific you can be, the clearer your point will be to us. Therefore, with the example of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fostered community among my neighborhood friends, breaking my shyness," the writer doesn't just say toys created community, but specifically the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Placement--usually introduction.

Thesis statements most typically are found in the introduction of essays, and very often the last sentence of the introduction.

Why?

Well, let me ask you a question. How do you emphasize a point when you are speaking?

Do you raise your voice?

Do you lower your voice?

What about slam your fist?

Blow steam through your ears?

All of the above?

The point is that we have lots of tools and techniques that we use unconsciously to stress what we have to say while we speak.

Many of these techniques cannot be used in writing.

So we have to find other ways to emphasize, to make one point stand out from another.

One way we can emphasize is to put what we want most to be remembered at the end of things.

Very simply because the last thing we see is the one we're most likely to remember.

Therefore the end of sentences, the end of paragraphs, and the end of essays can be effective places of emphasis.

And hence very often the thesis is put at the end of an introduction.

However, there's no rule that you have to, and there are times you may not want to.

Sometimes putting your thesis in the middle of your paper or at the end can be very effective, and sometimes even necessary, particularly with argumentative essays.

Working thesis----------------------final thesis:

OK, last point. It can be helpful when working through an essay to have some sense of what your main point is, to help you decide what to focus on and what not to.

This is what we'll call a working thesis.

However, very often as we write, we begin to figure out what we think, or what we think begins to change.

Often our subconscious tosses up ideas into our conscious mind that we hadn't thought of before, hadn't remembered, or hadn't imagined.

When that happens, and as we revise, our paper changes directions, and often for the better from what we first thought to write about. (Remember what I said earlier, that very often the first thing we think about a topic is obvious or dull? Sure you do.)

Therefore, when we revise, we need to re-view our thesis, to make sure that it matches the rest of the paper.

Think of the thesis as a promise to your readers, what they expect the rest of the essay to be about.

If the paper instead goes in a different direction than the main point, readers will get lost and confused.

Not a good thing.

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Go to part 3--Paragraphing

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to call me or e-mail me. My phone number and office hours are right above the Table of Contents on the Syllabus and in my user profile in Angel--Communication>Course Roster. I do have voice mail for my phone if I'm not in. And I'm available on AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) during my office hours--user name, profdan1032. (If you want to meet at some other time, contact me and we can arrange such.) I will also be in Second Life on Angel Learning Island. Finally, you can contact me through Twitter (danholt) or Facebook.

[Introduction] [Organization] [Thesis statements] [Paragraphing]

Created by Dan Holt 9/19/1997
Revised 14 Sep 2009 05:33 PM -0400

� by Dan Holt, 2009.