How to Write Thesis Statement: a Full Guide for Students

Writing any academic paper may be a real mess. You have to spend your time, effort, and energy on it and still deal with your everyday routine. Facing the task to do research and write a dissertation increases all your challenges several times. If you haven’t similar experience or weren’t the most successful author of academic essays, a thesis would definitely cause much more issues for you.

It’s no surprise that students of all disciplines, grades, and educational levels wonder about How To Write Thesis Statement. Every individual is interested in a successful result that allows him or her to reach the final goal – getting a Philosophy doctorate degree or completing a current educational program. And most students prepare themselves for having hard times because of this writing challenge. 

But creating this assignment doesn’t mean you have to pander to failure beforehand and struggle for months. Uncertainty is scary so you should clarify all requirements for doing research and writing a thesis. With all-new knowledge, you’ll gain confidence and a positive attitude to the task. These psychological benefits will play an important role in your success as a future graduate. 

That is a heavy reason to use theoretical study guides for your purposes. With the knowledge of how to write a high-quality dissertation or thesis, every individual can try to make this assignment. Let’s reveal all details you may require including step-by-step guidelines, special tips, and hidden rocks. 

Before You Begin: a Preparation Stage of Thesis Statement Writing

Every expert admits that writing a thesis statement starts long before creating content. You have to prepare yourself not only for doing research and describing its results in a thesis but also for being a real writer. Many students experience emotional crises when they face this assignment. As well as your mood and health condition influence your productivity, it’s vitally important to make yourself ready. 

So ask yourself: what thesis writing is starting with. As far as this paper means doing research, your job will start with a question. Just think about which theories were the most exciting to you during education, which topics have gaps, and what topics you would like to investigate. All these questions will lead you to select a good thesis statement topic. 

Having a topic or several topics in closely-spaced fields allows you to brainstorm and collect resources for your writing. You are free to analyze information from a variety of sources: books in libraries, articles in electronic resources, forums on the Web, information in the press, etc. Try to collect as much content as possible so that later you would be capable of selecting the best arguments and evidence.

Besides, useful information helps a student to brainstorm. By doing information analysis and prior research in the exact field, you are able to suggest your purposes, goals, objectives, and other elements of the general framework. This is where the process of writing a good thesis statement really starts. It seems you are ready to go to the next stage. 

Basic Definitions: What Is a Thesis Paper

This is a formal academic paper that includes making research according to a standard procedure. It is also known as a thesis in some countries as well. This assignment is a part of undergraduate or graduate study depending on the exact educational program. It also may be a final assignment to get a Ph.D. degree. 

Sometimes students don’t understand what is a what is a thesis statement. Usually, these terms are used as substitutable. In the following guide, we’ll consider these words as synonyms. 

Talking about this paper, the role of research is vitally important. An author is required to follow 4 traditional steps in his or her investigation: state the exact questions, analyze the previous contributions of other scientists, collect information for making further conclusions, and answer the main questions using your findings during research. 

This research procedure is a must because its absence means you only write an opinion essay. If you can’t understand how to write a thesis statement without using your opinions then repeat all the preparation. While you aren’t ready to accept the definition of this assignment then you are prohibited to move on to the next stage. 

If you can rely on the question & answer procedure then keep going. With a basic understanding of what is a thesis statement, you are coming close to the practical part of your assignment. 

A Successful Topic for a Successful Thesis Statement

A research topic is an element that can play a significant role in your future. A bad one will write off all your contributions to the field. A good one will level up your achievements and guarantee a successful paper acceptance by a scientific community. That’s why you must pay profound attention to the topic selection stage.

Let’s clarify the main features of a good topic:

• importance. Old-fashioned and useless topics are the worst choices you can make. They have lost or never have any meaning for scientists or humanity. As a researcher you want to bring value to the research problem, so do people who will estimate your job;
• originality. It’s vitally important to analyze questions that were never stated before or which still don’t have proper answers. Unique topics are meant to make useful contributions to the exact field while non-unique topics only take precious time of the audience;
• clearness. The perfect topic allows a reader to clearly understand what the thesis will be dedicated to. No misunderstandings of the context are allowed. Make sure any person will understand what you are going to investigate in your research.

Anyway, writing a quality thesis statement without the topic is impossible. The research questions you have stated before will be very helpful. By asking them, you can define the general topic of your thesis or define its draft copy at least. 

How to Write a Thesis Statement

Once you feel you are ready and your deadline doesn’t give you a choice it’s time to start. Make sure to organize your working space and schedule your time. Such small things are very helpful no matter your writing skills and confidence. 

Writing a thesis statement is much easier when you know the exact steps you must follow. For this reason, here we have 0 stages of your journey with the destination of ‘a successful thesis’. You may follow them independently or ask experts to ‘do my dissertation for me‘. 

Step #1. Create a research proposal

You can’t start your research without approval. That’s why the next step is to prove to the representatives of your university that your topic is worth researching. And a research proposal of your thesis is meant to do it for you. 

It must meet the following requirements:

• explain that your topic is clear, unique, and important so you can make a useful contribution to the exact field;
• highlight you have already made a short literature overview to make sure you have a base for your research;
• share your methodology that will help you find a new solution for a current issue or bring up to date an existing problem.

At this stage, you shouldn’t have a draft copy of your paper or even a thesis statement structure. Making a basic overview of the advantages of your research is enough to shape the destiny of your topic.

Step #2. Write an introduction 

The opening chapter is meant to introduce the general canvas of your research paper. It must answer 2 main questions: what you are going to investigate and why you decided to do it. This is the beginning of your paper so keep in mind to present the topic and your goals to the readers. 

Your thesis statement format and university’s requirements determine the structure of the introduction. But in most cases it must contain the following elements:

• a basic explanation of the topic’s background;
• a study problem that highlights the current issue in the exact field;
• a one or several questions the author plans to discuss in the following work;
• a description of the research role for the scientific community and humanity in general.

It is important to remember what a thesis statement is without a question & answer scheme. The points to mention in the opening chapter and their order may differ but all statements belong to the same field. A writer has to briefly answer the mentioned above study questions. 

Step #3. Prepare a literature overview 

Because an author is obligated to define a gap in the field or a study issue he or she must pay attention to the current findings and discussions on the exact topic. That’s the reason to make an overview of established resources made before your study. 

Be ready to read not only how to write a thesis statement but also the thesis of other authors. This is a kind of investigation that will help you to share the current status of your research objectives. It’s important: this process is usually underrated by writers. They make a brief observation of books and articles but forget to do in-depth study. Please, schedule enough time at this stage.

After you have collected good content for your literature overview you have to write this paragraph. Make a summary of information regarding your study questions. 

Step #4. Select a research strategy and do it

Finally, it’s time to do research for your assignment. At this stage, you are required to select a strategy based on methodology. With the number of different research methods, you will investigate a subject and reveal your findings. 

Collecting and analyzing data is one of the most significant stages of writing a thesis statement. Once the data is collected make sure to organize it properly. You should be patient and work on this task as long as it requires your attention. 

Be ready that things usually go sideways no matter your wish and level of preparation. It’s okay until you deal with the study issues. 

Step #5. Share the findings of your study

You have the exact dissertation structure that has 2 sections: results and discussions. While the order of these chapters varies, the content in each one must be unique. 

Here are the main differences between these parts:

• the results paragraphs is meant to present your findings;
• the discussion paragraphs must explain the meaning of your findings to your questions. 

By making this chapter of the thesis statement, you are coming close to the core tasks of your work. You will answer the questions you have previously stated and complete your initial purposes. 

Step #6. Make a conclusion 

No matter the specific academic requirements, a modern dissertation format means to bring up the final words and discuss the implementations of your findings. Place here your key results and findings with full descriptions of their meanings.

Then you need to evaluate the implementations of your key findings. With such a conclusion you’ll finish a full circle of your job. 

Selecting The Best Thesis Statement Format

Writing a thesis statement means you have to follow plenty of rules and requirements. Students usually consider they may rely on a standard structure and make its sections step-by-step. Well, that is right and false at the same time. Let’s figure out how to structure a dissertation and how to build the perfect format for your paper. 

In general, there is a standard structure you can rely on. It includes classic chapters like introduction, body, and conclusions plus special sections like abstract, proposal, hypothesis, etc. Besides, the perfect structure differs depending on several criteria: a discipline, university, topic, study method, etc. 

For instance, if you write a thesis statement in a humanistic discipline (philosophy, arts, history, etc.) then your assignment will remain a long essay containing arguments to support the main thesis. All paragraphs in the text will be connected with the overall canvas using additional statements and studies. An opposite example – writing a dissertation in science. This is a golden standard of traditional assignment structure that contains all the standard chapters in most cases. 

Sometimes an author may combine certain sections or change their order. For instance, the traditional structure means discussion should be followed by a conclusion. At the same time, you may face a rule to place a conclusion first. Such rules in dissertation writing are regulated by universities and relevant case studies. 

An Approximate Structure of a High-quality Thesis Statement

If you know how to write a thesis statement but can’t clarify the best structure then you don’t know how to write it. Let’s figure out the most important sections of this paper:

• Introduction. The opening chapter must be strong, catchy, and comprehensive. Make sure to include to your dissertation introduction your topic, study questions, and so on;
• Conclusion. This is a final chance to influence readers’ aftertaste of your work. Use a positive tone of voice to end your dissertation conclusion;
• Results. You must represent your key findings here. It is good to share your final dissertation results with discussion ideas;
• Hypothesis. In other words, this is a prediction for your study. You must add your dissertation hypothesis to the opening chapter and discuss it in the discussion section;
• Abstract. Most authors prefer to write this summary at the very end of their paper. Usually, the dissertation abstract contains approximately 150-300 words;
• Discussion. This paragraph contains an explanation of your results and further implementations. Your dissertation discussion must relate to your study questions;
• Methodology. You require proper methods to receive fair results. Share these methods in the dissertation methodology section;
• Proposal. This is a chapter that is meant to get your topic approved by your university’s representative. A dissertation proposal is the first part of the paper to write as a final copy;
• Literature Review. The purpose of this part is to bring up to date all findings on the following topic made beforehand. A good dissertation literature review describes a theoretical framework from A to Z.

Please, remember that the exact sections and their order may vary. If you have any doubt about whether you need to place any content to your thesis statement or wonder about the right order then find answers with your supervisor and in your department’s manuals.