1. The Thesis Statement

2. What is a thesis statement?
A thesis statement is the most important sentence in your paper.
A thesis statement tells your readers what your essay will be about.
In other words, a thesis statement provides a forecast for the entire essay.
Usually, in college writing the thesis statement comes at the end of your introduction.

3. One way to think about it:
The thesis statement gives your reader the topic of your paper and what you will say about that topic.
If something is in your thesis, it must be illustrated and explained somewhere in your essay.

4. One kind of thesis…
… Is the analytical thesis. An analytical thesis statement usually answers the questions
“How?”
and
“Why?”

5. What does this mean?
The “How” question refers to how the author of a text goes about presenting information or stylistic choices to his readers.
S/he specifically makes these decisions in order to fulfill the purpose of the essay.
When you analyze your text, you choose an aspect (or two!) of the text to write about.

6. The aspect is the “how” part of your thesis.
Your author might fulfill his purpose by using one or more of these aspects:
Using a certain kind of tone
Using specific vocabulary choices (diction)
Organizing or structuring the text/paragraphs/sentences in a certain way
Orchestrating a connection between the beginning and ending
Using figurative language

7. Look at an example…
George Orwell artfully employs simile and metaphor, personification, and dialogue to indicate people’s humanity toward other people regardless of nationality and to prompt readers’ sympathy and self-examination.
What aspects will this paper analyze?

8. Aspects to be analyzed
George Orwell artfully employs simile and metaphor, personification, and dialogue…
Simile
Metaphor
Personification
Dialogue

9. Examples from English 98 essays might be…
“In “Simplicity,” William Zinsser employs a very specific structure ….” or
“In “On Being 17, Bright, and Unable to Read” David Raymond’s tone of sincerity…”

10. Each of the previous examples is an acceptable beginning of a thesis statement because each names an author, a text, and what your paper will discuss.
They tell your readers which aspect you will be writing about.

11. But there’s more… You still need to tell your readers “why”…
Why, according to the student in the model essay, does Orwell use these aspects?

12. Look at the rest of the thesis
… to indicate people’s humanity toward other people regardless of nationality and to prompt readers’ sympathy and self-examination.
Three reasons!

13. Thinking about our assignment…
Why, according to your interpretation, does Zinsser use this structure?

14. So, you add another part to the thesis statement:
“In “Simplicity,” William Zinsser employs a very specific structure so that the reader’s first and final impressions are about the art of writing. ”

15. Another example: Why does Raymond want to convey sincerity?
In “On Being 17, Bright, and Unable to Read,” David Raymond’s tone of sincerity serves to lessen the audience’s potential fears of those who are disabled.”

16. For this essay you also need…
Evaluation
How well did the author meet his goal?
Was the author successful in fulfilling her purpose?

17. … so you add one more piece to the thesis.
Because the thesis is pretty long, you could do this simply: try for an adverb.
“In “Simplicity,” William Zinsser successfully employs a very specific structure so that the reader’s first and final impressions are about the art of writing. ”

18. …or… … you might need to make some changes:
“In On Being 17, Bright, and Unable to Read,” David Raymond’s tone of sincerity fulfills his purpose of lessening the audience’s potential fears of those who are disabled.”
(Changed from: “serves to lessen”)

19. Additionally, your thesis statement should meet the following requirements:
1. It should be interesting to your readers. Your brain works differently than anyone else’s in this room. Show us a point of view or a perspective we might not have considered before.

20. … and …
2. It should have precise and specific wording. Try not to use the same words everyone else will use (good, well, bad, etc.).

21. … and …
3. It should be manageable. Don’t try to cover every bit of your paper. Make it broad enough that it covers the whole paper! Simplify!
Note: If you’ve mentioned the author’s full name in the introduction, you can use her/his last name only in the thesis statement. This might help you simplify.

22. Last but not least
Understand that your thesis statement might, and probably will, change as you draft and revise. Oftentimes when we are writing, our ideas becomes clearer or sometimes even shift to a slightly different interpretation. THIS IS OKAY.

23. The “Working Thesis”
Sometimes writers wait until they have drafted an entire paper before truly shaping their thesis statement.
They begin with a rough statement, almost a sketch, of what they want their thesis to be, then they write the essay, then they go back and refine the thesis. The rough draft of a thesis statement is called a “working thesis.”

24. Start here: The necessary ingredients to your thesis for this paper:
Title
Author
How? (aspects)
Why? (purpose)