Writing a thesis that actually argues something

A theme is not a thesis

A theme is what the text is about: belonging, power, memory. A thesis is what you think the text is doing with it, and doing it is a verb somebody could argue with.

Compare two sentences. The first: the composer explores the theme of belonging. The second: the composer presents belonging as something chosen rather than inherited, and the text's shifts in perspective are what force that choice into view. Only one of those is an argument. The first could be written by somebody who had read a summary; the second could only be written by somebody who had read the text and thought about it.

The test is simple and it is worth applying to every thesis you write. Could an intelligent person who had read the same text disagree with this sentence? If not, you have described the text rather than argued about it, and no amount of good writing afterwards will fix it.

Answer the question you were given

The thesis has to be an answer, which means it has to take a position on the specific claim in the question rather than on the text in general. Questions are usually built around a proposition - that a text challenges something, or reveals something, or depends on something - and your first job is to decide whether you agree, disagree, or agree with a qualification.

Qualified agreement is usually the strongest of the three and the least used. It sounds like: this is true of the first half of the text, but the ending complicates it. That gives you an essay with a shape, because it gives you something to develop rather than three examples of the same point.

Write your thesis with words from the question in it. Not as decoration - as evidence that you are answering this question and not a similar one you prepared earlier. A prepared essay bent towards the question is visible from the first paragraph.

Stop technique-spotting

The commonest weak body paragraph names a technique, quotes an example, and states what the technique does in general. It reads as though the techniques are the subject of the essay. They are not - the text's argument is, and the techniques are evidence.

A better paragraph moves in one direction: make a claim that advances your thesis, support it with a short piece of evidence, explain what that evidence does to a reader, and connect it back to the argument. The technique gets named in passing, because naming it is how you describe the evidence precisely - not because naming it earns anything.

The test for a body paragraph is the same as for a thesis. If you removed the quotation, would the paragraph still say something arguable? If what remains is a definition of a technique, the paragraph has not made a point yet.

• One claim per paragraph, stated in the first sentence, in your own words.
• Short quotations. A long one is usually there instead of an argument.
• Say what it does to a reader, not what the technique means in the abstract.
• End on your thesis, not on a summary of the quotation.

What the shape of the essay is doing

An essay whose paragraphs could be reordered without loss is a list. An essay where the third paragraph depends on the second has an argument in it, and that difference is visible to anyone reading quickly.

The easiest way to build that is the qualification. Establish the reading in the first body paragraph, extend it in the second, then complicate it in the third - the moment in the text that does not fit neatly, and what your thesis says about it. That is an essay that arrives somewhere.

Do not save your best idea for the conclusion. A conclusion that introduces the real argument is an essay that spent most of its length warming up. Put it in the thesis and spend the essay proving it.

Where it usually goes wrong

None of these are about vocabulary or sentence length, which is where most students look first.

• A thesis that states a theme instead of taking a position on it.
• Retelling what happens. Assume the reader knows the text; you are being read for what you think about it.
• Listing techniques. The technique is how you describe the evidence, not the point of the paragraph.
• An introduction that promises three things and a body that delivers three unconnected paragraphs.
• Ignoring the wording of the question and answering the topic instead.

What to practise next

Take five essay questions you have not answered and write only the thesis for each - one sentence, fifteen minutes total. Then apply the disagreement test to all five and rewrite the ones that fail it. This is the highest-value fifteen minutes available in English preparation and almost nobody spends it.

Then take one body paragraph you have already written and delete every quotation from it. Read what is left. If it still argues something, the paragraph was sound; if it dissolves into definitions, you have found the habit that is costing you.

Check yourself

Three questions on what is above. Have a go before you open them - reading an answer you have not tried to give is the version of this that does nothing.