112 For Instructors: Finding & Composing Thesis Statements

How Do I Find the Thesis Statement?

Thesis statements can be difficult to find, even for experienced readers. Sometimes, they’re located at the start of the first paragraph of the essay or article. Sometimes, they’re located at the end of that first paragraph. Sometimes — especially in longer articles and in academic books — they’re located several paragraphs or pages into the piece.

What’s a reader to do?

Let’s try a game first.

Activity

Each group will receive a Ziplock bag that contains printed cut-outs of individual sentences. These sentences come from a published paragraph that contains a thesis statement. Here’s your challenge — with a prize!

• Take the cut-out sentences out of the baggie.
• Read each one.
• Put them in the order you think makes the most sense.
• Make a note of which sentence is the thesis statement.
• The first team to finish — with the correct order! — wins … A PRIZE.
• BONUS: Share with classmates how your team figured out the order and the thesis statement.

Tips for Finding Thesis Statements

Before we try another activity, list the tips you and your team used to put the sentences in order and locate the thesis statements. How does your list compare to the following?

1. First, read the title. Scholarly articles, essays, books, and studies usually provide very descriptive and detailed titles that identify the topic. Titles often provide a clue to the author’s point of view, position on the topic, direction of the piece, and key argument.
2. Second, read the abstract, if there is one. These entries usually give a somewhat detailed overview. Good abstracts clearly identify the topic, outline the study methods used (if any), and clearly state the author’s argument, conclusions, or findings. Quite often, the thesis statement is the last full sentence of the abstract.
3. Third, read the first paragraph or — for longer articles and books — the first page or so. The idea is to get the sense of the piece. But, as with the abstract, pay close attention to the first and last sentences. Quite often, the thesis statement is the last full sentence of the first paragraph.
4. As you read, look for sentences that use words like “argue,” “claim,” “conclude,” “contend,” “will,” “in this …,” “should.” There are a few other key words that are common, but these will get you started.
5. Finally, ask yourself if the steps above have helped you identify what the essay or article is about, what the author’s position is, and what argument they’re making (or what conclusions they are presenting). Is there one sentence that sums up these details? If so, that’s a candidate for the thesis statement.
6. If you’re not sure, repeat or revisit one of the steps above.

Activity

Now that you have a better idea about what thesis statements are and how to find them, let’s practice on a few scholarly, academic readings.

Working individually or in groups, identify the thesis statement in these paragraphs.

• In a time of endless war, with democracy in full retreat, I argue that we must chart pathways toward equality for all people by digging deep into the past and rediscovering the ideas of Emancipation Day lecturers, Mexicano newspaper editors, abolitionists, Latin American revolutionaries, and Black anti-imperialists who dreamed of democratic ways of living in the Americas. We have too often forgotten the connections that movement organizers built between people’s movements for freedom in the United States, Central America, and the Caribbean. The recovery of these truths is more vital than ever as the United States erects barriers to divide humanity from itself in a fit of historical amnesia. In Border Odyssey: Travels Along the U.S./Mexico Divide, Charles D. Thompson Jr. reminds readers, “Stories are the opposite of walls; they demand release, retelling, showing, connecting, each image chipping away at boundaries.” [My book] An African American and Latinx History of the United States seeks to chip away at the barriers that have been placed in the way of understanding between people, between nations. (Ortiz 2018, p. 2)
•  This chapter focuses on the circulation #YesAllWomen, and it takes a curious approach in attending to its movement. In line with recent work in circulation studies and new materialism, we seek to open up #YesAllWomen to give it status as a viable actor that has amassed a kind of vibrant force via its ongoing circulation in material spheres far wider than its point of origin. … We aim to intervene in the study of digital activism, and specifically, the emerging practice known as hashtag activism. We argue that the emergence of key hashtags within the past few years—#BringBackOurGirls, #BlackLivesMatter, #Ferguson, #NotYourAsianSidekick— deserve more attention than matter-of-fact argument … Instead, we contend that tracing the circulation of such hashtags, as well as treating them as rhetorical things, helps to unravel material complexities within the broader assemblages that animate their becoming. In other words, more energy should be invested in exploring how the circulation of a hashtag comes to matter. (Edwards & Lang 2018)
• I am going to write an essay describing my experiences with fat oppression and the ways in which feminism and punk have affected my work. It will be clear, concise and well thought-out, and will be laid out in the basic thesis paper, college essay format. I will deal with these issues in a mature and intellectual manner. I will cash in on as many fifty-cent words as possible. I lied. (You probably picked up on that, huh?) I can’t do that. This is my life, and my words are the most effective tool I have for challenging Whiteboyworld (that’s my punk-rock cutesy but oh-so-revolutionary way of saying “patriarchy”). If there’s one thing that feminism has taught me, it’s that the revolution is gonna be on my terms. The revolution will be incited through my voice, my words, not the words of the universe of male intellect that already exists. And I know that a hell of a lot of what I say is totally contradictory. My contradictions can co-exist, cuz they exist inside of me, and I’m not gonna simplify them so that they fit into the linear, analytical pattern that I know they’re supposed to. I think it’s important to recognize that all this stuff does contribute to the revolution, for real. The fact that I write like this cuz it’s the way I want to write makes this world just that much safer for me. (Lamm)