What Are the Keys to Writing Superior Thesis Statements?

Writing a thesis statement for an academic paper is going to be the most important skill you must learn in your college career whether you are an undergraduate or postgraduate student.

Many students I have tutored and taught for over 20 years, fail to fully understand the vital role a thesis statement plays in their papers.

First, let’s get clear about what a thesis statement is.? This can be the first fatal flaw students have when they meet with me.

A thesis statement is a concise, one or two-sentence statement that summarizes the main point or argument of the paper.? It acts as a guiding star, telling readers what to expect.

Your thesis statement sets the tone & direction for your paper.

Now, we’re ready to do a deep dive into the aspects of a strong thesis statement.

Your thesis statement must name a clear subject or topic you are going to discuss.? This is going to be written as a noun or noun phrase– the person, place, or thing the audience will learn about.

By the way, you should have already determined what topics your audience and you would be most interested in long before you get to composing a thesis statement.

The next component of a thesis statement is what I call the? “Message”.

You can determine the message by asking two questions:

• What do I want to say about the topic?
• What is the most important thing I want my audience to remember or feel about my topic long after they have forgotten me and my paper?

So far, this is what we have for the ingredients of our thesis, and how I might begin to build it…

Servant Leadership (the topic or subject)??

+??

is an essential skill set for 21st Century entrepreneurs (message)

Maybe you’ve noticed that the thesis so far is written as a simple sentence.? Way to go!?

Yes, the topic is what’s known as the subject of the sentence and our message is the predicate.

Based on my tutoring & teaching, if you build the thesis step by step, you can’t go wrong.

But we’re not done yet…lots of writers, even the most scholarly ones, often leave their thesis like this.

Don’t be that writer!

The final element to add to a thesis is a very clear, concise, and coherent summary of the supporting ideas that you will present in the body of the paper.

Again, you should already have figured out what those 2-3 things that most prove that your message & opinions about the subject you’re covering are true, valid, and reliable.

It should not be hard to spot those essential understandings, because they should be found in the topic sentences in the body paragraphs of your paper.

Here’s what Jesse, an MBA student of mine wanted to discuss in order to prove he’s right about Servant Leadership being an essential skill set for 21st Century entrepreneurs:

• Effective Entrepreneurs have created a powerful vision and strategic plan based on service.

• Servant Leaders make decisions that serve all the stakeholders in their business (e.g., workers, customers, vendors, and the community they serve).

• They need to know how to resolve conflict through a variety of methods that create win-win situations.

The goal here is to summarize & synthesize these supporting ideas into a few short phrases that can summarize what your audience will read about later on.

Here’s how Jesse finalized his thesis statement after we built it up step by step…

“Servant Leadership is a crucial set of skills entrepreneurs need to craft power visions that create win-win outcomes through stakeholder-centered business models if they hope to succeed in the 21st Century.”

Finally, let me give you the criteria for evaluating your thesis statement;

• Do you clearly name the person, place, or thing you will write about in this paper (i.e., the subject)?
• Is the subject overly broad and not specific enough for you to talk about, or for your audience to follow you?
• Do you present a main idea or argument about the subject you will write about (the message)?
• Do you give the audience a short summary of the ideas or information that support your main idea or argument?
• Is the thesis statement contained within 1-2 clear, coherent, and concise sentences?
• How engaging and thought-provoking is the thesis statement?? Will it make the audience want to learn more?? Do you give them something that they will remember long after they forget about you and your paper?

Understand:? A strong, audience-centered, and memorable thesis statement is the backbone of your academic papers.? Everything will be centered around it, and rest upon it.

Hopefully, I’ve given you a simple (but not necessarily easy) step-by-step formula for creating your own superior thesis statements in all those writing assignments you have or yet to come.