thesis umbrella method

Developing a Thesis: Finding the Umbrella Idea

Developing a good thesis is often the result of finding the "umbrella idea." Finding this idea requires that students move back and forth between a text's particularities and its big ideas in order to find a suitable "fit" between the two that the students can write about. This fit is then summed up in the "umbrella idea," or the big idea that all of their observations can stand under.

For instance, in an exploration of the Gospels as rhetoric, a student makes the specific observation that, in three of the four gospels, Jesus is reported as saying dramatically different things during his crucifixion. This observation by itself won't produce a paper - it's simply a statement of fact, with which no one will disagree. Nevertheless, this observation provokes a broader question: do these differences constitute a contradiction in the text? And if so, how do we understand this contradiction? What are the conditions of religious truth? Is there room for a contradiction as important as this?

Of course, these questions are too big to be addressed in an academic paper. And so the student returns to the text, still with these too-big questions haunting him. Reviewing the specific contradictions of the text, he crafts another set of questions: How should we understand the differences we see across the four gospels? What might have inspired these writers to craft this important crucifixion scene differently - particularly when, as is true of the authors of Matthew and Luke, they were using the same sources? The student posits that these differences arise from a difference in audience, historical moment, and rhetorical purpose. He turns to scholarship and finds his interpretation confirmed.

But the bigger questions persist. If the gospels are constructed to serve the earthly purposes of converting or supporting the beliefs of specific audiences, how can they also be considered as true? After doing a great deal of sketching, the student posits that perhaps the differences and contradictions are precisely what communicates the texts' truth to its audience of believers. After all, if the truth of a supreme being is beyond human grasp, then perhaps it requires a many-voiced or polyglossic narrative. With this idea in mind, the student produces a paper that not only details the variances across the texts, but offers a claim about why an audience of believers are not deterred by the differences. It is this claim that serves as the umbrella idea, synthesizing the student writer's various observations and ideas.

To sum up, successful employment of the umbrella method depends on four steps:

• Students must move fluidly back and forth between the text and their abstractions/generalizations, ready to adjust their ideas to the new evidence and new abstractions that they encounter.
• Students must sketch their ideas. Drawing their ideas helps students pull their thinking out of linear, two-dimensional modes, enabling them to see multiple possibilities for their essays.
• Students must seek an umbrella idea, under which their ideas can stand. To get to this umbrella idea, they need not only to analyze but to synthesize: they need to bring disparate ideas together, to see if they fit.
• They further need to create this synthesis by playing with language, creating an umbrella sentence that can embrace their ideas. This requires that students write and revise their thesis sentence several times as they write their paper. It also requires that students have a basic understanding of the principles of style, so that they can understand how to place their ideas in appropriate clauses, create the proper emphasis, and so on.

About the Author :

Karen Gocsik is the Director of the Analytical Writing Program at the University of California, San Diego.

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• Teaching Guidelines

Teaching the Thesis Sentence

Most writing teachers agree that the thesis occupies a very important position, both in our student papers and in our teaching. We also agree that students tend to "rush" the thesis, and that the dominance (or even the presence) of a thesis (especially a premature thesis) can get in the way of a good paper. Accordingly, most writing instructors have a repertoire of methods to help students find a thesis that will focus and guide an interesting and persuasive academic paper. We offer some of those methods here, with the observation that these instructors in fact teach the thesis in multiple ways in their classrooms.

Tips for Helping Your Students to Write Better Theses

Here, then, are some things to try as you get students to write better theses:

• Respect their opinions (even if you don't agree with them), and show them how to harvest these opinions for academic purposes.
• Ask students to look for parts and patterns in a text and to develop their analysis from these patterns.
• Move your students back and forth, from the particular to the general, until they find the right "fit" between their particular observations and the Big Idea of the text.
• Ask them to develop an "umbrella idea" that synthesizes seemingly disparate observations.
• Instruct your students to look for hidden assumptions, both in the texts they're writing about and in their own work. Present the question: What needs to be true about the world for this claim to be true?
• Help your students expand their thesis sentences by introducing a counter-claim or complicating evidence. Then work with them to consider how to balance these claims in their paper/thesis.
• Debunk the thesis—and then debunk the debunking. Encourage students to keep looking for evidence that challenges their thesis (and not just evidence that supports it).
• Ask students to draw their papers. This frees them from thinking linearly and helps them to consider possibilities that might not have appeared to them otherwise.
• Warn students against common thesis problems, including the One-Size-Fits-All Thesis and the Laundry List Thesis. Encourage them to integrate their ideas rather than list them.
• Finally, remind students that there is no formula for a good thesis: form is dictated by idea, and not vice versa. Understanding the principles of style will help you and your students to create a sentence whose structure reflects the structure of the argument.

Shelby Grantham: Thesis Writing from the Solar Plexus

Professor Grantham's advice, in a nutshell, is "Find a topic that matters to you, and then figure out why it matters to you." This may sound like an obvious place to start, but it's not. Students are generally looking not for topics that interest them, but topics that interest the teacher—not understanding that we find it exciting to discover their arguments, their points of view.

Students often have very good instincts about paper topics, but they don't know what to do with their ideas. The first thing that they are likely to do is to take their good instinct for a paper topic and try to abstract it. Before attempting any abstractions, students should first consider why this topic, in particular, interests them. Professor Grantham has her students freewrite on a topic, asking them to explore their own feelings, experiences, and ideas. Students are not to worry about grammar, nor are they asked to consider structure. Rather, they are asked to respond as honestly and as fully as they can.

The instructor will then use this freewrite as the starting point for a conference about the paper that the student really wants to write. In that conference, Professor Grantham and the student "mine" the freewriting exercise for possible paper topics—not theses, but topics.

Once a topic is selected, students must consider it carefully before proposing a thesis. Professor Grantham will eventually ask students to do the necessary textual analysis or research, but before she does she asks students to unpack their own beliefs on the topic. Professor Grantham proceeds on the assumption that our students have a vast amount of information and opinion stored within, and that they have warrant for the beliefs they carry with them. She asks them to determine where they got the evidence for their beliefs—to trace the source of the belief to family members, friends, television. Once they've found the roots of their beliefs, they are then ready to decide whether they want to hold firm or change their minds.

Finally, students are ready (tentatively) to posit a thesis.

John Donaghy: Finding Patterns, Solving Problems

Professor Donaghy's method is founded on the understanding that analysis is a complicated process that requires us to break down a text (event, object, or phenomenon) into parts, discovering patterns among the parts, and coming up with a theory for why these patterns exist. Donaghy believes that students are initially afraid of analysis, and that their initial attempts at it are either overly simple, or disjointed and disorganized. He's puzzled by this fear, as we are analyzing all the time: life presents us with data that we are continually sorting by finding patterns, creating categories, and making meaning. Analysis is requisite for something as simple as crossing the street. Students can be encouraged to see that they already possess analytical skills that can be transferred to writing papers.

Professor Donaghy suggests three steps regarding a simple analysis of the following Gary Snyder poem, "Pine tree tops:"

In the blue night frost haze, the sky glows with the moon pine tree tops bend snow-blue, fade into sky, frost, starlight. The creak of boots. Rabbit tracks, deer tracks, what do we know.

First, when analyzing, students need to be conscious of examining parts of a text, looking for patterns (or repeating elements). In a short poem, students can make a number of simple observations, including:

• Number of words (34)
• Number of syllables in words (mostly single syllable)
• Parts of speech: mostly nouns; adjectives are scarce; surprisingly few verbs

Second, students need to try to determine how these parts and patterns are speaking to each other. Do these parts and patterns illustrate a similarity? Draw a contrast? Create an emphasis? Together form a new observation or idea? In terms of the poem:

• Nouns: so many nouns emphasizes the "thing-ness" of the poem
• Adjectives: very few; one (blue) is attached to a noun
• Verbs: the verbs (glows, bend, fade) are gentle, yielding verbs

Finally, students can put forward a proposition. For instance: Snyder builds his poem on nouns to give power to the "things" in his scene. OR Snyder chooses verbs that seem to yield to the nouns in order to tell us how to behave in the presence of nature. This proposition, with some tweaking, can become a working thesis.

Karen Gocsik: Finding the Umbrella Idea

Finding the "umbrella idea" requires that students move back and forth between a text's particularities and its big ideas in order to find a suitable "fit" between the two that the students can write about. This fit is summed up in the "umbrella idea," or the big idea that all of their observations can stand under.

Some students begin with a very specific observation about a text—for instance, that on page 264 of Milan Kundera'sImmortality, the heroine of his novel declares that her father was her only love. This observation can't yield a paper. So what does the student do? She generalizes the issue. In other words, she looks not at the individual father-daughter relationship but considers other father-daughter relationships in the novel. But this observation won't yield a paper, either. The student must think in particulars once again, comparing the relationships to find interesting patterns. What she comes up with is that in one relationship, the daughter looks to the father for guidance; in the other she sees that it's quite the opposite: the father believes that his daughter has wisdom and seeks her counsel. Again, still not much going on. It's time to generalize to the novel's big ideas—which include an attack on modernism and a nostalgia for the traditions of Europe. Interestingly, the father daughter relationships can be linked, via textual evidence, to these ideas. The student has discovered a "fit" between the big ideas and her particular observations that can yield a paper.

The key to success in this method rests in four processes:

• Students must move fluidly back and forth between the text and their abstractions/generalizations, ready to adjust their ideas to the new evidence and new abstractions that they encounter.
• Students must sketch their ideas. Drawing their ideas helps students pull their thinking out of linear, two-dimensional modes, enabling them to see multiple possibilities for their essays.
• Students must seek an umbrella idea, under which their ideas can stand. To get to this umbrella idea, they need not only to analyze but to synthesize: they need to bring disparate ideas together, to see if they fit.
• They further need to create this synthesis by playing with language, creating an umbrella sentence that can embrace their ideas. This requires that students write and revise their thesis sentence several times as they write their paper. It also requires that students have a basic understanding of the principles of style, so that they can understand how to place their ideas in appropriate clauses, create the proper emphasis, and so on.

Sara Biggs Chaney: Evolving the Thesis by Unpacking the Assumptions & Making Counter-Claims

Professor Chaney's method asks students to arrive at a thesis by examining their assumptions. She begins her instruction by introducing the student to the enthymeme. Like the syllogism (All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore, Socrates is mortal), the enthymeme has three parts: the major premise, the minor premise, and the conclusion. The difference is that in the case of the syllogism the major premise is based on fact (All men are mortal), while in the enthymeme it's based on a commonly held belief (cheating is unethical, smoking around children is a danger to their health, etc.). As Professor Chaney notes, in many cases the enthymeme is presented with the major premise left unstated: She smokes around her daughter; she endangers her daughter's health. Professor Chaney illustrates the importance in finding the "missing" major premise, arguing that unpacking an argument's unstated assumptions can help students to better analyze the texts they're writing about, and to create better texts of their own.

The key question to ask is: What must be true about the world in order for this statement to be true? Students are asked to put forth all hidden assumptions, large and small. This forces the students to dig beneath the surface of the text, to explore the structure and the nuance of the argument. In the process, ideas for a thesis will present themselves.

Once the students have drafted a thesis, Professor Chaney has a strategy (borrowed from David Rossenwasser and Jill Stephen's Writing Analytically) for evolving the thesis by putting forward counter-claims. She has found Rossenwasser and Stephen's types of weak thesis statements—"Procrustes' Bed" and "The Laundry List"—useful in diagnosing logic problems in student writing. Students tend either to force a diversity of evidence to fit an overly rigid claim, or to present their claim in the form of a list, with few connections between the points. To evolve the thesis, Professor Chaney requires students to begin with their basic claim and then to methodically increase the complexity of that claim through the introduction of complicating evidence. This new evidence forces students to redefine their initial claims and to determine how the counter-claim might or might not be accommodated by their thesis.

For instance, a student may have written the following thesis: "Reported cases of autism in children have increased by almost 200% in the last twenty years because autism has been redefined to include less severe forms of the disorder." Professor Chaney presents them with this complicating evidence: "Some research also suggests that autism may be linked to mercury exposure in childhood vaccines." Students may weigh the evidence to see which has more merit; they might expand their thesis to point to two reasons for rising autism; they might acknowledge the truth in both statements but want to subordinate one argument to the other; they might point out a causal relationship between the two sentences (i.e., has the frequent levels of mercury exposures led to a new definition of autism in the DSM-IV, which in turn has increased the numbers of reported cases of autism?). Using any of these methods, students will have improved their thesis sentences.

Tom Cormen: Debunking (and Re-Debunking) the Thesis

Professor Cormen also recognizes that students are quick to "rush to thesis," and so he created an exercise to show students how additional information (research) can flesh out a thesis sentence. Professor Cormen presents students with a short poem, "Baseball's Sad Lexicon," written in 1908 by Franklin P. Adams, for the New York  Globe . The poem laments how often it seemed that the Chicago Cubs' infield, with Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, and Frank Chance, turned double plays to stifle potential rallies by the New York Giants:

These are the saddest of possible words,  Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance.  Trio of Bear Cubs, fleeter than birds,  Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance.  Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,  Making a Giant hit into a double,  Words that are weighty with nothing but trouble,  Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance.

Professor Cormen points out to his students that Tinker, Evers, and Chance are all in the Baseball Hall of Fame. They must have formed one of the greatest double-play combinations ever. Or did they? To debunk the myth of Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance, Professor Cormen gives his students another essay, written in 1954 by Warren Brown, called "Don't Believe Everything You Read." This essay challenges the Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance mystique by doing a bit of investigating uncovering that, at the height of their careers (1906 - 1909), the Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance combination turned only 29 double plays. By comparison, a second baseman with the Detroit Tigers participated in 150 double plays in 1950 alone, and a shortstop with the Cleveland Indians figured in 134 double plays in 1944. By demonstrating that players a few decades later were turning many times the double plays in one season that Tinker, Evers, and Chance were turning in four seasons, clearly the writer of this essay has debunked the legend of Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance.

Or has he? Professor Cormen asks students to consider the differences between baseball in 1908 and 1950. First, he asks them to consider the conditions of baseball fields in 1908: the fields were pocked and rocky, far from the groomed surfaces that we see today or were the norm by 1950. Second, he asks them to consider the gloves: not the cestas we see on players' hands today, or even the webbed gloves that players wore by the 1940s, but more like the winter gloves that we wear today, without the insulation. Finally, he asks students to consider the ball: it was neither perfectly round (balls were not as hard before the 1920s, and when a batted ball went into the stands, it was thrown back onto the field and continued to be used) nor perfectly white (before the spitball was outlawed in 1920, balls were stained brown with tobacco juice, making them hard to see). Tinker, Evers and Chance were playing on a field like a parking lot, with gloves like a motorman's mitt, and with a ball that more resembled a mini-football than what we think of as today's baseballs. How could anyone expect them to turn 150 double plays per year? Clearly, with this additional evidence, students are moved to compose a more complex thesis.

The moral of the story: as students engage in research, they will encounter evidence that will debunk (or at least challenge) their ideas. Encourage this research, and support students as they work toward better thesis sentences.

Module 2 Starting Off Right with Planning

Click on the links below to go to that section of the module.

• Introduction
• Learning Objectives
• The Writer’s Purpose
• Anticipating the Needs of Your Readers
• The Main Message
• Examples of Main Messages
• Writing a Main Message

Umbrella and Thesis Statements

• Identify Umbrella and Thesis Statements
• Determine the Main Message: Step 1
• Determine the Main Message: Step 2
• Analyzing Reader Dialogues
• Assignment 2: Dialogue With the Reader Worksheet
• Resources and Documents

Depending on the type of report you are writing or on your reader’s needs, your main message can take different forms. For the most part, however, your main message should show that you have taken a position on the subject about which you are writing. When a sentence reveals the writer’s position, it is called a thesis statement . On the other hand, sometimes your main message will be more neutral in tone, especially in cases where you are presenting new information that has yet to be analyzed more thoroughly. These types of statements are called umbrella statements and they more closely resemble statements of fact.

Take a look at the following three statements on the subject of crop outputs. Each statement represents a different level of the writer's position. Read through each one and see how they differ.

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3 Develop Thesis

The previous chapter, on Generating Ideas, emphasized the role of divergent thinking in the writing process. Before beginning a draft, it’s important to draw on a range of personal experiences and observations, as well as critical reading. Brainstorming techniques help collect all of these ideas into a single place. After brainstorming, a writer is ready for the convergent process of selecting the various information and ideas they wish to use in their essay. The goal of this selection process is to develop an overarching thesis statement that captures everything the writer wishes to say. This chapter focuses on that selection process, as well as how to formulate a clear and succinct statement. If this chapter is being used to help begin an essay draft, we recommend that a student first complete the exercises in the previous chapter. The previous chapter asked you to record a few things on a worksheet or document: your purpose and audience, the topic, and related questions. To help brainstorm fresh ideas, that chapter suggested a freewriting exercise, list-making, and/or “idea mapping. The brainstorming exercises should have provided you with possible supporting points for your working thesis statement.

Why are thesis statements necessary?

Have you ever known a person who was not very good at telling stories? You probably had trouble following his train of thought as he jumped around from point to point, either being too brief in places that needed further explanation or providing too many details on a meaningless element. Maybe he told the end of the story first, then moved to the beginning and later added details to the middle. His ideas were probably scattered, and the story did not flow very well. When the story was over, you probably had many questions.

Just as a personal anecdote can be a disorganized mess, an essay can fall into the same trap of being out of order and confusing. That is why writers need a  thesis statement  to provide a specific focus for their essay and to organize what they are about to discuss in the body.

Just like a topic sentence summarizes a single paragraph, the thesis statement summarizes an entire essay. It tells the reader the point you want to make in your essay, while the essay itself supports that point. It is like a signpost that signals the essay’s destination. You should form your thesis before you begin to organize an essay, but you may find that it needs revision as the essay develops.

Elements of a Thesis Statement

For every essay you write, you must focus on a central idea. This idea stems from a topic you have chosen or been assigned or from a question your teacher has asked. It is not enough merely to discuss a general topic or simply answer a question with a yes or no. You have to form a specific opinion, and then articulate that into a  controlling idea —the main idea upon which you build your thesis.

Remember that a thesis is not the topic itself, but rather your interpretation of the question or subject. For whatever topic your professor gives you, you must ask yourself, “What do I want to say about it?” Asking and then answering this question is vital to forming a thesis that is precise, forceful and confident.

A thesis is one sentence long and appears toward the end of your introduction. It is specific and focuses on one to three points of a single idea—points that are able to be demonstrated in the body. It forecasts the content of the essay and suggests how you will organize your information. Remember that a thesis statement does not summarize an issue but rather dissects it.

A strong thesis contains the following qualities:

Specificity . A thesis statement must concentrate on a specific area of a general topic. As you may recall, the creation of a thesis statement begins when you choose a broad subject and then narrow down its parts until you pinpoint a specific aspect of that topic. For example, health care is a broad topic, but a proper thesis statement would focus on a specific area of that topic, such as options for individuals without health care coverage.

Precision.  A strong thesis statement must be precise enough to allow for a coherent argument and to remain focused on the topic. If the specific topic is options for individuals without health care coverage, then your precise thesis statement must make an exact claim about it, such as that limited options exist for those who are uninsured by their employers. You must further pinpoint what you are going to discuss regarding these limited effects, such as whom they affect and what the cause is.

Ability to be argued.  A thesis statement must present a relevant and specific argument. A factual statement often is not considered arguable. Be sure your thesis statement contains a point of view that can be supported with evidence.

Ability to be demonstrated.  For any claim you make in your thesis, you must be able to provide reasons and examples for your opinion. You can rely on personal observations in order to do this, or you can consult outside sources to demonstrate that what you assert is valid. A worthy argument is backed by examples and details.

Forcefulness.  A thesis statement that is forceful shows readers that you are, in fact, making an argument. The tone is assertive and takes a stance that others might oppose.

Confidence.  In addition to using force in your thesis statement, you must also use confidence in your claim. Phrases such as  I feel  or  I believe actually weaken the readers’ sense of your confidence because these phrases imply that you are the only person who feels the way you do. In other words, your stance has insufficient backing. Taking an authoritative stance on the matter persuades your readers to have faith in your argument and open their minds to what you have to say. If you want to use the first person, phrases such as  I argue   or  I contend sound more authoritative.

Even in a personal essay that allows the use of first person, your thesis should not contain phrases such as  in my opinion  or  I believe . These statements reduce your credibility and weaken your argument. Your opinion is more convincing when you use a firm attitude.

Exercise 3.1

On a separate sheet of paper, write a thesis statement for each of the following topics. Remember to make each statement specific, precise, demonstrable, forceful and confident.

• Texting while driving
• The legal drinking age in the United States
• Steroid use among professional athletes

Each of the following thesis statements meets several of the following requirements:

• Specificity
• Ability to be argued
• Ability to be demonstrated
• Forcefulness
• The societal and personal struggles of Troy Maxon in the play  Fences  symbolize the challenge of black males who lived through segregation and integration in the United States.
• Closing all American borders for a period of five years is one solution that will tackle illegal immigration.
• Shakespeare’s use of dramatic irony in  Romeo and Juliet  spoils the outcome for the audience and weakens the plot.
• J. D. Salinger’s character in  Catcher in the Rye , Holden Caulfield, is a confused rebel who voices his disgust with phonies, yet in an effort to protect himself, he acts like a phony on many occasions.
• Compared to an absolute divorce, no-fault divorce is less expensive, promotes fairer settlements, and reflects a more realistic view of the causes for marital breakdown.
• Exposing children from an early age to the dangers of drug abuse is a sure method of preventing future drug addicts.
• In today’s crumbling job market, a high school diploma is not significant enough education to land a stable, lucrative job.

You can find thesis statements in many places, such as in the news; in the opinions of friends, coworkers or teachers; and even in songs you hear on the radio. Become aware of thesis statements in everyday life by paying attention to people’s opinions and their reasons for those opinions. Pay attention to your own everyday thesis statements as well, as these can become material for future essays.

Now that you have read about the contents of a good thesis statement and have seen examples, take a look at the pitfalls to avoid when composing your own thesis:

A thesis is weak when it is simply a declaration of your subject or a description of what you will discuss in your essay.

Weak thesis statement:  My paper will explain why imagination is more important than knowledge.

A thesis is weak when it makes an unreasonable or outrageous claim or insults the opposing side.

Weak thesis statement:  Religious radicals across America are trying to legislate their Puritanical beliefs by banning required high school books.

A thesis is weak when it contains an obvious fact or something that no one can disagree with or provides a dead end.

Weak thesis statement:  Advertising companies use sex to sell their products.

A thesis is weak when the statement is too broad.

Weak thesis statement:  The life of Abraham Lincoln was long and challenging.

Exercise 3.2

Read the following thesis statements. On a separate piece of paper, identify each as weak or strong. For those that are weak, list the reasons why. Then revise the weak statements so that they conform to the requirements of a strong thesis.

• The subject of this paper is my experience with ferrets as pets.
• The government must expand its funding for research on renewable energy resources in order to prepare for the impending end of oil.
• Edgar Allan Poe was a poet who lived in Baltimore during the nineteenth century.
• In this essay, I will give you lots of reasons why slot machines should not be legalized in Baltimore.
• Despite his promises during his campaign, President Kennedy took few executive measures to support civil rights legislation.
• Because many children’s toys have potential safety hazards that could lead to injury, it is clear that not all children’s toys are safe.
• My experience with young children has taught me that I want to be a disciplinary parent because I believe that a child without discipline can be a parent’s worst nightmare.

Writing at Work

Often in your career, you will need to ask your boss for something through an e-mail. Just as a thesis statement organizes an essay, it can also organize your e-mail request. While your e-mail will be shorter than an essay, using a thesis statement in your first paragraph quickly lets your boss know what you are asking for, why it is necessary, and what the benefits are. In short body paragraphs, you can provide the essential information needed to expand upon your request.

Formulating your thesis statement

When initially formulating a thesis statement, it will help to know that there are a few strategies to choose from.

Enumerative thesis

An enumerative thesis simply lists the main points of your essay. In a traditional five paragraph argument essay from high school, for example, students are taught to write a one-paragraph introduction and conclusion, and the three paragraphs in between should be devoted to three supporting ideas. In this scenario (which is crude and too formulaic for college argument essays), an enumerative thesis statement would include each of the three main points.

Umbrella thesis

In contrast to the list-making tendency of enumerative thesis statements, an umbrella thesis attempts to encompass all of the main points in a concise yet decisive statement.

Exercise 3.3

The previous chapter, “Generating Ideas,” asked you to record a few things on a worksheet or document: your purpose and audience, the topic, and related questions. To help brainstorm fresh ideas, the chapter also suggested a freewriting exercise, list-making, and “idea mapping. The brainstorming exercises should have provided you with possible supporting points for your working thesis statement. To get started on an early draft of your thesis statement, complete the following steps, on the same worksheet or as a separate document:

• Select all of the main points you wish to address in your essay. Depending on the type of essay you’re writing, you might have two, three, four, or even more ideas. In a persuasive essay, for example, you might first identify key pieces of evidence as well as the ideas (or points) they prove. But you might also want to select potential counterarguments and rebuttals for those points.
• Attempt an enumerative thesis by simply listing each of the main points you want to hit in your essay.
• Now develop a more concise umbrella thesis statement by simplifying all of those points into a single position or overarching idea.

Revising your thesis statement

Your thesis will probably change as you write, so you will need to modify it to reflect exactly what you have discussed in your essay. Your thesis statement begins as a  working thesis statement , an indefinite statement that you make about your topic early in the writing process for the purpose of planning and guiding your writing.

Working thesis statements often become stronger as you gather information and form new opinions and reasons for those opinions. Revision helps you strengthen your thesis so that it matches what you have expressed in the body of the paper.

You can cut down on irrelevant aspects and revise your thesis by taking the following steps:

1. Pinpoint and replace all nonspecific words, such as  people ,  everything ,  society , or  life , with more precise words in order to reduce any vagueness.

Working thesis:  Young people have to work hard to succeed in life.

Revised thesis:  Recent college graduates must have discipline and persistence in order to find and maintain a stable job in which they can use and be appreciated for their talents.

The revised thesis makes a more specific statement about success and what it means to work hard. The original includes too broad a range of people and does not define exactly what success entails. By replacing those general words like  people  and  work hard , the writer can better focus his or her research and gain more direction in his or her writing.

2. Clarify ideas that need explanation by asking yourself questions that narrow your thesis.

Working thesis:  The welfare system is a joke.

Revised thesis:  The welfare system keeps a socioeconomic class from gaining employment by alluring members of that class with unearned income, instead of programs to improve their education and skill sets.

A joke  means many things to many people. Readers bring all sorts of backgrounds and perspectives to the reading process and would need clarification for a word so vague. This expression may also be too informal for the selected audience. By asking questions, the writer can devise a more precise and appropriate explanation for  joke . The writer should ask himself or herself questions similar to the 5WH questions. (See  Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?”  for more information on the 5WH questions.) By incorporating the answers to these questions into a thesis statement, the writer more accurately defines his or her stance, which will better guide the writing of the essay.

3. Replace any  linking verbs  with action verbs. Linking verbs are forms of the verb  to be , a verb that simply states that a situation exists.

Working thesis:  Kansas City schoolteachers are not paid enough.

Revised thesis:  The Kansas City legislature cannot afford to pay its educators, resulting in job cuts and resignations in a district that sorely needs highly qualified and dedicated teachers.

The linking verb in this working thesis statement is the word  are . Linking verbs often make thesis statements weak because they do not express action. Rather, they connect words and phrases to the second half of the sentence. Readers might wonder, “Why are they not paid enough?” But this statement does not compel them to ask many more questions. The writer should ask himself or herself questions in order to replace the linking verb with an action verb, thus forming a stronger thesis statement, one that takes a more definitive stance on the issue:

• Who is not paying the teachers enough?
• What is considered “enough”?
• What is the problem?
• What are the results

4. Omit any general claims that are hard to support.

Working thesis:  Today’s teenage girls are too sexualized.

Revised thesis:  Teenage girls who are captivated by the sexual images on MTV are conditioned to believe that a woman’s worth depends on her sensuality, a feeling that harms their self-esteem and behavior.

It is true that some young women in today’s society are more sexualized than in the past, but that is not true for all girls. Many girls have strict parents, dress appropriately, and do not engage in sexual activity while in middle school and high school. The writer of this thesis should ask the following questions:

• Which teenage girls?
• What constitutes “too” sexualized?
• Why are they behaving that way?
• Where does this behavior show up?
• What are the repercussions?

In your career you may have to write a project proposal that focuses on a particular problem in your company, such as reinforcing the tardiness policy. The proposal would aim to fix the problem; using a thesis statement would clearly state the boundaries of the problem and tell the goals of the project. After writing the proposal, you may find that the thesis needs revision to reflect exactly what is expressed in the body. Using the techniques from this chapter would apply to revising that thesis.

Key Takeaways

• Proper essays require a thesis statement to provide a specific focus and suggest how the essay will be organized.
• A thesis statement is your interpretation of the subject, not the topic itself.
• A strong thesis is specific, precise, forceful, confident, and is able to be demonstrated.
• A strong thesis challenges readers with a point of view that can be debated and can be supported with evidence.
• A weak thesis is simply a declaration of your topic or contains an obvious fact that cannot be argued.
• Depending on your topic, it may or may not be appropriate to use first person point of view.
• Revise your thesis by ensuring all words are specific, all ideas are exact, and all verbs express action.

Write What Matters Copyright © 2020 by Liza Long; Amy Minervini; and Joel Gladd is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Umbrella reviews: a useful study design in need of standardisation

Linked research in bmj medicine.

Environmental risk factors for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma

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• Peer review
• Xiaoting Shi , doctoral student ,
• Joshua D Wallach , assistant professor
• Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT, USA

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses, which identify and synthesise evidence from individual studies, are often believed to provide an overview of the best available evidence on a specific research question. In epidemiology, however, systematic reviews and meta-analyses typically focus on individual exposure to outcome relationships, which can fail to capture all potentially related exposures or outcomes across an entire field. Moreover, concerns have consistently been raised about the growing number of overlapping and conflicting reviews. 1 2 These limitations emphasise the need for a study design that can potentially provide a higher level synthesis of summary level evidence. 1 2

Umbrella reviews, which are also known as overviews of systematic reviews or systematic reviews of meta-analyses, summarise the spread and strength of associations reported in previously conducted systematic reviews and meta-analyses. 3 They can consider numerous exposures and outcomes; provide an assessment of the impact of sample size, heterogeneity, and hints of bias on summary associations; and evaluate the quality of individual systematic reviews and meta-analyses. These evaluations, which have increased in popularity over the past decade, 4 are particularly useful in fields where a large number of reviews have already been conducted.

In our recent umbrella review published in BMJ Medicine , we identified and summarised all associations reported in meta-analyses on environmental exposures and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL). 5 Although many exposures (such as dietary, clinical, lifestyle, chemical, and occupational factors) have been the focus of separate meta-analyses, little is known about the accumulated evidence across a range of potential environmental exposures and NHL subtypes. Across 85 meta-analyses reporting 257 unique environmental exposure-NHL associations, we found that most meta-analyses were low quality and presented either non-significant or weak evidence. 6 Only one association—history of coeliac disease and risk of NHL—was classified as presenting convincing evidence. Although our study suggests the need for improving not only primary studies but also evidence synthesis in this field, it also highlights several challenges of conducting umbrella reviews without uniform handbooks and reporting guidelines.

Firstly, it can be challenging to select an individual meta-analysis when there are overlapping meta-analyses for the same exposure-outcome relationships. While some umbrella reviews select the largest or most recent meta-analyses, 7 8 9 10 others prioritise those with the greatest precision 11 or the highest quality. 12 Some umbrella reviews even go as far as updating the individual searches from each eligible meta-analysis. 12 In our evaluation, we selected a single association from the largest meta-analyses on each topic, even though there may have been more recent or higher quality meta-analyses. We selected this approach given the large number of identified associations.

Secondly, individual meta-analyses often report multiple associations for different exposure contrast levels (such as exposed versus unexposed, high versus low levels of exposure, or dose-response), which can make it difficult to select and summarise only one association. When designing our study, we found that while some umbrella reviews justified why certain comparisons were selected, others primarily selected exposed versus unexposed comparisons. 13 14 In our evaluation, we prioritised the associations from exposed versus unexposed comparisons. When these comparisons were not reported, however, we also recorded any associations from comparisons of high versus low levels of exposures. Although this approach may not have captured the complexities of all higher exposure levels, our objective was to provide a manageable overview of all reported exposures across a large field.

Thirdly, different methodological approaches can be used in umbrella reviews to assess the credibility of individual associations from meta-analyses, including the role of statistical significance, sample size, heterogeneity, and certain biases. 10 13 15 16 Many umbrella reviews, including our own, used the same methods to conduct the analyses for each of these characteristics. 8 17 However, the current methods could be modified (such as standardising all associations using different meta-analytical methods), 18 19 which could ultimately impact how evidence is classified.

Overall, our experience suggests that there are opportunities to improve the design, conduct, and reporting of umbrella reviews, to help ensure that these studies are rigorous and reproducible. Unlike traditional systematic reviews and meta-analyses, which have more established methodology and reporting guidelines, 20 21 the recommendations for umbrella reviews are disjointed, with separate efforts outlining various concerns and recommendations. 22 23 24 25 26 The Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions and Joanna Briggs Institute Manual provide recommendations for umbrella reviews of interventions, 27 28 but additional resources are needed to accommodate different scenarios. Together, these efforts could help standardise approaches, minimise the need for authors to make subjective decisions, and ultimately reduce the number of overlapping umbrella reviews that are conducted using different methodological approaches. 29

Competing interests: In the past 36 months XS was supported by the China Scholarship Council and the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. JDW currently receives research support through Yale University from Johnson and Johnson to develop methods of clinical trial data sharing, from the Food and Drug Administration, and from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism under award K01AA028258.

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• Ioannidis J
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• ↵ Aromataris E, Munn Z. JBI manual for evidence synthesis: umbrella reviews. 2020. https://jbi-global-wiki.refined.site/space/MANUAL .
• ↵ Pollock M, Fernandes MR, Becker AL, Pieper D, Hartling L. Cochrane handbook for systematic reviews of interventions: overviews of reviews. https://training.cochrane.org/handbook/current/chapter-v .
• Neelakant T ,

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• http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2334-6974 Lazaros Belbasis 1 ,
• Vanesa Bellou 2 and
• http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3118-6859 John P A Ioannidis 1 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7
• 1 Meta-Research Innovation Center Berlin, QUEST Center, Berlin Institute of Health , Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin , Berlin , Germany
• 2 Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology , University of Ioannina Medical School , Ioannina , Greece
• 3 Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford , Stanford University , Stanford , CA , USA
• 4 Department of Medicine , Stanford University Medical School , Stanford , CA , USA
• 5 Department of Epidemiology and Population Health , Stanford University Medical School , Stanford , CA , USA
• 6 Department of Health Research and Policy , Stanford University Medical School , Stanford , CA , USA
• 7 Department of Biomedical Data Science , Stanford University Medical School , Stanford , CA , USA
• Correspondence to Dr Lazaros Belbasis, Clinical Trials Service Unit and Epidemiological Studies Unit, Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK; lazaros.belbasis{at}ndph.ox.ac.uk

In this article, Lazaros Belbasis and colleagues explain the rationale for umbrella reviews and the key steps involved in conducting an umbrella review, using a working example.

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Data sharing not applicable as no datasets generated and/or analysed for this study.

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See:  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ .

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjmed-2021-000071

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Key messages

An umbrella review is a systematic collection and assessment of multiple systematic reviews and meta-analyses on a specific research topic

Umbrella reviews were developed to deal with the increasing number of systematic reviews and meta-analyses in biomedical literature

The validity of umbrella reviews depends on the coverage and quality of both the primary studies and the available systematic reviews and meta-analyses

The key output of umbrella reviews is a systematic and standardised assessment of all the evidence on a broad but well defined research topic (eg, treatment effects of multiple interventions for a particular disease, or adjusted or unadjusted associations of multiple risk factors with a particular disease) based on published systematic reviews and meta-analyses

Introduction

Currently, clinical researchers have used systematic reviews and meta-analyses (SRMAs) for most clinical and epidemiological questions of interest. Occasionally, researchers might need to examine the evidence not just on a single question but on several different questions on a given topic. Umbrella reviews (ie, a systematic review of SRMAs) could be an appropriate option for these situations.

Definition and scope of umbrella reviews

Umbrella reviews are systematic collections and assessments of multiple SRMAs done on a specific research topic. 1 2 The decision to perform an umbrella review depends on the number of available SRMAs ( figure 1 ). An umbrella review is informative when multiple SRMAs have already been published on a specific research topic. When only a trivial number of relevant SRMAs are available, performing a new SRMA is more appropriate and more informative. When multiple outdated SRMAs are available, updating the existing SRMAs is more important. Like all research studies, umbrella reviews have advantages and disadvantages ( box 1 ).

Advantages and disadvantages of umbrella reviews

They offer a bird eye’s view of multiple interventions for a specific medical condition or multiple epidemiological associations for a specific medical condition (exposure wide approach) or a specific risk factor (phenome wide approach)

They save valuable research resources by avoiding systematic searches from scratch, because they take advantage of existing systematic reviews

They identify the gaps in a specific research field and can inform recommendations for further research

They present an overview of study quality, effect sizes, uncertainty, heterogeneity, and hints of bias across a well defined but broad research field

They present and compare evidence between different interventions or different epidemiological associations, providing a comprehensive picture about the relative strengths and weaknesses of the evidence for each intervention or epidemiological association

Disadvantages

The validity of umbrella review findings depends on the quality of the eligible systematic reviews and meta-analyses

They do not include information for interventions or epidemiological associations that have not been examined in systematic reviews and meta-analyses

Quality problems and biases might also exist in primary studies and in the umbrella review process itself, and these problems and biases could be compounded and difficult to clarify

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Decision process regarding whether to perform an umbrella review. SRMA=systematic review and meta-analysis

The two most common applications of umbrella reviews deal with treatment effects of interventions and epidemiological associations of exposures. Umbrella reviews of interventions typically focus on one or more diseases of interest and assess SRMAs on the treatment effects of all interventions for those diseases. 3 Umbrella reviews of epidemiological associations often follow either a phenome wide approach or an exposure wide approach. In the phenome wide approach, researchers consider the (adjusted or unadjusted) associations of a particular risk factor with any disease or phenotype. 4 In the exposure wide approach, researchers consider the (adjusted or unadjusted) associations of multiple risk factors with a specific disease or phenotype. 5–7 Umbrella reviews can also be designed to summarise SRMAs on other types of studies, such as prevalence studies and diagnostic accuracy studies. 8 9 From a clinical point of view, the key output of an umbrella review is a comprehensive, systematic, and critical summary of multiple intervention or epidemiological studies (or other types of studies) based on published SRMAs.

Getting started

As a working example, we will use an umbrella review summarising SRMAs on the non-genetic risk factors for type 2 diabetes mellitus, which included 86 eligible articles (142 epidemiological associations) of SRMAs. 10 With so many factors being examined for association with risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus, an umbrella review can obtain a bird eye’s view of the evidence on unadjusted or adjusted effects between particular risk factors and onset of the disorder, in terms of measures such as odds ratios and hazard ratios.

Key steps in umbrella reviews

Umbrella reviews have several steps ( figure 2 ), of which four are key: systematic literature search and study selection, data extraction, statistical analysis and grading of evidence, and interpretation of findings.

Key steps in an umbrella review

Researchers need to clearly define the research question of interest and consider which SRMAs are to be included by explicitly stating the eligibility criteria ( box 2 ). A search algorithm must then be constructed to capture all SRMAs that deal with the defined research area. Eligible SRMAs are then selected by independent double screening of the literature search results. When multiple SRMAs on the same topic have partial or complete overlap, criteria are applied to decide which SRMAs to include. 11 12 There are no set criteria, but researchers can choose the most recent meta-analysis, the meta-analysis with the largest number of studies, or (for epidemiological associations) the meta-analysis with the largest number of prospective studies. Researchers should also consider the quality of the SRMAs when deciding which to prioritise. In our working example for type 2 diabetes mellitus, the researchers chose the SRMA with the largest number of prospective studies, because prospective studies guarantee temporality in epidemiological associations.

Eligibility criteria, search algorithm, and data extraction in umbrella reviews

Eligibility criteria.

In the definition of eligibility criteria, researchers can follow the PICO characteristics (population, intervention, comparison, and outcomes) for umbrella reviews of interventions. For umbrella reviews of epidemiological associations (either predictive or causal factors), researchers should also define the population(s), risk factor(s), and outcome(s) of interest to consider. By contrast with a single SRMA (systematic review and meta-analysis), umbrella reviews have much broader criteria, but the exact breadth should be carefully defined to ensure that the umbrella review is informative and comprehensive from a clinical or scientific perspective. In our working example, the population of interest was individuals not having type 2 diabetes mellitus at the beginning of the study, the risk factors of interest were any non-genetic factors, and the outcome was the development of the disorder.

Search algorithm

For an umbrella review, the search algorithm consists of two parts. The first part aims to identify research articles that are systematic reviews or meta-analyses (eg, using the keywords "systematic review*" OR meta-analys*). Alternatively, other search strings that aim to maximise retrieval of SRMAs could be used. The second part of the search algorithm should capture all the relevant articles about the research question. For this reason, this step should include all the relevant keywords about the research topic of interest; in this task, the inclusion of MeSH terms could facilitate capturing all the relevant terms. In our working example, the researchers used the keyword "diabetes" to capture articles relevant to type 2 diabetes mellitus. 10 The final search algorithm is derived by combining the two parts of the algorithm using the boolean operator AND. Recommendations on database combinations to retrieve systematic reviews and meta-analyses based on empirical data have been published. 17

Data extraction

In the data extraction process, for systematic reviews without a meta-analysis, the researchers should extract the number of eligible studies, the total sample size and (for binary outcomes) the number of events, the rationale for not performing a meta-analysis, and the descriptive conclusions. For systematic reviews with a meta-analysis, researchers should extract the number of eligible studies, the total sample size and (for binary outcomes) the total number of events, the study specific sample sizes and (for binary outcomes) the study specific numbers of events, the study specific effect estimates with relevant 95% confidence intervals, and the qualitative assessment as presented by the eligible SRMAs (if available).

Once the SRMAs to be included are agreed, two researchers should independently extract the required data from each eligible SRMA using a standardised data extraction form ( box 2 ). With regards to the statistical analysis, researchers should use the study specific data extracted from each SRMA to repeat each meta-analysis separately rather than report the meta-analytical result as presented in the original SRMA. This process is important, because published SRMAs often use inappropriate meta-analytical statistical models, or they do not assess the heterogeneity between studies or the presence of small study effects. By re-running each meta-analysis, researchers can use the same array of methods for all considered meta-analyses and perform various heterogeneity or bias tests. To perform all the statistical analyses, researchers should extract data on study specific effect estimates with the relevant uncertainty estimates and the relevant sample sizes (as reported by the eligible SRMAs). However, some SRMAs offer insufficient information to perform all the desired, standardised analyses; this should be noted and discussed. In that case, researchers might decide to extract the required data from the primary studies.

After running the statistical analyses, researchers should assess the strength of the evidence. For questions about interventions (eg, drug treatments and other interventions in healthcare), researchers can use a validated tool, such as GRADE (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluations), to assess the strength of the evidence. 13 For epidemiological associations, researchers can make an assessment of the strength of the evidence by considering several features including amount of evidence, level of significance, extent of heterogeneity between studies, and hints for potential bias (eg, small study effects, and excess significance bias) in each meta-analysis. 5 6 An empirical evaluation of 57 umbrella reviews (including 3744 meta-analyses of observational studies) with a set of such criteria was recently published and shows that these criteria provide largely independent, complementary information. 14 Researchers can also examine the temporality of epidemiological associations by performing the same assessment focusing only on prospective studies. In the working example for type 2 diabetes mellitus, the researchers graded the epidemiological associations using a predefined set of criteria. They then examined whether the most credible associations maintained their ranking in a sensitivity analysis of prospective studies.

After performing the statistical analyses and grading the strength of the evidence, researchers should report their results. Reporting might be similar to relevant reporting guidelines of systematic reviews for observational or randomised studies (ie, MOOSE (Meta-analysis Of Observational Studies in Epidemiology), and PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses)). 15 16 The difference is that the building block here is not one primary study, but a systematic review or meta-analysis.

A flowchart of literature search and study selection is helpful. Authors should report the eligible SRMAs identified, and those excluded because of overlap. For systematic reviews without statistical synthesis, researchers could state why meta-analysis was not performed and main conclusions. The findings of an umbrella review can be reported in both tabular and graphical format. Tables summarising all meta-analyses with some key features and results, and the grading of strength of the evidence for assessed interventions or associations are essential ( box 3 ). Furthermore, if some SRMAs present a risk-of-bias assessment using standardised tools (eg, Joanna Briggs Institute critical appraisal tools for observational studies, or Cochrane risk-of-bias tool for randomised clinical trials), researchers can summarise the risk-of-bias assessment in each eligible SRMA using a tabular format. Additionally, visual plots can also facilitate the presentation and interpretation of results, such as the distribution of effect sizes and P values across the primary studies, or the distribution of summary effect sizes, P values, and heterogeneity estimates across the meta-analyses. In the working example on risk factors for the onset of type 2 diabetes mellitus, the researchers presented their results in both tabular and graphical format. They visually presented their results by providing a forest plot of the summary effect estimates for the meta-analyses with the highest strength of evidence, and a Manhattan plot (depicting the distribution of all P values in a −log 10 format). 10

Summarising results from multiple meta-analyses in umbrella reviews

Several key features and results of each meta-analysis should be reported, as shown below. In the working example of an umbrella review on type 2 diabetes mellitus, all the items listed below were provided in a tabulated manner for all the eligible meta-analyses (a total of 142 epidemiological associations) 10 :

Total number of cases or events (for binary outcomes)

Total sample size

Number of studies

Effect size metric

Meta-analysis method used (fixed effect or random effects, and related variants)

Summary effect estimate

95% confidence interval

95% prediction interval

P value for the summary effect estimate

Heterogeneity (eg, P value from Cochran’s Q test, I 2 , or estimate of variance between studies)

Effect size estimate of the largest study with the relevant 95% confidence interval

Suggestions of bias in relevant tests (eg, presence of small study effects and excess significance).

After reporting the results, the next step is interpretation. For umbrella reviews of interventions, interpretation should consider clinical relevance (including absolute risk reductions), potential additional biases in the design and conduct of randomised clinical trials and their meta-analyses, and issues of generalisability. For umbrella reviews of epidemiological associations, traditional considerations of confounding, reverse causality, selection bias, and information bias should be carefully considered either for all examined associations, or for a subset of associations (eg, the ones that seem to have the highest strength of evidence). Causal claims are notoriously difficult and typically only tentative. In our working example, the researchers interpreted the findings of the umbrella review by discussing the biological plausibility of the observed associations, and by systematically collecting published mendelian randomisation studies for type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Potential challenges

Conducting an umbrella review has some potential challenges. Umbrella reviews can deal with a topic comprehensively when primary studies and SRMAs have full coverage of the topic, otherwise gaps in the evidence can exist. The validity of an umbrella review depends on the quality of both the primary studies and the existing SRMAs. Cross checking the original reports to confirm whether all the data extraction for all the eligible SRMAs is correct would be impossible. But occasionally, umbrella review authors should go back to original reports to collect additional information (eg, sample size, and number of cases) to allow performing calculations in a standardised way and assessing criteria for strength of the evidence. Moreover, if some data are deemed spurious, the original reports should also be examined to remove errors. Moreover, SRMAs often might use eligibility criteria that deviate from what is intended in the umbrella review. For example, the umbrella review might wish to focus only on randomised trials, but the existing SRMAs might also contain observational studies that should be separated.

Clinicians and other readers should search for specific characteristics indicating a good quality umbrella review. They should explicitly state their eligibility criteria, verifying that these criteria fit with their clinical question; repeat the statistical analyses to estimate all the relevant features about heterogeneity between studies, 95% prediction intervals and related statistical biases; and grade the evidence according to a set of criteria and discuss various other potential biases.

Conclusions

Umbrella reviews can provide a bird eye’s view of the currently available evidence on broad research topics and a thorough assessment of strength of the available evidence, and they can indicate potential priorities for future research. Clinicians and other users should look to umbrella reviews for a systematic and critical summary of the evidence in a broad research topic (eg, multiple risk factors or predictors for a particular disease, multiple health related effects of an exposure, or multiple interventions for a particular disease). From an epidemiological perspective, the findings of an umbrella review can be used to identify which epidemiological associations could get tested further using more sophisticated causal inference methods, such as mendelian randomisation. From a clinical perspective, the findings of an umbrella review can be used by clinicians and trialists to inform the design of preventative or therapeutic interventions through randomised clinical trials.

In our working example, the researchers eventually summarised and assessed the evidence on 142 epidemiological associations. 10 By contrast with relevant narrative reviews on risk factors for type 2 diabetes mellitus that selectively report some associations, this umbrella review captured all the relevant SRMAs in a systematic manner. Furthermore, SRMAs usually focus on the presence of a significant effect, whereas the umbrella review example also considered issues related to heterogeneity between studies, confounding, and other biases. In our working example, 116 of 142 epidemiological associations presented a significant effect at P<0.05. However, only 11 presented strong evidence based on a set of criteria that consider level of significance, heterogeneity between studies, 95% prediction intervals, small study effects, and excess significance bias. An important advantage of this umbrella review is that readers can see that specific risk factors have the strongest evidence while others also have strong support, and they can observe the relative magnitude of all the associations.

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Twitter @Lazaros_B

Contributors LB, VB, and JPAI have extensive experience in the design, conduct, and reporting of umbrella reviews. LB and VB wrote the first draft of the manuscript, and JPAI critically commented on this. LB, VB, and JPAI wrote and approved the final version of the manuscript. LB is the guarantor of the manuscript. The corresponding author attests that all listed authors meet authorship criteria and that no others meeting the criteria have been omitted.

Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Competing interests All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at www.icmje.org/disclosure-of-interest/ and declare: no support from any organisation for the submitted work; no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.

Patient and public involvement Patients and the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.

Provenance and peer review Commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

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On the Internet, you can find a lot of services that offer customers to write huge articles in the shortest possible time at a low price. It's up to you to agree or not, but we recommend that you do not rush to make a choice. Many of these sites will take your money and disappear without getting the job done. Some low-skilled writers will still send you an essay file, but the text will not meet the required parameters.

is the best essay writing service because we provide guarantees at all stages of cooperation. Our polite managers will answer all your questions and help you determine the details. We will sign a contract with you so that you can be sure of our good faith.

The team employs only professionals with higher education. They will write you a high-quality essay that will pass all anti-plagiarism checks, since we do not steal other people's thoughts and ideas, but create new ones.

You can always contact us and make corrections, and we will be happy to help you.

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In the order page to write an essay for me, once you have filled up the form and submitted it, you will be automatically redirected to the payment gateway page. There you will be required to pay the entire amount for taking up the service and writing from my experts. We will ask you to pay the entire amount before the service as that gives us an assurance that you will come back to get the final draft that we write and lets us build our trust in you to write my essay for me. It also helps us to build up a mutual relationship with you while we write, as that would ease out the writing process. You are free to ask us for free revisions until you are completely satisfied with the service that we write.

Viola V. Madsen

Margurite J. Perez