The Three-Part Thesis Statement

Observation + Complication + Significance The Three-Part Thesis Statement

Purpose of the Thesis • The thesis, usually expressed in one or two sentences, is the central, organizing claim of your paper. • Because each paragraph’s job is to drive an argument forward by proving the thesis, the thesis largely determines the type of paper you get to write. • If your claim is complex, you have the option of picking the best arguments for your strong paper and having a lot to talk about.

Purpose Continued • Your thesis will probably change as you look more closely at your quotes while writing... This is a good thing, usually leading to a more complex, arguable, and significant central idea. • Before you turn your paper in, ALWAYS check to make sure that your thesis matches the argument that you’ve ended up writing! If your essay went in an unexpected direction, revise your thesis to fit the essay that you wrote.

BASIC THESIS GENERATOR • Observation: what you’ve noticed in the text • Complication: how O works/is used/changes • Significance: How O + C contributes to the author/text’s larger message, concerns, tensions, etc Specific strategy, literary device(s), and/or pattern What that device, strategy, or pattern does in the text So What? O + C reveals/suggests/disproves/etc…

Evolving Thesis Statements: O + C Observation: pattern/device • In Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, images of blankness and stasis in characters with secrets • align a lack of communication with a lack of animation Complication: creates analogy Significance: MISSING

Evolving Thesis Statements: C + S Observation: MISSING • align a lack of communication with a lack of animation • thereby suggesting that withdrawal from human interaction and the exchange of information can result in social, and sometimes actual, death. Complication: creates analogy Significance: reveals social condition and its hidden effects

Evolving Thesis Statements: O + S Observation: pattern/device • In Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, images of blankness and stasis in characters with secrets • thereby suggesting that withdrawal from human interaction and the exchange of information can result in social, and sometimes actual, death. Complication: MISSING Significance: reveals historical condition and its hidden effects

PUTTING TOGETHER A THESIS Observation: pattern/device • In Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, images of blankness and stasis in characters with secrets • align a lack of communication with a lack of animation • thereby suggesting that withdrawal from human interaction and the exchange of information can result in social, and sometimes actual, death. Complication: creates analogy Significance: reveals historical condition and its hidden effects

Six Key Aspects to a Good Thesis Statement • Thesis statements should be: • CLEAR • STRUCTURED • SPECIFIC • ARGUABLE • RELEVANT • and INSIGHTFUL.

Clear & Structured • Clarity: Do not use overly elevated diction just because this is a formal paper. Simple but polished language will get your point across and often appears more sophisticated than language that “tries too hard.” • Structure: This is easy! Use the three-part structure listed above, and you’ll never go astray.

Specific • SPECIFIC means no generalizations or grand claims. Your thesis needs to be grounded in specific details of the text. • “Austen’s Sense and Sensibility shows the powerlessness of women in the early 1800s” • NOT specific: This statement is general, its claim is very big, and it isn’t anchored in particular aspects ofS&S. You can’t use a whole novel to make an argument, you have to narrow it down.

Arguable • ARGUABLE means a claim that a reasonable person could disagree with; statements of fact are neither arguable nor compelling. • “Sense and Sensibility satirizes the novel of sensibility and certain aspects of Romantic literature.” • NOT arguable (no one would disagree!)

Relevant • RELEVANT means “so what?”. Whatever you’re arguing, you need to explain why the author is doing what you claim he/she is doing, to what end, to what purpose. You also need to think about why YOU are arguing what you’re arguing - what is your end or purpose (other than that you have to write a paper to pass this class)? • “Austen’s character Marianne thinks and acts as if she were in a novel of sensibility, by basing her knowledge about the world on subjective feelings, by showing appreciation for the beauty of the natural world and the arts, and by sympathizing with the troubles of other characters such as Elinor etc.” • NOT relevant. What is your point in making this claim?

Insightful • INSIGHTFUL means taking the time to really think of something that you think is not obvious, that will require the length of the paper for you to prove it. The best papers are ones where you feel like if you don’t explain it, or show the analysis that got you to your claim, your reader will not see it. They are also the most fun to write. I encourage you to get weird with this (as long as you can back it up with evidence).

The Three-Part Thesis Statement