Your thesis statement will be the most important part of your paper. No matter how well you write or how well you use and analyze evidence, your paper will not be successful unless it includes a thesis, a central argument that ties together all your sub points and makes. This section will offer tips for formulating a strong thesis statement.
A thesis is an interpretive argument about a text or an aspect of a text. An interpretive argument is defined as one that makes a reasonable but contestable claim about a text; in other words, it is an opinion about a text that can be supported with textual evidence.
When you wrote your notes about your topic, you came up with a list of questions about your document. Professor John Radner suggests that questions beginning with “how” and “why” often make the best starting points for theses because they naturally lend themselves to interpretation. If you can answer one of these questions, you can make your answer into your thesis statement.
However, says Professor Radner, people have different styles of brainstorming and writing. If you have trouble thinking of an argument that you would like to make about your topic before you begin your paper, Professor Radner suggests that you should try free writing about the topic. Don’t worry about structure or proofreading; just write about the topic and comment on the portions of the text that come to mind. Often, once you have written a few pages, you will begin to see that you have naturally begun to make an argument about the text. This argument will be your thesis statement, and you will probably have a good idea of how you will make the argument in your paper. Professor Radner cautions that this method is often less efficient than the more traditional method of finding a thesis statement because much of the free writing you do will have to be revised or discarded while you are drafting the paper, but says it is often the best option for students who are having difficulties with arguments.
Professor Radner also emphasizes that one of the most important things to keep in mind when you are crafting your argument is that a good argument is not only well supported but also relevant. “Your argument should matter somehow.” says Radner. “Usually, if it matters to you—and it’s not too idiosyncratic—it will probably naturally matter to other people too.” So, while you are writing your paper, think of what makes your paper important and relevant to your reader. This will help you both as you are making your argument and when it comes time to write your conclusion, which, as you will read later, should make it clear how your paper relates to the larger concepts behind an author’s work or a genre of writing.