Download Formulating Thesis Statements

Formulating
Thesis Statements
Patterns of College Writing
by: Kirszner and Mandell
Thesis Defined
• Main Idea or Central Point
• Your essay should be the support for your thesis
statement
• Your thesis should depend on the scope and
difficulty of your assignment, your knowledge,
and your method of writing.
• Your thesis should always enlighten
• Many thesis statements should be able to be
argued.
• Your writing thesis may and will most likely be
tentative.
3 Characteristics of a thesis
• 1. An effective thesis statement clearly
expresses your essay’s main idea.
– It signals how you will approach your topic
• 2. An effective thesis statement communicates
your essay’s purpose.
– To express feelings (expresive)
– To inform (informative)
– To persuade (persuasive)
• 3. An effective thesis statement is clearly
worded.
Subject to Topic
• Start your essay with a general subject
– A general theme in a fictional work:
• Teen Angst
– A Wikipedia Entry
• Web 2.0
• Move to specific topics
– Gene’s inability follow his own interests causes him to
kill Phineas.
– The use of Web 2.0 materials in an English classroom
increases student interaction with texts.
Finding your Thesis
• Title: George Orwell’s “A Hanging”
• Announcement: This paper will discuss George
Orwell’s attitude toward the death penalty in his
essay “A Hanging”
• Statement of Fact: In his essay, Orwell
describes a hanging that he witnessed in Burma
• Thesis: In “A Hanging,” George Orwell shows
that capital punishment is not only brutal but also
immoral.
Exercises
• Page 34 – Exercise 8 &9