Making a Thesis Evolve From chapter 6 & 7 of Writing Analytically

A Good Thesis:  Promotes thinking  Reduces scope: separates useful evidence from the majority of information  Provides direction: helps you decide what to talk about next  Contains tension (balances this against that)

A Static Thesis:  A static thesis is imprecise, general, and redundant.  A static thesis is a broad idea or label put on a bunch of examples. An example of a static thesis is: “Exercise is good for you.”  A static thesis treats evidence only as something used as support. The writer keeps stating her point and then listing examples.

Making a Thesis Evolve  Formulate an idea about your subject. This idea will be written as your thesis statement. This thesis statement should be in the front of your paper.  Determine whether or not you can prove your thesis to be true.  Locate complicating evidence – the opposing side.

 Make sure to keep asking and answering So what? to keep reinforcing your thesis.  You may need to reshape your thesis statement to accommodate the evidence that hasn’t fit.

Thesis Guidelines  Your thesis should offer a theory about the meaning of evidence that would not be immediately obvious to readers.  Your thesis should be open to opposing viewpoints.  Treat your thesis as a statement to be tested – not the absolute truth.  Ask questions about your thesis to make your paper evolve.

Samples  Bad thesis: The jeans industry targets its advertisements to appeal to young adults.  Good thesis: By inventing new terms, such as loose fit and relaxed fit, the jeans industry has attempted to normalize, even glorify, its products for a younger generation.

Samples  Bad Thesis: An important part of one’s college education is learning to better understand others’ points of view.  Good Thesis: Although an important part of a person’s college education is learning to better understand others’ points of view, a persistent danger is that students will simply be required to substitute their teachers’ answers for the ones they grew up believing uncritically.

Samples  Bad thesis: Violent revolutions have had both positive and negative results for men.  Good thesis: Although violent revolutions begin to redress long-standing social inequities, they often do so at the cost of long-term economic dysfunction and the suffering that attends it.

The Exploratory Draft  This can be draft #1.  The purpose of this draft is to use your writing and ideas to arrive at a working thesis.  Don’t try to polish your introductory paragraph. Just get started – rambling is okay. Your thesis can be broad.  The first draft is there to guide your intentions.

The Revision of the Exploratory Draft  This can be draft #2.  In this draft you should look to be carefully formulating and evolving your thesis.  Look for patterns of repetition and contrast.  Look for strands of information (repetition of a similar detail).  Look for organizing contrasts – binaries (relationships between royalty & commoners, employers & servants, large & small, very important & less important)

The Next to Final Draft – the test  This will be your 3 rd draft  Be sure to unify the observations you have made. Be sure you haven’t gone off on tangents.  Be sure you have used a wide range of evidence.  Be sure your paper makes sense to other readers.

The Final Draft – checking your work  Checklist…  A clear working thesis?  Confirming evidence?  Complicating evidence?  Depth vs. Breadth – spend your time exploring your ideas rather than worrying about how many ideas you have formed.  Have you made your point? – What’s your point? What’s your evidence? How have you interpreted the evidence? How does the evidence support your point? How does it all connect to your thesis?