CRAFTING YOUR THESIS STATEMENT

Students,

Tyler S. in the 11am class emailed this weekend with a question about thesis statements. With his permission, I am posting his question and my answer below. I hope it helps all of you who might be struggling with thesis statements!

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Hello Mrs. Powell

It's Tyler Sanders from your 11:00 class. I hope your having a good week so far. I would like to know if this thesis statement would be acceptable for our new paper: "Mary showed patience, a true belief and trust in God and compassion, in the story that she wrote."

Thank you for your time

Tyler S.

Hi Tyler,

Let's take a look at your thesis:

Mary showed patience, a true belief and trust in God and compassion, in the story that she wrote.

First, you want the points of your thesis to be parallel. If you look at the points in your thesis, they line up like this:

Mary showed:
1. patience
2. a true belief and trust in God
3. compassion

See how that kind of looks out of balance? Plus, your second point almost looks like two points. What I like about your second point, however, is that it gives me a little more information. That's good for me as a reader, and it's good for you as a writer.

Look at your second point. "In God" is a prepositional phrase. In order to make this thesis parallel, and to go with the point that really gives the most information, let's add a prepositional phrase to the other two points. Since I don't know exactly where you are going with your paper, let me offer a few suggestions, and then you may do as you like with them.

1. patience. Patience with people? "with people" might be a prep phrase that you would consider adding. Do you mean patience with life? with situations? See what I mean here: You are just adding enough information to give yourself and your reader a guideline.

2. a true belief and trust in God. Let's pick either belief or trust. I'll just go with "belief" since you have it listed first. You may certainly use those words interchangeably as you proceed through your paper. btw, if you use an adjective, "true," then you will want to use an adjective in each part of your thesis. Don't worry, I'll give you some examples. Just keep reading this email! :)

3. compassion. Does she have a compassion for the young man? for people in general? Think about what you want to say.

Okay, Tyler, let's try this:

Mary showed patience, belief, and compassion. (super simple thesis. This is what I call a "barebones thesis statement."
Let's add the prepositional phrases:
Mary showed patience with people, belief in God, and compassion for a young man.

Let's look at the points again:

Mary showed:
1. patience with people
2. belief in God
3. compassion for a young man

Do you like that? That's much more balanced. Each point has a noun, and a descriptive prepositional phrase. But what you need to do now is look at those points and ask yourself, "Can I get 100 words on each of these points?" I think you could on #2 and #3, but I'm not sure about #1. That might need to be changed. You might want your first point to reflect the very human tendency to jump to conclusions and judgments about others.

Mary progressed through several emotions on the bus ride. (That would be your lead in sentence, coming at the end of a fascinating introductory paragraph.) She showed frustration with a misbehaving punk, belief in a loving God, and compassion for a wandering soul.

She showed:
1. frustration with a misbehaving punk
2. belief in a loving God
3. compassion for a wandering soul

Questions, anyone? Thoughts? Although we don't have class on Tuesday, I am here, and like you, I'm working on another deadline. Let me know if you need help.