A strong thesis?
A strong thesis makes a claim that (1) requires analysis to support and evolve it and (2) offers some point about the significance of your evidence that would not have been immediately obvious to your readers. By contrast, a weak thesis either makes no claim or makes a claim that does not need proving.
Five kind of weak thesis statements—ones that
make no claim (“This paper will examine the pros and cons of…”);
are obviously true or are a statement of fact (“Exercise is good for you”);
restate conventional wisdom (“Love conquers all”);
offer personal conviction as the basis for the claim (“Shopping malls are wonderful places”);and
make an overly broad claim (“Individualism is good”).
Weak Thesis Type 1: The thesis makes no claim.
I’m going to write about Darwin’s concerns with evolution in The Origin of Species.
This paper will address the characteristics of a good corporate manager.
These examples name a subject and link it to the intention to write about it, but they don’t make any claim about that subject. There is, in short, nothing at stake, no issue to be resolved.
Solution: Raise specific issues for the essay to explore. Possible examples:
Darwin’s concern with survival of the fittest in The Origin of Species leads him to neglect a potentially conflicting aspect of his theory of evolution—survival as a matter of interdependence.
For example:
The very trait that makes for an effective corporate manager—the drive to succeed—can also make the leader domineering and therefore ineffective.
Weak Thesis Type 2: The thesis is obviously true or is a statement of fact
The jeans industry targets its advertisements to appeal to young adults.
The flight from teaching to research and publishing in higher education is a controversial issue in the academic world. I will show different views and aspects concerning this problem.
If few people would disagree with the claim that a thesis makes, there is no point in writing an analytical paper on it.
Solution: Find some avenue of INQUIRY—a question about the facts or an issue raised by them. Make an assertion with which it would be possible for readers to disagree.
For example:
By inventing new terms, such as “loose fit” and “relaxed fit”, the jean industry has attempted to normalize, even glorify, its product for an older and fatter generation.
The “flight from teaching” to research and publishing in higher education is a controversial issue in the academic world. As I will attempt to show, the controversy is based to a significant degree on a false assumption, that doing research necessarily leads teachers away from the classroom.
Weak Thesis Type 3: The thesis restates conventional wisdom
An important part of one’s college education is learning to better understand others’ points of view.
By using rock music to sell a wide range of products, the advertising agencies, in league with corporate giants such as Pepsi, Michelob, and Ford, have corrupted the spirit of rock and roll.
All of these examples say nothing worth proving because they are clichés. (Conventional wisdom is a polite term for clichés.) Most clichés were fresh ideas once, but over time they have become trite, prefabricated forms of non-thinking. There is some truth in all of the problem examples above, but none of them complicates its position.
Solution: Seek to complicate—see more than one point of view on—your subject. Avoid conventional wisdom unless you can qualify it or introduce a fresh perspective on it.
Although an important part of one’s college education is learning to better understand others’ points of view, a persistent danger is that the students will simply be required to substitute the teacher’s answers for the ones they grew up uncritically believing.
Although some might argue that the presence of rock and roll soundtracks in TV commercials has corrupted rock’s spirit, this point of view not only falsifies the history of rock but also blinds us to the ways that the music has improved the quality of television advertising.
