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EAPP 02 - Thesis Statement of An Academic Textsts

The document is about the Zosimo A. Gulle Memorial National High School. It does not contain a thesis statement. The document provides the name of the school but does not make an argument or claim.

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Youie Chyrre
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4K views3 pages

EAPP 02 - Thesis Statement of An Academic Textsts

The document is about the Zosimo A. Gulle Memorial National High School. It does not contain a thesis statement. The document provides the name of the school but does not make an argument or claim.

Uploaded by

Youie Chyrre
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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ZOSIMO A.

GULLE MEMORIAL NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL

Thesis Statement of an Academic Texts


Name & Section:
_____________________________________ 2
I. Concept Notes
Thesis Statement
Thesis statement presents/describes the point you want to argue or support in an essay; the main idea of the text. In
academic texts, it is usually presented in the abstract or executive summary or found at the last part of the introduction. It is
written in a declarative sentence.
There are two major types of thesis statements: explanatory and argumentative. The explanatory thesis announces the
subject to the reader; it never declares a stance which needs an argument to defend. These explanatory theses are evident in
expository essays and research essays. In an argumentative essay, the thesis statement should be a claim, not a factual statement
or a personal response to a topic. It should be an idea that provokes opposition, a claim that readers might choose to refute.
A thesis statement should contain the topic of your essay (main idea of what you are writing about) and conveys what you
hope to prove about the topic (an informative or persuasive purpose and the focus of your argument).
A successful, well-developed thesis statement states the point of your argument explicitly (clearly
and without doubt). Think of your thesis statement as the “road map” to your paper, which sets the argumentative direction, or
goal. The introduction is the starting point (with the road map), your body paragraphs will be the “stops” along the way, and the
conclusion paragraph is the “final destination.” Using this “road map” helps to eliminate overwriting and inserting information
that does not support or develop your thesis statement.
Characteristics of a Thesis Statement
❖ A thesis statement must express a complete thought; do not create a fragment.
→ Fragment: how students learn to write
→ Complete thought: The best means for teaching student to write is to have them focus on the steps of the writing process
rather than the end product.
❖ A thesis statement must be an answer to a question
→ Research Question: Do Americans need large refrigerators?
→ Thesis Statement: If Americans did their marketing daily, as do some Europeans, they could save energy and money
because they could use smaller refrigerators.
❖ A thesis statement must use specific language to develop the paper’s focus. Do not use vague language or unrelated elements.
→ Vague language: All novelists seek the truth, and some novelists are good psychologists.
→ Specific language: In their attempt to probe human nature, many novelists strive to reveal the intricacies of human
relations.
❖ A thesis statement must be a declarative statement. Do not use phrases like “I think” or “in my opinion” that will weaken the
argument. Additionally, avoid stating a fact as a thesis statement.
→ Weak: In my opinion, women have been repressed at different times and in different cultures.
→ Stronger: The repression of women writers in America during the nineteenth century contributed to the idea that there
were relatively few writers worthy enough to be included in anthologies.
❖ A thesis statement must be expressed using coherent and concrete language. Avoid using figurative or muddled language.
→ Muddled/Figurative language: The amazons of today are trying to purge all the stag words from the English language.
→ Concrete language: Today, many feminists are trying to eliminate the use of sexually biased words from public use.
Thesis Statement Checklist
Once you have completed your thesis statement, ask yourself the following questions:
❖ What is the main point of the essay? Is it clearly stated in the thesis statement?
❖ What evidence supports the thesis statement?
 Is your thesis statement...
 Expressed concisely in one complete sentence?
 Supported by details, facts, examples within the assigned pages (moving the reader through time and space)?
 Does your thesis statement...
 Answer the essay question?
 Make an argument and present a point of view (“yes,” “no,” OR “okay, but”)?
 Go beyond announcing your topic? (presents how/why and does not state a fact)
 Unify all ideas in your essay? (think: road map)
 Present a structure that you can follow in your essay?
 Include only the ideas you explain fully in your essay?
 Fit the evidence you use in your paper?
 Pass the “so what” test? (if your reader's first response to your thesis statement is “so what?” then you need to
clarify and make a stronger connection to the topic)
 Take a position that others might challenge? (for an argumentative paper)
 Use specific language to connect to your paragraph's topic sentences? (remember the subject and treatment in
your topic sentences)
II. Checking for Understanding/Practice

ZAGMNHS-SHS (344536) 1 OF 2 | E A P P b y I L T
English for Academic and Profesional Purposes
ZOSIMO A. GULLE MEMORIAL NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL

Applying the advice on narrowing a topic in regards to time, place, population and viewpoint, you can evaluate
thesis statements using a continuum line. Some will be too narrow, some too broad, but your goal as a writer is to
create a thesis that is just right.

.
Evaluate the following thesis statements and decide where they fall on the continuum line (TOO NARROW, JUST
RIGHT, or TOO BROAD). Write your answer before the number.
1. Even though most people believe school has influenced them or taught them the most, it was my father, not
school, that taught me the value of reading and writing.
2. Literacy is the key to success, and you must be literate to be successful in today’s world.
3. The only way to achieve literacy is by learning the five-paragraph essay.
4. The North and South fought the Civil War for many reasons, some were the same and some different.
5. While both sides fought the Civil War over the issue of slavery, the North fought for moral reasons while
the South fought to preserve its own institutions.
6. The main argument of the Civil War was whether individual states had a right to self-govern independent
of federal law.
7. Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn is a great American novel.
8. Twain's Huckleberry Finn suggests that to find the true expression of American democratic ideals, one must
leave "civilized" society in order to find one’s basic humanity.
9. Twain’s Huckleberry Finn shows that Huck grew when he realized people missed him when he was
presumed dead.
III. Assessment. Locate the thesis statements in the given texts.
1. Don’t meddle with old unloaded firearms, they are the most deadly and unerring things ever created. You don’t
have to take any pains with them at all; you don’t have to have a rest, you don’t have to have any sights on the gun,
you don’t have to take aim even. No, you just pick out a relative and bang away, and you are sure to get him. A
youth who can’t hit a cathedral at thirty yards with a Gatling gun in three-quarters of an hour, can take up an old
empty musket and bag his grandmother every time at a hundred.
---Mark Twain, “Advice to Youth”

2. In The Oracles: My Filipino Grandparents in America, Pati Poblete gives her account as a young girl growing up
in America being raised by her culturally foreign grandparents, and the results reverberate with her well into her
adult years. Her parents, on the other hand, play a deafeningly silent role throughout the upbringing of Pati. The
failure of Pati’s parents to provide her with guidance, attention and to control her exposure to popular media at a
young age prevented her from having a healthy relationship with her grandparents and a healthy identity. Ron
Taffel, a child-rearing expert, advised: “Even as kids reach adolescence, they need more than ever for us to watch
over them. Adolescence is not about letting go. It's about hanging on during a very bumpy ride.” Pati unfortunately
didn’t have this support so seemed to hit every bump.
---Student paper on Pati Poblete’s The Oracles:My Filipino Grandparents in America

3. In the 1940s, George Orwell warned “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls
the past” (Orwell 30). In the 1990s a band called Rage Against the Machine, the name itself referring to a people’s
movement to fight against control (corporation, government or otherwise) used this mantra in their song “Testify,”
a warning to not silently endure oppression. This warning is not only relevant to the 20th century, but has been
applicable since human beings started forming structures of power to control and oppress one another. This can
vividly be seen during the times of slavery in the United States when blacks were enslaved for two and a half
centuries. In Frederick Douglass’s novel Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Douglass
reveals how this long and brutal control of human beings was partly accomplished through control over literacy.
The control and limitations over reading and writing during slavery sought to make slaves like Douglass ignorant,
powerless, and therefore more easily controlled, and this control over literacy and education is still happening in
the world today.
--Sample essay on Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave

ZAGMNHS-SHS (344536) 2 OF 2 | E A P P b y I L T
English for Academic and Profesional Purposes
ZOSIMO A. GULLE MEMORIAL NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL

“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing” – Benjamin Franklin

ZAGMNHS-SHS (344536) 3 OF 2 | E A P P b y I L T
English for Academic and Profesional Purposes

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