ACT 490 CUE Auditing Assurance Services

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Writing A Strong Thesis Statement and Supporting Paper

1. It’s almost impossible to have a great thesis statement when you begin to write. So, develop a strong thesis statement during the research and writing process, as you move from your original idea to final paper.

Here’s how it works:

Overall topic – the Civil War

Original idea (but makes a very weak thesis statement): The North and South fought the Civil War for many reasons, some were the same and some were different.

Working thesis (the one you think about as you’re analyzing and beginning to write the paper): While both sides fought the Civil War over the issue of slavery, the North fought for moral reasons while the South fought to preserve its own culture and customs.

Final thesis statement (the revised one you finally use when you finish the paper): While both Northerners and Southerners believed they fought against tyranny and oppression, Northerners focused on the oppression of slaves while Southerners defended their own right to self-government.

Most students stop thinking about how to improve their thesis when they write their “working thesis”; however, what makes the “final thesis” much stronger than the “working thesis” statement?

Here is another example that might help you develop stronger thesis statements:

(1) Start with a topic, such as discrimination against Japanese Americans during World War II. Note that this is very general. At this stage, you cannot write a paper on this topic, because you have no path into the material.

(2) Develop an idea or a question about the topic, as in “why did government officials allow discrimination against Japanese Americans?”

• You now have a question that helps you probe your topic; your efforts have a direction. There are many, many questions that you might ask about your general topic. Brainstorm them to get you started, like the list of questions about snap judgments that I asked you to think about.
• As you are doing your research you should take note of possible questions, as we are doing when we read the books for this class.
• Which ones are the most interesting to you? Which ones are possible given the constraints of the assignment?

(3) Develop a unique perspective on your question that answers it: Government officials allowed discrimination against Japanese Americans because it provided a concrete enemy for people to focus on.

• This is a working thesis statement. You have answered the question you posed, and done so with a rather concrete and specific statement. Your answer offers a unique and thoughtful way of thinking about the material, but how can you strengthen it?

(4) Revise, polish, and complicate your thesis statement: Government officials allowed discrimination against Japanese Americans not because it was in the nation’s interest, but because it provided a concrete enemy for people to focus on.

Let’s work through one more example:

Overall topic – Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn

Original idea, but a weak thesis statement: Huckleberry Finn is a great American novel.

• Formulating a thesis is notthe first thing you do after reading an essay assignment. Why not?
• Before you develop an argument on any topic, you have to collect and organize evidence, look for possible relationships between known facts (such as contrasts or similarities), and think about the significance of these relationships. This is the analysis part – without that analysis, you probably won’t have a strong thesis statement.
• Once you do this thinking and analysis, you will probably have a “working thesis,” a basic or main idea, an argument that you think you can support with evidence but that may need adjustment along the way.

Working thesis is what you are thinking about as you further analyze your evidence and begin to write your paper: In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain develops a contrast between life on the river and life on the shore.

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Now apply these overall guidelines for strong thesis statements:

• Double check to make sure you are doing what the assignment asks, or answering the question the professor wants you to answer. Not doing that usually leads to a very low grade.
• Make sure that your thesis makes sense by itself — you shouldn’t need to read sentences before and after it for the position you are taking to be understandable.
• Ask yourself if you have taken a position that others might disagree with. If you haven’t you are probably summarizing information rather than presenting an analysis. Look at the above working thesis. Is there room for disagreement, or is it primarily a statement of fact?
• Think about the information you are presenting – is your thesis specific? If you use general words like “good” or “successful,” ask yourself, why is it good or what makes it successful? In the above working thesis, where is the generality?
• For the above working thesis, you might ask yourself, “What is the point of Twain showing the contrast? Why is he writing about that? Asking yourself “HOW?” “WHY?” or “SO WHAT?” often leads to a stronger thesis and a stronger paper.

Final revised thesis that presents your personal interpretation, based on the evidence: Through its contrasting river and shore scenes, Twain’s Huckleberry Finn suggests that to find the true expression of American democratic ideals, one must leave “civilized” society and go back to nature.

1. It’s not enough to have a strong thesis statement! Each paragraph of your essay needs to tie back to your thesis statement. Also, each point in the thesis MUST be addressed somewhere in your essay body paragraphs.

Here is one way to analyze each paragraph of the body of your essay:

• Ask yourself, “Does each paragraph specifically and directly provides evidence for the thesis statement?”
• Directly can be interpreted to mean, “Can everyone ELSE see the connection?” Often when you are writing an essay, you assume that what you are thinking is what your reader is thinking. This is not usually true.
• It is your job as the writer to make your points clear to everyone – state in words what you are thinking. Do no assume that everyone thinks what you think. Make points and connections obvious, with words.
• If your answer to the above question is “no” you need to change either the body of your writing or your thesis statement.
• Ask yourself, “Does any paragraph include information that is NOT directly related to the thesis statement?”
• If your answer is “yes”, you are “wandering” with your writing.
• Usually, you need to eliminate information that is “wandering” because it is not relevant to the thesis.
• Occasionally you can figure out how to “tie it in” better. That is, why do you want to include that information? Why is it important for the reader to know that?
• Ask yourself, “Is there enough evidence to convince the reader of my position?”
• One or two examples are not usually enough.
• Ask yourself, “Are the ideas in the body arranged in some significant order, or at least in the order they are presented in the thesis?”
• Order might be according to complexity, time, order of importance, etc.

Some of the examples in this handout were adopted from material from the following sources:

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The University of North Carolina Writing Center, http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/thesis.html

Bowdoin College Writing Guides, http://www.bowdoin.edu/writing-guides/thesis.htm

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