What is a thesis?
Your thesis statement asserts the central idea of your writing. The thesis takes a clear-cut position on a debatable topic, or summarizes the main point or argument of your paper. The thesis answers the main question or problem associated with your topic, which your course’s assignment directions often state.
Why should I write a thesis?
Think of a thesis like the starting point on a map. If you don’t have a starting point, then it is difficult to plan your route and reach your destination (your conclusion). The thesis provides a roadmap that lets your readers know where your ideas are headed. Furthermore, it engages them and makes them think about your topic from the start.
A well-written thesis will help you create a clear, concise paper with a strong argument. When writing persuasively, you need to know what you want to prove or your essay will lack focus. The smaller points that form your detailed arguments should flow from your thesis.
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Often it is a sentence or two at the end of the introduction. (Other non-Western cultures may place the thesis elsewhere, such as at the end of the paper.)
"Performance Enhancement Through Biotechnology Has No Place in Sports." Hammond. From A Writer's Reference, 7th Edition, ed. by Diana Hacker & Nancy Sommers.
Athletes who use any type of biotechnology give themselves an unfair advantage and disrupt the sense of fair play, and they should be banned from competition.
Testing your Thesis
It is important to test your thesis in order to make sure it answers the appropriate questions and arguments. Here are some sample questions to evaluate
College has always been a process that introduces students to academic challenges that are not present during high school. So when my professor assigned Gerald Graff's essay, "Hidden Intellectualism", I thought this was his thesis. “Missing the opportunity to tap into such street smarts and channel them into good academic work." (Graff 142) I thought that this was his thesis because it explains the main idea of the essay but I assumed its purpose because of where it’s placed. I am so used to reading an essay in high school where the thesis is located right in the first paragraph. So naturally that is where I look for it. However, with more reading I knew that the following is the thesis, not only because it discusses the main topic, but because it clearly shows what the author was making his argument about. "But [students] would be more prone to take on intellectual identities if we encouraged them to do so at first on subjects that interest them rather than the ones that interest us". (Graff 199) Your thesis is one of the major aspects of a good college paper because it shows exactly what the main claim of the entire paper is going to be about. Three main points to take out of a thesis is, is it your main claim or big idea that directly answers a question about the assignment of the paper. Is it written with the reader in mind with a road map they could follow along easily and lastly when you do go back through revising and reflecting does it makes your thesis clearer.
Butryn believes, the challenge that is issued is whether an athlete 's ability has a dramatic change in his performance due to technology. I believe that technology should not give an athlete more ability than a regular athlete because at that point it becomes unfair to both competitors. Trivino states, “The sports practiced by athletes who have had organs or mechanical parts implanted and their desire to take part in regular athletic competitions puts sports authorities in an ethical and legal tight spot” (118). Trivino believes Authorities are put into an ethical and legal tight spot because there must be a line drawn. A line that clearly states what is and isn 't allowed to be able to take part in regular athletic competitions. I believe it becomes unfair and too much of an advantage for the athlete to use in competition. According to Trivino, “The cyberization of sport has occupied a role in medical and sport fields in recent years due to the fact that this issue calls into question the very foundations of contemporary sport,
3. Your thesis statement should state exactly what you are discussing in your paper. If you spend a paragraph on stubbornness, a paragraph on shortsightedness, etc, the each of those points should be listed in the thesis statement. Both being unwilling to change, they both seal each other’s fate with their stubbornness, shortsightedness, extreme beliefs and their hubris.
Claim or thesis is what you are seeking to prove and what the argument is about.
1. The thesis of the essay is stated at the end of the first paragraph. The author says,
As time progresses in both Lord Of the Flies and “I Only Came To Use the Phone”, the characters show definite sings of savagery. The authors of these stories show the change from civilization and reduction to the characters’ basic, primitive nature. In the beginning of Lord Of the Flies, the young boys are deserted on an island due to their plane crashing. Once on the island, they find each other and begin to assemble. They come together as a big group and elect a leader. There are other boys in charge of certain tasks that need to be accomplished. A conch shell found on the beach is used as a way to call a meeting. This reaction to sudden change shows an instinct in humans that, when something goes wrong, people try to keep as normal of a schedule as possible. The boys use this make-shift kind of government because they realize that they need some type of structure in their lives.
Miah, Andy. Genetically Modified Athletes: Biomedical Ethics, Gene Doping, and Sport. New York: Routledge, 2004.
2. Your thesis statement appears in its own paragraph. Thesis statements are a part of the introduction and should be included in the introductory paragraph.
• how the introduction introduces the topic and offers a clear forecast of the essay's thesis (the author's position and stated reasons)
...ragraphs that support the argument. The easiest part of this component was actually inserting it in my essay after I understood the purpose for it, because at the beginning I was confused on the whole thesis concept. The thesis was the most challenging because I kept asking myself "Can I really argue this for five to six pages?" and also "Is this even considered a thesis statement?" I noticed that I can speak and write more effectively when I'm thinking critically and intellectually. My sentence structure has always been strong and I feel it has grown because of the practice we have had in class with finding thesis statements in our readings. My overall issue with this component of the writing process is using a justifiable argument and remembering to support my argument with claims and trying not to put unnecessary points in my paper while maintaining my ethos.
Surviving thesis days can be exceptionally overwhelming. At the point when everything begins going south in your most loved proposal work you may wind up being a non-creative limbo and stuck in the same page for quite a long time. Be that as it may, it can be effectively managed in the event that you know how to make it flawless before your guard day. Here are a few encounters of mine that I might want to impart to you for effectively getting it going. Choose the topic according to your taste not just what you are told to do:
subject) and gradually narrows to a specific thesis. The thesis, or thesis statement, tells the reader what you
In this course I have learned and written many essays from as small as reading responses to writing an argumentative paper. All the essays had a similar style of writing and that is that it had to have a thesis, body paragraphs, and a conclusion except for the major assignments like LEN, Argumentative Paper, Lit Review, and etc., which required more than just those three elements to writing the essay. I prefer one type of writing style to another because it lets me see the difference in my writing and if there are improvements in my writing. I do see similarities in the different essays I wrote and they are that my thesis statements are not strong enough, which is why my essays are not strong enough. Choosing a good thesis statement and having good body paragraphs are crucial to writing essays because that is the key part of the essay, which I needed work on all semester.
A major flaw that I discovered in this class in my writing was my inability to write a proper and creative thesis statement. To me thesis statements are the most difficult things to write in English. I always seem to write the thesis statement to sh...