2020-11-11 10:05 am
What Isn't a Thesis Statement?
A Fact or Observation is NOT a Thesis Statement
A thesis makes an argument or analysis. If you state something that is obvious, or that everyone accepts as a fact, you do not have a thesis.
Examples:
- In Moby Dick, Melville writes about a sailor named Ishmael. [This is true.]
- The largest country by land area is Russia, and the smallest is Vatican City. [These are facts about cities. No one could argue with this.]
- Philosophy is the study of knowledge and reality. [Someone could argue that philosophy includes other topics, but no one could argue that knowledge and reality are not part of the study of philosophy.]
- In 2006, Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet. [Some people disagree with Pluto's reclassification, but they cannot argue that it was reclassified.]
These four statements are all facts or observations. That is, they are simply "true", and therefore don't leave much to write about.
An Explanation of the Subject is NOT a Thesis Statement
A thesis has a point of view. It has an opinion about the subject, but it is not the subject.
Explanations vs. Thesis Statements
| Explanation | Thesis statement |
|---|---|
| My thesis is about the best place to take a vacation. | The best place for a perfect vacation is Paris because of the beautiful architecture, wonderful restaurants, and abundance of museums. |
| I want to share some of my ideas about education. | By narrowing the educational gap between the wealthy and the underprivileged, everyone can have an equal chance to become successful and contribute to society. |
| The topic of this paper is the effect of video games on young children. | Children should be prevented from playing video games for more than an hour a day, as it may keep them from developing their creativity. |
What is academic writing?
You probably realize that not all writing has a thesis statement, or has paragraphs with topic sentences. It is important to remember that academic writing is just one type of writing. It is different from personal writing, business writing, or creative writing. Here are some main properties of academic writing:
- Academic writing is different from personal writing because it deals with the ideas and theories that are used in argument and research. In addition, it has a formal tone and observes rules of punctuation, spelling, and so forth rather strictly.
- Academic writing is organized with a formal structure that is used to present ideas.
- One important difference between academic writing and other types of writing is that academic essays rely on others' ideas as well as the writer's. Those ideas come from experts, such as professors and published authors. (We will not cover citation in this part of the course. College Writing 2.2x will cover doing research writing.)
- In academic writing, you need to think about who you are writing for. You should assume an audience that is educated, but may not know about your topic specifically.
- It is important to use correct grammar and punctuation in all styles of writing, but academic writing tends to be more strict about it.
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