Lakeland College
P.O. Box 359
Sheboygan, WI 53082-0359

Thesis statement

What is wrong most of the time with a thesis statement is that it doesn’t encapsulate your Main Point.  It only “announces” what you intend to write about, or it gives the plan of the paper.   Look at this so-called thesis:

In this paper, I will analyze the influence of advertisements on girls’ self-image.  First, I will look at how images of girls in ads have changed and then see whether those images have led to changes in the minds and bodies of the girls themselves.

This “thesis” does not make a Main Claim; it just tells me what you plan to do.  In fact, this kind of “thesis” often simply restates the original assignment.

For most papers the thesis should make a claim.  It should tell me, in the above case, what you discovered about the effects of advertisements on girls’ self-image.  Or more exactly, your thesis should answer the question, What do you want me to believe by the end of the paper?

Far from what the media have led us to believe, advertisements have little documental effect on the self-image or the health of adolescent girls.  Indeed, girls with the greatest exposure to the world of advertising often have higher self-images overall.

These sentences – and, yes, a thesis can be longer than one sentence – tells me what you plan to prove or show.  They don’t just tell me what you’re looking for; they tell me what you’ve found.

Don’t worry about your thesis giving your paper away, you still have lots to do – mainly, you have to prove and support your claim.  But for your thesis, follow this advice: try to be more explicit and helpful for your reader than you think you have to be.  Most readers want you to be clear and coherent.  They want to know where they and your paper are going.  It’s easier to be clear when you state your point up front.

Many writers don’t know exactly what their Main Claim is when they start writing.  Often their main idea changes as they revise and research their paper because they’ve come up with more interesting and specific ideas.  So try this: look the last pages of your own paper.  Your ideas back there are probably more detailed and interesting than those in the first pages.  Take some of those better ideas, turn them into a thesis, and move that new thesis up to the front – at the end of your introduction.  Now doesn’t that look better?

For more help with your thesis, see the Portable Writing Tip for “Topic Sentences!”