Thesis Guidelines and Examples

• "Thesis" comes from a Greek word meaning "the act of laying down"
• A thesis is a proposition that a writera dvances and offers to maintain by argument.
• A thesis is a concise statement of what the reader should come to believe.
• A thesis cannot be a statement of fact; it must have an argumentative edge.

A thesis cannot be a sentence fragment; it must be a complete sentence.

poor: How life is in a ghetto.

better: Residents of a ghetto tend to have a higher death rate, a higher infant mortality rate, and a higher unemployment rate than do residents of the suburbs.

A thesis must not be worded as a question. (Usually the answer to a question could be a thesis.)

poor: Do Americans really need large refrigerators?

better: If Americans did their marketing daily, as do most Europeans, they could save energy because they could use smaller refrigerators.

A thesis must not be too broad.

poor: The literature of mythology contains many resurrection stories.

better: One of the oldest resurrection myths is the story of the Egyptian god Osiris.

A thesis should not contain unrelated elements.

poor: All novelists seek the truth, and some novelists are good psychologists.

better: In their attempt to probe human nature, many novelist become excellent psychologists.

A thesis should not contain phrases such as "I think" or "in my opinion" because they weaken the writer's argument.

poor: In my opinion public buildings should be required by law to have no-smoking zones because of the adverse effects on health of "passive smoke."

better: Public buildings should be required by law to have no-smoking zones because of the adverse effects on health of "passive smoking."

A thesis should not be expressed in vague language.

poor: Religion as part of the school curriculum should be avoided because it can cause trouble.

better: Religion as part of the school curriculum should be avoided because each student in a classroom may have a different religion.

A thesis must not be expressed in muddled or incoherent language.

poor: Homosexuality is a status offense to the effect that the participants are willing so that the relationship is voluntary in character rather than the type described in a victim-perpetrator model.

better: Homosexuality between consenting adults should be considered an alternate life-style rather than a crime.

A thesis should not be expressed in figurative language.

poor: The Amazons of today are trying to purge all the stag words from the language.

better: Feminists are trying to eliminate the use of sex-biased words from public documents and publications.