Writing a Clear Concise Thesis Statement What is

Writing a Clear, Concise Thesis Statement

What is a thesis statement? What characteristics should it have?

What is a thesis statement? A debatable, focused claim

Research level questions Question which cannot be resolved using logical claims and evidence Undecided question which can be argued using evidence Factual question requiring research Factual question which requires no research

Is it morally wrong not to recycle? Does Notre Dame’s recycling program need further improvement? How much less waste does Notre Dame now send to landfills, compared with five years ago? Does Notre Dame have a recycling program?

Focus Oriented for a specific audience and their knowledge Appropriate for the context and format of the larger piece

What characteristics should a thesis have? Formality Concision Assertion

Formality Formal Language • High-register, scholarly, learned Informal Language • Casual, relaxed, colloquial

Which is more formal? The purpose of this paper is to try to figure out what is lacking in our current understanding of corrosion and corrosion protection in concrete. The purpose of this paper is to try to determine what is lacking in our current understanding of corrosion and corrosion protection in concrete.

Although labor unions in the U. S. have been able to keep up their membership numbers over the last two decades, they have been losing their political strength. Although labor unions in the U. S. have been able to maintain their membership numbers over the last two decades, they have been losing their political strength.

Which verb would be a better choice? The use of touch-screen voting systems could get rid of many problems associated with traditional paper-based ballots. The six leading causes of death in the U. S. are mainly brought on by overeating, lack of exercise, and cigarette smoking. Researchers have recently come up with hybrid vehicles that use a fuel-cell engine and a batter-assisted power train. eliminate determine constitute investigate develop maintain cause decrease

Find 2 -3 more formal alternatives: Problems with this policy showed up soon after its implementation. In the past five years many studies have looked at the effect of different grassland management practices. Cancer researchers have run into a variety of unexpected problems in their efforts to develop a vaccine.

Which is more formal? There has been a lot of/considerable interest in how background sounds affect an individual’s ability to concentrate. In Hong Kong there is one cell phone for just about/virtually every two people. Crash test dummies are really important for/an integral part of automotive crash tests.

Rewrite in a more formal tone: The competition that U. S. growers get from imports of Mexican vegetables has gotten more intense. Allergic reactions to local dental anesthesia don’t happen very often. This problem doesn’t have very many viable solutions.

General rules: A single verb rather than a verb + preposition • Worldwide consumption of pesticides has gone up increased to 2. 6 metric tons. Simple past tense or gerund (present progressive) forms • Relations between the sheriff and the mayor have gotten worsened since the incident. • Consumer interest in paper checks is getting smaller and smaller decreasing. Simple negative forms • The analysis did not yield any results →The analysis yielded no new results. • The problem doesn’t have many viable solutions → The problem has few viable solutions.

Avoid slang, clichés, and abbreviations.

Which of these statements is better? It may be difficult to make a choice about the method that we should use. Choosing the proper method may be difficult.

There are some inorganic materials that can be used by bioengineers in the process of tissue engineering that have been shown to be very promising. Some inorganic materials used in tissue engineering have shown great promise.

Concision Efficient use of words: Try to use no more words than you really need

Rephrase to be more precise: Many have made the wise observation that when a stone is in motion rolling down a hill or incline that moving stone is not as likely to be covered all over with the kind of thick green moss that grows on stationary unmoving things and becomes a nuisance and suggests that those things haven’t moved in a long time and probably won’t move any time soon.

A rolling stone gathers no moss.

General guidelines for phrases to omit: Unnecessary determiners and modifiers (adjectives/adverbs) • For all intents and purposes, American industrial productivity generally depends on certain factors that are really more psychological in kind than of any given technological aspect → American industrial productivity depends more on psychological than on technological factors.

kind of sort of type of really basically for all intents and purposes definitely actually generally individual specific particular

Words that explain the obvious or provide excessive detail • Baseball, one of our oldest and most popular outdoor summer sports in terms of total attendance at ball parks and viewing on television, has the kind of rhythm of play on the field that alternates between times when players passively wait with no action taking place between the pitches to the batter and then times when they explode into action as the batter hits a pitched ball to one of the players and the player fields it. → Baseball has a rhythm that alternates between waiting and explosive action.

Repetitive phrasing • In this day and age, young men in their twenties rarely if ever marry the neighbor girl who lives next door. → Modern men in their twenties rarely marry the girl next door.

Redundancies • Notre Dame students are largely able to put aside the various differences of each individual and work together toward common future goals. → Notre Dame students are largely able to put aside differences and work together toward common goals. • During that time period, many car buyers preferred cars that were pink in color and shiny in appearance. → During that period, many car buyers preferred pink, shiny cars.

Redundant Pairs past memories various differences each individual basic fundamentals true facts important essentials future plans terrible tragedy end result final outcome free gift past history unexpected surprise sudden crisis

Redundant categories large in size often times of a bright color heavy in weight period in time round in shape at an early time of cheap quality honest in character of an uncertain condition in a confused state unusual in nature extreme in degree of a strange type

Rewrite with more efficient language: An investigation into the symbolic overtones of Eliot’s Adam Bede will reveal a type of opposing positive and negative characterization of the two female characters Dinah and Hetty, who are from very different backgrounds. The increase in number of laptop computers and smart phones gives a partial but not complete explanation for students’ increasing dependence on communicating by means of the Internet.

Which claim is stronger? The Civil War was fought by the North and South for many reasons, some of which were the same and some different. Both Northerners and Southerners fought against tyranny and oppression in the Civil War, though Northerners focused on the oppression of slaves while Southerners defended their own right to selfgovernment.

Dropping atomic bombs on Japan was evil and unjustifiable. The decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan was a very complex one. The bombing of Japan was not a necessary maneuver for ending World War II; however, neither was it a racially motivated strike, as many opponents claim.

Voice Declarative, assertive statement with which it would be possible for readers to disagree A claim which offers a fresh perspective without being combative or overly confrontational

Rewrite the following with a clear point of view: The rise of technology has greatly impacted the media industry.

Rewrite the following as a debatable claim: Toni Morrison is the st best writer of the 21 century.

Academic English: More clearly places the responsibility for clarity on the writer and not the reader • Is more explicit about its structures and purposes • Is less tolerant of asides or digressions • Uses fairly short sentences with less complicated grammar • Uses more sentence connectors (words like however) Points more explicitly to the “gaps” or “weaknesses” in the previous research