Monday, September 29, 2014

Thesis! Thesis! Thesis!

If you have a bad thesis, you will have a bad essay. I have described the thesis in several places:

Part 3 in this post
Here's my example thesis and an explanation
And this is another post emphasizing the importance of the thesis

You NEED a thesis. Your thesis should be a statement, not a question. It should be debatable, not a random opinion. It should take a position.

Here's a test for your thesis. If you said it to a friend, could they argue with you? If the answer is yes, you have a good thesis. If the answer is no, then try to rework your thesis.

Consider some of these theses from your peers. Do you think they're good or bad? How could they be improved? After you decide look for my thoughts in the hidden text:

Law should not control the freedom of expression and it has to guarantee the right to express freely.

Thoughts?
- This thesis is debatable, but it is taking two positions which is too broad. "Law should not control the freedom of expression." or "Law has to guarantee the right to free expression." would be better theses. 

To prevent some disasters, Information must be regulated in the internet. 

Thoughts?
- This is a pretty good thesis. We want it to be as simple and direct as possible though. I think we can simplify it by saying, "Information must be regulated on the internet," and then in different parts of the essay, maybe the confirmation, explain that we need to regulate it to prevent disasters. 

The human behavior radically comes from emotions rather than reason.


Thoughts?
- Again, pretty good, but lets make it as simple as possible. Is the sentence different if we omit "radically"? I think here the perfect thesis is, "Human behavior comes from emotions rather than reason."

No comments:

Post a Comment