Get to your point… and keep it short and focused, soldier!
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It is not a YES or No question, soldier!
When considering questions that you feel your reader might like answered about the topic covered in your paper, DO NOT, UNDER
ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, begin your thesis question with any of the following Thesis Mission Failure words:
IS, ARE, DO, DOES, SHOULD, WOULD, COULD, CAN or any other questions that you could answer with “YES” or “NO”
Doing this will doom your thesis before it even starts – in Shakespearean parlance, you will have “hoisted yourself with your own petard” (you blew yourself up with your own bomb)

It is not a YES or No question, soldier!
Observe the following thesis question:

It is not a YES or No question, soldier!
Observe thesis statement option one – the “yes” option:
Hate speech in social media has a far-reaching effect on how those of different ethnicities are viewed in real life.
Observe thesis statement option two – the “no” option:
Hate speech in social media does not have a far-reaching effect on how those of different ethnicities are viewed in real life.
BOOM! Consider your petard hoisted. Either choice makes a somewhat dull and pointless statement, right?
(Remember: The Thesis Questions you pose to yourself, in anticipation of the ones your reader might have about your subject, should be then answered in the
Thesis Statement you ultimately create)

It is not a YES or No question, soldier!
Remember: The Thesis Questions you pose to yourself, in anticipation of the ones your reader might have about your subject, should then be answered in the Thesis Statement you ultimately create!
A good way to think about your thesis questions is to take a page from the reporter’s notebook and use the 5 W’s and an H method:
Who
What
Where
When
Why and How

It is not a YES or No question, soldier!
Starting your thesis question with any of these words will ensure that you will not fall into the YES or NO trap, since NONE of them can be answered with a simple affirmative or negative!

You wanna know what a thesis statement does and does not do?
A thesis statement is a sentence (YES, ONLY ONE SENTENCE) that makes an assertion about a topic and predicts how the topic will be developed. It does not simply announce a topic: it says something about the topic.
Announcing a topic:
This paper will discuss how there are many reasons Americans need to limit hate speech.
NO!
(This merely tells the reader that there are “many” reasons, but is not specific as to what those reasons might be AND the why hate speech should be limited is also left out of the statement )
Saying something about the topic:
Among the many reasons why hate speech should be limited, the most compelling ones all refer to America’s history of discrimination and prejudice, and it is, ultimately, for the purpose of trying to repair a troubled racial society that hate speech legislation is needed.
YES!
(The reader now knows about the discriminatory and prejudicial reasons for limiting hate speech – the “what” – AND that the limiting of hate speech could help repair a troubled racial society – the “why”)

Never ask the reader a question in your thesis statement (even rhetorical ones)!
You’re heading up this writing mission – tell us what you want us to think!
DO NOT HEDGE!
DO NOT “BEAT AROUND THE BUSH”!
PLANT YOUR METAPHORICAL FEET AND DIG IN!
(What’s with all the plant references?)
The takeaway:
Say exactly what you mean, and the reader will know that you mean exactly what you say!

If you wanna win, you gotta
Remember The Formula!
The Winning Thesis Formula:
1. Qualification
(a.k.a. your recognition of the opposing viewpoint)
+
2. STANCE
(a.k.a. your POSITION on the subject)
+
3. Rationale
(a.k.a. the supporting Evidence for your position)
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Don’t shoot yourself in the foot, recruit!
Avoid these common thesis errors!
1.
You fail to make a claim
2.
You make a claim that is either obviously true or assert a mere statement of fact
3.
You just use clichés or trite ideas without either sufficient complication or the application of a fresh twist on conventional wisdom
4.
You offer your own personal convictions/biases as the basis for your claim, moralizing or judging instead of evaluating
5.
You make an overly broad claim
Let’s explain each of these errors individually – you can check to see if your thesis passes muster…

Don’t shoot yourself in the foot, recruit!
Avoid these common thesis errors!
1.
You fail to make a claim
This paper will address the characteristics of a good corporate manager.
• Yeah? So what? What’s your claim? Where’s the controversy (argument)?
There is nothing at stake here and no issue presented for resolution. [Since there is no Qualification, Stance, or
Evidence, this is just exposition (description), not argumentative.
• What are those primary characteristics? Who, specifically, do these characteristics apply to? All corporate managers?
Managers of large corporations? Financial institutions? Be specific.
If you mean all corporate managers universally, say so!
• Be careful not to use unnecessary prefacing in your thesis (“This paper will address…” or “The topic to be discussed is…”, etc.)

Don’t shoot yourself in the foot, recruit!
Avoid these common thesis errors!
2. You make a claim that is either obviously true or assert a mere statement of fact
Young adult publishers target their books with an intent to appeal to young adults.
•
• Uh-huh. And little green men from Mars are green. Can’t find anyone who disagrees with you? Sounds like that would be a great world to live in – you know, where everyone is just like you. Well, pretty soon, even you are going to get pretty tired of you. Likewise, your readers will begin to yawn and probably question the credibility of any argument you produce (and maybe even your sanity).
• You will need to question what the opposing viewpoint uses as their facts (“talking points”) or the issues that opposition might bring up. Inquire and find a way you can make an assertion for which it might be possible for a reader to disagree. Whether you are writing an argumentative or an issue analysis paper,
THERE CAN BE NO ANALYSIS WITHOUT DISAGREEMENT!
Be sure to stay away from blatantly obvious, circular statements like the one above (…and I suppose that you are going to tell me that young adults actually buy these books, too? Will wonders never cease?)

Don’t shoot yourself in the foot, recruit!
Avoid these common thesis errors!
3. You just use clichés or trite ideas without either sufficient complication or the application of a fresh twist on conventional wisdom
From cartoons in the morning to adventure shows at night, there is too much violence on television.
• The British actor and comedian Stephen Fry once noted that “it is a cliché that most clichés are true, but then like most clichés, that cliché is untrue.” Therefore, a good thesis writer should avoid clichés like the plague. (See what I did there?)
• If you cannot uniquely qualify conventional wisdom or cannot present a fresh perspective on it, then your reader will need the information you present in your paper like he or she needs a hole in his or her hea … er … just don’t use clichés or trite, overused expressions. They show you as exhibiting little original thought and force your reader into exhibiting little further interest in reading your work.

•
•
4.
Don’t shoot yourself in the foot, recruit!
Avoid these common thesis errors!
You offer your own personal convictions/biases as the basis for your claim – a.k.a. moralizing or judging instead of evaluating
Your personal likes, dislikes, experiences, or biases can lead you into hair-trigger or disproportionate reactions of approval or disapproval, often expressed in a moralistic (“preachy”) tone. When you write this way, you are making a false assumption that your prime purpose in your thesis (and thus your paper) is to judge the subject you are writing about or testify as to the subject’s worth or value, rather than evaluate your subject of written discussion empirically and analytically .
This is the main reason why you write in third person – you want to distance yourself from the issue being discussed so as not to inject any more “you” into your writing than is absolutely necessary). We want to hear your well-reasoned position with the evidence to back up that position, but we also want to hear what your opposition thinks about the subject at hand. Let your “killer” argumentation do the work – leave your “argument killing” personal baggage about the subject in your diary, not your research essay.

Don’t shoot yourself in the foot, recruit!
Avoid these common thesis errors!
• Remember when you learned about The Scientific Method in your school science classes?
1. Come up with a question to be answered. (Remember your thesis questions?)
2. Do background research. (That is what you’re doing at the library and on databases, isn’t it?)
3. Construct a hypothesis. (As in, what do you predict might happen if you, say, add salt to water? Or if you take a powerful, evidence-supported stance in favor of capital punishment while also taking into account the arguments against it?)
4. Test your hypothesis. (Can you find enough evidence from your research –books, periodicals, databases, internet, etc. – to support your claim? Can you make your position appear sufficiently strong in the face of the opinions of the “other side?”
5. Analyze your data and draw a conclusion. (Formulate your working thesis).
6. Communicate your results (Write the doggone paper!)
• If you see the correlation between The Scientific Method and your research paper, it’s no accident. You will create a better paper if you apply the rigor of a scientist : As you create your thesis, try on other points of view honestly
(straightforward and to the point) and dispassionately (third-person voice and distanced). Treat your ideas as hypotheses to be tested rather than obvious truths, because, contrary to popular belief, the goal of science is not to prove something to be true, nor to disprove something to be false, but to follow the evidence as it is presented. Before deciding on your working thesis statement, your goal in researching your topic is, in the words of Sir Francis Bacon, to “read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, but to weigh and consider.”

Don’t shoot yourself in the foot, recruit!
Avoid these common thesis errors!
5. You make an overly broad claim
The use of agricultural fertilizers has had both positive and negative results for man.
• When you write your thesis statement in an overly generalized manner, you avoid complexity (and that’s a bad thing). At best , they show a lack of serious thought on the part of the writer. At their worst, these types of thesis generalities settle for assertions that are so broad and show such little uniqueness that they could fit almost any subject and thus say nothing in particular about the subject at hand (as in, What’s your point? Why? What could or should be done about this use of fertilizers? What effects, specifically?
• To remedy this common error, try converting broad categories and generic , one-size-fits-all claims to more specific, pointed assertions, with an ultimate goal of finding ways to bring out the complexity of your subject.
• Use specific nouns and modifiers, and action verbs
• Some strategies for improving an overly broad thesis:
• Specify—Replace the overly abstract terms—terms such as positive and negative (or similar and different)—with something specific; name something that is positive and something that is negative instead.
• Subordinate—Rank one of the two items in the pairing underneath the other. When you subordinate, you put the most important, pressing, or revealing side of the comparison in what is known as the main clause and the less important side in what is known as the subordinate clause, introducing it with a word such as although.
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You have your marching orders, soldier!
WRITE RIGHT!
WRITE RIGHT!
WRITE RIGHT!
WRITE RIGHT!
WRITE RIGHT!
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