A thesis summarizes what your essay is all about. Think of it as a sign post that provides a sense of direction.
A thesis usually states an argument. Even when it’s mostly descriptive, the thesis makes a strong case why the information is relevant.
Question: How did Qatar, a tiny country with scorching temperatures, win its bid to host the World Cup in 2022?
Thesis: Though Qatar’s successful bid for the 2022 World Cup involved bribery and backroom deals, organizers such as Mohamed bin Hammam were simply exploiting the lobbying system put in place by FIFA.
Why is this a good thesis? Because it makes a provocative argument: it questions our assumptions and presents a unique case.
Where do I place the thesis?
The thesis normally comes at the end of your first paragraph.
However, in a longer piece of writing—such as an undergraduate thesis, a lengthy article, or a book—it may take you multiple paragraphs to get to your thesis.
Either way, your introduction should gradually lead up to your thesis.
What makes for a good thesis?
To answer, this question, let’s look at some examples.
Let’s say you’re analyzing Shakespeare’s Sonnet 55. Here are some arguments you might make. Note that your thesis can be more than just one sentence.
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 55 offers the beloved great fame, yet ironically fails to give any description of the beloved. The result of this discrepancy is that only the poet, who has the ability to bestow poetic immortality, becomes famous.
Shakespeare constructs Sonnet 55 like a rational argument with distinct steps, rather than as an emotional plea.
Sonnet 55 describes Shakespeare’s passionate love which will last forever.
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 55 was written in the Renaissance period and is still read today.
Shakespeare’s sonnet 55 contains a hidden code that reveals that he slept with a prostitute.
These theses are too broad, state the obvious, or consist of speculation. Your thesis needs to be specific and provable.
Writing is a process, which means you won’t know the exact shape your thesis will take until you do your research, discover what you want to say, and write your body paragraphs. In that sense, drafting an essay is not like building a house, where it helps to have a blueprint or model of the finished structure. You should always be ready to adapt your thesis as your argument comes into focus.
It’s not a bad idea, then, to start by just jotting down a topic or a few key words. All you need for now is a placeholder. As time goes by, and you gain a clearer idea of how things fits together, you can tweak your argument, just like you might adjust a microscope to achieve the right magnification.
In other words, good writing is inductive. It’s about openness and discovery. That’s why the worst thing you can do is to stick to a preformulated argument at all costs, even to the point of ignoring or twisting the evidence. Let the thesis come to you naturally, when you’ve figured out what you truly want to say.
Avoid cramming too much information or detail in your thesis. There is plenty of time to develop your argument later.
Don’t use someone else’s words as your thesis: save quotations for the rest of your essay.
Question: Is sonnet 55 written from the heart or from the mind?
Thesis: Shakespeare constructs Sonnet 55 like a rational argument with distinct steps, rather than as an emotional plea.
In other words, the answer is that the sonnet is more logical than passionate.
Note that often you can refine your thesis further. In this case you might ask, why is this sonnet so logical? Answering this question might lead to an even more specific thesis.
If you are a very confident writer, or you want to try a more casual approach, you can replace your thesis with the research question and save your conclusion for the end of the essay. Alternatively, you can include both the question and the answer in your introduction.
Not every essay has to have three points, nor do you need to list each point in your thesis. If you do decide to include subpoints, don’t forget to relate them to your overarching argument.
A lot of thesis statements are filled with cumbersome phrases like This essay will argue or I will demonstrate. This kind of language is called meta-discourse, and it’s concerned with the process of writing and researching.
As a close reading of the text demonstrates, and as I will argue in this paper, Winnie-the-Pooh’s love of honey can be diagnosed as an eating disorder.
Better: A psychological diagnosis of Winnie-the-Pooh reveals that he suffers from an eating disorder.
Of course, not all meta-discourse is bad. Sometimes it is important to let your own voice be heard (I believe that…).
Don’t dress up your thesis with emphatic words like important, fascinating, or interesting. Let the argument speak for itself.
The importance of NASA lies in the critical effect it has on our understanding of space exploration.
All this sentence argues is that the subject matter is critically important. No reason is given as to why this is the case.
2 Where do I place the thesis?
3 What makes for a good thesis?