This document provides instructions for writing effective thesis statements. It outlines a process of starting with a controversial claim, qualifying it to make it more acceptable, then turning it around to assert the opposite claim. This generates thesis statements that can be used to structure an essay by anticipating counter-arguments. Students are directed to share their thesis statements and discuss how essays would develop based on the statements composed.

1. Writing Effective Thesis StatementsThis exercise was developed by Keith Gibson, instructor of Composition and Ph.D. student in Rhetoric and Composition and Penn State.

2. For your general subject, make three controversial cause/consequence claims in the form of a debating resolution. In other words, write something like the following: "Resolved: General education requirements should be abolished."

3. Pick three of your controversial claims to continue working with. Drop the "Resolved" and add a "because clause," something like, "The general education requirements should be abolished because they are too widely varied."

4. Make each of your three claims more easily acceptable by eliminating the direct "because clause" and adding qualification, such as "Despite the importance of a shared knowledge base, the general education requirements are so varied in content that they may be leading to greater division among the student body."

5. Turn each of your three statements around so they assert the opposite, remembering to include all the features of the original, "Although the general education requirements may seem irrelevant during college, they are meant to prepare students to enter the on-going intellectual conversations of the nation."

6. After you have composed your thesis statements (step 3), share what you've written with the class. Discuss the ways in which essays should develop by virtue of the thesis statements they've composed. For example, the "opposite" thesis statement creates counter-arguments and supporting reasons that a writer would need to anticipate and address through the course of a recommendation essay.

7. Select one of you tentative thesis statements for your essay.