How to Write a Thesis Statement (With 20 Examples)

TL;DR

• A thesis statement is one or two sentences that tell the reader your main argument and why it matters
• Use the formula: [Topic] + [Your Position] + [Reasoning/Because] = thesis statement
• The most common mistake is writing a thesis that states a fact instead of making an argument
• Your thesis should be specific enough that someone could disagree with it

Table of Contents

• What Is a Thesis Statement?
• Why Your Thesis Statement Matters More Than You Think
• The Thesis Statement Formula
• How to Write a Thesis Statement (Step by Step)
• 20 Thesis Statement Examples by Essay Type
• How to Tell a Strong Thesis from a Weak One
• Common Thesis Statement Mistakes
• How to Refine Your Thesis Statement
• FAQ

What Is a Thesis Statement?

A thesis statement is the single sentence (sometimes two) that tells your reader exactly what your essay is about and what position you're taking. It usually appears at the end of your introduction paragraph.

Think of it as a contract with your reader. You're saying: "Here's what I'm going to argue, and here's why." Everything in your essay exists to support this sentence.

Indiana University's Writing Tutorial Services puts it clearly: almost any assignment can be reduced to a single question, and your thesis statement is your answer to that question.

If your essay were a building, the thesis statement is the foundation. Everything else sits on top of it. A weak thesis means a shaky essay. A strong thesis means your argument has direction, structure, and purpose.

Why Your Thesis Statement Matters More Than You Think

Your professor reads your thesis statement and immediately forms an opinion about your essay. Here's what they're evaluating:

Does this student understand the assignment? A thesis that doesn't match the prompt tells your professor you didn't read the instructions carefully.

Does this student have something interesting to say? A generic thesis ("World War II had many causes") signals a generic essay. A specific thesis ("The Treaty of Versailles created economic conditions that made German voters receptive to extremist political movements") signals original thinking.

Can I predict the structure of this essay? A good thesis acts as a roadmap. Your professor should be able to guess your main body paragraphs from your thesis alone.

According to Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL), one of the most widely cited writing resources in higher education, a thesis statement should be "contestable," meaning that someone could reasonably argue against it. If your thesis is just a fact, it's not really a thesis.

The Thesis Statement Formula

Here's a practical formula that works for most essay types:

[Subject/Topic] + [Your Position] + [Reason/Because clause] = Thesis Statement

Example:

• Subject: Remote learning
• Position: It harms student mental health more than it helps academic flexibility
• Reason: Because the isolation and lack of structured social interaction exacerbate anxiety and depression, especially among first-year students

Thesis: "While remote learning offers scheduling flexibility, it harms student mental health by eliminating the structured social interactions and peer support systems that first-year college students depend on for emotional resilience."

The "because" part is what separates an opinion from a thesis. Anyone can have an opinion. A thesis tells the reader why your position is correct.

Variations of the Formula

For argumentative essays: [Topic] should [your recommendation] because [reasons].

For analytical essays: [Subject] reveals/demonstrates [insight] through [specific elements].

For compare and contrast essays: Although [Subject A] and [Subject B] share [similarity], they differ in [key difference], which leads to [significance].

For expository essays: [Topic] can be understood through [framework/categories], which shows [main insight].

How to Write a Thesis Statement (Step by Step)

Step 1: Identify the Question Your Essay Answers

Every essay prompt is really a question in disguise.

Prompt: "Discuss the impact of social media on political discourse."

Hidden question: "How has social media changed political discourse, and is that change positive, negative, or mixed?"

Prompt: "Analyze the role of symbolism in The Great Gatsby."

Hidden question: "What do the symbols in The Great Gatsby mean, and how do they contribute to the novel's themes?"

If your prompt is open-ended ("Write about a topic in environmental science"), create your own question first: "What is the most effective policy approach to reducing plastic pollution in oceans?"

Step 2: Answer That Question in One Sentence

Don't overthink this. Write your answer simply and directly.

"Social media has made political discourse more polarized by creating echo chambers and incentivizing outrage."

"Fitzgerald uses the green light, the Valley of Ashes, and the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg to reveal the emptiness behind the American Dream's promise of prosperity."

This raw answer is your working thesis. It doesn't need to be polished yet.

Step 3: Make It Specific

A common first-draft thesis is too broad. Narrow it down.

Too broad: "Climate change is a serious problem."

Specific: "The agricultural sector's methane emissions represent a more actionable target for climate policy than carbon dioxide from transportation because dietary shifts can be implemented faster than infrastructure replacement."

The test: could a classmate write the same thesis? If yes, it's too broad. Your thesis should reflect your specific analysis and perspective.

Step 4: Make It Arguable

Your thesis should be something a reasonable person could disagree with. If it's just a fact or universally accepted truth, it's not doing enough work.

Not arguable (fact): "The Civil War lasted from 1861 to 1865."

Arguable (thesis): "While slavery was the root cause of the Civil War, the conflict's immediate trigger was the election of 1860 and Southern states' belief that democratic processes could no longer protect their economic interests."

Step 5: Check It Against Your Evidence

Before committing to your thesis, make sure you actually have evidence to support it. A beautiful thesis that you can't back up leads to a painful writing experience. List your 3-4 strongest pieces of evidence. If they all support your thesis, you're good. If not, adjust the thesis to match what you can actually prove.

Step 6: Refine the Language

Now polish. Remove unnecessary words. Make sure the sentence is clear on first reading. Ask yourself: if a stranger read only this sentence, would they understand what my essay argues?

20 Thesis Statement Examples by Essay Type

Argumentative Essay Thesis Statements

1. Education Policy: "Public schools should replace letter grades with competency-based assessments because the current grading system punishes risk-taking, incentivizes grade inflation, and fails to measure whether students actually understand the material."

2. Technology: "Social media companies should be required to verify users' ages and restrict algorithmic recommendations for users under 16, as the current self-regulation model has demonstrably failed to protect minors from harmful content exposure."

3. Health: "Universities should mandate mental health check-ins during freshman orientation because the transition to college creates a window of vulnerability where early intervention can prevent the development of chronic anxiety and depression."

4. Environment: "Carbon tax policies are more effective than cap-and-trade systems at reducing industrial emissions because they create predictable cost signals that allow businesses to plan long-term investments in clean technology."

5. Criminal Justice: "Cash bail should be abolished because it creates a two-tier justice system where pretrial detention is determined by wealth rather than flight risk, disproportionately affecting Black and Hispanic defendants."

Analytical Essay Thesis Statements

6. Literature: "In 1984, Orwell uses Winston's diary as a symbol of individual thought under totalitarianism, showing how the act of private writing becomes both the last form of resistance and the mechanism through which the Party ultimately identifies and destroys dissent."

7. Film: "Parasite uses vertical space, including stairs, basements, and hilltop homes, to literalize the class hierarchy it critiques, making wealth disparity a physical reality rather than an abstract concept for the audience."

8. History: "The Black Death's reduction of Europe's labor force by 30-50% fundamentally altered the feudal economic system by giving surviving peasants unprecedented bargaining power, accelerating the transition from serfdom to wage labor."

9. Psychology: "The Stanford Prison Experiment's findings about situational power dynamics remain relevant despite its methodological flaws, as real-world instances of institutional abuse in prisons and detention facilities consistently mirror the behavior patterns Zimbardo observed."

10. Art: "Frida Kahlo's self-portraits subvert the male gaze that dominated portraiture in the early 20th century by depicting physical pain and disability without romanticization, challenging both artistic convention and cultural expectations of femininity."

Compare and Contrast Thesis Statements

11. Literature: "While both Hamlet and Macbeth explore the psychology of hesitation, Hamlet's delay stems from philosophical uncertainty about the morality of revenge, whereas Macbeth's moments of pause reflect guilt over choices he has already decided to make."

12. Political Systems: "Although both the US and UK claim democratic legitimacy, the parliamentary system's fusion of executive and legislative power allows for faster policy implementation at the cost of the checks and balances that characterize the American separation-of-powers model."

13. Technology: "Android and iOS take fundamentally different approaches to the customization-security trade-off: Android prioritizes user freedom and hardware diversity, while iOS optimizes for ecosystem integration and consistent user experience, making each platform better suited to different types of users."

Expository Essay Thesis Statements

14. Science: "CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing works by using guide RNA to locate specific DNA sequences and a Cas9 protein to cut them, allowing scientists to delete, modify, or insert genetic material with unprecedented precision, though off-target effects remain a significant limitation."

15. Economics: "Inflation reduces purchasing power through three primary mechanisms: demand-pull (too much money chasing too few goods), cost-push (rising production costs passed to consumers), and built-in inflation (wage-price spirals driven by expectations of future price increases)."

16. Sociology: "The school-to-prison pipeline operates through a series of interconnected policies, including zero-tolerance discipline, school-based policing, and inadequate access to mental health resources, that systematically push students, particularly students of color, out of educational institutions and into the criminal justice system."

Persuasive Essay Thesis Statements

17. Campus Life: "The university should convert its largest parking lot into green space and expand shuttle service because the current car-centric campus design increases carbon emissions, wastes prime real estate on asphalt, and discourages the physical activity that benefits student health."

18. Technology Policy: "The federal government should treat broadband internet as a public utility because reliable internet access is now essential for education, employment, and civic participation, making the digital divide a civil rights issue rather than a market problem."

Research Paper Thesis Statements

19. Medicine: "Telehealth consultations produce equivalent patient outcomes to in-person visits for routine follow-ups in managing Type 2 diabetes, based on analysis of HbA1c levels, medication adherence, and patient satisfaction scores across three large-scale studies conducted between 2020 and 2024."

20. Education Research: "Active learning strategies, including think-pair-share, problem-based learning, and peer instruction, improve STEM course pass rates by an average of 6% compared to traditional lectures, with the largest gains observed among first-generation college students and underrepresented minorities."

How to Tell a Strong Thesis from a Weak One

Use these five tests:

Test 1: The "Who Cares?" Test

Read your thesis out loud. If someone could respond with "okay, and?" then it's not making a strong enough claim. A good thesis should provoke a reaction, whether agreement, disagreement, or curiosity.

Fails the test: "There are advantages and disadvantages to online learning."

Passes: "Online learning's largest failure isn't technological; it's the assumption that eliminating commute time automatically creates more productive study time, when in reality most students fill that time with digital distractions."

Test 2: The Disagreement Test

Could a reasonable person argue the opposite of your thesis? If not, you're stating a fact, not making an argument.

Fails the test: "Exercise is good for your health." (Nobody disagrees.)

Passes: "High-intensity interval training is more effective than steady-state cardio for improving cardiovascular health in sedentary college students because it produces equivalent VO2max improvements in half the time commitment." (Debatable and specific.)

Test 3: The Roadmap Test

Can your reader predict your body paragraphs from your thesis? A strong thesis implies the structure of your essay.

Fails the test: "Social media is bad for teenagers."

Passes: "Social media harms teenagers through three mechanisms: algorithmic amplification of extreme content, constant social comparison facilitated by curated profiles, and sleep disruption caused by evening screen exposure."

Three mechanisms = three body paragraphs. The reader knows exactly where the essay is going.

Test 4: The Specificity Test

Replace your subject with a different one. Does the thesis still work? If so, it's too generic.

Fails the test: "X is an important issue that affects many people." (You could plug in almost anything.)

Passes: "The 2024 revision of AP US History's curriculum framework underrepresents Indigenous perspectives by limiting Native American history to pre-contact periods and the Indian Removal Act, erasing 400 years of political resistance and cultural adaptation." (This only works for this specific topic.)

Test 5: The "So What?" Test

After reading your thesis, ask yourself "so what?" If you can't explain why your argument matters, your thesis needs a stronger connection to broader significance.

Common Thesis Statement Mistakes

Mistake 1: The Announcement Thesis

"In this essay, I will discuss the effects of climate change on polar bears."

This announces your topic but doesn't make an argument. Remove "in this essay I will" and replace "discuss" with an actual claim.

Fixed: "Climate change threatens polar bear populations less through rising temperatures directly and more through the disruption of sea ice hunting patterns, which forces bears into starvation cycles during increasingly long ice-free summers."

Mistake 2: The Question Thesis

"Should the voting age be lowered to 16?"

A thesis answers a question; it doesn't ask one. Questions belong in your introduction's hook, not in your thesis.

Fixed: "The voting age should be lowered to 16 because teenagers are already affected by taxation, education policy, and environmental decisions, and democratic participation at a younger age correlates with lifelong civic engagement."

Mistake 3: The List Thesis

"The causes of World War I include alliances, imperialism, militarism, and nationalism."

This is a list, not an argument. What about those causes is interesting or debatable?

Fixed: "While alliances, imperialism, and militarism created the conditions for a European war, it was the rise of nationalism that transformed a regional crisis into a continent-wide conflict by making governments accountable to populations who demanded military action."

Mistake 4: The Too-Broad Thesis

"Education needs to be reformed."

This could be about anything from kindergarten funding to PhD programs. Narrow it.

Fixed: "K-12 math education should shift from memorizing procedures to developing number sense and problem-solving skills, as countries that adopted this approach, including Singapore and Finland, consistently outperform the US on international assessments."

Mistake 5: The Wishy-Washy Thesis

"There are many perspectives on gun control."

Yes, there are. Which one is yours? A thesis needs to take a position.

Fixed: "Universal background checks represent the most politically viable and empirically supported gun safety measure because they enjoy over 80% public support across party lines and have been shown to reduce gun homicides in states that have implemented them."

How to Refine Your Thesis Statement

Your thesis doesn't need to be perfect on the first try. Most good thesis statements go through 2-3 revisions. Here's a refinement process:

Draft 1: Get the basics right

Write your thesis quickly. Don't agonize over word choice. Just get your argument on paper.

"Social media is bad for mental health."

Draft 2: Add specificity

Who? What kind of social media? What aspect of mental health?

"Instagram and TikTok worsen anxiety in teenage girls."

Draft 3: Add reasoning

Why? How? What's the mechanism?

"Instagram and TikTok worsen anxiety in teenage girls by enabling constant social comparison and creating a feedback loop where engagement metrics become tied to self-worth."

Draft 4: Polish and tighten

Remove unnecessary words. Ensure it reads smoothly.

"Instagram and TikTok exacerbate anxiety among teenage girls by tying self-worth to engagement metrics and facilitating constant social comparison against curated, unrealistic portrayals of peers' lives."

That's a thesis your professor will nod at. It's specific, arguable, and implies a clear essay structure.

If you're struggling with thesis statements and want personalized feedback on your specific topic, Gradily can analyze your thesis and suggest ways to make it stronger and more specific, which is like having a writing tutor review your work before you turn it in.

FAQ

Where does the thesis statement go?

The thesis statement goes at the end of your introduction paragraph. This is the standard placement in academic writing. The introduction builds context, and the thesis is the payoff: "Here's what I'm actually going to argue." Some disciplines or essay types (particularly journalism and scientific writing) put the thesis first, but for college essays, end of the introduction is the safe default.

How long should a thesis statement be?

One to two sentences. If your thesis is running past two sentences, it's probably trying to do too much. Split it into a thesis (your main argument) and a brief preview of your supporting points. For most college essays, one clear, specific sentence is ideal.

Can a thesis statement be a question?

No. A thesis makes a claim; it doesn't ask a question. You can use a question in your introduction to set up your thesis, but the thesis itself needs to be a declarative statement. "Should the drinking age be lowered?" is a hook. "The drinking age should be lowered to 18 because it would reduce binge drinking culture, align with other adult legal responsibilities, and bring the US in line with most developed nations" is a thesis.

Should I write the thesis statement first or last?

Write a rough version first so you have direction, but plan to revise it after you've written the body of your essay. Your argument often evolves as you write, and your final thesis should reflect the essay you actually wrote, not just the essay you planned. For more on this approach, check out our guide on how to write an essay fast.

How do I write a thesis statement for a topic I have no opinion on?

Start by reading about the topic until you notice something interesting, surprising, or contradictory. Your thesis often emerges from the moment you think "huh, I didn't expect that" while reading. If you still have no opinion after basic research, pick the side that has stronger evidence. You don't need to personally believe your thesis; you just need to argue it convincingly.

What's the difference between a thesis statement and a topic sentence?

A thesis statement is the main argument of your entire essay. It appears in the introduction. Topic sentences are the main arguments of individual paragraphs. They appear at the start of each body paragraph. Think of it as a hierarchy: the thesis is the umbrella claim, and topic sentences are the supporting claims that hold it up.