Pick a primary question to answer and come up with a clear, concise response to it in a thesis statement. All essays should have a thesis statement because it is the basic element of nearly any type of paper—apart from perhaps creative writing.
Students commonly spend a lot of time formulating rough ideas without knowing what a thesis statement should include. When writing any type of academic paper, it is important to have an organized system to complete the task promptly.
Here are some tips for formulating a good thesis statement:
Brainstorming is a must!
Work along with your peers, family members, or tutors to come up with a list of brilliant ideas and choose a topic based on them. This will help to create a claim. After selecting the topic, try narrowing down the idea to develop a catchy, concise, and clear statement.
Formulate a research question.
Here you will need to come up with a research question that you will answer. For example: What are the main factors that lead people to depression and how can it be avoided?
Find an answer and take a position.
After you have asked the question, you need to answer it and show your opinion. For example, The main factors that lead to depression are emotional and physical distress, and depression.
Narrow and focus.
We can’t stress this enough: a well-written paper should not be filled with general information. A writer’s goal is to prove a unique point about their topic. Make sure it is reflected in the thesis.
Support your answer with reasoning and evidence.
It will help you discover more evidence and sources which can, in turn, help you with further steps for writing your essay.
Use bold language.
Avoid passive voice to sound more confident. Apps like Hemingwayapp will help to avoid wordiness and other things that make reading difficult.
Trump the counterargument.
Not everyone is going to agree with the points that you make or your argument as a whole. To combat this effectively, find the strongest opposing points to your thesis; then, challenge the counterargument head-on in a body paragraph and present why your point is indeed better.
Check if it fits!
Writers will commonly decide to create their body paragraphs before phrasing their thesis statement. A writer may set out to prove one thing to end up proving an alteration of the initial idea. That’s why it is important to go back and ensure that the thesis fits with the points you’ve made. If you have proved something different from the initial claim, fix the main argument when revising it.
Significance matters.
This criterion is important to understand the value and overall significance of your thesis. Will the idea you’re presenting be interesting and captivating to read, and will the audience want to know what you have to say? The best thesis statements are ones that captivate the reader and leave them thinking about the idea even after reading the final words.