This document provides guidance on writing a strong thesis statement, including that it should: 1) Take a clear position or stance on the topic 2) Provide examples, evidence or explanations that will be used in the paper 3) Inspire questions from the reader about how or why the stance is taken It also gives examples of effective and ineffective thesis statements.

2. #1

3. •Captures the main idea
•Takes a stand or position & supports it
•Shows the reader what is to come & connects to each paragraph

4. #2

5. •Declares what you intend to prove
•Gives your work focus
•Signals a thoughtful essay as opposed to a simple retelling of facts

6. Question(s)
Tentative Thesis
Topic

7. #3

8. Research questions should be:
•Clear
•Focused
•Complex

9. #4

10. A good thesis should be:
•Restricted (limits or narrows the topic)
•Unified (expresses one major idea)
•Specific (uses specific language)

11. Your thesis should take a position or stance
Your thesis should provide an idea of the examples, explanations, and/or evidence you plan to use in the rest of your paper
Your thesis should inspire a reasonable reader to askHow?orWhy?
A reasonable reader shouldNOTread your thesis and respond with:
• Duh!
• So what?
• Gee, no kidding!
• Who cares?
A good thesis agrees with all of these criteria

12. #5

13. Though this takes a stance, it’s a very common and non-specific statement.
A reasonable reader would say “Duh!”

14. #6

15. This is an improvement, but it still needs more details.
Provide an idea of the examples, explanations, and/or evidence to come in your paper.

16. #7

17. Even better!
When you look at this sentence, you can tell exactly what the rest of the paper is going to be about. It takes a stance and is specific!

18. #8

19. Is this your main idea / argument?
This sentence seems more like a supporting piece of evidence than a thesis. Remember, your thesis needs to be broad enough to guide your entire paper.

20. #9

21. An announcement is not a thesis. Rewording the sentence is easy and can give you something to work with:
MTV’s show Teen Mom gives teenagers a false, glamourized perception of pregnancy and motherhood.

22. #10

23. This thesis takes a stance.
It provides detail and you can read it and know exactly what will come in the paper. It’s specific but not too narrow.

24. #11

25. This thesis also takes a stance that is a bit controversial. It gives details about the specific direction of the paper –we know that they are going to talk about the chemicals and the process of lethal injections.

26. #12