Woman Yelling at Cat About Academic Argument: an evidence-based defense of a non-obvious position on a complex issue. -- Jerz's Literacy Weblog (est. 1999)

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2 thoughts on “Woman Yelling at Cat About Academic Argument: an evidence-based defense of a non-obvious position on a complex issue.”

is a thesis statement a statement of facts that soon will develop in the body of the essay?

Dennis G. Jerz says:
20 Sep 2021 at 2:10 pm
I don’t usually assign writing tasks where the author’s job is simply to state a fact.
This page is about taking a side and demonstrating why the evidence supports your side more than your opponent’s side. In order for it to be a thesis there has to be a reasonable antithesis — an opposing view, that a reasonable person who looked at the same issue might actually take, with at least some credible evidence in favor of that position. If there were just one obviously correct factual answer there would be nothing to debate. But if your writing task is simply to state facts and defend them, I’d say what you have described is a topic, not a thesis. But I won’t be marking your paper, so my opinion only matters so much.
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