1. Creating a Thesis Statement
Tips and Examples for Writing Thesis Statements
Tips for Writing Your Thesis Statement
1.Determine what kind of paper you are writing:
• An analytical paper breaks down an issue or an idea into its component parts, evaluates the issue or idea, and presents this breakdown and evaluation to the audience.
• An expository (explanatory) paper explains something to the audience.
• An argumentative paper makes a claim about a topic and justifies this claim with specific evidence. The claim could be an opinion, a policy proposal, an evaluation, a cause-and-effect statement, or an interpretation. The goal of the argumentative paper is to convince the audience that the claim is true based on the evidence provided.
If you are writing a text which does not fall under these three categories (ex. a narrative), a thesis statement somewhere in the first paragraph could still be helpful to your reader.
2. Your thesis statement should be specific—it should cover only what you will discuss in your paper and should be supported with specific evidence.
3. The thesis statement usually appears at the end of the first paragraph of a paper.
4. Your topic may change as you write, so you may need to revise your thesis statement to reflect exactly what you have discussed in the paper.
Thesis Statement ExamplesExample of an analytical thesis statement:
An analysis of the college admission process reveals two principal problems facing counselors: accepting students with high test scores or students with strong extracurricular backgrounds.
The paper that follows should:
• explain the analysis of the college admission process
• explain the two problems facing admissions counselors
Example of an expository (explanatory) thesis statement:
The life of the typical college student is characterized by time spent studying, attending class, and socializing with peers.
The paper that follows should:
• explain how students spend their time studying, attending class, and socializing with peers
Example of an argumentative thesis statement:
High school graduates should be required to take a year off to pursue community service projects before entering college in order to increase their maturity and global awareness.
The paper that follows should:
• present an argument and give evidence to support the claim that students should pursue community projects before entering college
2. Developing an Outline
Four Main Components for Effective Outlines
Ideally, you should follow these 4 suggestions to create an effective outline. The examples are taken from the Sample Outline handout.
Parallelism - How do I accomplish this?
Each heading and subheading should preserve parallel structure. If the first heading is a noun, the second heading should be a noun. Example:
1. Choose Desired Colleges
2. Prepare Application
("Choose" and "Prepare" are both verbs.)
Coordination - How do I accomplish this?
All the information contained in Heading 1 should have the same significance as the information contained in Heading 2. The same goes for the subheadings (which should be less significant than the headings). Example:
1. Visit and evaluate college campuses
2. Visit and evaluate college websites
1. Note important statistics
2. Look for interesting classes
(Campus and websites visits are equally significant, as are statistics and classes found on college websites.)
Subordination - How do I accomplish this?
The information in the headings should be more general, while the information in the subheadings should be more specific. Example:
1. Describe an influential person in your life
1. Favorite high school teacher
2. Grandparent
(A favorite teacher and grandparent are specific examples of influential people.)
Division - How do I accomplish this?
Each heading should be divided into 2 or more parts. Example:
1. Compile resume
1. List relevant coursework
2. List work experience
3. List volunteer experience
(The heading "Compile resume" is divided into 3 parts.)
All Sections in Developing an Outline:
Why and How to Create a Useful Outline
Why create an outline?
• Aids in the process of writing
• Helps you organize your ideas
• Presents your material in a logical form
• Shows the relationships among ideas in your writing
• Constructs an ordered overview of your writing
• Defines boundaries and groups
How do I create an outline?
• Determine the purpose of your paper.
• Determine the audience you are writing for.
• Dvelop the thesis of your paper.
Then:
• Brainstorm: List all the ideas that you want to include in your paper.
• Organize: Group related ideas together.
• Order: Arrange material in subsections from general to specific or from abstract to concrete.
• Label: Create main and sub headings.
Remember: creating an outline before writing your paper will make organizing your thoughts a lot easier. Whether you follow the suggested guidelines is up to you, but making any kind of outline (even just some jotting down some main ideas) will be beneficial to your writing process.
Sample Outline
Here is an example of an outline that a student might create before writing an essay. In order to organize her thoughts and make sure that she has not forgotten any key points that she wants to address, she creates the outline as a framework for her essay.
What is the assignment?
Your instructor asks the class to write an expository (explanatory) essay on the typical steps a high school student would follow in order to apply to college.
What is the purpose of this essay?
To explain the process for applying to college
Who is the intended audience for this essay?
High school students intending to apply to college and their parents
What is the essay's thesis statement?
When applying to college, a student follows a certain process which includes choosing the right schools and preparing the application materials.
The College Application Process
1. Choose Desired Colleges
1. Visit and evaluate college campuses
2. Visit and evaluate college websites
1. look for interesting classes
2. note important statistics
1. student/faculty ratio
2. retention rate
2. Prepare Application
1. Write Personal Statement
1. Choose interesting topic
1. Describe an influential person in your life
1. favorite high school teacher
2. grandparent
2. Include important personal details
1. volunteer work
2. participation in varsity sports
3. Compile resume
1. List relevant coursework
2. List work experience
3. List volunteer experience
1. tutor at foreign language summer camp
2. counselor for suicide prevention hotline
3. Proofreading Your Writing
Where do I begin?
Though everyone has a unique proofreading process, there are some general strategies that can be helpful to most writers. Begin improving your proofreading skills by trying out the guidelines listed below.
General Strategies
• Take a break! Allow yourself some time between writing and proofing. Even a five-minute break is productive because it will help you get some distance from what you have written. The goal is to return with a fresh eye and mind.
• Leave yourself enough time. Since many errors are made and overlooked by speeding through writing and proofreading, taking the time to carefully look over your writing will help you to catch errors you might otherwise miss. Always read through your writing slowly. If you read at a normal speed, you won't give your eyes sufficient time to spot errors.
• Read aloud. Reading a paper aloud encourages you to read every little word.
• Role-play. While reading, put yourself in your audience's shoes. Playing the role of the reader encourages you to see the paper as your audience might.
• Get others involved. Asking a friend or a Writing Lab tutor to read your paper will let you get another perspective on your writing and a fresh reader will be able to help you catch mistakes that you might have overlooked.
Personalizing ProofreadingIn addition to following the general guidelines above, individualizing your proofreading process to your needs will help you proofread more efficiently and effectively. You won't be able to check for everything (and you don't have to), so you should find out what your typical problem areas are and look for each type of error individually. Here's how:
• Find out what errors you typically make. Review instructors' comments about your writing and/or review your paper with a Writing Lab tutor.
• Learn how to fix those errors. Talk with your instructor and/or with a Writing Lab tutor. The instructor and the tutor can help you understand why you make the errors you do so that you can learn to avoid them.
• Use specific strategies. Use the strategies detailed on the following pages to find and correct your particular errors in usage, sentence structure, and spelling and punctuation.
Finding Common ErrorsProofreading can be much easier when you know what you are looking for. Although everyone will have different error patterns, the following are issues that come up for many writers. When proofreading your paper, be on the lookout for these errors. Always remember to make note of what errors you make frequently—this will help you proofread more efficiently in the future!
Spelling
• Do NOT rely on your computer's spellcheck—it will not get everything!
• Examine each word in the paper individually by reading carefully. Moving a pencil under each line of text helps you to see each word.
• If necessary, check a dictionary to see that each word is spelled correctly.
• Be especially careful of words that are typical spelling nightmares, like "ei/ie" words and homonyms like your/you're, to/too/two, and there/their/they're.
Left-out and doubled words
Reading the paper aloud (and slowly) can help you make sure you haven't missed or repeated any words.
Fragment Sentences
• Make sure each sentence has a subject. In the following sentence, the subject is "students": The students looked at the OWL website.
• Make sure each sentence has a complete verb. In the following sentence, "were" is required to make a complete verb; "trying" alone would be incomplete: They were trying to improve their writing skills.
• See that each sentence has an independent clause; remember that a dependent clause cannot stand on its own. The following sentence is a dependent clause that would qualify as a fragment sentence: Which is why the students read all of the handouts carefully.
Run-on Sentences
• Review each sentence to see whether it contains more than one independent clause.
• If there is more than one independent clause, check to make sure the clauses are separated by the appropriate punctuation.
• Sometimes, it is just as effective (or even more so) to simply break the sentence into separate sentences instead of including punctuation to separate the clauses.
Example run-on: I have to write a research paper for my class about extreme sports all I know about the subject is that I'm interested in it.
Edited version: I have to write a research paper for my class about extreme sports, and all I know about the subject is that I'm interested in it.
Another option: I have to write a research paper for my class about extreme sports. All I know about the subject is that I'm interested in it.
Comma Splices
• Look at the sentences that have commas.
• Check to see if the sentence contains two main clauses.
• If there are two main clauses, they should be connected with a comma and a conjunction like and, but, for, or, so, yet.
• Another option is to take out the comma and insert a semicolon instead.
Example: I would like to write my paper about basketball, it's a topic I can talk about at length.
Edited version: I would like to write my paper about basketball, because it's a topic I can talk about at length.
Edited version, using a semicolon: I would like to write my paper about basketball; it's a topic I can talk about at length.
Subject/Verb Agreement
• Find the subject of each sentence.
• Find the verb that goes with the subject.
• The subject and verb should match in number, meaning that if the subject is plural, the verb should be as well and vice versa.
Example: Students at the university level usually is very busy.
Edited version: Students at the university level usually are very busy.
Mixed construction
Read through your sentences carefully to make sure that they do not start with one sentence structure and shift to another. A sentence that does this is called a mixed construction.
Example: Since I have a lot of work to do is why I can't go out tonight.
Edited version: Since I have a lot of work to do, I can't go out tonight.
Parallelism
Look through your paper for series of items and make sure these items are in parallel form.
Example: Being a good friend involves good listening skills, to be considerate, and that you know how to have fun.
Edited version: Being a good friend involves knowing how to listen, be considerate, and have fun.
Pronoun Reference/Agreement
• Skim your paper, stopping at each pronoun.
• Search for the noun that the pronoun replaces.
• If you can't find any noun, insert one beforehand or change the pronoun to a noun.
• If you can find a noun, be sure it agrees in number and person with your pronoun.
Apostrophes
• Skim your paper, stopping only at those words which end in "s." If the "s" is used to indicate possession, there should be an apostrophe, as in Mary's book.
• Look over the contractions, like you're for you are, it's for it is, etc. Each of these should include an apostrophe.
• Remember that apostrophes are not used to make words plural. When making a word plural, only an "s" is added, not an apostrophe and an "s."
Suggestions for Proofreading Your Paper
One of the most difficult parts of the writing process is proofreading. It is easy for us to see what we want to see, not necessarily what our readers will see. These suggestions should help you take a step back and view your writing more objectively.
Suggestions for Editing (Proofreading) your Paper
Read your Paper Aloud
Any time your text is awkward or confusing, or any time you have to pause or reread your text, revise this section. If it is at all awkward for you, you can bet it will be awkward for your reader.
Examine your Paragraphs
Examine the overall construction of your paragraphs, looking specifically at length, supporting sentence(s), and topic sentence. Individual paragraphs that are significantly lacking length or sufficient supporting information as well as those missing a topic sentence may be a sign of a premature or under-developed thought.
Track Frequent Errors
Keep track of errors that you make frequently. Ask your teacher or visit the Writing Lab for assistance in eliminating these errors.
4. Invention: Starting the Writing Process
Writing takes time
Find out when is the assignment due and devise a plan of action. This may seem obvious and irrelevant to the writing process, but it's not. Writing is a process, not merely a product. Even the best professional writers don't just sit down at a computer, write, and call it a day. The quality of your writing will reflect the time and forethought you put into the assignment. Plan ahead for the assignment by doing pre-writing: this will allow you to be more productive and organized when you sit down to write. Also, schedule several blocks of time to devote to your writing; then, you can walk away from it for a while and come back later to make changes and revisions with a fresh mind.
Use the rhetorical elements as a guide to think through your writing
Thinking about your assignment in terms of the rhetorical situation can help guide you in the beginning of the writing process. Topic, audience, genre, style, opportunity, research, the writer, and purpose are just a few elements that make up the rhetorical situation.
Topic and audience are often very intertwined and work to inform each other. Start with a broad view of your topic such as skateboarding, pollution, or the novel Jane Eyre and then try to focus or refine your topic into a concise thesis statement by thinking about your audience. Here are some questions you can ask yourself about audience:
• Who is the audience for your writing?
• Do you think your audience is interested in the topic? Why or why not?
• Why should your audience be interested in this topic?
• What does your audience already know about this topic?
• What does your audience need to know about this topic?
• What experiences has your audience had that would influence them on this topic?
• What do you hope the audience will gain from your text?
For example, imagine that your broad topic is dorm food. Who is your audience? You could be writing to current students, prospective students, parents of students, university administrators, or nutrition experts among others. Each of these groups would have different experiences with and interests in the topic of dorm food. While students might be more concerned with the taste of the food or the hours food is available parents might be more concerned with the price.
You can also think about opportunity as a way to refine or focus your topic by asking yourself what current events make your topic relevant at this moment. For example, you could connect the nutritional value of dorm food to the current debate about the obesity epidemic or you could connect the price value of dorm food to the rising cost of a college education overall.
Keep in mind the purpose of the writing assignment.
Writing can have many different purposes. Here are just a few examples:
• Summarizing: Presenting the main points or essence of another text in a condensed form
• Arguing/Persuading: Expressing a viewpoint on an issue or topic in an effort to convince others that your viewpoint is correct
• Narrating: Telling a story or giving an account of events
• Evaluating: Examining something in order to determine its value or worth based on a set of criteria.
• Analyzing: Breaking a topic down into its component parts in order to examine the relationships between the parts.
• Responding: Writing that is in a direct dialogue with another text.
• Examining/Investigating: Systematically questioning a topic to discover or uncover facts that are not widely known or accepted, in a way that strives to be as neutral and objective as possible.
• Observing: Helping the reader see and understand a person, place, object, image or event that you have directly watched or experienced through detailed sensory descriptions.
You could be observing your dorm cafeteria to see what types of food students are actually eating, you could be evaluating the quality of the food based on freshness and quantity, or you could be narrating a story about how you gained fifteen pounds your first year at college.
You may need to use several of these writing strategies within your paper. For example you could summarize federal nutrition guidelines, evaluate whether the food being served at the dorm fits those guidelines, and then argue that changes should be made in the menus to better fit those guidelines.
Pre-writing strategies
Once you have thesis statement just start writing! Don't feel constrained by format issues. Don't worry about spelling, grammar, or writing in complete sentences. Brainstorm and write down everything you can think of that might relate to the thesis and then reread and evaluate the ideas you generated. It's easier to cut out bad ideas than to only think of good ones. Once you have a handful of useful ways to approach thesis you can use a basic outline structure to begin to think about organization. Remember to be flexible; this is just a way to get you writing. If better ideas occur to you as you're writing, don't be afraid to refine your original ideas.
5. Writer’s Block/ Writer’s Anxiety
Symptoms and Cures for Writer's Block
Because writers have various ways of writing, a variety of things can cause a writer to experience anxiety, and sometimes this anxiety leads to writer's block. Often a solution can be found by speaking with your instructor (if you are in school), or a writing tutor. There are some common causes of writer's block, however, and when you are blocked, consider these causes and try the strategies that sound most promising:
SYMPTOM
You have attempted to begin a paper without doing any preliminary work such as brainstorming or outlining...
POSSIBLE CURES
• Use invention strategies suggested by a tutor or teacher
• Write down all the primary ideas you'd like to express and then fill in each with the smaller ideas that make up each primary idea. This can easily be converted into an outline
SYMPTOM
You have chosen or been assigned a topic which bores you....
POSSIBLE CURES
• Choose a particular aspect of the topic you are interested in (if the writing situation will allow it...i.e. if the goal of your writing can be adjusted and is not given to you specifically, or if the teacher or project coordinator will allow it)
• Talk to a tutor about how you can personalize a topic to make it more interesting
SYMPTOM
You don't want to spend time writing or don't understand the assignment...
POSSIBLE CURES
• Resign yourself to the fact that you have to write
• Find out what is expected of you (consult a teacher, textbook, student, tutor, or project coordinator)
• Look at some of the strategies for writing anxiety listed below
SYMPTOM
You are anxious about writing the paper...
POSSIBLE CURES
• Focus your energy by rehearsing the task in your head.
• Consciously stop the non-productive comments running through your head by replacing them with productive ones.
• If you have some "rituals" for writing success (chewing gum, listening to jazz etc.), use them.
SYMPTOM
You are so stressed out you can't seem to put a word on the page...
POSSIBLE CURES
• Stretch! If you can't stand up, stretch as many muscle groups as possible while staying seated.
• Try tensing and releasing various muscle groups. Starting from your toes, tense up for perhaps five to ten seconds and then let go. Relax and then go on to another muscle group.
• Breathe deeply. Close your eyes; then, fill your chest cavity slowly by taking four of five short deep breaths. Hold each breath until it hurts, and then let it out slowly.
• Use a calming word or mental image to focus on while relaxing. If you choose a word, be careful not to use an imperative. Don't command yourself to "Calm down!" or "Relax!"
SYMPTOM
You're self-conscious about your writing, you may have trouble getting started. So, if you're preoccupied with the idea that you have to write about a subject and feel you probably won't express yourself well...
POSSIBLE CURES
• Talk over the subject with a friend or tutor.
• assure yourself that the first draft doesn't have to be a work of genius, it is something to work with.
• Force yourself to write down something, however poorly worded, that approximates your thought (you can revise this later) and go on with the next idea.
• Break the task up into steps. Meet the general purpose first, and then flesh out the more specific aspects later.
• Try one of the strategies on the next page of this resource.
Other Strategies for Getting Over Writer's Block
If you have tried the other strategies and are still having problems, try some of these general techniques for getting over writer's block. These strategies will prove more helpful when you're drafting your writing.
Begin in the Middle
Start writing at whatever point you like. If you want to begin in the middle, fine. Leave the introduction or first section until later. The reader will never know that you wrote the paper "backwards." Besides, some writers routinely save the introduction until later when they have a clearer idea of what the main idea and purpose of the piece will be.
Talk Out the Paper
Talking feels less artificial than writing to some people. Talk about what you want to write someone—your teacher, a friend, a roommate, or a tutor. Just pick someone who's willing to give you fifteen to thirty minutes to talk about the topic and whose main aim is to help you start writing. Have the person take notes while you talk or tape your conversation. Talking will be helpful because you'll probably be more natural and spontaneous in speech than in writing. Your listener can ask questions and guide you as you speak, and you'll be more likely to relax and say something unpredictable than if that you were sitting and forcing yourself to write.
Tape the Paper
Talk into a tape recorder, imagining your audience sitting in front of you. Then, transcribe the tape-recorded material. You'll at least have some ideas written down to work with and move around.
Change the Audience
Pretend that you're writing to a child, to a close friend, to a parent, to a person who sharply disagrees with you, or to someone who's new to the subject and needs to have you explain your paper's topic slowly and clearly. Changing the audience can clarify your purpose and can also make you feel more comfortable and help you write more easily.
Play a Role
Pretend you are someone else writing the paper. For instance, if you have been asked to write about sexist advertising, assume you are the president of the National Organization of Women. Or, pretend you are the president of a major oil company asked to defend the high price of oil. Consider being someone in another time period, or someone with a wildly different perspective from your own. Pulling yourself out of your usual perspective can help you see things that are otherwise invisible or difficult to articulate, and your writing will be stronger for it.
(Many of these ideas are from Peter Elbow's Writing with Power, [Ch. 8; 59-77] and Mack Skjei's Overcoming Writing Blocks.)
