Have you ever had someone tell you to “Get to the point!” Maybe you were telling a long, rambling story, and your listener just wanted to know the most important events. If your research report or presentation is long and rambling, your audience is likely to feel just as frustrated. That’s why thesis statements are so helpful to readers or listeners—they’re all about what’s most important.
So how do you put this information into a sentence that not only makes sense but also “gets to the point” of what you learned about your topic? Use the steps in the table below to create a strong thesis statement—one that will guide both you and your audience to the most important conclusions you were able to draw, based on the facts you found.
Write down your claim—your broadest and most important conclusion about your topic. Your claim should be something that seems important to you and will seem important to others, and it should answer your research question. |
On the topic of mushrooms, one claim might be that mushrooms are unusual life forms. |
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Choose three ideas that support your claim. Remember that these ideas need to come from your research sources—and they must reinforce your claim statement. |
Here are four ideas that support the claim that mushroom are unusual life forms: mushrooms are neither plants nor animals, they are highly nutritious, they are beneficial to plant and soil health, and they have applications in both medicine and architecture. |
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Once you have the two parts to your thesis statement, the next step is to combine them into one or two sentences—a statement that will become the controlling idea for your entire paper or speech. |
Here’s one possible thesis statement about mushrooms: Mushrooms are much weirder and more wonderful than most people imagine. Here are just a few of their unusual qualities: mushrooms are neither plants nor animals, they are a nutritious food source, they benefit plants and the soil, and they have applications in medicine and architecture. |
Question
After you begin writing, you may decide to rearrange the order of your supporting ideas. If you do reorder them, what changes, if any, should you make to your thesis statement?
