The Roadmap to Your Paper: Tips and Examples for Writing Strong Thesis Statements

Most students who are in college have to write a thesis at some point. This thesis is either a semester project or it is a graduation project. Regardless, it is very important and needs to be tackled with care.

For students who are writing a thesis for the first time, it can be a really difficult task. They have trouble figuring out where to start and what to do. Well, after this article, you will be more informed as to where to start and what to do.

What is a Thesis Statement?

A thesis statement is a sentence or a very short passage that is usually presented in the introductory section of the thesis. This statement covers the central argument of your thesis and the rest of your write-up is spent trying to prove it.

Many people mistakenly believe that they have to write a thesis statement first and then begin writing the rest of their paper/thesis, but that is actually incorrect. The thesis statement becomes clear on its own near the end of your paper. That is when you have to incorporate it into your thesis.

A good thesis statement serves as a roadmap to your paper. It informs your audience about what they can expect from the paper such as what the discussed topic will be and your approach to it. Now, we will discuss how to write such a statement.

How to Write a Good Thesis Statement

Typically, when you sit down to write your paper, it means that your research and experiments phase is probably done. You have conducted your experiments and your results are in. Which means that you have all the information that you need to write your paper. This is a good time to write a thesis statement as it will help you to write the rest of your paper in a well-structured manner. So, here are some tips with examples for doing that.

1. Stick to Your Topic

The thesis statement needs to be ultra-specific. It should only discuss your topic and nothing else. Writing a thesis statement is not like writing a blog or creative writing where you can go into unnecessary details.So do not discuss anything other than your topic.

Here is an example of a specific thesis statement to show you how it should be.

Example:

This is an example taken from Owl.purdue.edu. This is the statement.

"High school graduates should be required to take a year off to pursue community service projects before entering college in order to increase their maturity and global awareness."

This is a statement about an essay where the topic is whether students should be required to do community servicebefore college or not. The argument is that they need to mature first.

2. Keep it Concise

As we mentioned previously, the thesis statement needs to be very small. Ideally, it should be only one sentence long. The length of this one sentence can vary as you might have noticed in our previous examples.

Your objective should be to keep it as small as possible while still giving the gist of your entire paper.

Check the following example

Example:

The following thesis statement is extremely concise, yet it accurately describes what the paper will discuss.

"The shift to clean energy is necessary for a sustainable future."

From this statement, it can be gathered that the paper will discuss why it is necessary to start using clean energy instead of fossil fuels for a better future.

3. It Should be Debatable

A debate is when two people argue over two ideas and try to convince the other that their perspective is better. Of course, this is done in a civilized manner and there is no negativity involved.

A thesis statement should be written such that those who disagree can argue against it. So, you should not use sweeping statements and your statement should not be stating absolutes.

Here is an example.

Example:

"The traditional education system is no longer effective in preparing students for the rapidly changing job market and society, and therefore, a shift towards a more personalized and skills-based education model is necessary for future success."

This is a statement that can be argued both in favor of and against. The writer will obviously write in favor, but the readers can approach the topic in different ways. Thereby generating discussion and critical analysis which results in more advancement.

4. Ensure it is Unique

A thesis statement needs to be unique. It cannot be the same as another person's statement. That would be plagiarism. Now, if your work is legitimate your statement will be unique by default. However, your wording could pose a problem if you are not careful.

To ensure that your statement is unique, you can run it through a plagiarism detector. This is a type of online tool that can detect if some given content has similar wording as another online source.

Typically available for free, such tools can give you peace of mind by clearly showing if there is any plagiarism in your thesis statement or not. Speaking of which, if you do end up finding some plagiarism in your statement, then you only need to paraphrase it to make it unique.

Example:

Here is a sample thesis statement that is completely unique in its wording.

"The use of conventional farming methods has led to significant environmental damage through soil degradation, water pollution, and the loss of biodiversity, highlighting the urgent need to shift towards more sustainable and regenerative farming practices."

If we check it with a plagiarism detection tool, then it should show up as 100% unique.

So do that with your own statement as well to ensure it is unique.

Conclusion

And that's how you can write a strong thesis statement. or your can hire online tutor for thesis writing service. But this is merely one part of writing a research paper. You will need more help with the other aspects. You can find valuable resources on our site as well as professional help.