Developing a Working Thesis Statement

Learning Objectives

  • Evaluate the role of a working thesis statement

Thesis Angles

Most writers can easily create a topic, but creating an angle can be more difficult. However, a strong thesis requires both. A topic is the subject of your writing, but a thesis angle is your main claim or perspective on that topic. The angle makes your thesis specific, engaging, and clear for readers by indicating what to expect.

Examples: thesis angles

Thesis: A regular exercise routine provides both physical and emotional benefits.

  • Topic: Exercise
  • Angle: It leads to multiple benefits

Thesis: While social media enhances political awareness by providing instant access to news and varied perspectives, it also amplifies misinformation, making critical thinking essential for informed engagement.

  • Topic: Social media
  • Angle: It influences political awareness but also contributes to misinformation

Thesis Angles

Hover your cursor over the circles below to read more about thesis angles.

Example: Creating a better thesis angle

Let’s take a look at a thesis statement.

  • College students have experiences.

As a reader, you understand intuitively that the writer will deal with the different types of experiences that adult college students may have. However, you may not know what is significant about this age group and why it matters. How can we be more specific about who we are writing about and what is interesting about the topic? Let’s take a look at a revision that is a bit more specific.

  • College students over 30 have different work experiences that benefit their studies.

See the difference? We now have a specific topic (college students over 30) and a specific angle (their work experiences) along with why it matters (their work history will benefit their student skills). Realize that a thesis sentence offers a range of possibilities for specificity and organization. As a writer, you may opt to pique your reader’s interest by being very specific or not fully specific in your thesis sentence. The point here is that there’s no one standard way to write a thesis sentence.

Sometimes a writer is more or less specific depending on the reading audience and the effect the writer wants to create. Sometimes a writer puts the angle first and the topic last in the sentence, or sometimes the angle is even implied. You need to gauge your reading audience and you need to understand your own style as a writer. The only basic requirements are that the thesis sentence needs a topic and an angle. The rest is up to you.

Watch IT

This video reviews the importance of thesis statements and provides examples of how good thesis statements can guide your essay.

You can find the transcript for “How to Write a Killer Thesis Statement by Shmoop” here (opens in new window).

Thesis Creation

At what point do you write a thesis sentence? The timing of writing a thesis varies depending on the writer and the assignment. Typically, you will develop ideas through prewriting before a clear thesis emerges. A working thesis is a placeholder or developing thesis that usually forms before conducting in-depth research or fully defining supporting details. Think of the thesis as the midpoint of an hourglass—broad ideas narrow into a main assertion, which then guides focused research and development.

Realize that a thesis is really a working thesis until you finalize the writing. As you dig deeper into research and refine your ideas, your thesis might shift, and that’s okay. The key is to keep it focused by ensuring it always has a clear topic and specific angle to guide your work.

Thesis Checklist

Thesis Checklist

When you draft a working thesis, it can be helpful to review the guidelines for a strong thesis. The following checklist is a helpful tool you can use to check your thesis once you have it drafted. Click through these slides to see a sample of a thesis checklist.

Common Problems

Although you have creative control over your thesis sentence, you still should try to avoid the following problems, not for stylistic reasons, but because they indicate a problem in the thinking that underlies the thesis sentence.

Thesis Problems

Thesis too broad

Hospice workers need more support.

The sentence above actually is a thesis sentence; it has a topic (hospice workers) and an angle (need support). But the angle is too broad. When the angle in a thesis sentence is too broad, the writer needs to add specific support for the topic. A thesis angle that’s too broad may lead to a disorganized paper or you may lose sight of what you are trying to examine as a writer.

Thesis too narrow

Hospice workers at the PeaceHealth Center have a 55% turnover rate compared to the general healthcare population’s 25% turnover rate.

The above sentence reads like a narrow statistic, or a narrow statement of fact, and does not offer the writer’s own ideas or analysis about a topic. A clearer example of a thesis statement with an angle of development would be the following:

The high turnover rate of hospice workers (55 percent) compared to the general healthcare population (25 percent) indicates a need to develop support systems to reverse this trend.

This thesis moves us away from one location, and adds an idea of how to “reverse this trend.” The readers will not only learn about the topic, they will also understand the angle of the writer.

Where to Place a Thesis?

For writers in the United States, it is customary for most academic writers to put the thesis sentence somewhere toward the start of the essay or research paper. The focus here is on offering the main results of your own thinking in your thesis angle and then providing evidence in the writing to support your thinking.

A legal comparison might help to understand thesis placement. If you have seen television shows or movies with courtroom scenes, the lawyer usually starts out by saying, “My client is innocent!” to set the scene, and then provides different types of evidence to support that argument. Academic writing in the United States is similar; your thesis sentence provides your main assertion to set the scene of the writing, and then the details and evidence in the rest of the writing support the assertion in the thesis sentence.

NOTE: Although the usual pattern is “thesis sentence toward the start,” there may be reasons to place the thesis elsewhere in the writing. You may decide to place the thesis sentence at the end of the writing if your purpose is to gradually induce a reading audience to understand and accept your assertion. You may decide to place the thesis sentence in the middle of the writing if you think you need to provide relatively complicated background information to your readers before they can understand the assertion in your thesis. If you are not sure what to do, always consult your assignment and ask your teacher if you need guidance.

As a writer, you have the option of placing the thesis anywhere in the writing. For college assignments, you may be asked to make the thesis sentence idea clear to your readers. College writers usually stick with “thesis sentence toward the start,” as it makes the thesis prominent in the writing.

Link to Learning

Need help understanding thesis statements? Try this thesis generator from SUNY Empire State College to help you make your thesis statement—just plug in some of the details, and it can help you come up with a solid foundation! This is where you can use some of your prewriting or brainstorming to plug in details to create a working thesis statement. This is a great resource you can use in other classes.

Try It