Thesis Statements

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Thesis Statements

• Pre-AP World History

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Purpose of a Thesis

• A thesis is like a roadmap to your essay. It
  should tell the reader
• the topic you will be discussing,
• the position that you will take on the issue,
• the basic ideas that you will use to support your
  position.
• By reading your thesis, a reader should be able
  to predict the topic of your 1st body paragraph,
  your 2nd, and your 3rd, in that order.

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Purpose of a thesis

• Writing a thesis is like answering your parents
  when they ask, What happened at the party last
  night? You want to give them just enough detail
  to get them off of your back, but not too much.
  You save the juicy details for the phone call to
  your best friend, which would be like your actual
  body paragraphs of your essay. This is where you
  fill in the gaps and solidify your story.

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Anatomy of a thesis

• A solid thesis has three core components
• Categories
• Addressing the prompt
• Position (take one!)

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Categories

• Your thesis should always contain three
  categories, or topics of discussions
• These will correlate with the topics of body
  paragraphs 1, 2, and 3 (in that order)
• This prepares your reader for how you will
  organize your essay (which can really help your
  scoring!)

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Addressing the Prompt

• Your thesis statement needs to address ALL parts
  of the prompt. It should refer to all of the
  following
• Dates/Time periods to be discussed
• Regions to be addressed
• Categories or topics for discussion (ex-
  cultural, political, etc.)
• A reader should be able to look only at the
  thesis, and be able to guess the prompt with
  decent accuracy, even if they had never seen the
  test

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Position (take one!)

• Dont simply restate the prompt- take a stand!
• The best ways to ensure that you do this are to
  start with one of the following words
• Although
• While
• Despite

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Thesis Dos and Donts

• DO be specific. Avoid using vague categories
  such as cultural and political. Try- rise in
  secularism and development of democracy.
• DO make sure your thesis is the LAST sentence of
  your FIRST paragraph. Use 2-3 sentences to lead
  up to your thesis providing background info about
  the time period that will put your thesis into
  helpful global context.

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Thesis Dos and Donts

• DONT use vague pronouns, such as it, she, they,
  he, etc. The thesis should be able to stand
  alone from the rest of the paper, and still make
  sense. That is not possible with a sentence that
  starts with They Also avoid very, things,
  many, much, etc.
• DONT make statements that you cant support.
  Avoid words like always and never, since they can
  rarely be supported.

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Thesis Dos and Donts

• DONT be afraid to recognize the other side of
  the argument. This is easily avoided by starting
  with Although, Despite, or While. This makes you
  appear to be a rock start writer.
• DONT use Buzz Lightyear-isms. From the dawn
  of time or Throughout man kind YUCK!