Thesis Sentence

The high point of the introductory paragraph comes at the end, in its terminus. This not only concludes the initial paragraph, but also is the thesis statement of the entire text. It is so called because it is the point at which you formulate the central concern, or ‘thesis’, of your piece of writing. Ideally, this is the climax of the gradual ‘crescendo’ that has been building up throughout the preceding elaboration. The role of the thesis statement has been compared to that of a launching pad: it is the point of departure for the detailed argument that will follow. At the same time, it defines the scope of the body of the text: it makes a commitment to the reader, creating expectations which he will want to see fulfilled. Indeed, it also points all the way forward to the conclusions that you will draw at the end of the text. In other words, all the paragraphs that follow the introduction will have a more or less direct relation to the thesis statement.

When planning your text, you will group all the various thoughts that occur to you around one central idea. It is this central idea that will surface as the thesis statement. The reason why we recommend that the thesis statement should be placed at the end of the introduction rather than, for example, at the very beginning of the text is that the reader needs to be gradually introduced into the writer’s ‘world’ (i.e. the matters of context and perspective) before he can make any proper sense of the issue to be identified. Another, related reason is that a thesis statement at the very beginning of a text needs to be identified as such with some such tedious gambit as The purpose of this article is to investigate… or In this essay, I wish to consider the advantages and drawbacks of …. By contrast, a thesis statement that follows as a natural culmination of the foregoing text is generally identifiable as such simply by virtue of its final position in the introductory paragraph.Probably the most effective kind of thesis statement is one that does not explicitly draw attention to its status. Thesis statements such as the following will tend to strike the reader as cumbersome – the over-obvious signposts have been italicized:

*The thesis to be examined in the following paragraphs is whether grandparents should once again be given a place in the family home.

*There are various reasons to be explored in the rest of this essay, why the West should be more active in its funding of the new democracies of Eastern Europe.

Generally, it is preferable for the thesis statement to imply, rather than state, that a discussion is about to follow. There will always be a few words in the thesis statement that trigger this implication; these are italicized in the following examples:

Social planners need to consider whether grandparents should once again be given a place in the family home.

The question arises whether the West should be more active in its funding of the new democracies of Eastern Europe.

Any decision to place restrictions on what is broadcast should follow on a careful consideration of the pros and cons of television censorship.

Paradoxically, the thesis statement may take the form of a question:

Should grandparents again be given a place in the family home?

The examples above, in contrast to all the preceding examples of thesis statements, strongly suggests the direction of the argument to come. In general terms, a distinction can be drawn between neutral and suggestive thesis statements. The former type gives no clue as to the ultimate conclusion of the argument, and is usually followed by a balanced discussion, in which the advantages and disadvantages of the thesis are given a roughly equal airing. The latter type does not exclude the discussion of counter-arguments, but the bulk of the body will be devoted to substantiating the claim made in the thesis statement.

Given the pivotal role of the thesis statement, it is essential that the writer should devote great care to its formulation. It should terminate the introductory paragraph without any further material, and should itself end strongly. A sentence such as the first below, with a particle and a preposition, is ripe for editing.  In the second, edited version, the sentence ends with two strong words which emphasize the writer’s commitment.

*Racist attitudes are something no modern democracy can put up with.
In a modern democracy, racist attitudes are absolutely intolerable.

To summarize, the introductory paragraph climaxes in the thesis statement. Having read the thesis statement, the reader should have a clear idea of what the rest of the text is going to be about and should feel motivated to continue reading. If this is to be achieved, you must ensure that:

• the thesis statement expresses the central concern of the text;
• it is recognizable as such by its paragraph-final positioning, without any cumbersome signposting;
• it is either neutral or suggestive of the line to be followed;
• it is formulated in such a way as to end the paragraph in a strong, self-confident manner.