• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Next, follow the procedure for making the thesis evolve, listed again here for convenience:

Formulate an idea about your subject, a working thesis.

See how far you can make this thesis go in accounting for confirming evidence.

Locate evidence that is not adequately accounted for by the thesis.

Make explicit the apparent mismatch between the thesis and selected evidence, asking and answering “So what?”

Reshape your claim to accommodate the evidence that hasn’t fit.

Repeat steps 2, 3, 4, and 5 several times.

* * *

Chapter 12

Recognizing and Fixing Weak Thesis Statements

BY WAY OF REVIEW, a strong thesis makes a claim that (1) requires analysis to support and evolve it and (2) offers some point about the significance of your evidence that would not have been immediately obvious to your readers. By contrast, a weak thesis either makes no claim or makes a claim that does not need proving. This chapter offers advice on how to recognize a weak thesis statement—and how to fix it. The chapter consists largely of examples of weak thesis statements taken from actual student papers, followed by discussion of how to recognize and rethink and rephrase them.

Weak thesis statements don’t give the writer enough to do in his or her essay. Typically, a weak thesis is an unproductive claim because it doesn’t actually require further thinking or proof, as, for example, “An important part of one’s college education is learning to better understand others’ points of view” (a piece of conventional wisdom that most people would already accept as true, and thus not in need of arguing).

FIVE KINDS OF WEAK THESIS STATEMENTS

A thesis that makes no claim (“This paper examines the pros and cons of …”)

A thesis that is obviously true or a statement of fact (“Exercise is good for you”)

A thesis that restates conventional wisdom (“Love conquers all”)

A thesis that offers personal conviction as the basis for the claim (“Shopping malls are wonderful places”)

A thesis that makes an overly broad claim (“Individualism is good”)

Solutions? Be suspicious of your first responses to a subject. Privilege live questions over inert answers. Find ways to bring out the complexity of your subject. Look again at the What It Means to Have an Idea section in Chapter 3, which tells you to start with something puzzling that you want to figure out rather than with something you already believe to be clearly and obviously true. Look back as well to Chapter 11, which guides you to use evidence to complicate your claims and to compose thesis statements that contain inherent tension. When in doubt, do more exploratory writing to trigger better ideas.

FIVE KINDS OF WEAK THESIS STATEMENTS AND HOW TO FIX THEM

WEAK THESIS TYPE 1: THE THESIS MAKES NO CLAIM

Problem Examples

I’m going to write about Darwin’s concerns with evolution in The Origin of Species.

This paper addresses the characteristics of a good corporate manager.

Both problem examples name a subject and link it to the intention to write about it, but they don’t make any claim about the subject. As a result, they direct neither the writer nor the reader toward some position or plan of attack. Even if the second example were rephrased as “This paper addresses why a good corporate manager needs to learn to delegate responsibility,” the thesis would not adequately suggest why such a claim would need to be argued or defended. There is, in short, nothing at stake, no issue to be resolved.

Solution: Raise specific issues for the essay to explore.

Solution Examples

Darwin’s concern with survival of the fittest in The Origin of Species initially leads him to neglect a potentially conflicting aspect of his theory of evolution—survival as a matter of interdependence.

The very trait that makes for an effective corporate manager—the drive to succeed—can also make the leader domineering and, therefore, ineffective.

Some disciplines expect writers to offer statements of method and/or intention