5 Tips for Writing a Strong Thesis Statement

1. Tailor Your Thesis Statement to Your Essay Type

Different essays may require different approaches to writing a thesis statement. Three common essay types are argumentative, expository, and analytical:

• Argumentative – An argumentative thesis statement sets out the position you will argue for in the essay and outlines your key point(s).
• Expository – Expository essays explain something, so the thesis statement for an essay like this will summarise the key facts from your research.
• Analytical – Analytical essays focus on breaking down and exploring an issue in depth, so the thesis statement will summarise the issue and your analysis.

Thus, before writing anything, work out what kind of essay you’re writing. Once you’ve done this, you can tailor your thesis statement to match. We’ll give examples of argumentative, expository, and analytical thesis statements below.

2. Start with a Question

To work out a basic thesis, you need to start with an essay question. This is the issue your essay will address, and thus the main subject for your thesis statement.

If you were assigned a question for the essay, this will be simple! Otherwise, think about the topic of your essay and work out a simple question that you will answer.

You can see some examples of possible essay questions below:

• Argumentative – Should vaccination for measles be compulsory or voluntary?
• Expository – What effect did the Great Depression have on the US economy?
• Analytical – What is the role of the ‘play within a play’ in Hamlet?

This question will provide a jumping off point for your full thesis statement.

3. Work Out a Position You Can Defend

When you have a question, sketch out a basic answer for it. Importantly, this has to be something someone could disagree with or take a differing position on.

For instance, simply saying ‘The Great Depression had a major effect on the economy’ would not be enough. This is too obvious. Instead, try to think of as position that someone could rationally dispute or disagree with. For example:

• Argumentative – Vaccination for measles should be compulsory.
• Expository – The Great Depression significantly reduced GDP in the USA, triggering a shift to a mixed economy.
• Analytical – Shakespeare uses the ‘play within a play’ in Hamlet to explore the relationship between performance and authenticity.

This will become the basic thesis you will expand on or defend in your essay.

4. Summarise Your Key Arguments

A strong thesis statement will be clear and concise (a sentence or two at most). But it should also be detailed enough to show how you will answer your essay question.

Thus, when you have your basic thesis, you will want to expand it to summarise the key points or arguments you will use to support it. For instance:

• Argumentative – Vaccination for measles should be compulsory because research shows it has saved millions of lives with few negative side effects.
• Expository – The Great Depression reduced GDP in the US by 50% within the first five years, triggering a shift to New Deal politics and a mixed economy.
• Analytical – Shakespeare uses the ‘play within a play’ in Hamlet to explore themes of performance and authenticity, including the reliability of external appearances and how performance shapes our lives.

Your thesis statement should now give a strong sense of what you will say in the rest of your essay, setting up the reader to follow your arguments.

5. Review Your Thesis After Writing Your Essay

The thesis statement always goes at the start of an essay, so it may be one of the first things you write. But it is worth revisiting your thesis once you have a first draft.

This is because you need your thesis statement to reflect the content of the essay as a whole. And if the focus of your work shifts during writing – perhaps because you found a new piece of evidence or thought of a new argument at some point – you may find your conclusion and your initial thesis don’t quite match up any more.

When you have a first draft, though, you can tweak your thesis statement to reflect any changes made while drafting (or tweak your essay to match the statement).

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