In any kind of essay, the thesis statement constitutes the most critical sentence in the entire paper. It states the author’s position, setting his/her task as the point to be demonstrated in the paper. Unfortunately, many such statements fall into problems of being overly broad, overly narrow, or overly complex. This article will discuss how to write a good, concise thesis statement that lays out what the paper argues: no more, and no less.
Finding Appropriate Breadth
Decide just what the paper you are writing is really about. What points will you be making, and what statement sums all of those points up. If you write a thesis that goes beyond the points you have to make, you need to narrow the scope. For example, if you are discussing the fall of the Roman Empire, and you are making points about overreaching ambition in its leaders and expansion making defense increasingly difficult, stating as a thesis, “The Roman Empire’s failings show that no empire can endure,” the point is over-broad. All examples are about specific failings in Rome, and therefore do not get to showing whether or not any empire can endure. In fact, such a showing would be difficult in a book-length project, much less a typical essay.
Similarly, a thesis can be too narrow. If writing about the music of Miles Davis, a thesis of “Miles Davis was a pioneer in jazz music” really only states a fact. A thesis needs to be an opinion, one worth writing about over the course of an essay. If a point either is clearly a fact, or is something that can be amply demonstrated in a single paragraph, the thesis is not broad enough.
A thesis should never be a compound sentence. The problem with a thesis such as, “In Othello, Iago played on prejudice to get what he wanted, and his hate for Othello drove him to the havoc he created,” is that it sets up the paper to have to demonstrate two different points. As such, it does not provide one unifying theme for the paper, but rather two different points that will pull at each other throughout the essay.
It is possible to write a compare and contrast essay that will require complexity for the thesis. However, the thesis in those cases still needs to tie everything together. A sentence summing up the most important similarity or difference, or an overarching similarity or difference, will work here. For example, instead of simply saying “There are many similarities and differences between Shakespearean and Italian sonnets” (which barely works as an introductory sentence, and gives no information for a thesis statement), one could instead write, “Despite bearing the same name and number of lines, Shakespearean and Italian sonnets use different rhyme schemes to guide readers and listeners through different paths to the sonnets’ respective kinds of endings.” There is something specific, something informative, and something to focus the essay.
Revisiting the Thesis
There are times when an essay ends differently, once written, than the writer expected. As such, writers should outline their essays after writing them, and ensure that the thesis still captures the main idea of the essay. If it does not, there are two potential courses: rewrite (or tweak) the thesis, or rewrite the paragraphs that stray from the thesis. Whichever one works is fine, but this final step helps ensure that you have written a tight, coherent essay.
