THESIS STATEMENTSThe thesis statement is the sentence or sentences in which you draft the central idea for your paper as completely as possible. A thesis statement should contain a specific, manageable, arguable claim. If your idea is flawed or incomplete—no matter how eloquently you write your sentences--your paper likely will contain the same flaw or weakness, only multiplied by the paper’s size and more complex organization.

1. Initial PrewritingDuring the prewriting stage (brainstorming, freewriting, listing), try to remain as flexible as possible because often an unexpected association of two ideas will generate the most interesting, compelling thesis idea. Your ultimate goal is to narrow the topic AND develop a complete, arguable claim; this usually requires that you return repeatedly to the brainstorming stage as you discover overly general terms, vague language, or inadequately developed claims in your initial attempts at a thesis statement.

2. Narrowing Your Topic• There are many problems in the world.• The United States has many similarities with Europe, yet has many differences.• Rap music is just one of many kinds of popular music.

These thesis statements are all weak. Why? Because they are too broad and they are incomplete; a paper developed from any of them would probably be extremely vague and boring, both to write and to read. When evaluating your own thesis, ask yourself:

• Does the sentence provide any specific direction for the paper?• Would I feel interested in writing such a paper?• Would anyone feel interested in reading such a paper?• Where would I start in organizing the paper and supporting this thesis?• Does the sentence make any specific examples or points?

One simple way to start to fix this is to identify vague words or phrases such as many, some, a lot or passive sentence constructions that contain many “to be” verbs or that begin with…

There are There is It is It was

…or one or more abstract general terms…

problems world people fast food circumstance situation popular music

similarities differences things nature love qualities today’s society

…and replace them with specific terms or phrases. Any words or phrases on this list should lead you back to prewriting.

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Here is one of those previous thesis statements after it have been narrowed through more prewriting:

• Air pollution from automobile exhaust poses a growing problem for big Texas cities.

Notice that the revised statement still contains the general term “growing problem,” which may need additional narrowing as the thesis statement and paper develop. Returning to the brainstorming stage in which you break general terms into more specific parts and then attempt to make associations or comparisons and contrasts among some of the parts can help you further narrow your thesis statement and generate ideas for the next step.

3. FINDING A CLAIMStudent writers often are able to narrow their topic to a more specific focus, but they fail to find a completely developed claim. No matter whether your assignment is to be chiefly descriptive, analytic, expository, persuasive, or narrative, if you don’t develop a specific claim or argument in your thesis statement, your writing likely will lack purpose throughout the entire paper.

The previous narrowed thesis statement is still incomplete because it doesn’t make a claim about why such conditions exist. Adding a complete claim to your thesis should help to focus the direction of your paper and force you to narrow any remaining vague or general terms. When evaluating your thesis, ask yourself:

• Does my thesis statement contain a “why” or “how” element?• Have I answered the immediate question a reader might have about the reason

With this in mind, here is a revised thesis statement: Air pollution from automobile exhaust poses a growing quality-of-life problem for

residents of big Texas cities because the number and length of daily automobile trips required to maintain space-loving suburban lifestyles increase disproportionately to the cities’ expanding populations.

4. DRAFTINGAs you write and redraft your paper, you can refine the thesis statement to one or two eloquent sentences, so don’t worry if your draft thesis statement is wordy or awkward sounding. Your concern at this early stage in your paper’s development should be solely to clarify and focus the idea around which your paper will be constructed. Be prepared to frequently return to the brainstorming stage.

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