Thesis Statement Tips: Helpful Hacks for How to Write a Thesis for Academic Essays

Jerz > Writing > Academic
    [ Argument | Title | Thesis | Blueprint | Pro/Con | Quoting | MLA Format ]

A thesis statement is the single, specific claim that your essay supports. A strong thesis answers the question you want to raise; it does so by presenting a topic, the position you wish to defend, and a reasoning blueprint that sketches out your defense of your chosen position. A good thesis is not merely a factual statement, an observation, a personal opinion or preference, or the question you plan to answer. (See “Academic Argument: Evidence-based Defense of a Non-obvious Position.”)
The biography Black Elk Speaks challenges the Western genre’s stereotype of the “savage Indian” through its attention to cultural detail, its use of Indian words, and its direct quotes from Black Elk.
  • Topic: The representation of Indian lifestyle in the book Black Elk Speaks
  • Precise Opinion: the book challenges a stereotype
    (a good thesis is debatable, so a good paper would also cover ways that this book perpetuates this same stereotype)
  • Reasoning Blueprint: the three ways the book mounts this challenge are through attention to cultural detail, using Indian words, and using direct quotations from Black Elk.
    • A strong blueprint would hint at why these three details add up to support the thesis statement.
    • A less impressive blueprint might simply list the main points the essay will cover.

There is nothing magically “correct” about a thesis on challenging a cultural stereotype. Instead of claiming that a book “challenges a genre’s stereotypes,” you might instead argue that some text “provides a more expensive but more ethical solution than X” or “undermines Jim Smith’s observation that ‘[some quote from Smith here]’”. (Don’t automatically use “challenges a genre’s stereotype” in the hopes of coming up with the “correct” thesis.)

A more complicated thesis statement for a paper that asks you to demonstrate your ability engage with someone else’s ideas (rather than simply summarize or react to someone else’s ideas) might follow a formula like this:

Although Smith says “quote a passage that makes a specific claim you intend to disagree with” (123), in this paper I will use Brown’s concept of X to argue that [your original thesis goes here].”
  • Your instructor might not want you to use “I” in your paper. You might instead say “This paper will use…” or “Applying Brown’s concept of X will show…”
  • Rather than promising to “use Brown to argue” (which is too general), this model recommends that you “use Brown’s concept of X to argue” (or “Brown’s case study X” or “Brown’s thorough analysis of X” or “Brown’s unsuccessful rebuttal to Jones”). The more specific you are about how, specifically you will use Brown, the better.
  • It’s not enough to disagree with someone else; a strong paper will go beyond saying “Smith is wrong” and will instead say “Here’s a better solution that avoids problems P and Q that prevent Smith’s solution from working.”

For a short paper (1-2 pages), the thesis statement is often the first sentence. A complex thesis statement for a long paper may be part of a thesis paragraph. But it’s hard to go wrong if you put your thesis first.

Useful Formulae for Thesis Statements

If you’re not sure whether you have a good thesis statement, see whether you can fit your ideas into one of these basic patterns.

[Something] [does something] because [reason(s)].
or
Because [reason(s)], [something] [does something].
Although [opposing evidence], [reasons] show [something] [does something].

If you are just starting out, and you are still developing an original, evidence-based claim to defend, a simpler formula is probably best. Once you have done the research, and you understand the subject, then a formula like the following won’t look like random words; it will suggest a way to frame a nuanced, complex argument that goes beyond making non-controversial factual statements.

While [a specific, named person] says [a direct quote or paraphrase from the source], [a different, named person] says [something else]. While the two authors disagree over [a minor point], they both share a deep concern over [the topic of your paper]. [Person one’s] refusal to accept [a particular point made by person two]suggests that [person one] is [your thesis — stating the real reason why person one won’t agree with person two].
What really matters is not guessing the magically correct words to fit some secret formula that your mean instructor is refusing to tell you.

What matters is that you have researched your subject, that you have found and engaged meaningfully with peer-reviewed academic sources, and that you are developing an evidence-based claim, rather than summarizing or giving unsupported opinion.
  • Unlike a personal essay, which can rely on personal experience and general observations, a research paper must draw on evidence — usually in the form of direct quotations or statistics from peer-reviewed academic journals.
  • You have no reason to “defend” a position unless some expert has presented credible evidence that challenges a claim you want to make. (Finding, quoting, and engaging with that evidence is part of your task as an academic writer.)
  • An academic argument is not a squabble, a difference of opinions, or an attorney’s courtroom statement. The author of an academic argument is more like the judge, who, after hearing out the best arguments in favor of various possible solutions, supports the best one. An academic argument is part of a discussion that respects multiple viewpoints (as long as those viewpoints are backed by credible evidence).

Parts of a Thesis Statement

The thesis statement has 3 main parts: the limited subject, the precise opinion, and the blueprint of reasons.

1. Limited Subject

Make sure you’ve chosen a subject that meets your instructor’s requirements for the assignment. (It never hurts to ask.)

2. Precise Opinion

The precise opinion gives your answer to a question about the subject. A good precise opinion is vital to the reader’s comprehension of the goal of the essay.

3. Blueprint of Reasons

A blueprint is a plan. It lets the builder know that the foyer will be here, the living room will be to the east, the dining room to the west, and the family room will be north.The blueprint of an essay permits you to see the whole shape of your ideas before you start churning out whole paragraphs.While it’s okay for you to start writing down your ideas before you have a clear sense of your blueprint, your reader should never encounter a list of details without being told exactly what point these details are supposed to support. (For more details on the reasoning blueprint, see Blueprinting.)

The biography Black Elk Speaks challenges the Western genre’s stereotype of the “savage Indian” through its attention to cultural detail, its use of Indian words, and its direct quotes from Black Elk.
In the blueprint, the author signals an intention to support the precise opinion. The author of the example above introduces three different kinds of evidence:
  • cultural details
  • Indian words
  • quotes from Black Elk.

Informed by this blueprint, the reader expects to encounter one section (a paragraph or more) devoted to each subtopic.The blueprint determines the shape of your paper.

If your thesis statement introduces three reasons A, B and C, the reader will expect a section on reason A, a section on reason B, and a section on reason C.

For a single paragraph, you might only spend one sentence on each reason. For a 2-3 page paper, each reason might get its own paragraph. For a 10-page paper, each reason might contain its own local thesis statement, with its own list of reasons, so that each section involves several paragraphs.To emphasize the structure of your essay, repeat keywords or paraphrased ideas from the blueprint as you introduce the sections in which you expand on each point. Crafting good transitions is a skill that takes time and practice. (See Transitions and Reminders of Thesis).

Note: If you repeat your blueprint phrases and your thesis statement robotically (“The third point I want to talk about is how Black Elk Speaks accurately represents the Indian lifestyle through its direct quotes from Black Elk.”), your writing will be rather dry and lifeless. Dull writing is probably better than aimless rambling, although neither is terribly effective. |

Note: A thesis statement amounts to nothing if the paper is not completely focused on that main point. Blueprinting helps create the coherency of the thesis throughout the entire essay, which makes it a necessary part of the thesis statement.

Black Elk Speaks accurately represents Indian lifestyle through its attention to cultural detail, its use of Indian words, and its direct quotes from Black Elk.
  • Topic: The representation of Indian lifestyle in the book Black Elk Speaks
  • Precise Opinion: the book is accurate
  • Reasoning Blueprint: the book pays attention to cultural detail, it uses Indian words, and it uses direct quotations from Black Elk. (The rest of the paper will establish the truth of teach of these supporting points, and then explain why they add up to support the truth of the thesis statement.)
Is Black Elk Speaks a tragedy?
This is a question, not a statement. It’s fine to sit down at the keyboard with the intention of writing a paper to answer this question, but before you start churning out the sentences, you should have a clear idea of what answer you’re trying to support.
This paper will look at the book’s attention to cultural detail, its use of Indian words, and its direct quotations from Black Elk, in order to determine whether Black Elk Speaks accurately represents Indian lifestyle.
The above sample is slightly better because it offers more detail, but it still doesn’t say what position the author is taking on the topic of whether the book is accurate.
Because the events in the story emphasize Black Elk’s role as a Sioux Warrior, and do not describe his eventual conversion to Catholicism and membership in the Society of St. Joseph, Black Elk Speaks presents a skewed and simplified view of the complex history of Native Americans.
Note that the above sample contains a topic (the accuracy of Black Elk Speaks), opinion (it is skewed and simplified), and reasoning (because the book only tells part of the story).

You don’t need to present those three parts in that exact order every time; furthermore, your instructor may have a good reason to ask you for a different organization. But most of the time, including these three parts will help your reader to follow your ideas much more closely.
Biographies of all types can teach us many things about the past. What was the culture like? What was the language like? And what did the people say? One such book is Black Elk Speaks, which tells the story of a Sioux warrior in the late 1800s. How accurate is this book? This paper will investigate the cultural details, the language, and what Black Elk actually said, in order to determine the answer.
The above sample starts off with a wordy, general statement about biographies. But the main topic isn’t about biographies of all types, it’s specifically about one book, Black Elk Speaks.

17 Oct 2000 — originally posted by Nicci Jordan, UWEC Junior
08 Dec 2000 — first posted here. Maintained by Prof. Jerz.
13 Dec 2003 — links updated
22 Sep 2006 — moderate revisions by Jerz
29 Oct 2011 — updated by Jerz
14 June 2015 — minor adjustments

Blueprinting: Planning Your Essay
A blueprint is a rough but specific plan, or outline, which defines the structure of your whole essay. The blueprint, usually located within the thesis statement, is a brief list of the points you plan to make, compressed into just a few words each, in the same order in which they appear in the body of your paper.

A thesis reminder is a direct echo of the thesis statement. In a short paper, the topic sentence of each paragraph should repeat words or phrases from the thesis statement.

Tips for writing timed essays: Plan your time wisely. Answer the right question. Collect your thoughts. Leave time to revise. Revise your thesis statement

 

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  • Hi, I have a question. I'm in the process of writing my term paper for this year. The teacher I have is very strict on how we write our thesis statement. He insists that there be absolutely no outling of our paper in our thesis statement whatsoever. If we do outline at all, our paper automatically goes down to a B. How in the world do I write a thesis without summarizing my main points? Thanks.

    • Your instructor may have a good reason for that guideline, so I would suggest that you get together with some classmates, and write several different versions of the same thesis statement, and ask your instructor for feedback on how to revise each attempt so that it meets his/her expectations. The thesis paragraph can contain the outline, but the one-sentence thesis statement might be "Little Red Riding Hood is a feminist cautionary tale that teaches young girls to be careful about when and where to accept help from men," rather than "Red Riding Hood's three main choices, to ignore her mother's warning to avoid strangers, to accept the wolf's suggestion that she pick flowers, and to listen to her supposed grandmother's request to step closer, all demonstrate that the story is a feminist cautionary tale." as you can see, both versions make the same point, but your teacher would probably prefer the first version.

      But really, since your instructor is the one who is grading your work, he or she is the best person to ask.

  • Hi, below is my thesis statement and think it's more like a skeleton thesis, but I really can't figure out how to change it to a more formal one. Please give me some advice. Thanks

    The San Francisco Civil Right Movement has finally came to success, everyone can be hired from their dream company. I think the College should choose Chapter 5 in The Roots of Justice to help students learn from the San Francisco Civil Right Movement. It helps students to understand how people used to think about Blacks, how people have fought for the future against racism, and nothing is impossible

    • Since I din't know what Chapter 5 in The Roots of Justice means, and I'm not sure what level your assignment is, I don't know whether your claim is actually a debatable point.

      For a college paper, I would point out that the claim that e Civil Rights movement is over would come as a surprise to, for instance, activists fighting what they see as instututional racism in death row prison sentencing.

      If every kid dreams of being hired by Apple or Google, or being a dinosaur hinter or a fairy princess, or being President of the United States, is it really true that their dream comoany will hire them? It's not technically true that "nothing is impossible."

      Instead of focusing on "glittering generalities," what if you compared the relative merits and drawbacks of chapter 5 and some other chapter, carefully explaining for an open-minded but skeptical reader in what circumstances the other chapter would be a good choice, but noting as your thesis that for reasons A, B and C, chapter 5 is the better choice. (Don't call it the "best" choice if you are only comparing it to one other thing.)

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    Last week, I sent my English professor the illustration essay He told me that all website that I used are not enough academic.
    That made me got just grade B. However, I try to find the academic website to support my writing.
    Could you give me some good advice for this? My topic of second essay is Milan, a livable city in Italy.
    I have tried so hard to find useful information, yet I haven't found yet. T^T

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    • I am so glad to hear you found this page helpful. Thank you for your kind words. Best wishes as you continue this stage of your educational journey.

  • DISCUSS THE CONCEPT OF THERAPEUTIC COMMUNICATION AND HOW IMPORTANT VERBAL AND NON VERBAL COMMUNICATION IS WHEN INTERACTING WITH CLIENTS.

    • Your future clients will be happy to know you are working hard to earn your degree. Your instructor would be the best present to ask for guidance. I'm sure he or she will be willing to help, so long as you demonstrate you are keeping up with all the readings and have looked at the assignment instructions. Good luck!

  • Hi there,
    I am teaching how to write a thesis statement to ESL students, but I don't know the simplest way to start.

  • Hi Dennis I don't know if you read Roll Of Thunder, Hear My Cry By Mildred D. Taylor but i was wondering if you can help me with the thesis statment. If you have not read it it's about racim in America in the 1940s. My essay is about three characters Stacy, T.J, and Jeremy. Stacy is black and his family is the only family in his town with there own land. Jeremy is white and his dad is very racist while Jeremy does not care about color. The last character is T.J who is black and very childish and foolish. Stacy is mature and loves his family. He is a lot like Jeremy but he is friends only with T.J and shows more loyalty to him because they are from the same race. The thing i'm arguing is that rasicm is something that is very wrong and should not come in between a great friendship.
    Thanks Noura

    • A really good thesis argues a debatable point. Do you think anybody reading that book would believe its message is "racism is good, and a perfectly good reason to disrupt a friendship?"

  • I have to write a short essay based on this topic, "Why do you want to spend 5 or 6 years at a particular university or college? What is important about college?" I am having trouble thinking of a thesis statement. FYI I believe some good reasons to go to college would be: to earn more money, for the experiences, and to pursue a dream or passion. HELP!

  • ok i have to do a high school essay on the book "The Kite Runner"

    for my thesis i came up with this

    "Due to the betrayal toward Hassan, both Amir and Baba cope with guilt in different ways"

    any suggestions?

    • That's a perfectly clear observation, but a stronger paper might focus on why the author chooses to deal with guilt in two different ways. Can you think about offering an original interpretation that requires you to do a little convincing, rather than stating an accurate but obvious observation that no rational person would ever disagree with?

      What can the reader learn, that would not otherwise be so effective? Why does it matter that the two characters face grief differently? The characters also have different names, and probably like different flavors of jellybeans, but that stuff doesn't really matter. Why does a difference in something important to the story matter?

      You are on the right track.

  • Thank you so much for the information. This is my first time doing online classes and I am having a hard time with my thesis statements. My essay is an example essay and I am writing on how failure can lead to success. The essay is to be three to four pages long. This is my thesis statement: Although most people would not understand how failure can lead to success; my life tells a different story. Any suggestions?

    • If you are writing a personal essay, You have a lot of freedom, but I would say that arguing against what "most people" say is a straw man argument.

      I can recall many graduation speeches and bumper stickers and greeting cards that urge me to learn from my mistakes, but I can't think of one person who ever urged me NOT to learn from my mistakes. So from the start I am scratching my head wondering, who are these people are say the thing you want to argue against?

        • Yes, that's a stronger statement; if your teacher wants an example, this version will get you to that example faster.

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