How to Write a Thesis: Step One

Step 1: Start with a Topic

Sometimes a writing assignment will require you to choose your own topic, but more often a writing assignment will specify one. For instance, you might be asked to write an essay arguing in favor of a change in the dress code at your school or an essay arguing for (or against) eliminating the sale of junk food on school campuses. In the first case, the topic would be school dress codes; in the second case, it would be junk food sales in schools.

When you know what the topic is but haven’t yet taken a position, try to connect with it. What is your personal experience with the topic? Have you ever gone to a school with a dress code? Have you ever violated a dress code? Do you have any feelings about dress codes or about people who break dress codes?

Connecting your personal experience and that of others to the topic can yield a rich source of material with which to develop your position.

Let’s experiment with the topic of junk food sold in schools. Think of six questions you could ask to connect with this topic. Don’t worry about whether or not you know the answers yet. Imagine instead that you are going to interview someone about junk food sold in schools. What six questions will you ask him or her?

Using your notes, write your proposed questions. When you are finished, check your understanding below.

Check Your Understanding

Sample Response:

Possible questions about junk food being sold in schools:

   1. Was junk food ever available in any school you went to?

   2. Was it in machines or in the cafeteria or both?

   3. Did you ever buy junk food during school?

   4. Did you buy junk food at lunch time or in between classes?

   5. Do you think having junk food available kept you from eating healthier options?

   6. Do you think having junk food available helped give you more energy during class?

   7. If junk food was available in machines, were healthier options also available?

   8. Which junk food did you choose most frequently: drinks, candy bars, salty snacks?

   9. Was junk food advertised in posters or any other way aside from being displayed in machines or at a counter?

How many of these questions (maybe in different words) were on your list? Does the list spark any additional questions?

Close

A special case
Some assignments will ask you to respond to a quote or to longer text. What’s the topic if you have such an assignment? Is the topic of your paper the same as the topic of the quote, or is the topic of your paper the quote itself?

For instance in the quote that follows, is the topic “dogs” or “Woodrow Wilson’s comment about dogs”?

In most cases, the topic will be the quote itself: Woodrow Wilson’s comment about dogs. So the topic in its most basic form is “Woodrow Wilson’s comment about dogs and your conscience.”

Connecting with this topic
You might write these questions to help you connect with this topic:

• Do you know who Woodrow Wilson is?
• Is he an expert on dogs?
• Is he an expert on questions of conscience?
• How serious is this comment? Is it intended to be thought-provoking or just witty?
• How well do you know dogs?
• What do you think of people who don’t like dogs?
• What do you think of people whom dogs don’t like?
• What is conscience? How would you examine it?

The point of these questions is to help you see aspects of the topic you might not have seen at first glimpse—the full range of its implications and the limitations of the topic.