1. Thesis Statements And You
A Workshop

2. What is a Thesis Statement?
The thesis statement is the sentence (or sentences) that will state the main argument of a writing assignment.
The thesis statement, although it does have statement in it’s title, cannot be a straightforward, factual statement. It needs to be an argument; something that the reader of your paper can agree or disagree with. Your job, with the body of your paper, will be to get the reader to agree with your stance on the argument you have presented.
Depending on the type (and length) of the paper you are writing, your thesis statement will appear in different places. But, it should always be at the end of the introduction, even if that introduction is three paragraphs long. If you start the paper without presenting the main argument, the readers will be very confused.

3. How do You create a Thesis statement?
Question all the things.
Start with the journalistic questions: who, what, where, when, why, how.
Then, analyze the answers you got for those questions – when you figure out who, ask why it is that particular group of who and not some other group of whos
After you have the answers, which you will find by researching, to your questions you are ready to make a claim

4. What is a Claim?
The claim is the part of the thesis statement that allows it to be an argument.
More specifically, it is your own stance on the paper’s topic stated objectively
The claim is what you will be supporting with the evidence/research you will complete for the body of your paper
Your claim should be very specific; you asked a lot of questions to get to your claim so you should have a very good idea about one area of an argument that want to write about

5. What does a thesis statement look like?
The thesis statement does not always have to be one sentence, but most assignments that you will receive will prefer that you do have a one sentence thesis statement.
You thesis must have your claim, and the ways in which you will be supporting your claim i.e.) your evidence
The easiest way to do this is to create a list of your evidence after your claim, although as you move up through English classes, this list-type thesis might not be accepted

6. Now what? Now you have a thesis statement, or so you think…
You must test this thesis statement to make sure it is arguable with the ‘So What…’question.
The ‘So What…’ question is designed to make sure that your thesis statement conveys a clear purpose/significance to the reader (and also to make sure that your thesis statement isn’t a statement of fact is disguise)

7. You now have a thesis statement you can be proud of
Congratulations
You now have a thesis statement you can be proud of