Integrating Your Thesis Statement

How to make sure your thesis statement matches your essay and your essay matches your thesis statement.

Creating Your Thesis Statement

The best way to begin creating your thesis statement is by creating an outline and determining what each of your body paragraphs will cover.

Just having those general ideas down will help you figure out what you want your core argument to be.

Now, take your main claim and add your arguments to create a thesis statement. Your main claim must be arguable and will be central to your essay.

Main Claim: The WRAC center is effective

Thesis: The WRAC center is effective because it offers constant services, provides peer editors that can relate, and is easy to access.

This type of thesis statement creates a roadmap for your essay and ties directly to each of your body paragraphs. Think of it as a mini outline.

Make sure that your evidence (quotes, stories, or paraphrasing) connects to/proves your thesis statement! This connection should be clear in your analysis.
Be very careful and make sure that you don’t accidentally use quotes that disprove or go against your thesis statement.
Repeat the core of your thesis statement plenty of times, just in different words.
Put your full thesis statement (rephrased) into both your introduction and conclusion paragraphs.
Everything in your essay should support the thesis statement, unless it is a counter-argument paragraph.
Make sure your argument is strong; a weak argument makes for a weak essay.
Neutral arguments or analysis makes your thesis statement lose value.
Use your topic sentences to connect directly to the second part of your thesis statement.
If your thesis statement is hard to prove, or you find that your evidence/analysis goes against it, it might be time to change your thesis statement.
There shouldn’t be anything in your essay that goes against or diminishes your thesis statement.

Good luck on your essay!

This handout is courtesy of WRAC Center Tutor Rachel FA22