what's the central thesis

You can turn a subject into a central idea by focusing. Begin by reviewing what you know about your subject or by looking over notes you have made about it through listing, brainstorming, clustering, freewriting, or other prewriting activities.

With these details fresh in your mind, ask yourself:

What is my purpose in writing about this topic? What main point do I want to make about the topic?

WHAT IS MY PURPOSE?

Let's say you decide to write about high school. You might tell a story about your history class, compare two schools you attended, or argue that high schools should require foreign-language study.

If you want to compare the two high schools you attended, you can include details about their academic programs, athletic teams, students, or teachers. But you probably wouldn't argue that high schools should stay open in summer because doing so would take you outside your declared purpose.

WHAT IS MY MAIN POINT?

The next step in focusing is to decide what to say about your subject. What is the most interesting or important point you want to make about the schools you are comparing? The answer will be your main point, which ties all the details of the essay together.

Again, you turn an abstract subject into a central idea by stating a main point about that subject. If your main point is that entering a new school improved your attitude about education, your central idea might read:

Changing high schools made me a more serious student.

MAKING A POINT ABOUT A SUBJECT

In the box below, main points have been added to subjects to form working topic sentences or thesis statements.

Back to Top

CHECK YOUR WORKING CENTRAL IDEA

After writing a working central idea, check it for qualities that will make it effective as the basis of a paragraph or essay. Ask yourself:

Is my central idea expressed in a complete thought? Is it specific? Does it express an idea that is worth developing in a full-length paragraph or essay? Is it limited enough to discuss in a short piece of writing?

Never confuse a central idea with a simple subject. Central ideas are expressed in complete sentences; subjects are words or phrases. Take these subjects:

The city zoo. Professional athletes. Majoring in foreign languages.

Can you write a paragraph or essay on one of these subjects? Only if you decide on the main point you want to make about it. Try these as working central ideas:

The city zoo is in great need of repairs. Professional athletes are overpaid. Studying foreign languages leads to many career choices.

A CENTRAL IDEA IS SPECIFIC

Make your central idea specific. The key to this step is to focus your main point as precisely as you can. That will give you a clear direction to follow as you develop an essay or paragraph. Take this central idea:

Jogging isn't for everybody.

It is correct, but it leaves questions unanswered. For example, what kind of people should not jog? What ill effects might jogging cause them? Now, try this:

Jogging can be harmful to people who suffer from heart, back, or joint problems.

A CENTRAL IDEA CONTAINS A MAIN POINT THAT IS WORTH DEVELOPING

Make sure your main point is an idea-not just a fact-that is worth developing in a full-length paragraph or essay. Read these two sentences:

The War Memorial is in Ottawa. The War Memorial has been severely vandalized.

The first sentence is a statement of fact; it does not call for discussion. The second lends itself to discussion. For example, you might describe what the vandals did, explain how much repairs will cost, or discuss ways to prevent future problems.

A CENTRAL IDEA IS LIMITED

Essays that beginning college or university students write usually contain approximately five to seven paragraphs of about 50 to 100 words. Therefore, you should limit your working topic sentence or thesis, making it as specific as you can. Otherwise, you won't be able to make your point clearly and completely.

LIMIT THE DISCUSSION TO A MANAGEABLE LENGTH

Let's say you want to convince someone to stop smoking. You might limit yourself to three reasons to stop smoking: the health risks, the costs, and its effects on others.

Here's your working thesis:

Break the habit: otherwise, it will ruin your health, empty your wallet, and annoy your friends.

Your working topic sentences, which will control the three body paragraphs, could be as follows:

Smoking causes cancer, emphysema, and heart disease. You can save hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year by quitting. Smoking is offensive to friends and family.

LIMITING YOUR CENTRAL IDEA FURTHER

You begin a rough draft by discussing illnesses caused by smoking. However, you soon realize that you can't cover all three reasons for quitting and still keep the essay short. So you limit yourself to the issue of health risks.

Your thesis statement becomes:

Break the habit: smoking causes heart disease, emphysema, and cancer.

Your topic sentences become:

Smoking weakens the heart and impairs circulation. Smoking is a major cause of emphysema. Smoking has been linked directly to cancer of the mouth and the esophagus.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN A TOPIC SENTENCE AND A THESIS

A topic sentence is the sentence that expresses the central idea of a paragraph. A thesis statement is a sentence that expresses the central idea of an essay.

It's a good idea to decide the topic sentence of a paragraph after writing the working version of an essay's thesis. A topic sentence explains one aspect or point in the thesis and, therefore, should always be more specific and limited than a thesis.

REVISE AND REFINE THE CENTRAL IDEA AS YOU WORK

You can revise a central idea whenever you need to. The working version of a topic sentence or thesis statement provides only a starting point and a sense of direction. Don't be afraid to look back to your central ideas and rewrite them often. As a matter of fact, focusing is something you should do throughout the writing process.

• Walden University
• Faculty Portal

Writing a Paper: Thesis Statements

Basics of thesis statements.

The thesis statement is the brief articulation of your paper's central argument and purpose. You might hear it referred to as simply a "thesis." Every scholarly paper should have a thesis statement, and strong thesis statements are concise, specific, and arguable. Concise means the thesis is short: perhaps one or two sentences for a shorter paper. Specific means the thesis deals with a narrow and focused topic, appropriate to the paper's length. Arguable means that a scholar in your field could disagree (or perhaps already has!).

Strong thesis statements address specific intellectual questions, have clear positions, and use a structure that reflects the overall structure of the paper. Read on to learn more about constructing a strong thesis statement.

Being Specific

This thesis statement has no specific argument:

Needs Improvement: In this essay, I will examine two scholarly articles to find similarities and differences.

This statement is concise, but it is neither specific nor arguable—a reader might wonder, "Which scholarly articles? What is the topic of this paper? What field is the author writing in?" Additionally, the purpose of the paper—to "examine…to find similarities and differences" is not of a scholarly level. Identifying similarities and differences is a good first step, but strong academic argument goes further, analyzing what those similarities and differences might mean or imply.

Better: In this essay, I will argue that Bowler's (2003) autocratic management style, when coupled with Smith's (2007) theory of social cognition, can reduce the expenses associated with employee turnover.

The new revision here is still concise, as well as specific and arguable.  We can see that it is specific because the writer is mentioning (a) concrete ideas and (b) exact authors.  We can also gather the field (business) and the topic (management and employee turnover). The statement is arguable because the student goes beyond merely comparing; he or she draws conclusions from that comparison ("can reduce the expenses associated with employee turnover").

Making a Unique Argument

This thesis draft repeats the language of the writing prompt without making a unique argument:

Needs Improvement: The purpose of this essay is to monitor, assess, and evaluate an educational program for its strengths and weaknesses. Then, I will provide suggestions for improvement.

You can see here that the student has simply stated the paper's assignment, without articulating specifically how he or she will address it. The student can correct this error simply by phrasing the thesis statement as a specific answer to the assignment prompt.

Better: Through a series of student interviews, I found that Kennedy High School's antibullying program was ineffective. In order to address issues of conflict between students, I argue that Kennedy High School should embrace policies outlined by the California Department of Education (2010).

Words like "ineffective" and "argue" show here that the student has clearly thought through the assignment and analyzed the material; he or she is putting forth a specific and debatable position. The concrete information ("student interviews," "antibullying") further prepares the reader for the body of the paper and demonstrates how the student has addressed the assignment prompt without just restating that language.

Creating a Debate

This thesis statement includes only obvious fact or plot summary instead of argument:

Needs Improvement: Leadership is an important quality in nurse educators.

A good strategy to determine if your thesis statement is too broad (and therefore, not arguable) is to ask yourself, "Would a scholar in my field disagree with this point?" Here, we can see easily that no scholar is likely to argue that leadership is an unimportant quality in nurse educators.  The student needs to come up with a more arguable claim, and probably a narrower one; remember that a short paper needs a more focused topic than a dissertation.

Better: Roderick's (2009) theory of participatory leadership  is particularly appropriate to nurse educators working within the emergency medicine field, where students benefit most from collegial and kinesthetic learning.

Here, the student has identified a particular type of leadership ("participatory leadership"), narrowing the topic, and has made an arguable claim (this type of leadership is "appropriate" to a specific type of nurse educator). Conceivably, a scholar in the nursing field might disagree with this approach. The student's paper can now proceed, providing specific pieces of evidence to support the arguable central claim.

Choosing the Right Words

This thesis statement uses large or scholarly-sounding words that have no real substance:

Needs Improvement: Scholars should work to seize metacognitive outcomes by harnessing discipline-based networks to empower collaborative infrastructures.

There are many words in this sentence that may be buzzwords in the student's field or key terms taken from other texts, but together they do not communicate a clear, specific meaning. Sometimes students think scholarly writing means constructing complex sentences using special language, but actually it's usually a stronger choice to write clear, simple sentences. When in doubt, remember that your ideas should be complex, not your sentence structure.

Better: Ecologists should work to educate the U.S. public on conservation methods by making use of local and national green organizations to create a widespread communication plan.

Notice in the revision that the field is now clear (ecology), and the language has been made much more field-specific ("conservation methods," "green organizations"), so the reader is able to see concretely the ideas the student is communicating.

Leaving Room for Discussion

This thesis statement is not capable of development or advancement in the paper:

Needs Improvement: There are always alternatives to illegal drug use.

This sample thesis statement makes a claim, but it is not a claim that will sustain extended discussion. This claim is the type of claim that might be appropriate for the conclusion of a paper, but in the beginning of the paper, the student is left with nowhere to go. What further points can be made? If there are "always alternatives" to the problem the student is identifying, then why bother developing a paper around that claim? Ideally, a thesis statement should be complex enough to explore over the length of the entire paper.

Better: The most effective treatment plan for methamphetamine addiction may be a combination of pharmacological and cognitive therapy, as argued by Baker (2008), Smith (2009), and Xavier (2011).

In the revised thesis, you can see the student make a specific, debatable claim that has the potential to generate several pages' worth of discussion. When drafting a thesis statement, think about the questions your thesis statement will generate: What follow-up inquiries might a reader have? In the first example, there are almost no additional questions implied, but the revised example allows for a good deal more exploration.

Thesis Mad Libs

If you are having trouble getting started, try using the models below to generate a rough model of a thesis statement! These models are intended for drafting purposes only and should not appear in your final work.

• In this essay, I argue ____, using ______ to assert _____.
• While scholars have often argued ______, I argue______, because_______.
• Through an analysis of ______, I argue ______, which is important because_______.

Words to Avoid and to Embrace

When drafting your thesis statement, avoid words like explore, investigate, learn, compile, summarize , and explain to describe the main purpose of your paper. These words imply a paper that summarizes or "reports," rather than synthesizing and analyzing.

Instead of the terms above, try words like argue, critique, question , and interrogate . These more analytical words may help you begin strongly, by articulating a specific, critical, scholarly position.

Read Kayla's blog post for tips on taking a stand in a well-crafted thesis statement.

Related Resources

Didn't find what you need? Email us at [email protected] .

• Previous Page: Introductions
• Next Page: Conclusions
• Office of Student Disability Services

Walden Resources

Departments.

• Academic Residencies
• Academic Skills
• Career Planning and Development
• Customer Care Team
• Field Experience
• Military Services
• Student Success Advising
• Writing Skills

Centers and Offices

• Center for Social Change
• Office of Academic Support and Instructional Services
• Office of Degree Acceleration
• Office of Research and Doctoral Services
• Office of Student Affairs

Student Resources

• Doctoral Writing Assessment
• Form & Style Review
• Quick Answers
• ScholarWorks
• SKIL Courses and Workshops
• Walden Bookstore
• Walden Catalog & Student Handbook
• Student Safety/Title IX
• Legal & Consumer Information
• Website Terms and Conditions
• Cookie Policy
• Accessibility
• Accreditation
• State Authorization
• Net Price Calculator
• Contact Walden

Walden University is a member of Adtalem Global Education, Inc. www.adtalem.com Walden University is certified to operate by SCHEV © 2024 Walden University LLC. All rights reserved.

Developing a Thesis Statement

Many papers you write require developing a thesis statement. In this section you’ll learn what a thesis statement is and how to write one.

Keep in mind that not all papers require thesis statements . If in doubt, please consult your instructor for assistance.

What is a thesis statement?

A thesis statement . . .

• Makes an argumentative assertion about a topic; it states the conclusions that you have reached about your topic.
• Makes a promise to the reader about the scope, purpose, and direction of your paper.
• Is focused and specific enough to be “proven” within the boundaries of your paper.
• Is generally located near the end of the introduction ; sometimes, in a long paper, the thesis will be expressed in several sentences or in an entire paragraph.
• Identifies the relationships between the pieces of evidence that you are using to support your argument.

Not all papers require thesis statements! Ask your instructor if you’re in doubt whether you need one.

Identify a topic

Your topic is the subject about which you will write. Your assignment may suggest several ways of looking at a topic; or it may name a fairly general concept that you will explore or analyze in your paper.

Consider what your assignment asks you to do

Inform yourself about your topic, focus on one aspect of your topic, ask yourself whether your topic is worthy of your efforts, generate a topic from an assignment.

Below are some possible topics based on sample assignments.

Sample assignment 1

Analyze Spain’s neutrality in World War II.

Identified topic

Franco’s role in the diplomatic relationships between the Allies and the Axis

This topic avoids generalities such as “Spain” and “World War II,” addressing instead on Franco’s role (a specific aspect of “Spain”) and the diplomatic relations between the Allies and Axis (a specific aspect of World War II).

Sample assignment 2

Analyze one of Homer’s epic similes in the Iliad.

The relationship between the portrayal of warfare and the epic simile about Simoisius at 4.547-64.

This topic focuses on a single simile and relates it to a single aspect of the Iliad ( warfare being a major theme in that work).

Developing a Thesis Statement–Additional information

Your assignment may suggest several ways of looking at a topic, or it may name a fairly general concept that you will explore or analyze in your paper. You’ll want to read your assignment carefully, looking for key terms that you can use to focus your topic.

Sample assignment: Analyze Spain’s neutrality in World War II Key terms: analyze, Spain’s neutrality, World War II

After you’ve identified the key words in your topic, the next step is to read about them in several sources, or generate as much information as possible through an analysis of your topic. Obviously, the more material or knowledge you have, the more possibilities will be available for a strong argument. For the sample assignment above, you’ll want to look at books and articles on World War II in general, and Spain’s neutrality in particular.

As you consider your options, you must decide to focus on one aspect of your topic. This means that you cannot include everything you’ve learned about your topic, nor should you go off in several directions. If you end up covering too many different aspects of a topic, your paper will sprawl and be unconvincing in its argument, and it most likely will not fulfull the assignment requirements.

For the sample assignment above, both Spain’s neutrality and World War II are topics far too broad to explore in a paper. You may instead decide to focus on Franco’s role in the diplomatic relationships between the Allies and the Axis , which narrows down what aspects of Spain’s neutrality and World War II you want to discuss, as well as establishes a specific link between those two aspects.

Before you go too far, however, ask yourself whether your topic is worthy of your efforts. Try to avoid topics that already have too much written about them (i.e., “eating disorders and body image among adolescent women”) or that simply are not important (i.e. “why I like ice cream”). These topics may lead to a thesis that is either dry fact or a weird claim that cannot be supported. A good thesis falls somewhere between the two extremes. To arrive at this point, ask yourself what is new, interesting, contestable, or controversial about your topic.

As you work on your thesis, remember to keep the rest of your paper in mind at all times . Sometimes your thesis needs to evolve as you develop new insights, find new evidence, or take a different approach to your topic.

Derive a main point from topic

Once you have a topic, you will have to decide what the main point of your paper will be. This point, the “controlling idea,” becomes the core of your argument (thesis statement) and it is the unifying idea to which you will relate all your sub-theses. You can then turn this “controlling idea” into a purpose statement about what you intend to do in your paper.

Look for patterns in your evidence

Compose a purpose statement.

Consult the examples below for suggestions on how to look for patterns in your evidence and construct a purpose statement.

• Franco first tried to negotiate with the Axis
• Franco turned to the Allies when he couldn’t get some concessions that he wanted from the Axis

Possible conclusion:

Spain’s neutrality in WWII occurred for an entirely personal reason: Franco’s desire to preserve his own (and Spain’s) power.

Purpose statement

This paper will analyze Franco’s diplomacy during World War II to see how it contributed to Spain’s neutrality.

• The simile compares Simoisius to a tree, which is a peaceful, natural image.
• The tree in the simile is chopped down to make wheels for a chariot, which is an object used in warfare.

At first, the simile seems to take the reader away from the world of warfare, but we end up back in that world by the end.

This paper will analyze the way the simile about Simoisius at 4.547-64 moves in and out of the world of warfare.

Derive purpose statement from topic

To find out what your “controlling idea” is, you have to examine and evaluate your evidence . As you consider your evidence, you may notice patterns emerging, data repeated in more than one source, or facts that favor one view more than another. These patterns or data may then lead you to some conclusions about your topic and suggest that you can successfully argue for one idea better than another.

For instance, you might find out that Franco first tried to negotiate with the Axis, but when he couldn’t get some concessions that he wanted from them, he turned to the Allies. As you read more about Franco’s decisions, you may conclude that Spain’s neutrality in WWII occurred for an entirely personal reason: his desire to preserve his own (and Spain’s) power. Based on this conclusion, you can then write a trial thesis statement to help you decide what material belongs in your paper.

Sometimes you won’t be able to find a focus or identify your “spin” or specific argument immediately. Like some writers, you might begin with a purpose statement just to get yourself going. A purpose statement is one or more sentences that announce your topic and indicate the structure of the paper but do not state the conclusions you have drawn . Thus, you might begin with something like this:

• This paper will look at modern language to see if it reflects male dominance or female oppression.
• I plan to analyze anger and derision in offensive language to see if they represent a challenge of society’s authority.

At some point, you can turn a purpose statement into a thesis statement. As you think and write about your topic, you can restrict, clarify, and refine your argument, crafting your thesis statement to reflect your thinking.

As you work on your thesis, remember to keep the rest of your paper in mind at all times. Sometimes your thesis needs to evolve as you develop new insights, find new evidence, or take a different approach to your topic.

Compose a draft thesis statement

If you are writing a paper that will have an argumentative thesis and are having trouble getting started, the techniques in the table below may help you develop a temporary or “working” thesis statement.

Begin with a purpose statement that you will later turn into a thesis statement.

Assignment: Discuss the history of the Reform Party and explain its influence on the 1990 presidential and Congressional election.

Purpose Statement: This paper briefly sketches the history of the grassroots, conservative, Perot-led Reform Party and analyzes how it influenced the economic and social ideologies of the two mainstream parties.

Question-to-Assertion

If your assignment asks a specific question(s), turn the question(s) into an assertion and give reasons why it is true or reasons for your opinion.

Assignment : What do Aylmer and Rappaccini have to be proud of? Why aren’t they satisfied with these things? How does pride, as demonstrated in “The Birthmark” and “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” lead to unexpected problems?

Beginning thesis statement: Alymer and Rappaccinni are proud of their great knowledge; however, they are also very greedy and are driven to use their knowledge to alter some aspect of nature as a test of their ability. Evil results when they try to “play God.”

Write a sentence that summarizes the main idea of the essay you plan to write.

Main idea: The reason some toys succeed in the market is that they appeal to the consumers’ sense of the ridiculous and their basic desire to laugh at themselves.

Make a list of the ideas that you want to include; consider the ideas and try to group them.

• nature = peaceful
• war matériel = violent (competes with 1?)
• need for time and space to mourn the dead
• war is inescapable (competes with 3?)

Use a formula to arrive at a working thesis statement (you will revise this later).

• although most readers of _______ have argued that _______, closer examination shows that _______.
• _______ uses _______ and _____ to prove that ________.
• phenomenon x is a result of the combination of __________, __________, and _________.

What to keep in mind as you draft an initial thesis statement

Beginning statements obtained through the methods illustrated above can serve as a framework for planning or drafting your paper, but remember they’re not yet the specific, argumentative thesis you want for the final version of your paper. In fact, in its first stages, a thesis statement usually is ill-formed or rough and serves only as a planning tool.

As you write, you may discover evidence that does not fit your temporary or “working” thesis. Or you may reach deeper insights about your topic as you do more research, and you will find that your thesis statement has to be more complicated to match the evidence that you want to use.

You must be willing to reject or omit some evidence in order to keep your paper cohesive and your reader focused. Or you may have to revise your thesis to match the evidence and insights that you want to discuss. Read your draft carefully, noting the conclusions you have drawn and the major ideas which support or prove those conclusions. These will be the elements of your final thesis statement.

Sometimes you will not be able to identify these elements in your early drafts, but as you consider how your argument is developing and how your evidence supports your main idea, ask yourself, “ What is the main point that I want to prove/discuss? ” and “ How will I convince the reader that this is true? ” When you can answer these questions, then you can begin to refine the thesis statement.

Refine and polish the thesis statement

To get to your final thesis, you’ll need to refine your draft thesis so that it’s specific and arguable.

• Ask if your draft thesis addresses the assignment
• Question each part of your draft thesis
• Clarify vague phrases and assertions
• Investigate alternatives to your draft thesis

Consult the example below for suggestions on how to refine your draft thesis statement.

Sample Assignment

Choose an activity and define it as a symbol of American culture. Your essay should cause the reader to think critically about the society which produces and enjoys that activity.

• Ask The phenomenon of drive-in facilities is an interesting symbol of american culture, and these facilities demonstrate significant characteristics of our society.This statement does not fulfill the assignment because it does not require the reader to think critically about society.

Drive-ins are an interesting symbol of American culture because they represent Americans’ significant creativity and business ingenuity.

Among the types of drive-in facilities familiar during the twentieth century, drive-in movie theaters best represent American creativity, not merely because they were the forerunner of later drive-ins and drive-throughs, but because of their impact on our culture: they changed our relationship to the automobile, changed the way people experienced movies, and changed movie-going into a family activity.

While drive-in facilities such as those at fast-food establishments, banks, pharmacies, and dry cleaners symbolize America’s economic ingenuity, they also have affected our personal standards.

While drive-in facilities such as those at fast- food restaurants, banks, pharmacies, and dry cleaners symbolize (1) Americans’ business ingenuity, they also have contributed (2) to an increasing homogenization of our culture, (3) a willingness to depersonalize relationships with others, and (4) a tendency to sacrifice quality for convenience.

This statement is now specific and fulfills all parts of the assignment. This version, like any good thesis, is not self-evident; its points, 1-4, will have to be proven with evidence in the body of the paper. The numbers in this statement indicate the order in which the points will be presented. Depending on the length of the paper, there could be one paragraph for each numbered item or there could be blocks of paragraph for even pages for each one.

Complete the final thesis statement

The bottom line.

As you move through the process of crafting a thesis, you’ll need to remember four things:

• Context matters! Think about your course materials and lectures. Try to relate your thesis to the ideas your instructor is discussing.
• As you go through the process described in this section, always keep your assignment in mind . You will be more successful when your thesis (and paper) responds to the assignment than if it argues a semi-related idea.
• Your thesis statement should be precise, focused, and contestable ; it should predict the sub-theses or blocks of information that you will use to prove your argument.
• Make sure that you keep the rest of your paper in mind at all times. Change your thesis as your paper evolves, because you do not want your thesis to promise more than your paper actually delivers.

In the beginning, the thesis statement was a tool to help you sharpen your focus, limit material and establish the paper’s purpose. When your paper is finished, however, the thesis statement becomes a tool for your reader. It tells the reader what you have learned about your topic and what evidence led you to your conclusion. It keeps the reader on track–well able to understand and appreciate your argument.

Writing Process and Structure

This is an accordion element with a series of buttons that open and close related content panels.

Getting Started with Your Paper

Interpreting Writing Assignments from Your Courses

Generating Ideas for

Creating an Argument

Thesis vs. Purpose Statements

Architecture of Arguments

Working with Sources

Quoting and Paraphrasing Sources

Using Literary Quotations

Citing Sources in Your Paper

Drafting Your Paper

Generating Ideas for Your Paper

Introductions

Paragraphing

Developing Strategic Transitions

Conclusions

Revising Your Paper

Peer Reviews

Reverse Outlines

Revising an Argumentative Paper

Revision Strategies for Longer Projects

Finishing Your Paper

Twelve Common Errors: An Editing Checklist

How to Proofread your Paper

Writing Collaboratively

Collaborative and Group Writing

How to Write a Solid Thesis Statement

The important sentence expresses your central assertion or argument

arabianEye / Getty Images

• Writing Research Papers
• Writing Essays
• English Grammar
• M.Ed., Education Administration, University of Georgia
• B.A., History, Armstrong State University

A thesis statement provides the foundation for your entire research paper or essay. This statement is the central assertion that you want to express in your essay. A successful thesis statement is one that is made up of one or two sentences clearly laying out your central idea and expressing an informed, reasoned answer to your research question.

Usually, the thesis statement will appear at the end of the first paragraph of your paper. There are a few different types, and the content of your thesis statement will depend upon the type of paper you’re writing.

Key Takeaways: Writing a Thesis Statement

• A thesis statement gives your reader a preview of your paper's content by laying out your central idea and expressing an informed, reasoned answer to your research question.
• Thesis statements will vary depending on the type of paper you are writing, such as an expository essay, argument paper, or analytical essay.
• Before creating a thesis statement, determine whether you are defending a stance, giving an overview of an event, object, or process, or analyzing your subject

Expository Essay Thesis Statement Examples

An expository essay "exposes" the reader to a new topic; it informs the reader with details, descriptions, or explanations of a subject. If you are writing an expository essay , your thesis statement should explain to the reader what she will learn in your essay. For example:

• The United States spends more money on its military budget than all the industrialized nations combined.
• Gun-related homicides and suicides are increasing after years of decline.
• Hate crimes have increased three years in a row, according to the FBI.
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) increases the risk of stroke and arterial fibrillation (irregular heartbeat).

These statements provide a statement of fact about the topic (not just opinion) but leave the door open for you to elaborate with plenty of details. In an expository essay, you don't need to develop an argument or prove anything; you only need to understand your topic and present it in a logical manner. A good thesis statement in an expository essay always leaves the reader wanting more details.

Types of Thesis Statements

Before creating a thesis statement, it's important to ask a few basic questions, which will help you determine the kind of essay or paper you plan to create:

• Are you defending a stance in a controversial essay ?
• Are you simply giving an overview or describing an event, object, or process?
• Are you conducting an analysis of an event, object, or process?

In every thesis statement , you will give the reader a preview of your paper's content, but the message will differ a little depending on the essay type .

Argument Thesis Statement Examples

If you have been instructed to take a stance on one side of a controversial issue, you will need to write an argument essay . Your thesis statement should express the stance you are taking and may give the reader a preview or a hint of your evidence. The thesis of an argument essay could look something like the following:

• Self-driving cars are too dangerous and should be banned from the roadways.
• The exploration of outer space is a waste of money; instead, funds should go toward solving issues on Earth, such as poverty, hunger, global warming, and traffic congestion.
• The U.S. must crack down on illegal immigration.
• Street cameras and street-view maps have led to a total loss of privacy in the United States and elsewhere.

These thesis statements are effective because they offer opinions that can be supported by evidence. If you are writing an argument essay, you can craft your own thesis around the structure of the statements above.

Analytical Essay Thesis Statement Examples

In an analytical essay assignment, you will be expected to break down a topic, process, or object in order to observe and analyze your subject piece by piece. Examples of a thesis statement for an analytical essay include:

• The criminal justice reform bill passed by the U.S. Senate in late 2018 (" The First Step Act ") aims to reduce prison sentences that disproportionately fall on nonwhite criminal defendants.
• The rise in populism and nationalism in the U.S. and European democracies has coincided with the decline of moderate and centrist parties that have dominated since WWII.
• Later-start school days increase student success for a variety of reasons.

Because the role of the thesis statement is to state the central message of your entire paper, it is important to revisit (and maybe rewrite) your thesis statement after the paper is written. In fact, it is quite normal for your message to change as you construct your paper.

• How to Write a Good Thesis Statement
• What Is Expository Writing?
• An Introduction to Academic Writing
• Definition and Examples of Analysis in Composition
• Write an Attention-Grabbing Opening Sentence for an Essay
• How To Write an Essay
• Tips on How to Write an Argumentative Essay
• How to Write a Response Paper
• The Ultimate Guide to the 5-Paragraph Essay
• The Introductory Paragraph: Start Your Paper Off Right
• Understanding What an Expository Essay Is
• Tips for Writing an Art History Paper
• The Five Steps of Writing an Essay
• How to Write a Persuasive Essay
• What an Essay Is and How to Write One
• How to Write a Successful Personal Statement for Graduate School

What are your chances of acceptance?

Calculate for all schools, your chance of acceptance.

Your chancing factors

Extracurriculars.

How to Write a Strong Thesis Statement: 4 Steps + Examples

What’s Covered:

What is the purpose of a thesis statement, writing a good thesis statement: 4 steps, common pitfalls to avoid, where to get your essay edited for free.

When you set out to write an essay, there has to be some kind of point to it, right? Otherwise, your essay would just be a big jumble of word salad that makes absolutely no sense. An essay needs a central point that ties into everything else. That main point is called a thesis statement, and it’s the core of any essay or research paper.

You may hear about Master degree candidates writing a thesis, and that is an entire paper–not to be confused with the thesis statement, which is typically one sentence that contains your paper’s focus. 

Read on to learn more about thesis statements and how to write them. We’ve also included some solid examples for you to reference.

Typically the last sentence of your introductory paragraph, the thesis statement serves as the roadmap for your essay. When your reader gets to the thesis statement, they should have a clear outline of your main point, as well as the information you’ll be presenting in order to either prove or support your point. 

The thesis statement should not be confused for a topic sentence , which is the first sentence of every paragraph in your essay. If you need help writing topic sentences, numerous resources are available. Topic sentences should go along with your thesis statement, though.

Since the thesis statement is the most important sentence of your entire essay or paper, it’s imperative that you get this part right. Otherwise, your paper will not have a good flow and will seem disjointed. That’s why it’s vital not to rush through developing one. It’s a methodical process with steps that you need to follow in order to create the best thesis statement possible.

Step 1: Decide what kind of paper you’re writing

When you’re assigned an essay, there are several different types you may get. Argumentative essays are designed to get the reader to agree with you on a topic. Informative or expository essays present information to the reader. Analytical essays offer up a point and then expand on it by analyzing relevant information. Thesis statements can look and sound different based on the type of paper you’re writing. For example:

• Argumentative: The United States needs a viable third political party to decrease bipartisanship, increase options, and help reduce corruption in government.
• Informative: The Libertarian party has thrown off elections before by gaining enough support in states to get on the ballot and by taking away crucial votes from candidates.
• Analytical: An analysis of past presidential elections shows that while third party votes may have been the minority, they did affect the outcome of the elections in 2020, 2016, and beyond.

Step 2: Figure out what point you want to make

Once you know what type of paper you’re writing, you then need to figure out the point you want to make with your thesis statement, and subsequently, your paper. In other words, you need to decide to answer a question about something, such as:

• What impact did reality TV have on American society?
• How has the musical Hamilton affected perception of American history?
• Why do I want to major in [chosen major here]?

If you have an argumentative essay, then you will be writing about an opinion. To make it easier, you may want to choose an opinion that you feel passionate about so that you’re writing about something that interests you. For example, if you have an interest in preserving the environment, you may want to choose a topic that relates to that. 

If you’re writing your college essay and they ask why you want to attend that school, you may want to have a main point and back it up with information, something along the lines of:

“Attending Harvard University would benefit me both academically and professionally, as it would give me a strong knowledge base upon which to build my career, develop my network, and hopefully give me an advantage in my chosen field.”

Step 3: Determine what information you’ll use to back up your point

Once you have the point you want to make, you need to figure out how you plan to back it up throughout the rest of your essay. Without this information, it will be hard to either prove or argue the main point of your thesis statement. If you decide to write about the Hamilton example, you may decide to address any falsehoods that the writer put into the musical, such as:

“The musical Hamilton, while accurate in many ways, leaves out key parts of American history, presents a nationalist view of founding fathers, and downplays the racism of the times.”

Once you’ve written your initial working thesis statement, you’ll then need to get information to back that up. For example, the musical completely leaves out Benjamin Franklin, portrays the founding fathers in a nationalist way that is too complimentary, and shows Hamilton as a staunch abolitionist despite the fact that his family likely did own slaves. 

Step 4: Revise and refine your thesis statement before you start writing

Read through your thesis statement several times before you begin to compose your full essay. You need to make sure the statement is ironclad, since it is the foundation of the entire paper. Edit it or have a peer review it for you to make sure everything makes sense and that you feel like you can truly write a paper on the topic. Once you’ve done that, you can then begin writing your paper.

When writing a thesis statement, there are some common pitfalls you should avoid so that your paper can be as solid as possible. Make sure you always edit the thesis statement before you do anything else. You also want to ensure that the thesis statement is clear and concise. Don’t make your reader hunt for your point. Finally, put your thesis statement at the end of the first paragraph and have your introduction flow toward that statement. Your reader will expect to find your statement in its traditional spot.

If you’re having trouble getting started, or need some guidance on your essay, there are tools available that can help you. CollegeVine offers a free peer essay review tool where one of your peers can read through your essay and provide you with valuable feedback. Getting essay feedback from a peer can help you wow your instructor or college admissions officer with an impactful essay that effectively illustrates your point.

Related CollegeVine Blog Posts

Thesis Statements

What this handout is about.

This handout describes what a thesis statement is, how thesis statements work in your writing, and how you can craft or refine one for your draft.

Introduction

Writing in college often takes the form of persuasion—convincing others that you have an interesting, logical point of view on the subject you are studying. Persuasion is a skill you practice regularly in your daily life. You persuade your roommate to clean up, your parents to let you borrow the car, your friend to vote for your favorite candidate or policy. In college, course assignments often ask you to make a persuasive case in writing. You are asked to convince your reader of your point of view. This form of persuasion, often called academic argument, follows a predictable pattern in writing. After a brief introduction of your topic, you state your point of view on the topic directly and often in one sentence. This sentence is the thesis statement, and it serves as a summary of the argument you’ll make in the rest of your paper.

What is a thesis statement?

A thesis statement:

• tells the reader how you will interpret the significance of the subject matter under discussion.
• is a road map for the paper; in other words, it tells the reader what to expect from the rest of the paper.
• directly answers the question asked of you. A thesis is an interpretation of a question or subject, not the subject itself. The subject, or topic, of an essay might be World War II or Moby Dick; a thesis must then offer a way to understand the war or the novel.
• makes a claim that others might dispute.
• is usually a single sentence near the beginning of your paper (most often, at the end of the first paragraph) that presents your argument to the reader. The rest of the paper, the body of the essay, gathers and organizes evidence that will persuade the reader of the logic of your interpretation.

If your assignment asks you to take a position or develop a claim about a subject, you may need to convey that position or claim in a thesis statement near the beginning of your draft. The assignment may not explicitly state that you need a thesis statement because your instructor may assume you will include one. When in doubt, ask your instructor if the assignment requires a thesis statement. When an assignment asks you to analyze, to interpret, to compare and contrast, to demonstrate cause and effect, or to take a stand on an issue, it is likely that you are being asked to develop a thesis and to support it persuasively. (Check out our handout on understanding assignments for more information.)

How do I create a thesis?

A thesis is the result of a lengthy thinking process. Formulating a thesis is not the first thing you do after reading an essay assignment. Before you develop an argument on any topic, you have to collect and organize evidence, look for possible relationships between known facts (such as surprising contrasts or similarities), and think about the significance of these relationships. Once you do this thinking, you will probably have a “working thesis” that presents a basic or main idea and an argument that you think you can support with evidence. Both the argument and your thesis are likely to need adjustment along the way.

Writers use all kinds of techniques to stimulate their thinking and to help them clarify relationships or comprehend the broader significance of a topic and arrive at a thesis statement. For more ideas on how to get started, see our handout on brainstorming .

How do I know if my thesis is strong?

If there’s time, run it by your instructor or make an appointment at the Writing Center to get some feedback. Even if you do not have time to get advice elsewhere, you can do some thesis evaluation of your own. When reviewing your first draft and its working thesis, ask yourself the following :

• Do I answer the question? Re-reading the question prompt after constructing a working thesis can help you fix an argument that misses the focus of the question. If the prompt isn’t phrased as a question, try to rephrase it. For example, “Discuss the effect of X on Y” can be rephrased as “What is the effect of X on Y?”
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? If your thesis simply states facts that no one would, or even could, disagree with, it’s possible that you are simply providing a summary, rather than making an argument.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? Thesis statements that are too vague often do not have a strong argument. If your thesis contains words like “good” or “successful,” see if you could be more specific: why is something “good”; what specifically makes something “successful”?
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? If a reader’s first response is likely to  be “So what?” then you need to clarify, to forge a relationship, or to connect to a larger issue.
• Does my essay support my thesis specifically and without wandering? If your thesis and the body of your essay do not seem to go together, one of them has to change. It’s okay to change your working thesis to reflect things you have figured out in the course of writing your paper. Remember, always reassess and revise your writing as necessary.
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? If a reader’s first response is “how?” or “why?” your thesis may be too open-ended and lack guidance for the reader. See what you can add to give the reader a better take on your position right from the beginning.

Suppose you are taking a course on contemporary communication, and the instructor hands out the following essay assignment: “Discuss the impact of social media on public awareness.” Looking back at your notes, you might start with this working thesis:

Social media impacts public awareness in both positive and negative ways.

You can use the questions above to help you revise this general statement into a stronger thesis.

• Do I answer the question? You can analyze this if you rephrase “discuss the impact” as “what is the impact?” This way, you can see that you’ve answered the question only very generally with the vague “positive and negative ways.”
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? Not likely. Only people who maintain that social media has a solely positive or solely negative impact could disagree.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? No. What are the positive effects? What are the negative effects?
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? No. Why are they positive? How are they positive? What are their causes? Why are they negative? How are they negative? What are their causes?
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? No. Why should anyone care about the positive and/or negative impact of social media?

After thinking about your answers to these questions, you decide to focus on the one impact you feel strongly about and have strong evidence for:

Because not every voice on social media is reliable, people have become much more critical consumers of information, and thus, more informed voters.

This version is a much stronger thesis! It answers the question, takes a specific position that others can challenge, and it gives a sense of why it matters.

Let’s try another. Suppose your literature professor hands out the following assignment in a class on the American novel: Write an analysis of some aspect of Mark Twain’s novel Huckleberry Finn. “This will be easy,” you think. “I loved Huckleberry Finn!” You grab a pad of paper and write:

Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn is a great American novel.

You begin to analyze your thesis:

• Do I answer the question? No. The prompt asks you to analyze some aspect of the novel. Your working thesis is a statement of general appreciation for the entire novel.

Think about aspects of the novel that are important to its structure or meaning—for example, the role of storytelling, the contrasting scenes between the shore and the river, or the relationships between adults and children. Now you write:

In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain develops a contrast between life on the river and life on the shore.

• Do I answer the question? Yes!
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? Not really. This contrast is well-known and accepted.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? It’s getting there–you have highlighted an important aspect of the novel for investigation. However, it’s still not clear what your analysis will reveal.
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? Not yet. Compare scenes from the book and see what you discover. Free write, make lists, jot down Huck’s actions and reactions and anything else that seems interesting.
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? What’s the point of this contrast? What does it signify?”

After examining the evidence and considering your own insights, you write:

Through its contrasting river and shore scenes, Twain’s Huckleberry Finn suggests that to find the true expression of American democratic ideals, one must leave “civilized” society and go back to nature.

This final thesis statement presents an interpretation of a literary work based on an analysis of its content. Of course, for the essay itself to be successful, you must now present evidence from the novel that will convince the reader of your interpretation.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Anson, Chris M., and Robert A. Schwegler. 2010. The Longman Handbook for Writers and Readers , 6th ed. New York: Longman.

Lunsford, Andrea A. 2015. The St. Martin’s Handbook , 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Ramage, John D., John C. Bean, and June Johnson. 2018. The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing , 8th ed. New York: Pearson.

Ruszkiewicz, John J., Christy Friend, Daniel Seward, and Maxine Hairston. 2010. The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers , 9th ed. Boston: Pearson Education.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Make a Gift

Chapter 2: Evidence

Constructing Your Essay Blueprint

With your data and observational paragraph in front of you, read the original text again. This may seem like an exercise in redundancy, but re-reading with the seeds of your own interpretation in mind will help you to confirm or revise your reading of some passages and elements. Reading the text again may also help you find less obvious support that will strengthen and make your reading or analysis more complex. As you read, you should ask yourself, “What is the purpose of this text?  What is the central argument?  How does the author support the central argument?”

Draft your blueprint: Once you have extracted and compressed the essential material in the original text, it is time to begin structuring your blueprint. You do not necessarily need to present the author’s ideas in the order they originally appear. You may want to begin your blueprint by stating the author’s central thesis, even if it does not appear at the beginning of the original article. However, it is best to avoid a point-by-point analysis of the text as that will result inevitably in summary, which you most certainly want to avoid at this level.

You should  begin your analysis with an examination of what you believe to be the most important and revealing piece (or pieces) of evidence. Was there a moment in the text or a key repetition or consistent contrast that confirmed for you what this text was really about? Begin with that. Using that strong base, you can move to your second and third strongest pieces of evidence. Continue with all your evidence, building your analysis until you reach your final points which should examine the less-than-obvious supportive aspects of the text. A close reading doesn’t just rely on one or two obvious statement that prove you are “right.” Imagine that you are luring your reader into your understanding of the text: “Do you agree with my reading of the first piece of evidence? The second? The third? Well, then perhaps you would like to consider what I have to say about this part of the text that you may be surprised to find in this argument.”

Understand that not every essay you analyze will let you apply this formula, but the exercise of pushing your claim to consider all aspects of the text is always worthwhile.

In your blueprint, be sure to cite keywords and terms from the original text. Cite those words or phrases that you believe are pivotal to the author’s delivery of his or her main message and explain why. While quoting the author is expected at this level, you never want to let these passages stand alone without analysis. So include the analysis of the selected quotations in your blueprint. While you do not want to rush to your purposeful analysis and interpretation of the text while conducting the information-gathering exercise detailed in Chapter One, it is good to start your meaningful interaction with the text in these pre-drafting stages of organization.

Review and Revise Your Essay Blueprint: Remember that a blueprint is an outline for the essay you will eventually construct. Its purpose is to organize the information or evidence you’ve gathered from your annotated reading of the text and to begin structuring your analysis of the author’s purpose and argument. Don’t just rush into your essay after you’ve completed your blueprint. Reread the article then review your blueprint. Have you included everything you believe will lead to your most interesting and controversial reading of the text? As you revise your blueprint, ensure that you have:

• captured the main argument presented in the original text
• highlighted the article’s main points (including any key concepts or theories) and eliminated all extraneous or minor details
• presented clearly your interpretation and interaction with the text. Is it obvious that you understand the text you are analyzing? Is your interpretation of the text presented clearly?

Write Here, Right Now: An Interactive Introduction to Academic Writing and Research Copyright © 2018 by Ryerson University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

• school Campus Bookshelves
• menu_book Bookshelves
• perm_media Learning Objects
• login Login
• how_to_reg Request Instructor Account
• hub Instructor Commons
• Download Page (PDF)
• Download Full Book (PDF)
• Periodic Table
• Physics Constants
• Scientific Calculator
• Reference & Cite
• Tools expand_more
• Readability

selected template will load here

This action is not available.

4.3: Formulating a Central Idea Statement

• Last updated
• Save as PDF
• Page ID 17749

• Kris Barton & Barbara G. Tucker
• Florida State University & University of Georgia via GALILEO Open Learning Materials

While you will not actually say your specific purpose statement during your speech, you will need to clearly state what your focus and main points are going to be (preferably after using an introductory method such as those described in Chapter 8). The statement that reveals your main points is commonly known as the central idea statement (or just the central idea).

Now, at this point we need to make a point about terminology. Your instructor may call the central idea statement “the thesis” or “the thesis statement.” Your English composition instructor probably uses that term in your essay writing. Another instructor may call it the “main idea statement.” All of these are basically synonymous and you should not let the terms confuse you, but you should use the term your instructor uses.

That said, is the central idea statement the very same thing as the thesis sentence in an essay? Yes, in that both are letting the audience know without a doubt your topic, purpose, direction, angle and/or point of view. No, in that the rules for writing a “thesis” or central idea statement in a speech are not as strict as in an essay. For example, it is acceptable in a speech to announce the topic and purpose, although it is usually not the most artful or effective way to do it. You may say,

“In this speech I will try to motivate you to join me next month as a volunteer at the regional Special Olympics.”

That would be followed by a preview statement of what the speech’s arguments or reasons for participating will be, such as,

“You will see that it will benefit the community, the participants, and you individually.”

However, another approach is to “capsulize” the purpose, topic, approach, and preview in one succinct statement.

“Your involvement as a volunteer in next month’s regional Special Olympics will be a rewarding experience that will benefit the community, the participants, and you personally.”

This last version is really the better approach and most likely the one your instructor will prefer.

So, you don’t want to just repeat your specific purpose in the central idea statement, but you do want to provide complete information. Also, unlike the formal thesis of your English essays, the central idea statement in a speech can and should use personal language (I, me, we, us, you, your, etc.) and should attempt to be attention-getting and audience-focused. And importantly, just like a formal thesis sentence, it must be a complete, grammatical sentence.

The point of your central idea statement in terms of your audience is to reveal and clarify the ideas or assertions you will be addressing in your speech, more commonly known as your main points, to fulfill your specific purpose. However, as you are processing your ideas and approach, you may still be working on them. Sometimes those main points will not be clear to you immediately. As much as we would like these writing processes to be straightforward, sometimes we find that we have to revise our original approach. This is why preparing a speech the night before you are giving it is a really, really bad idea. You need lots of time for the preparation and then the practice.

Sometimes you will hear the writing process referred to as “iterative.” This word means, among other things, that a speech or document is not always written in the same order as the audience finally experiences it. You may have noticed that we have not said anything about the introduction of your speech yet. Even though that is the first thing the audience hears, it may be one of the last parts you actually compose. It is best to consider your speech flexible as you work on it, and to be willing to edit and revise. If your instructor asks you to turn the outline in before the speech, you should be clear on how much you can revise after that. Otherwise, it helps to know that you can keep editing your speech until you deliver it, especially while you practice.

Here are some examples of pairs of specific purpose statements and central idea statements.

Specific Purpose: To explain to my classmates the effects of losing a pet on the elderly.

Central Idea: When elderly persons lose their animal companions, they can experience serious psychological, emotional, and physical effects. Specific Purpose: To demonstrate to my audience the correct method for cleaning a computer keyboard. Central Idea: Your computer keyboard needs regular cleaning to function well, and you can achieve that in four easy steps.

Specific Purpose: To persuade my political science class that labor unions are no longer a vital political force in the U.S.

Central Idea: Although for decades in the twentieth century labor unions influenced local and national elections, in this speech I will point to how their influence has declined in the last thirty years.

Specific Purpose: To motivate my audience to oppose the policy of drug testing welfare recipients.

Central Idea: Many voices are calling for welfare recipients to have to go through mandatory, regular drug testing, but this policy is unjust, impractical, and costly, and fair-minded Americans should actively oppose it.

Specific Purpose: To explain to my fellow civic club members why I admire Representative John Lewis.

Central Idea: John Lewis has my admiration for his sacrifices during the Civil Rights movement and his service to Georgia as a leader and U.S. Representative.

Specific Purpose: To describe how makeup is done for the TV show The Walking Dead.

Central Idea: The wildly popular zombie show The Walking Dead achieves incredibly scary and believable makeup effects, and in the next few minutes I will tell you who does it, what they use, and how they do it.

Notice that in all of the above examples that neither the specific purpose nor the central idea ever exceeds one sentence. You may divide your central idea and the preview of main points into two sentences or three sentences, depending on what your instructor directs. If your central idea consists of more than three sentences, then you probably are including too much information and taking up time that is needed for the body of the speech.

Central Idea Mastery: Tips for Identifying Main Themes in Texts

Ever struggled to figure out what a piece of literature is really about?

I have. I’m a math and sciences geek, and English Lit was never my strong suit in school. But I figured out a way to get straight to the central idea.

Studies show that grasping the central idea is one of the most challenging aspects for readers, freelance writers , and in-company writers alike.

This post will take you on a journey to understand clearly what a central idea statement in literature entails, how it differs from themes or thesis statements , and why it matters so much.

Ready for an enlightening ride into the realm of literary analysis? Let’s dive in!

What is the Central Idea in Literature?

The central idea in literature is the main point or message the author wants to convey to the reader. It is often the well written central ideas, expressed through a thesis statement , which serves as the foundation for the entire work of literature.

The central idea statement should be distinct from the story’s theme itself, as it focuses more on the author’s specific argument or perspective. To identify this in literature, readers can analyze key details and keywords as a map and keep their predictions short and straightforward.

The Relationship between Central Idea and Thesis Statement

A central idea is like a map for a story or essay. It guides readers through the words and themes. 

On the other hand, a thesis statement is a claim or argument in an essay, article or research work.

This is often based on the central idea but goes further by giving an opinion about the topic. You can think of these as two good friends. Both play key roles in shaping any piece of writing, and they rely on each other to make sense.

For instance, if you write an essay arguing that reading helps improve vocabulary – your central idea might be ‘the benefits of reading,’ while your thesis statement could be ‘reading regularly improves one’s vocabulary.’

The Difference between Central Idea and Theme

The central idea and theme are two critical parts of a story. They may seem the same but tell different parts of the tale. The main topic or message in a text is the central idea .

It’s like telling what a book or essay is about.

A theme, though, dives deeper into the story. It shows us life lessons or morals that we can learn from it. 

Think of it as an undercover message hiding inside the words and scenes of a story! An easy way to spot them? Central ideas often pop up more in texts that give information.

Themes make their home primarily in stories with lots of action, conflict and drama.

How to Identify the Central Idea in Literature

Use details and keywords as a map.

Words and clues in a story can help find the main idea. Look for words that repeat . They matter a lot to the writer. Think of keywords as signposts on a map. When you use a map when lost, use these words when stuck on an idea.

Stay away from small details that only discuss one thing in the text. Focus on ideas that cover all parts of the story instead. Those tell you what is most important to know.

Keep Predictions Short and Simple

When identifying the central idea statement in literature, keeping your predictions short and simple is essential. By predicting the answer in your own words, you can narrow down the options and eliminate choices that don’t match the passage.

Keeping your predictions brief makes it easier to compare them with the given choices. If you’re having trouble understanding a passage, try summarizing paragraphs or sentences to help clarify things.

Remember, taking it slow and staying calm can improve your performance in the SAT reading and writing section. So, keep those predictions concise and straightforward!

Importance of Central Ideas in Literature

The central ideas in literature play a crucial role in your content strategy and in understanding the text and its deeper meaning, as they serve as the backbone that holds the entire work together.

The Role of Central Ideas in Understanding Literature

The central idea plays a crucial role in helping us understand literature. It acts as the primary focus or point of the text, providing a clear picture of what the author wants to convey.

By identifying and analyzing the central idea, we can better comprehend the overall message and themes of a piece of writing. The well written central idea guides readers, helping them navigate through the details and supporting evidence presented in the text.

It helps us see how all these elements connect to create a cohesive whole.

The Connection between Central Ideas and Details

The connection between central ideas and details in literature is meaningful because the details provide evidence and examples to support and strengthen the central idea. 

Details are specific pieces of information or examples that help to bring the story’s main idea to life and make it more relatable for readers.

By analyzing the central idea and details, readers can engage with the text deeper and uncover hidden meanings and themes. 

A central idea can be explicit, stated directly in the text, or implicit, requiring readers to infer and interpret what the author is trying to convey.

So, paying attention to details helps readers understand and appreciate the overall message of a work of literature.

Central Ideas Examples in Literature

Central ideas in literature can vary greatly depending on the genre and themes explored. 

For instance, classification essays may focus on a central idea related to categorization and justification, while works of English literature might delve into a central idea about societal norms or personal identity.

Additionally, environmental science literature may explore a central idea surrounding sustainability and conservation. These examples demonstrate the diverse range found across different types of literature.

Central Ideas in Classification Essays

The central idea in a classification essay is the main topic and the categories or subtopics we use to organize our thoughts . It’s like a roadmap for our essay, showing us how to structure it and what message we want to convey.

In other words, it’s the same as the thesis statement in a classification essay . 

By stating the main topic and explaining why we’re categorizing things in a certain way, we can say something meaningful about how different parts of the topic are related or how they relate to the whole subject.

So, when writing a classification essay, ensure your central idea is clear and helps guide your readers through your thoughtful categories!

Central Ideas in English Literature

Understanding the central ideas in English literature is crucial for writers. These help us grasp the main themes and messages in literary works. They cover most details and emphasize key points, allowing readers to analyze the text effectively.

When analyzing literature, it’s important to avoid focusing too much on one detail or introducing new ideas not addressed in the text. 

Central ideas play a vital role in answering exam questions like the SAT, where students identify the main idea or specific details based on a passage.

Notable Examples

“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Central Idea: The American Dream and its corruption. This novel delves deep into the idea of the American Dream—the pursuit of happiness, wealth, and social status—and the lengths people go to achieve it. Set in the Roaring Twenties, the story showcases the opulence of the time but also the moral bankruptcy and hollowness that often accompanied the pursuit of wealth and social status. The novel questions the true meaning of success and challenges the superficial values of society.

“ To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee

Central Idea: Racism and the loss of innocence. Set in the American South during the 1930s, this novel tackles the deep-seated racial prejudices of the time. Through the eyes of a young girl named Scout Finch, readers witness the injustice and cruelty meted out to a Black man, Tom Robinson, who is falsely accused of raping a white woman. The story also deals with the idea of growing up and losing innocence as Scout and her brother Jem navigate the complexities of their small town’s social structure.

“The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger

Central Idea: Adolescent alienation and the challenges of growing up. The novel’s protagonist, Holden Caulfield, represents the quintessential disaffected youth. As he navigates the adult world, which he views as “phony,” he struggles with his own sense of identity, his place in the world, and the impending responsibilities of adulthood. The story is a poignant examination of the complexities of adolescence and the inevitable loss of childhood innocence.

Whether it’s contemporary or classic works, central ideas can be found throughout English literature.

Central Ideas in Environmental Science Literature

The central idea in environmental science literature is essential. It helps us understand the main topic and categories/subtopics discussed in the text. It gives us an overview of what the whole thing is about.

The central idea also helps structure the essay and conveys a message about the topic. So, if you’re writing about environmental science, ensure you have a clear main idea that divides your topic into different parts, helping readers quickly grasp the main points.

One way to find the main idea is by locating the thesis statement in your text.

Tips for Writing a Central Idea

Crafting a strong main idea requires clarity and conciseness. Use clear and specific language to express the main point of your work, ensuring that it is debatable and not just a statement of fact.

Consider the purpose of your writing and the audience you are targeting to shape your central idea effectively.

Formulation of the Central Idea

To formulate a well written central idea, you need to think carefully about the main point or message you want to convey.

When formulating the central idea, make sure it covers most of the details introduced in your text and emphasizes any important points. Avoid focusing too much on just one detail or introducing new ideas not addressed in your writing.

Also, be careful not to contradict any information from your text.

To help with formulation, summarize your text in your own words and determine the task or purpose of your writing. If you need clarification on the story’s main character or idea, revisit your summary to find the overarching theme .

Predicting the answer can also be useful as it helps narrow down choices and eliminate options that don’t align with your writing.

The Purpose of a Central Idea in Literature

The purpose of a central idea in literature is to provide a main theme or message that ties together all the different parts of a literary work. It helps readers understand and grasp the overall meaning and purpose of the text.

When writing a central idea, it’s important to consider the main theme or message, analyze key elements in the text, and think about what the author wants to convey. The central idea should cover most of the details introduced in the text and mention any points of emphasis.

However, it shouldn’t focus too much on just one detail, introduce new ideas not addressed in the text, or contradict information from the text.

Wrapping up the Central Idea

Understanding the central idea in literature is crucial for writers and readers alike. By grasping the main message of a text, we can delve deeper into its themes and analyze it with greater clarity.

Through examples and explanations, this blog has highlighted the importance of central ideas and provided tools to identify them effectively. So go forth, writers, armed with this knowledge, and create works that captivate audiences by conveying powerful central ideas!

1. What is the central idea in literature?

The central idea in literature refers to the main point or theme that the author wants to explain or convey through their story or writing.

2. How can I identify the central idea in a piece of literature?

You can identify the central idea by looking for recurring themes, key messages, and important moments that shape the text’s overall meaning.

3. Why is understanding the central idea important when reading literature?

Understanding the central idea helps you grasp the deeper meaning and purpose behind a piece of literature, allowing you to appreciate its message and connect with it more meaningfully.

4. Can multiple central ideas exist in a single piece of literature?

While some texts may have multiple themes or ideas, there is typically one primary central idea that serves as the core focus of the work.

Content Manager, Marketer and Business Development Expert.

Noel is a full-time content manager, marketer, and business development manager. A 25-year veteran and professional project manager (PMP) as well, Noel enjoys writing about content management, AI and the tools and technology shaping the industry.

Similar Posts

The Ultimate Guide To Headless WordPress: Everything You Need To Know

Struggling to manage and deploy content on your website efficiently? Headless WordPress, a relatively new approach in the CMS industry, offers the flexibility you need while maintaining security…

Understanding the Benefits of a Component Content Management System

Ever felt like you’re drowning in a deluge of content management and updates for your organization? Yeah, we’ve been there too. After wading through plenty of research, lo…

Storytelling Techniques to Supercharge Your Writing in 2023

Have you ever wondered how the magic of ‘once upon a time’ can be woven into your marketing strategy? Welcome to the world of storytelling techniques! Storytelling has…

What Content Management System Does Amazon Use? A Reveal

Ever found yourself wondering what Content Management System (CMS) Amazon might be using? You’re not alone. I was equally intrigued when I discovered that Amazon most likely employs…

Enterprise Content Management Tools: Ultimate Guide

Does it feel like you’re drowning in a sea of digital content for your company? Yeah, I can relate to that. Catching your breath may seem impossible, especially…

7 Best CMS For ECommerce to Explode Sales

Are you struggling to find the right CMS for your eCommerce business? It’s a common issue, especially given the numerous options available on the market. This blog post…

• Skip to content

Davidson Writer

Academic Writing Resources for Students

Main navigation

Six steps for finding and evolving a central claim.

In their Writing Analytically, David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephen, outline six steps for evolving a central claim. Getting the central claim to respond more fully to evidence, either by formulating a mostly new central claim and beginning again, or by modifying the existing thesis, is the primary activity of conceptual revision (as opposed to correcting and editing). Your aim here is not to go round and round forever, but to go back and forth between thesis and evidence, evidence and thesis, allowing each, in turn, to adjust how you see the other, until you find the best possible fit between the two. The central claim not only directs a writer’s way of looking at evidence; the analysis of evidence should also direct and redirect—bring about revision—of the central claim.

What follow is a six-step guide for formulating and reformulating a central claim.  As an overarching guideline, allow your central claim to run up against potentially conflicting evidence in order to build upon and revise your initial idea, extending the range of evidence it can accurately account for by clarifying and qualifying its key terms.

2.  Explain how the details you have focused on in the evidence and lead to your working thesis.

3.  Locate evidence that is not adequately accounted for by the working central claim and pursue the implications of that evidence by repeatedly “ASKING SO WHAT?” Explain how and why these pieces of evidence complicate the working central claim.

4.  Use your analysis of the complicating evidence to reformulate the central claim. Share with readers your reasons for moving from your initial claim to this reformulation.

5.  Test the adequacy of the evolved central claim by repeating steps two, three, and four until you are satisfied that the central claim accounts for your evidence as fully and accurately as possible. The best test of a quality central claim is to see how much of the relevant evidence it can reasonably account for.

6.  Rewrite the draft into a more coherent and fuller analysis of the evidence, while retaining for readers the “central claim trail”—the various steps that you went through along the way to formulating the central claim you ultimately chose.

Let’s trace these steps using the student’s work on Velázquez’s  Las Meninas

Go through your draft and underline potential central claims. View the presence of multiple, perhaps even competing, claims as an opportunity rather than a problem. In an exploratory draft, a range of interpretations of evidence constitutes raw material, the record of your thinking that might be developed in a more finished draft.

In the  Las Meninas paper no single idea emerges clearly as the central claim. Instead, the writer has arrived (in Paragraph 7) at three related but not entirely compatible ideas:

“I think the king wants to. . .”

Central claim 1:  give Velázquez “the recognition he deserves by including him in the ‘family’.”

Central claim 2:  show that Velázquez’s status and brilliance [as an artist] have been appreciated.

Central claim 3:  give Velázquez “the credit he deserved for being a loyal friend and servant.”

These three ideas about the painter’s intentions could be made to work together, but at present the writer is left with an uneasy fit among them. In order to resolve the tension among her possible thesis statements, the writer appears to have settled on  “I think that Velázquez wants the king to give him the recognition he deserves by including him in the family.”  This idea follows logically from a number of the details the writer has focused on, so it is viable as a working thesis—the one that she will, in revision, test against potentially complicating evidence and evolve.

It helps that the writer has specified her  interpretive context —the painter’s intentions—because a writer’s awareness of her interpretive context makes it much easier for her to decide which details to prioritize and what kind of questions to ask about them. A different interpretive context for the  Las Meninas paper, such as the history of painting techniques or the social structure of seventeenth-century royal households, would have caused the writer to emphasize different details and arrive different conclusions about their possible significance.

The success of analytical arguments often depends on a writer’s ability to persuade readers of the appropriateness of her choice of interpretive context. And so it is important for writers to ask and answer the question “In what context might my subject best be understood and why?”

It is okay, by the way, that the writer has not concerned herself prematurely with organization, introductions, and transitions. She has instead allowed her draft to move freely from idea to idea as these occurred to her. She might have come up with the useful ideas in Paragraph 7 had she pressed herself to commit to any one idea (the divine right of kings idea, for example) too soon.

Notice that this writer has prompted a sequence of thought by using the word “ interesting” . Repeated use of this word as a transition would not be adequate in a final draft because it encourages listing without explicit connections among claims or explanations of how each claim evolved into the next. In an exploratory draft, however, the word “interesting” keep the writer’s mind open to possibilities and allows her to try on various claims without worrying prematurely about whether her tentative claims are right or wrong.

The writer of the  Las Meninas paper has offered at least some evidence in support of her working central claim, “ Velázquez wants the king to give him the recognition he deserves by including him in the family. ” She notes the symbol on the painter’s vest, for example, which she says might have been added later by the king to show that the painter’s “status and brilliance have been appreciated.” She implies that the painter’s “confident stance” and “steady stare” also support her central claim. Notice, however, that she has not spelled out her reasons for making this connection between her evidence and her claim.

Nor has she corroborated her claim about this evidence with other evidence that could lend more support to her idea. Interesting, the potential central claims advanced in Paragraph 7 are not connected with the rather provocative details she has noted earlier in the draft: that “Velázquez dominates the painting along with the little girl,” that he “takes up the whole left side along with his gigantic easel,” and that “the king and queen are not as visible as they might be” suggesting that “they are not always at the center where everyone would expect them to be.”

In revision the writer would need to find more evidence in support of her claim and make the links between evidence and claims more explicit. She would also need to tackle the complicating evidence that she leaves dangling earlier.

This is a key step in evolving a central claim—pursuing the piece or pieces of evidence that do not clearly fit with the working central claim, explaining why they don’t fit, and determining what their significance might actually be. For this purpose, the writer would need to zoom in on the details of her evidence that she describes in her draft.

• So what that there are size differences in the painting? What might large or small size mean?
• So what that the king and queen are small, but the painter, princess, and dwarf (another servant) are all large and fairly equal in size and/or prominence?

Proposed answer: Perhaps the king and queen have been reduced so that Velázquez can showcase their daughter, the princess.

Test of this answer:  The size and location of the princess (center foreground) seems to support this answer, as does the princess being catered to by the ladies in waiting. But, if the painting is meant to showcase the princess, what is the point of the painter’s having made himself so large?

Another possible answer : Perhaps the small size and lack of physical prominence of the king and queen are relatively unimportant, in which case, what matters is that they are a presence, always overseeing events (an idea implied but not developed by the writer).

Test of this answer:  Further support for this answer comes from the possibility that we are meant to see the king and queen as reflected in a mirror on the back wall of the painter’s studio (an idea the writer mentions), in which case they would be standing in front of the scene depicted in the painting, literally overseeing events.There isn’t much evidence against this answer, except, again, for the large size of the painter, and the trivializing implications of the king’s and queen’s dimunition, but these are significant exceptions.

Another possible answer: Perhaps the painter is demonstrating his own ability to make the king and queen any size—any level of importance—he chooses. The king and queen are among the smallest as well as the least visible figures in the painting. Whether they are being exhibited as an actual painting on the back wall of the painter’s studio (a possibility the writer has not mentioned) or whether they appear as reflections in a small mirror on that back wall, they certainly lack stature in the painting in comparison with the painter, who is not only larger and more prominent than they are but also who, as the writer notes “dominates the painting along with the little girl.” The little girl is the princess, herself, and the supposed subject of the painting within the painting that Velázquez is working on.

Test:  This answer about the painter demonstrating his control of the representation of the kind and queen seems credible. It has the most evidence in its favor and the least evidence to contradict it. The writer would probably want to choose this idea and would need to reformulate her central claim to better accommodate it.

On the basis of the writer’s answers in Step 3, it would appear that rather than showcasing royal power, the painting showcases the painter’s own power. This idea is not a clear fit with the writer’s working central claim about the painter’s intentions, that “Velázquez wants the kind to give him the recognition he deserves by including him in the family.” So, what should the writer do?

What she should not do is beat a hasty retreat from her working central claim. She should use the complicating evidence to qualify, rather than abandon, her initial idea, which did, after all, have some evidence in its favor. Good writing shares with readers the thinking process that carried the writer forward from one idea to the next.

The writer’s evolved central claim would need to qualify the idea of the painter wishing to be recognized as a loyal servant and accepted member of the family (which are, themselves, not entirely compatible ideas), since there is evidence in the painting suggesting a more assertive stance on the part of Velázquez about the importance of painters and their art.

The writer is now ready to pursue the next step in the revision process: looking actively for other features of the painting that might corroborate her theory. This takes us to Step 5, the last step the writer would need to go through before composing a more polished draft.

The need to find additional corroboration is especially pressing for this writer because her new central claim that the painting demonstrates the artist’s power—not just his brilliance and desire for recognition—suggests an interpretation of the painting that would be unusual for an era in which most other court paintings flattered royal figures by portraying them as larger than life, powerful and heroic.

It is unlikely that any one central claim will explain all of the details in a subject, but a reasonable test of the value of one possible claim over another is how much of the relevant evidence it can explain. So the writer would try to apply her new central claim to details in the painting that have not yet received much attention, such as the painter himself with the large dwarf on the other side of the painting.

This pairing of dwarf and painter might initially seem to spell trouble for the new central claim about the painter demonstrating his power to frame the way the monarchs are represented. If it was, in fact, the painter’s intention to have his power recognized, why would he want to parallel himself—in size, placement, and facial expression—with  dwarf who is, presumably, a fairly low-level servant of the royal household, unlike the  meninas , who are the daughters of aristocrats? SO WHAT? that the dwarf is parallel with the painter?

The writer might argue that the dwarf suggests a visual pun or riddle, demonstrating that in the painter’s world the small can be made large (and vice versa, in the case of the king and queen). No longer “dwarfed” by his subordinate role as court painter, Velázquez stands tall. If this reading is correct, and if it is true, as the writer suggests, that Prince Philip himself later had the honorary cross added to Velázquez’s vest, we might assume that the king either entirely missed or was able to appreciate the painter’s wit.

Similarly, another of the writer’s key observations—that the painter “plays” with viewer’s expectations—fits with the central claim that the painting asks for recognition of the artist’s power, not just his loyal service. In subverting viewers’ expectations both by decentering the monarchs and concealing what is on the easel, the painter again emphasizes his power, in this case, over the viewers (among whom might be the king and queen if their images on the back wall are mirror reflections of them standing, like us, in front of the painting). He is not bound by their expectations, and in fact appears to use those expectations to manipulate viewers: he could make them wish to see something he has the power to withhold.

It is tempting at the end of the exploratory writing process for the writer to simply eliminate all the ideas and analysis that did not support her final choice of central claim. Why should you include all six steps when you know what the best version of your central claim is going to be?

Good analytical writing is collaborative. To a significant extent, good writing recreates for readers the thinking process that produced its conclusions. It shares with readers how a writer arrives at ideas, not just what the writer ultimately thinks. It takes readers along on a cognitive journey through the process of formulating and reformulating that results in a carefully qualified statement of ideas. Having made the trip, readers are more likely to appreciate the explanatory power of the most fully articulated statement of the central claim.

In a final draft, a writer can capture for readers the phases of thinking she went through by, for example, wording the central claim as a SEEMS TO BE ABOUT X claim (SEEMS TO BE ABOUT X, BUT IS REALLY—OR ALSO—ABOUT Y.) This wording would allow the writer of the  Las Meninas paper to share with readers the interesting shift she makes from the idea that the painting promotes the divine right of kings to the idea that it also endorses the power of the painter to cause people to see royalty in this light (a visual pun, as the light on the princess is actually produced by the painter’s brush).

The writer could also set up a central claim that puts X in tension with Y, while granting some validity to both. In this case, X (the painter wanting to be recognized as a member of the family) would serve as back pressure todrive Y (the painter wanting to demonstrate, tongue-in-cheek, the power of painters).

In an inductively organized paper, you would begin with a working central claim somewhat closer to the final version of the thesis that was the case in the exploratory draft, but you wuld still take the readers along on your step-by-step journey to your conclusions. In a deductively organized paper, wherein the central claim must appear from the outset in something close to its full version, you would still be able to show your readers how your thinking evolved. The writer of the  Las Meninas paper could do this by beginning with details that seem to obviously support the central claim (large size and prominence of the painter and his easel relative to the king and queen) and then move to details (such as the large dwarf) that readers would be less likely to connect with the central claim without her help.

Opening statements in Trump's historic trial set to begin Monday after tense day of jury selection

Opening statements are set to begin next week in Donald Trump’s historic criminal trial after the final members of the jury were seated Friday, following a dramatic day in which two prospective jurors broke down in tears, an appeals court judge rejected Trump's request for a stay, and a man set himself on fire in front of the courthouse.

“We’re going to have opening statements on Monday morning. This trial is starting,” Judge Juan Merchan said towards the end of the day, after successfully seating the remaining five alternate jurors that were needed.

The case — the first-ever criminal trial of a former president —will be heard by a panel of 12 jurors and a total of six alternates. It's expected to last roughly six weeks.

The five alternates ultimately selected Friday include an unemployed married woman who’s into art and described herself as not political, an audio professional, a contract specialist, a clothing company executive and a construction company project manager. It took four days of jury selection to find the 18 jurors.

Around the same time the judge declared, "we have our full panel" inside the courtroom in the early afternoon, a man set himself on fire outside the courthouse. The NYPD said the man, identified as Max Azzarello of Florida, later died. He appeared to have had pamphlets describing a conspiracy involving cryptocurrency that he threw around before setting himself ablaze, police said.

Later in the afternoon, Trump's attorneys were in a state appeals court trying again to get an emergency stay of the trial. Trump attorney Cliff Robert argued his client could not get a fair trial in Manhattan, which had been Trump's longtime home before moving to Florida after he was elected president in 2016.

Steven Wu of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office countered that "what the last week has shown is that the jury selection has worked."

"We have 18 ordinary New Yorkers who are ready to serve. It would be unfair to them and the public for this to be delayed further," he argued. The judge rejected Trump's stay request a short time later.  

The jury selection process Friday was especially intense, some potential jurors breaking down in tears and others saying they were too anxious to serve.

The day began with the judge calling up the 22 remaining potential jurors from the previous pool of 96 to answer questions designed to indicate whether they could be fair and impartial about the divisive real estate mogul and presumptive Republican nominee for president.

The first of those potential jurors was dismissed after she said she didn’t think she could be fair. “I have really, really bad anxiety and people have found out where I am,” she told the judge. A short time later, two other potential jurors were dismissed after each told the judge that upon further reflection, “I don’t think I can be impartial.”

Other potential jurors included a married father who said he listens to a podcast called “Order of Man,” which is described on Apple’s website as discussions about “reclaiming what it means to be a man.” Some past guests of the podcast include people who’ve been outspoken in their support of Trump and were highly critical of the civil fraud case New York Attorney General Letitia James brought against the former president. The man, an audio specialist, was chosen as one of the alternates.

Another potential juror was a married fund manager who said he’d done “get-out-the-vote” work for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Trump’s 2016 presidential opponent. Trump and his attorney Todd Blanche passed notes back and forth while that juror was speaking. He was later dismissed after being asked about a 2020 Facebook post where he apparently called Trump “the devil and a sociopath.”

Trump appeared most interested in jurors whose answers offer ambiguity around their personal political views. When one prospective juror said they were a Fox News viewer, Trump cocked his head, then quickly conferred with his lawyer, Todd Blanche.

Another potential juror was a woman who became emotional as she disclosed she'd served two years in prison on drug-related charges, but said she could be "fair and impartial."

During a morning break, Merchan — who'd chided reporters on Thursday for disclosing too much information about potential jurors — said the woman had shared "very personal things about her life" and was "very brave." “I just wanted to encourage the press to please be kind. Please be kind to this person,” the judge said. He later dismissed her, saying she needed a certificate of release to be qualified for service going forward. On her way out, she cheerfully called out, "Good luck!"

Following that juror's departure, the DA's office began its individual questioning of the jurors. One woman, who'd disclosed that her father is lifelong friends with Trump ally turned critic Chris Christie, broke down in tears when prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked her an innocuous question about the burden of proof in the case. "I feel so nervous and anxious right now. I’m sorry," she responded, bursting out into tears. "I thought I could do this," she said, adding "I wouldn’t want someone who feels this way to judge my case." She was dismissed.

Hoffinger's questioning was followed by Trump attorney Susan Necheles, who asked a potential juror who'd started their own business how she would assess a witness's credibility. The woman then asked to speak to the judge, saying she was "getting anxiety and self-doubt” from Necheles's line of questioning. She was dismissed. 

Necheles later asked another woman — who previously said she was a victim of sexual assault — whether she would hold it against Trump that women outside this case have accused Trump of sexual assault. She said she would not have a problem setting those accusations aside but the judge ultimately excused her, saying, "It’s best to err on the side of caution."

Another man said he has some differences from Trump on his policies but thinks he's “usually awesome.” He was not chosen for the jury.

On his way into court in the morning, Trump again complained the case against him is "unfair," and that the partial gag order preventing him from lashing out at witnesses, prosecutors, court staffers and jurors is not "constitutional." "Everyone else can say whatever they want about me. They can say anything they want. They can continue to make up lies and everything else. They lie. They’re real scum. But you know what? I’m not allowed to speak," he told reporters.

Prosecutors this week asked the judge to fine Trump and hold him in contempt for social media posts that they said violate the gag order. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Tuesday.

The m a in pa nel of 12 is made up of seven men and five women, including two lawyers, a teacher, a retired wealth manager, a product development manager, a security engineer, a software engineer, a speech therapist and a physical therapist. The foreman — the juror who essentially acts as the leader and spokesperson for the panel — is a married man who works in sales and gets his news from The New York Times, MSNBC and Fox News.

The lone alternate selected Thursday is a woman who works as an asset manager.

Trump vented about the speed of the process in a post on social media shortly after the final jurors were selected, claiming the judge is “‘railroading’ me, at breakneck speed, in order to completely satisfy his ‘friends’.”

Later in the day, Merchan held what's known as a Sandoval hearing . That's a type of hearing designed to let defendants know the scope of questions they could face from prosecutors on cross-examination so they can make informed decisions about whether to take the witness stand in their own defense.

Leaving court on Friday, Trump was asked whether he was still planning to testify and he said he was.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office disclosed in a court filing that it would like to ask Trump about several items, among them the $464 million civil judgment against him and his company for fraud , the total $88 million verdicts and liability findings for sexual abuse  and  defamation in lawsuits brought by writer E. Jean Carroll and a number of other adverse court rulings over the past few years.

Trump has denied wrongdoing in all the cases and is appealing  the fraud judgment and the Carroll verdicts.

Prosecutors said they want to be able to bring those findings up “to impeach the credibility of the defendant” if he takes the witness stand.

Discussing the findings in the fraud case, prosecutor Matthew Colangelo told the judge it was "hard to think of something that is more squarely in the wheelhouse” for the DA to ask Trump about "than a finding by a judge of persistent and repeated fraud and illegality."

Trump's attorney Emil Bove countered that prosecutors shouldn't be able to breach the topic at all because Trump's appeal is still pending. He made similar arguments over the DA's contention that they should be allowed to ask about a judge's finding that he was untruthful on the witness stand during the fraud trial and had violated a gag order in the case.

“Is it your position that because a case is being appealed or might be appealed, that therefore it can not be used?" Merchan asked the lawyer. "Not necessarily," Bove replied.

The judge said he'd issue his ruling on the dispute on Monday morning.

Trump said last week he  “absolutely” plans to testify , but he is under no obligation to do so.

Asked by Necheles at the end of the day who the DA's first witness would be, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said they wouldn't inform Trump's team of the person's identity until Sunday, given that Trump has been criticizing some witnesses on social media despite the partial gag order in the case. “And if that should be tweeted, that’ll be the last time we provide that courtesy,” Steinglass said.

Merchan called the DA's position "understandable" and told Necheles "I will not compel them to do anything."

Trump has pleaded  not guilty  to 34 counts of falsifying business records and faces up to four years in prison if he is convicted.

Bragg alleges that Trump falsified records to hide money he was paying his former lawyer Michael Cohen to reimburse him for $130,000 he paid adult film actor Stormy Daniels  near the end of the 2016 presidential campaign. Daniels has claimed she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. Trump has denied that he slept with Daniels, but he has acknowledged repaying Cohen.

The DA’s office also alleges that as part of a scheme to boost Trump, National Enquirer publisher American Media Inc. paid $150,000 to model and actor Karen McDougal , who appeared in Playboy magazine and claimed that she had a nine-month affair with Trump before he was elected president “in exchange for her agreement not to speak out about the alleged sexual relationship,” according to a statement of facts filed by Bragg.

Trump has also denied having a sexual relationship with McDougal.

Adam Reiss is a reporter and producer for NBC and MSNBC.

Lisa Rubin is an MSNBC legal correspondent and a former litigator.

Dareh Gregorian is a politics reporter for NBC News.

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, automatically generate references for free.

• Knowledge Base
• Dissertation
• What Is a Thesis? | Ultimate Guide & Examples

What Is a Thesis? | Ultimate Guide & Examples

Published on 15 September 2022 by Tegan George . Revised on 5 December 2023.

A thesis is a type of research paper based on your original research. It is usually submitted as the final step of a PhD program in the UK.

Writing a thesis can be a daunting experience. Indeed, alongside a dissertation , it is the longest piece of writing students typically complete. It relies on your ability to conduct research from start to finish: designing your research , collecting data , developing a robust analysis, drawing strong conclusions , and writing concisely .

Thesis template

You can also download our full thesis template in the format of your choice below. Our template includes a ready-made table of contents , as well as guidance for what each chapter should include. It’s easy to make it your own, and can help you get started.

Download Word template Download Google Docs template

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Be assured that you'll submit flawless writing. Upload your document to correct all your mistakes.

Table of contents

Thesis vs. thesis statement, how to structure a thesis, acknowledgements or preface, list of figures and tables, list of abbreviations, introduction, literature review, methodology, reference list, proofreading and editing, defending your thesis, frequently asked questions about theses.

You may have heard the word thesis as a standalone term or as a component of academic writing called a thesis statement . Keep in mind that these are two very different things.

• A thesis statement is a very common component of an essay, particularly in the humanities. It usually comprises 1 or 2 sentences in the introduction of your essay , and should clearly and concisely summarise the central points of your academic essay .
• A thesis is a long-form piece of academic writing, often taking more than a full semester to complete. It is generally a degree requirement to complete a PhD program.
• In many countries, particularly the UK, a dissertation is generally written at the bachelor’s or master’s level.
• In the US, a dissertation is generally written as a final step toward obtaining a PhD.

The only proofreading tool specialized in correcting academic writing

The academic proofreading tool has been trained on 1000s of academic texts and by native English editors. Making it the most accurate and reliable proofreading tool for students.

Correct my document today

The final structure of your thesis depends on a variety of components, such as:

• Your discipline
• Your theoretical approach

Humanities theses are often structured more like a longer-form essay . Just like in an essay, you build an argument to support a central thesis.

In both hard and social sciences, theses typically include an introduction , literature review , methodology section ,  results section , discussion section , and conclusion section . These are each presented in their own dedicated section or chapter. In some cases, you might want to add an appendix .

Thesis examples

We’ve compiled a short list of thesis examples to help you get started.

• Example thesis #1:   ‘Abolition, Africans, and Abstraction: the Influence of the “Noble Savage” on British and French Antislavery Thought, 1787-1807’ by Suchait Kahlon.
• Example thesis #2: ‘”A Starving Man Helping Another Starving Man”: UNRRA, India, and the Genesis of Global Relief, 1943-1947’ by Julian Saint Reiman.

The very first page of your thesis contains all necessary identifying information, including:

• Your full title
• Your full name
• Your department
• Your institution and degree program
• Your submission date.

Sometimes the title page also includes your student ID, the name of your supervisor, or the university’s logo. Check out your university’s guidelines if you’re not sure.

Read more about title pages

The acknowledgements section is usually optional. Its main point is to allow you to thank everyone who helped you in your thesis journey, such as supervisors, friends, or family. You can also choose to write a preface , but it’s typically one or the other, not both.

Read more about acknowledgements Read more about prefaces

An abstract is a short summary of your thesis. Usually a maximum of 300 words long, it’s should include brief descriptions of your research objectives , methods, results, and conclusions. Though it may seem short, it introduces your work to your audience, serving as a first impression of your thesis.

Read more about abstracts

A table of contents lists all of your sections, plus their corresponding page numbers and subheadings if you have them. This helps your reader seamlessly navigate your document.

Your table of contents should include all the major parts of your thesis. In particular, don’t forget the the appendices. If you used heading styles, it’s easy to generate an automatic table Microsoft Word.

Read more about tables of contents

While not mandatory, if you used a lot of tables and/or figures, it’s nice to include a list of them to help guide your reader. It’s also easy to generate one of these in Word: just use the ‘Insert Caption’ feature.

Read more about lists of figures and tables

If you have used a lot of industry- or field-specific abbreviations in your thesis, you should include them in an alphabetised list of abbreviations . This way, your readers can easily look up any meanings they aren’t familiar with.

Read more about lists of abbreviations

Relatedly, if you find yourself using a lot of very specialised or field-specific terms that may not be familiar to your reader, consider including a glossary . Alphabetise the terms you want to include with a brief definition.

Read more about glossaries

An introduction sets up the topic, purpose, and relevance of your thesis, as well as expectations for your reader. This should:

• Ground your research topic , sharing any background information your reader may need
• Define the scope of your work
• Introduce any existing research on your topic, situating your work within a broader problem or debate
• State your research question(s)
• Outline (briefly) how the remainder of your work will proceed

In other words, your introduction should clearly and concisely show your reader the “what, why, and how” of your research.

Read more about introductions

A literature review helps you gain a robust understanding of any extant academic work on your topic, encompassing:

• Selecting relevant sources
• Determining the credibility of your sources
• Critically evaluating each of your sources
• Drawing connections between sources, including any themes, patterns, conflicts, or gaps

A literature review is not merely a summary of existing work. Rather, your literature review should ultimately lead to a clear justification for your own research, perhaps via:

• Addressing a gap in the literature
• Building on existing knowledge to draw new conclusions
• Exploring a new theoretical or methodological approach
• Introducing a new solution to an unresolved problem
• Definitively advocating for one side of a theoretical debate

Read more about literature reviews

Theoretical framework

Your literature review can often form the basis for your theoretical framework, but these are not the same thing. A theoretical framework defines and analyses the concepts and theories that your research hinges on.

Read more about theoretical frameworks

Your methodology chapter shows your reader how you conducted your research. It should be written clearly and methodically, easily allowing your reader to critically assess the credibility of your argument. Furthermore, your methods section should convince your reader that your method was the best way to answer your research question.

A methodology section should generally include:

• Your overall approach ( quantitative vs. qualitative )
• Your research methods (e.g., a longitudinal study )
• Your data collection methods (e.g., interviews or a controlled experiment
• Any tools or materials you used (e.g., computer software)
• The data analysis methods you chose (e.g., statistical analysis , discourse analysis )
• A strong, but not defensive justification of your methods

Read more about methodology sections

Your results section should highlight what your methodology discovered. These two sections work in tandem, but shouldn’t repeat each other. While your results section can include hypotheses or themes, don’t include any speculation or new arguments here.

Your results section should:

• State each (relevant) result with any (relevant) descriptive statistics (e.g., mean , standard deviation ) and inferential statistics (e.g., test statistics , p values )
• Explain how each result relates to the research question
• Determine whether the hypothesis was supported

Additional data (like raw numbers or interview transcripts ) can be included as an appendix . You can include tables and figures, but only if they help the reader better understand your results.

Read more about results sections

Your discussion section is where you can interpret your results in detail. Did they meet your expectations? How well do they fit within the framework that you built? You can refer back to any relevant source material to situate your results within your field, but leave most of that analysis in your literature review.

For any unexpected results, offer explanations or alternative interpretations of your data.

Read more about discussion sections

Your thesis conclusion should concisely answer your main research question. It should leave your reader with an ultra-clear understanding of your central argument, and emphasise what your research specifically has contributed to your field.

Why does your research matter? What recommendations for future research do you have? Lastly, wrap up your work with any concluding remarks.

Read more about conclusions

In order to avoid plagiarism , don’t forget to include a full reference list at the end of your thesis, citing the sources that you used. Choose one citation style and follow it consistently throughout your thesis, taking note of the formatting requirements of each style.

Which style you choose is often set by your department or your field, but common styles include MLA , Chicago , and APA.

Create APA citations Create MLA citations

In order to stay clear and concise, your thesis should include the most essential information needed to answer your research question. However, chances are you have many contributing documents, like interview transcripts or survey questions . These can be added as appendices , to save space in the main body.

Read more about appendices

Once you’re done writing, the next part of your editing process begins. Leave plenty of time for proofreading and editing prior to submission. Nothing looks worse than grammar mistakes or sloppy spelling errors!

Consider using a professional thesis editing service to make sure your final project is perfect.

Once you’ve submitted your final product, it’s common practice to have a thesis defense, an oral component of your finished work. This is scheduled by your advisor or committee, and usually entails a presentation and Q&A session.

After your defense, your committee will meet to determine if you deserve any departmental honors or accolades. However, keep in mind that defenses are usually just a formality. If there are any serious issues with your work, these should be resolved with your advisor way before a defense.

The conclusion of your thesis or dissertation shouldn’t take up more than 5-7% of your overall word count.

When you mention different chapters within your text, it’s considered best to use Roman numerals for most citation styles. However, the most important thing here is to remain consistent whenever using numbers in your dissertation .

If you only used a few abbreviations in your thesis or dissertation, you don’t necessarily need to include a list of abbreviations .

If your abbreviations are numerous, or if you think they won’t be known to your audience, it’s never a bad idea to add one. They can also improve readability, minimising confusion about abbreviations unfamiliar to your reader.

A thesis or dissertation outline is one of the most critical first steps in your writing process. It helps you to lay out and organise your ideas and can provide you with a roadmap for deciding what kind of research you’d like to undertake.

Generally, an outline contains information on the different sections included in your thesis or dissertation, such as:

• Your anticipated title
• Your abstract
• Your chapters (sometimes subdivided into further topics like literature review, research methods, avenues for future research, etc.)

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the ‘Cite this Scribbr article’ button to automatically add the citation to our free Reference Generator.

George, T. (2023, December 05). What Is a Thesis? | Ultimate Guide & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved 29 April 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/thesis-dissertation/thesis-ultimate-guide/

Is this article helpful?

Tegan George

Other students also liked, dissertation & thesis outline | example & free templates, how to write a thesis or dissertation conclusion, how to write a thesis or dissertation introduction.

Trending Topics

• Queen Of Tears
• Min Hee Jin
• BABYMONSTER

SEVENTEEN’s Vernon Owns Up To Being A “Middle School Drop Out” In Candid Weverse Comment

SEVENTEEN ‘s Vernon can make fans laugh without trying!

On May 1, the PLEDIS Entertainment idol answered some of their questions on Weverse . He talked about simple things like not yet seeing JOKER 2 in person.

He also had more casual responses like greeting fans like as if they were friends texting each other.

One particular question and answer portion is going viral: when one CARAT asked him to help them complete their thesis.

Vernon,  help me on my thesis paper. — Fan

A thesis is a long research paper that is usually used in the context of obtaining a Master’s degree. Vernon’s reply was hilariously straightforward!

I’m a middle school dropout., — Vernon

He has always been honest about stopping his studies as a young kid, even addressing it in the lyrics of their song “Trauma.”

Trauma got me bad, bad I dropped out of school in 8th grade Basically had no friends — Vernon

Instead of going through the usual formal education path, he studied at home with his parents. This gave him time to pursue his dream of being a K-Pop idol on the side.

I have been taking homeschooling from my parent after I dropped out school in my 8th grade. — Vernon on the Mnet show Visiting Tutor

Fans always love how he owns up to his lack of a degree without remorse.

😭😭I love that whenever someone asks vernon anything academic, he pulls out the “I dropped out of middle school” card. LIKE 😭😭he’s actually hilarious😭😭 he don’t wanna deal w any school stuff pic.twitter.com/OgGLfeVuAB — mika ᡣ𐭩ྀིྀི₊ ⊹ maestro🪄 (@rockwithgyu_325) May 1, 2024

vernon came onto weverse to clarify that he’s a middle school dropout, has watched challengers, told someone to pass their exams instead of passing away and then left … — misa (@maesvto) May 1, 2024

i’m so over the moon, i still can’t believe that vernon replied to me? he knows my existence 😭 i really can’t with his dark humor 😭 but regardless of being a middle school dropout u still achieved so much more & striving to become even more successful in life! i love u ♡ ̆̈ pic.twitter.com/FJoLacuZ7y — lexmglvr ಇ. (@mylovemin9yu_k) May 1, 2024

While he could not help the fan with their thesis, he was able to give another one advice on exams.

Fan : Vernon, I have an exam tomorrow. Should I pass it or pass away? Vernon : Preferably the former.

Though Vernon does not have an advanced degree, he is successful as an artist nonetheless!

Netizens Are Shocked At How Much Samuel Has Grown As He Reunites With SEVENTEEN’s Woozi For The “MAESTRO” Challenge

SEVENTEEN’s New Album Thrown Away In Bulk On The Streets Of Japan

Netizens Accuse HYBE Of “Sabotaging” SEVENTEEN’s Comeback

SEVENTEEN’s Woozi Makes Netizens Emotional With The Story Behind “SUPER”

See more SEVENTEEN

Share This Post

• Girls' Generation
• LE SSERAFIM
• Super Junior
• ZEROBASEONE

View Dark Theme

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

‘You a scam artist’: the most brutal moments in Kendrick Lamar’s Drake diss track

The long-awaited rebuttal to Drake has arrived: Euphoria, a track in which Lamar dismantles Drake’s street credibility. But why use misogyny and homophobia to do it?

Haymakers were thrown yesterday by Kendrick Lamar towards Drake as rap’s top bout enters another round, following duels involving undercards such as J Cole, Rick Ross, Future and A$AP Rocky.

Lamar initially rang the bell a month ago with Like That, slagging off Drake as a mere pop star. Drake came back with Push Ups, featuring the allegation that Lamar’s wife was cheating on him (among various other barbs). Before Lamar could respond, Drake released Taylor Made Freestyle, which used AI to cheekily have 2Pac and Snoop Dogg – two of Lamar’s west coast forebears – chide Lamar for not following up soon enough.

Follow up he now has, with Euphoria, which many are putting straight into the diss track hall of fame thanks to a sustained barrage of blows against Drake’s Blackness, street credibility, artistic depth, financial agreements, romantic relationships and more.

The central thesis

The thrust of Lamar’s track is that Drake certainly isn’t street, and isn’t really Black – or at the very least, isn’t fully embraced by Black culture. He instructs him not to say the N-word, says he’s “faking for likes and digital hugs” and raps: “You’re not a rap artist, you a scam artist with the hopes of being accepted / Tommy Hilfiger stood out, but Fubu never had been your collection.” The suggestion is that Drake wears Tommy Hilfiger, a designer regarded distrustfully in hip-hop following a rumour that he was hostile to Black consumers (which he denied), but not Fubu, the Black-owned brand For Us, By Us.

As if that wasn’t clear enough, later there’s this: “How many more fairytale stories ’bout your life till we had enough? / How many more Black features till you finally feel that you’re Black enough?” And “you got shit twisted / What is it? The braids?” is a funny line that takes aim at Drake’s braided hair, seen as an attempt to appear more conventionally Black.

Euphoria at times echoes what was previously the most high-profile and successful diss track against Drake: The Story of Adidon, by Pusha T. While the revelation of Drake having a secret child with a porn star was that track’s biggest gotcha, other lines, alleging that Drake paraded his Black father to assert his Blackness, were equally stinging. Pusha also isolated his hair: “Confused, always felt you weren’t Black enough / Afraid to grow it ’cause your ’fro wouldn’t nap enough.”

The threats

Another major echo of The Story of Adidon comes in how Lamar chides Drake for not, in his eyes, properly raising his son Adonis, in a sustained series of unadorned lines: “Giving him tools to walk through life like day-by-day, know nothing ’bout that / Teaching him morals, integrity, discipline, listen, man, you don’t know nothing ’bout that.” Lamar’s hackles are clearly up after Drake’s allegation about his wife, and escalates the family drama: “Talk about me and my family, crodie? / Someone gon’ bleed in your family, crodie” is the track’s most blatant threat.

The wordplay

There’s another threat in another line about family: “Dementia must run in his family, but let it get shaky / I’ll park his son” – “park” being shorthand for shutting someone up with force, and a play on Parkinson’s. Who the son and father are is open to interpretation – it’s not quite the “motherfucking quintuple entendre” that Drake asked for on Taylor Made Freestyle, but there’s a lot to unpack, even if the pun veers on being laboured and clever-clever. More straightforwardly fun is stuff like “let your core audience stomach that, then tell ’em where you get your abs from”, a reference to the longstanding rumour that Drake had cosmetic surgery on his abdominals.

The hidden meanings

“I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk, I hate the way that you dress” works well as a bracingly straightforward statement – remarkable in an age when dissing tends to be folded into layers of subliminal meaning – but it’s actually a callback to how DMX once described Drake. Another choice Easter egg is at the very beginning, with a reversed recording of Richard Pryor in The Wiz, saying: “Everything they say about me is true” – the next line in the film being: “I’m a phoney.”

The low points

There can be something hectoring about Lamar at times in his discography, less the Mr Morale of his last album and more Mr Moralising – and this turns ugly with some outright misogyny on Euphoria. He refers to gossiping as “ho shit” even as he delivers a gossipy diss track, and “we hate the bitches you fuck, ’cause they confuse themselves with real women” is gross even if you take it as a subliminal reference to Drake’s oft-remarked-upon friendships with teenage girls and women. There are frequent lines comparing Drake to a woman, which Lamar tries to legitimise by amping women up – “I believe you don’t like women, it’s real competition” – but it’s patronising, and there’s a whiff of homophobia in framing Drake as being less than a real man for having feminine qualities. That also comes through in his loaded praise of Drake’s danceable music – “Keep making me dance, waving my hand, and it won’t be no threat” – and in saying Drake “pops ass” while dancing with women.

The homophobia becomes horribly explicit on a line that calls Drake’s OVO labelmates “dick riders”, using gay sex as a diss. It was repellent when Nas was doing it on his own hall-of-fame diss track Ether, and that was back in 2001; Lamar, whose artistry rests on his self-presentation as flawed but enlightened, demeans himself here. Also, the three-part beat is blah even if Lamar does ride it with skill and animation. And no one apart from accountants cares about percentage splits in label deals, subject matter which results in some very dull lines.

The next steps

There will probably be much social media discussion around mixed-race identity, colourism and what constitutes “real” Blackness – though Lamar isn’t really talking about mixed-race people generally, just one in particular. And that man-to-man enmity will no doubt continue. “If you take it there, I’m taking it further”: Lamar promises that if Drake retaliates, he’ll retaliate again. For all that endless war is an integral part of American life, that would probably be more than enough from this chapter. Drake has already shot back, posting a scene of Julia Stiles in 10 Things I Hate About You saying lines similar to Lamar’s “I hate the way that you dress” screed – a neat puncturing of Lamar’s occasional pomposity. Humour rather than anger will be Drake’s best recourse now, and we’ll certainly need some good jokes to keep the combat worth watching.

• Kendrick Lamar

Most viewed

GHOSTS AT THE THRESHOLD: DISEMBODIED MEMORY AND MOURNING IN POST-WAR VIOLENT DEATH IN CONTEMPORARY MIDDLE EASTERN AND SOUTH ASIAN LITERATURES

Violent death that violates the ontological dignity of the body and the disappeared corpse often results in a crisis of mourning for those left behind, with the matter made all the more complicated when it comes to instances of politically motivated violence in the context of war. What follows such death/disappearance are issues of identification, collection of remains and, ultimately, an inability to enact necessary death rituals such as washing, shrouding and burial, leading to a separation between the dislocated soul and the corporeal form on part of the dead and the issue of incomplete mourning on part of the bereaved. Both the living and the dead, thus, come to occupy a liminal space ( barzakh ) where the boundaries between past/present, human/non-human, and dead/alive fall away. This paper argues that this in-between state helps the mourner gain access to a radical state of bearing witness outside of the oppressive binaries of the modern world. This work makes use of Middle Eastern (Iraq, Palestine, Egypt) and South Asian (Kashmir) literatures dealing with dehumanization and violent death in the context of what Achille Mbembe refers to as “death-worlds,” inhabitants of which are deemed “living-dead.”

Degree Type

• Master of Arts
• Languages and Cultures

Campus location

• West Lafayette

Advisor/Supervisor/Committee Chair

Additional committee member 2, additional committee member 3, additional committee member 4, usage metrics.

• Comparative and transnational literature

Let your curiosity lead the way:

Apply Today

• Arts & Sciences
• Graduate Studies in A&S

Shelei Pan wins 2024 Spector Prize

Shelei-pan.jpg.

Each year, the Department of Biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis awards a prize to a graduating senior in memory of Marion Smith Spector, a 1938 graduate who studied zoology under the late Viktor Hamburger. The Spector Prize, first awarded in 1974, recognizes academic excellence and outstanding undergraduate achievement in research. Students are nominated by their research mentors for outstanding research that has made substantial contributions to a field.

This year’s winner, Shelei Pan, is a December graduate who majored in the Neuroscience track of the Biology Major, and minored in Spanish.  Her thesis research The dynamic roles of cerebrospinal fluid in brain development and pediatric central nervous system pathology was completed in the Strahle Lab.

In her nomination letter, Jennifer Strahle , Professor of Neurosurgery, Orthopedic Surgery and Pediatrics, wrote, “Shelei’s work clearly demonstrates extraordinary achievement. From a scientific standpoint, her work has the potential to revolutionize our understanding of cerebrospinal fluid flow. This would be a substantial achievement for a PhD student. For it to occur during her time as an undergraduate is nothing short of phenomenal. In the last year, her contributions have accelerated despite carrying a full academic course load. Her ability to do so bodes well for her future career as a physician-scientist. Her work on the novel identification of specific CSF circulation routes within the brain was published in Nature Communications with Shelei as the sole first author. I have not seen this level of commitment and unending intellectual curiosity from anyone with whom I have worked. Shelei’s work has resulted in significant advances in our understanding of CSF interaction with the central nervous system.”

Pan says “I am honored to join the rich legacy of undergraduates to receive the Spector Prize. Partaking in research over the past 4-5 years has presented innumerable opportunities for my personal and professional growth, above all the privilege of receiving unparalleled mentorship from faculty who I consider to be my greatest role models. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my PI, Dr. Jennifer Strahle, for her wholehearted dedication and enthusiasm towards facilitating my development as a scientist, and for providing an invaluable grounding influence in connecting the importance of bench work to the humans it may one day impact. I would also like to give special thanks to Dr. Erik Herzog and Dr. Joan Downey for their unwavering support and wisdom through the years. Winning the Spector Prize is a reflection of the amazing environment all of my mentors and the Biology Department at WashU have created to truly make a difference in my life.”

Honorable mentions for the Spector Prize include Erica Hurley for her work in Joseph Corbo’s lab, Braxton Sizemore for his work in Ashley Edes’ lab, Jessica Greven for her work in Thomas Brett’s lab, and Yuhua (Amelia) Li for her work in Albert (Gus) Davis’ lab. All Spector Prize winners will present their research in a special seminar, and will receive a prize and formal acknowledgement at a celebration of biology honors and research emphasis students in May.

in the news:

Davis wins 2024 Quatrano Prize

Walensky calls for collaborative approach to public health policy, education

Scientists track red-tailed hawks nesting near WashU campus

Unlocking the ‘chain of worms’