what are the four elements of a thesis statement

Chapter 6: The Writing Process and Pre-Writing

Elements of a Thesis Statement

When writing an essay, you must focus on a main idea . This idea will stem from a topic you have chosen or been assigned or from a question your instructor has asked. It is not enough merely to discuss a general topic or answer with a yes or no: you will need to form an opinion and then articulate it into a controlling idea – the main idea you will build your thesis on.

A thesis is not the topic itself, but rather your interpretation of the question or subject. When an instructor presents you with a topic, ask, “What do you want to say about it?” Asking and answering this question is vital to forming a thesis that is specific.

A thesis is typically one sentence long and appears near the end of your introduction. It is specific and focuses on one to three points related to a main idea: you will work to prove these points in the body of your paper. Thus, the thesis forecasts the content of the essay and how you will organize your information. A thesis statement does not summarize an issue but rather helps to dissect it.

A strong thesis statement

Click on the items below to understand the qualities of a strong thesis statement.

Activities: Check Your Understanding

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Other than the activities, content for this page was adapted (with editorial changes) from:

Writing for Success 1st Canadian Edition by Tara Horkoff is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted. Download for free at: https://opentextbc.ca/writingforsuccess/

The Scholarship of Writing in Nursing Education: 1st Canadian Edition Copyright © 2019 by Jennifer Lapum; Oona St-Amant; Michelle Hughes; Andy Tan; Arina Bogdan; Frances Dimaranan; Rachel Frantzke; and Nada Savicevic is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Tips and Examples for Writing Thesis Statements

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Tips for Writing Your Thesis Statement

1. Determine what kind of paper you are writing:

An analytical paper breaks down an issue or an idea into its component parts, evaluates the issue or idea, and presents this breakdown and evaluation to the audience.
An expository (explanatory) paper explains something to the audience.
An argumentative paper makes a claim about a topic and justifies this claim with specific evidence. The claim could be an opinion, a policy proposal, an evaluation, a cause-and-effect statement, or an interpretation. The goal of the argumentative paper is to convince the audience that the claim is true based on the evidence provided.

If you are writing a text that does not fall under these three categories (e.g., a narrative), a thesis statement somewhere in the first paragraph could still be helpful to your reader.

2. Your thesis statement should be specific—it should cover only what you will discuss in your paper and should be supported with specific evidence.

3. The thesis statement usually appears at the end of the first paragraph of a paper.

4. Your topic may change as you write, so you may need to revise your thesis statement to reflect exactly what you have discussed in the paper.