1. Writing the Thesis Statement By Worth Weller (with a little help from the Purdue and Dartmouth OWL)

2. What is it? for most student work, it's a one- or two- sentence statement that explicitly outlines the purpose or point of your paper. In other words IT ANSWERS THE PROMPT QUESTION. It is generally a complex, compound sentence- meaning it says “and.”

3. Step 1 Review the question Go back to the question Review what the question is asking Make a list of all possible answers and parts of answers (usually, during research you will come up with many answers and info that could be an answer)

4. Step 2 Make Some Categories Sort your list of possible answers into categories of “like” (similar) answers Example: House are constructed from materials like wood, metal, glass and concrete Furniture is made from materials like cedar (a type of wood), polyester, and ceramic Category = wood is an important building material

5. Step 3 Construct Your Thesis Take your 3-4 categories that answer you essential question Turn your question into a statement and incorporate all of your categories (answers) Each answer (category) will be a separate paragraph (when we do write an essay)

6. Chicken Foot thesis organizer Category 1 goes here Category 1 Goes here Category 2 Goes here Question goes here Then restate your question

7. Is it fixed in concrete? Imagine that as you are writing your paper you stumble across the new idea that says the best furniture and houses are made of plastic This observation is a good one; do you really want to throw it away? Or do you want to rewrite your thesis so that it accommodates this new idea?

8. A contract Understand that you don't have a third option: you can't simply stick the idea in without preparing the reader for it in your thesis. The thesis is like a contract between you and your reader. If you introduce ideas that the reader isn't prepared for, you've violated that contract.