The Thesis in the College Essay
Hasting
Writing is a form of persuasion.
Your job as a writer is to persuade your reader of the validity of a particular opinion or major point.
Choosing a Subject: Decide what you are most interested in, informed about, or what will go over best with your audience.
Narrowing down a subject: You will only have 500 words to inform, explain, and persuade your audience, so narrow your subject down to a topic that can be treated adequately in such a brief essay.
Thesis: the basic stand you take
the opinion you express
the point you make about your limited subject
the controlling idea
and it must be the last sentence of the first paragraph in your essay. This sentence is also known as your thesis statement. Your thesis requires that you commit yourself. You have something at stake. You are saying, “This is what I believe, and this is why I am right.”
Purpose: Your primary purpose is to persuade the reader that your thesis is valid.
The purpose of the body of the essay is to back up the thesis. The body of the essay consists of three paragraphs that follow the introductory paragraph. Your body paragraphs, individually and as a whole, must persuade your reader that your thesis makes sense.
The title of your essay is not the thesis.
A thesis is not an announcement of the subject of your essay. For example, “ I want to share some thoughts with you about our space program.”
A thesis is not a statement of absolute fact. We all know that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, so this cannot be a thesis; it needs no support. It is just a simple statement of fact that no one would argue.
A thesis is only one sentence found at the end of your first essay paragraph. It is not the entire essay itself.
A thesis must be: restricted – narrow, bite-sized issues, not something that requires a lifetime to discuss intelligently.
A thesis must be unified: only one major idea about its subject can be expressed in a thesis. Now minor ideas can be discussed in the body, but must always work to support the main point of the essay – your thesis.
A good thesis must be specific: The opposite of specific is vague. Vague ideas normally come through as so familiar or dull or universally accepted that the reader sees no point in paying attention to them.
An extended specific thesis which includes the major points you will discuss in the body of the paper is fine.
The thesis as it appears in your introduction should clearly indicate what the subject is and your opinion about the subject (remember you are trying to persuade); however, it also should arouse curiosity in the mind of your reader or establish a tone of humor, anger, solemnity, etc.
Your conclusion: is the last paragraph of an essay. It can do several things such as, be a quick summary of your thesis and its main supporting points, or it can reemphasize the importance of your thesis (make sure to write the thesis in your conclusion using different words), or it can relate your thesis to people’s everyday lives, or it can make a prediction, or it can issue a call for action.
Never introduce a totally unrelated, new idea in your conclusion.
