The Strong VS Weak Thesis Statement
Academic writing is a multifaceted affair that needs one to focus on and conduct all the relevant steps to ensure that they attain the best results. Unfortunately, many of us face a great number of challenges trying to come up with the perfect write-up. Although there are various techniques and methods employed by writers at different levels, it has become apparent that there are some common elements that you need to employ to ensure that your content makes sense and that your audience remains interested in reading your work. In most cases, academic writing dictates that you present a main idea on a given topic and use research to back up your main idea. In order to achieve this, it is important that you come up with a great thesis statement right from the start. In this article, we explore the thesis statement and some of the things that you should always do to make sure that it helps you write your paper while at the same time helping your audience understand your work. In doing so, we will explore some of the common mistakes that writers make and some important differences between a strong and weak thesis statement.
What is a thesis statement?
To fully understand the topic on hand, it is important that we understand what a thesis statement really is and its true purpose in any paper. In academic writing, you will be needed to write matter about a given topic or area of exploration. This means that the first step that you will take when writing, is to pick out the topic if it has not been already assigned to you by your lecturer. Without any form of direction, it can be very difficult to conduct any kind of research on a given topic. This is where the thesis statement comes into play. By definition, a thesis statement or hypothesis is the part of your paper that clearly identifies your topic of exploration, indicates the major points that will be discussed in your paper, and is designed for your target audience.
The most appropriate location for your thesis statement is usually at the end of your introductory paragraph. One of the major functions of the statement is that it can be employed to encourage your target audience to continue reading your work. For this reason, it is important that you ensure that it triggers the curiosity of the audience while at the same time remaining interesting. Although identifying strong & weak thesis statements can be difficult for the untrained eye, reading your statements critically and identifying their potential in making your research interesting can be of great help. In cases where you feel like you do not have the expertise to identify great statements, you may consider seeking help from a professional thesis statement writing company like Peachy Essay.
Another viewpoint that you can take about the thesis statement is that one sentence that indicates your position. You should however always make sure that you do not turn this sentence into a statement of fact but into something arguable that will hold the interest of your readers. This said the statement should narrow down your topic into a certain area of investigation, point your readers towards a good conclusion, establish the direction that you will take in your paper, take a stand and justify further investigation, and appear in your first paragraph. There are many arguments about the positioning, but it only seems appropriate to first introduce your topic before taking your stand through your thesis. When you make your hypothesis a statement of fact, it becomes difficult to argue and hold your audience since such a fact can easily be proved. When you make it more intriguing or controversial, your audience will always want to read since you will make them curious to find out why you took such an interesting stance. A good thesis statement will also allow you to demonstrate your potential to think critically and analytically. Instructors will basically get turned off by factual statements since you will be forced to restate the facts as others have in the past. Let us explore some of the facts about weak and strong thesis statements.
Example of a Strong & Weak Thesis Statement
Whenever you want to write a great academic paper that will compel your audience to read and understand your arguments, you always need to come up with a convincing thesis statement. This can however be very complicated because most of us want to get the research completed as first as possible. One of the first and most common mistakes that most writers make is making the thesis a statement of fact. This is a poor and weak approach since your audience will never find this engaging. In fact, your instructors will right away tell that you are simply trying to restate facts. For most of us, statements of fact are easier to write about because they can easily be proven using available research. A strong thesis statement on the other hand should always take a stand and justify why other individuals argued differently or took a different stand. For this reason, a good and strong thesis statement should always be arguable.
For example; Statement of fact
Smoking cigarettes is a bad habit and is damaging to your health.
This is a statement of fact and you can easily present many different facts to support your position. The statement of fact however is not arguable since it does not present any other point of view or justify why cigarette smoking is bad. Most of us will be able to write a paper and offer all the different disadvantages of smoking. In most cases, such a research paper can be completed in a very short amount of time and most learned readers will be able to discern the fact that the paper will not be interesting right from the very start.
For example; an Arguable thesis statement
Despite the fact that Smoking is considered an enjoyable habit among some groups of people, cigarette smoking is a bad habit and is harmful to your health, on the grounds that many people who smoke cigarettes expose themselves to dangerous diseases such as cancer. This is easily proved by the fact that cigarette smoking harms almost every organ of the body and causes many other diseases.
This is considered a great thesis statement since it is arguable and one can take many different approaches and research to support their position. The thesis statement is also great since you are able to accommodate a target audience that enjoys smoking. When you use such a statement in your work, you are able to maintain the attention of your audience longer since they will be curious to find out why this certain group of people actually enjoy smoking despite the obvious dangers of this habit. It is always important to try and think critically when developing a thesis statement and you should always take your time in identifying strong & weak thesis statements.
Luckily, great tools like the Peachy Essay thesis statement generator are always available to help you come up with a great thesis statement whenever and wherever you need help composing the best statement for your paper. This is free and easy to use the tool and just needs you to come up with a great idea, a supporting fact, and probably some form of statistical evidence that helps your statement to become more convincing. Based on this, we can now easily differentiate and offer further examples of strong & weak thesis statements. Always keep it in mind that a weak thesis statement will compel you to offer a weak answer to an essay question whereas a strong thesis statement generally points you in the right direction towards offering a robust and convincing answer or explanation in a given area of exploration.
What is a weak thesis statement?
A thesis statement that is not well-thought-out or one that is not clearly and concisely written to communicate a major point, argument, or purpose of a paper will be considered weak. Such a kind of statement will appear incomplete, unfocused, or inaccurate since it does not meet the standard criteria of a robust thesis statement. It can be extremely challenging to come up with a focussed, accurate, and complete thesis statement, but it is not impossible. You can always seek professional help from a great company such as Peachy Essay or alternatively, make use of the thesis statement generator tool to ensure that you come up with a great statement for all your papers.
Generally, Weak thesis statements possess the following attributes which make them seem unclear especially when dealing with a well-informed audience.
- The statement poses a query instead of clearly stating the purpose or position that you are trying to take in your paper.
- The statement offers a statement or accepted knowledge instead of being arguable and stating the clear position that you are going to take in your paper.
- The statement offers an opinion instead of the position that you are going to take based on available evidence to back up this position.
- The statement is made up of vague statements instead of relevant details that address the issues that you are dealing with in your research.
- The statement includes conflicting ideas and irrelevant information instead of a main idea and details to support the idea.
These are the major things that you should avoid as much as possible when trying to come up with a strong thesis statement. Although it may not be quite obvious when you are learning how to write a thesis statement, this part of your paper will guide you to write the entire paper and it is important to ensure that your statement is not weak since it will compromise the overall quality of your paper. Do not hesitate to seek help when creating your thesis statement since it can help you go a long way. When your thesis statement is too weak, you will make it difficult for your audience to understand your position regarding a given area of exploration. To make your statements more robust, always make sure that they are not too broad, do not represent the contents of the paper adequately, describe arguable facts other than claims, are properly formatted and do not offer personal opinion.
What is a strong thesis statement?
We can call this the opposite of the weak thesis statement. This is a thesis statement that is well-thought-out or one that is clearly and concisely written to communicate a major point, argument, or purpose of a paper to a target audience. Such a kind of statement will appear completely focussed, or accurate since it follows the standard criteria of a robust thesis statement. It can be extremely challenging to come up with a focussed, accurate, and complete thesis statement but you can achieve this with sufficient practice and great help from a responsible company like Peachy Essay. A strong thesis statement will always possess the following qualities:
- The statement clearly states the purpose or position that you are trying to take in your paper instead of posing a question.
- The statement is arguable and stating the clear position that you are going to take in your paper.
- The statement offers a clear position that you are going to take based on available evidence to back up this position.
- The statement is made up of relevant details that address the issues that you are dealing with in your research.
- The statement includes a main idea and details to support the idea.
A strong thesis statement will always make your work more interesting to your audience and will be easy to understand. Although it may take years of practice to actually master the art of writing a good and robust thesis statement, it is important to always keep focussed and ensure that you understand the benefits of writing incredible hypotheses for your paper.
Since you may not have all the time in the world to practice and write great thesis statements, you can always depend on the professional services of a well-recognized writing company to help you in case you feel stuck on writing thesis statement driven papers. We are always interested in helping you become successful and our experts are always on standby to come to your rescue. Writing a great thesis statement no longer needs to be a challenge and you can always rely on Peachy Essay thesis statement writing services and the free thesis statement generator whenever you feel the need to attain incredible results.