must justify its own existence. The
first paragraph must explain why you wrote it and why someone should read it.
- American style means you
must sell your idea to the reader. You cannot assume the reader will agree
with your idea, even if you know your professor might like it. Your professor might have the same opinion as you, but your
preceptor who is grading your paper, may not. You need to argue using
evidence to convince the reader that you are right.
- American style is straight
to the point. You can use creativity in the first paragraph to catch the
reader’s attention if you want, but the most important thing in the first
paragraph is the thesis statement. This is what your professor will look
for first. Your professor will think about your thesis statement while
reading your paper to see if you justify its claims and if you go
- Do not worry that you are
giving away the punchline ending of the paper. The professor wants to know
from the beginning what your claim is so he/she does not have to guess
where you are going with your arguments. At the end of the paper, you will
re-word your thesis statement and perhaps add in a few additional facts as
your summarizing final paragraph.
a Thesis Statement?
- A thesis statement is a
brief promise to the reader of what he/she can expect from your paper.
- It explains briefly the
narrow topic of your paper.
- It states your conclusion or
gives a hint of your conclusion.
- It can be one sentence or
more than one sentence, but it should be as brief as possible.
Write a Thesis Statement?
- Before Research – if you can
guess the answer to the question you will research, write that hypothesis
as a thesis statement to guide your research. This will help you avoid
spending time reading parts of a text that are not pertinent to your
topic. At this point, you do not need to be sure or commit to the thesis
- During Research – look for
facts that match or do not match your statement and revise it as you learn
more. Keep an open mind. At this point, the thesis statement is still to
help you keep your topic narrow and look for only pertinent information.
As you learn more, you will realize if your thesis statement should adapt
to your findings.
- After Research – when you
are mostly finished with research, revise the thesis statement to reflect
what you now know about the topic, or if you decided to switch your focus
or narrow the topic further.
- After Writing – after you
finish writing your paper, look at the thesis statement again and check if
all the arguments in your paper apply to the thesis statement. If there is
a claim in the thesis statement that you did not prove in your argument,
add that argument. If you made an important argument in the paper that was
not mentioned in the thesis statement, add mention of it in the thesis
statement. If you ran out of time to include an argument that you had
promised in the thesis statement, remove it from the thesis statement.