by M. Halyard

Created on: February 12, 2011   Last Updated: February 14, 2011

A thesis is a one-sentence summary of a written work. A good thesis, however, does more than summarize a main idea. It prepares one's reader to enter the world of an essay by understanding the perspective that an author has taken on a particular subject, and entices the reader to continue reading beyond the introduction to examine the evidence that is presented in the paper.

One shortcut that may be helpful to writing a good thesis is to mentally start your thesis with the following: "The purpose of this paper is to convince you, the reader, that..." and then write what you would like to convince your reader about your topic. Most of the time, what you write down after thinking about a purpose statement will automatically be shaped into the language of a good thesis.

For example, if you want to write an essay about violence on television, and how it might be affecting young people, you might at first write something like the following:

Many programs on television have a lot of violence, and that's not good for children to watch.

Well, so far, so good... but this isn't a good thesis. It doesn't convince your reader of anything; your reader already knows that there is a lot of violence on television, assuming of course, that he or she has ever watched TV, and common sense suggests that children should not watch violence.

If, instead, you begin to think about your thesis statement in terms of "The purpose of this paper is to convince you that..." and then write, "Children who are exposed to violence on television at a young age demonstrate more violent behavior within their peer groups," then you have the beginnings of a good thesis! You are enticing your reader to continue reading your essay by suggesting that you will then present research that will support this statement, and you will engage your reader because he is more likely to be evaluating your arguments as he reads. You will also be narrowing the focus of your topic to a specific result: the behavior that children exhibit amongst their peers after watching violent TV.

Once a good thesis is developed, it provides the controlling idea for the entire paper.

Some statements might make perfectly good thesis statements, but are inappropriate for the assigned length of a paper. For example, the statement "Democracy is the best form of government" might be an acceptable thesis for a 100 page essay (well, maybe not even then), but it is way too general for a 10 page essay. There just won't be enough space to adequately deal with this subject, which is enormous in scope. Beware of using judgmental words like "best" or "worst" in your thesis.

Therefore, when you are writing a good thesis, you need to remember to:

1. Make it purposeful. Present your perspective clearly about the subject matter.

2. Limit the scope of the paper.

3. Avoid broad, judgmental words like "best" or "worst".

That's it! A good thesis is easy to write if you adhere to these simple rules.

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