Writing a Thesis Statement

The most important sentence in your essay or report is the thesis statementSee the glossary definition . Everything you write hangs on the thesis statement and can be traced back to it. If it doesn’t, it should not be in your essay or report.

A thesis statement needs to provide the reader with two pieces of information: the topicSee the glossary definition of your report and the writer’s stanceSee the glossary definition . Stance means your opinion, your approach, your position on the topic. This is especially important if you are writing any type of persuasiveSee the glossary definition (argumentative) text.

The thesis statement should be short - usually only one sentence and rarely more than two.

The thesis statement appears in your introduction; usually at the end of the introductionGo to the Paragraph Structure page.

You cannot write a good thesis statement unless you have a clear idea in your own mind about what you want to say. So make sure that you can write this down in simple language; it should be a single idea, not a list of random thoughts.

Once you have a good thesisSee the glossary definition or go to the "Using A Thesis Statement to Plan an Essay" page statement you have a good basis for developing a plan for your essay or report.