Thesis Statement Reminders
*The thesis statement prevents you from losing focus and from going all over the place in your paper.
*It narrows your subject matter down to one, two or three ideas upon which the paper will be based.
*Once you have your thesis, you cannot write about anything other than the ideas mentioned in your thesis.
* If you finish the paper and find that you came up with another idea, edit your thesis to include this other idea.
*Be specific and try your best to answer: Who, what, when, where and why?
* Do not make the reader guess what you mean by your statement. Give details.
* Use research, quotes, and paraphrases to support your thesis.
* Once you have come up with a thesis and given supporting background in the opening paragraph, you will then focus on quotes, examples and ideas to further support your paper in the remaining paragraph(s).
*Your conclusion should tie your ideas together nicely and offer solutions if this paper presented an argument or problem.
*Do not assume that your audience knows anything about your subject.
*Find your true and authentic voice, and then use it.
*Remember, to save the best for last in your paper.
Samples of Thesis Statements Example paper topic:
Illusion vs. Reality. How your beliefs affect your reality.
Being honest with who one truly is the direct route to achieving absolute happiness.
It takes integrity to face the truth that many people do not love themselves, which is why it is so difficult for them to find love and happiness in relationships.
When it comes to finding true love, there is an illusion that is just as common as the desire for love itself and that is the belief that true love is found, not in oneself, but within the masses.
Accepting change and finding one’s bliss requires an absolute commitment to truth above all else in order to create a whole new reality.
In order to achieve enlightenment, one must define and accept the nature of reality, then reject and discard the illusion of conformity.
Love is a gift from God, yet there are many people who do not know how to use this gift because they perceive themselves as unworthy of love from another or do not know how to love themselves.
Influences such as religion, family values, and social status affect one’s paradigm or world view.
Thesis statement examples and exercises
Excerise A
For each of the following thesis statement, underline the subtopics and draw a box around the unifying element
1. Garcia uses the smell of roses, time and the sea to create a sense of entropy.
2. To support his argument for the spontaneous origin of life, Wald refers to changing atmospheric conditions, time, and probability.
3. Jake’s inability to cope with misfortune is demonstrated by his memory blocks, his loss of control, and his excessive drinking.
4. In A Letter from Birmingham Jail King claims that political change can be brought about through a combination of evidence, logic, emotion, and action.
5. To illustrate Grebe’s perseverance, Bellow uses the economy, the atmosphere, and the minor characters.
6. According to Karl Marx, workers in a capitalist society cannot achieve their full potential because they are alienated from their activity, from their product, from their species being, and from their fellow man.
Examples B.
Using any one of the thesis statements in Exercise A, write out topic sentences. For each topic sentence, underline the subtopics and draw a box around the unifying element.
