Write a Persuasive Thesis

A thesis is a type of writing that involves an in-depth analysis of a research topic. Unlike a Write-a-Persuasive-Essay, a thesis is usually quite long, in-depth, and based on extensive research. A persuasive thesis uses sound research, analysis, and commentary in order to encourage a reader to agree with the author's overarching argument. Many schools, colleges, and universities require students to submit a thesis as part of their degree requirements.

Steps

Beginning the Writing Process

1. Understand the thesis assignment. Some instructors, colleges, and universities have very strict requirements about what a thesis must include. Read your syllabus, assignment rubric, or course website thoroughly in order to understand exactly what is required of you. Some questions to ask yourself include:
   • How long must my thesis be?
   • Are there any specific topics I must address, or must I come up with my own topic?
   • How many sources must I cite?
   • Do I have to submit any pre-writing assignments (drafts, outlines, bibliographies, proposals, etc.)?
2. Narrow down a research topic. Sometimes your research topic is provided to you by an instructor or university. At other times, you are responsible for brainstorming your own research topic. You can consider framing your research topic as an interesting question to answer or as a tough puzzle to solve. If you are coming up with your own topic, be sure to ask yourself the following questions:
   • Is this topic something I am passionate about? Remember that you might spend several weeks or even months working with this topic, so it should hold your interest.
   • Is this topic relevant to the assignment? Always adhere to the restrictions of the assignment.
   • Is this topic broad enough to provide me with flexibility, but narrow enough that I can contribute meaningfully to it? For example, "The U.S. Civil War" is probably too broad of a topic to be manageable. On the other hand, "The type of thread used to sew Civil War regimental flags" might skew too far in the other direction by being too narrow to sustain a lengthy thesis assignment. "The design of Civil War regimental flags" is a topic that is just right: broad enough to provide you with plenty of research and flexibility, but narrow enough that you will not be overwhelmed.
3. Discuss your tentative topic with your instructor. Instructors and thesis advisors are usually very happy to meet with thesis-writers about their topics. They want you to succeed as much as you do. Once you have collected and organized your thoughts, set up a meeting with your instructor to discuss your tentative topic. Take careful notes during the meeting: your instructor might have excellent suggestions for sources, approaches, and ideas that you could include in your thesis.
   • Some thesis assignments even require that you submit a thesis proposal or annotated bibliography before you are permitted to begin writing. If these are required of you, be sure you follow the appropriate assignment guidelines.
4. Read a few initial research materials. While it is too early to begin fully delving into your research, you want to be sure that you have a general sense of your topic before you begin narrowing things down. Take a day or two to read some general sources surrounding your topic. This will help you determine whether your topic is a viable one, and it might give you a sense of what your tentative thesis statement might be.
5. Determine whether your thesis should be descriptive or prescriptive. A descriptive thesis argues that the world operates in a certain way. A prescriptive thesis, on the other hand, argues that the would should operate in a certain way. Depending on your field of study, you might be expected to craft a descriptive argument or a prescriptive argument. A persuasive thesis can take either form.
   • For example, "Voter ID laws discourage minority voters more than white voters" is a descriptive thesis. "Voter ID laws should be abolished in order to maintain a democratic form of government" is a prescriptive thesis.
6. Write down a tentative thesis statement. Your thesis will be governed by your thesis statement, which is a clear and concise summary of your argument. A thesis statement is usually 1-3 sentences in length. Having a tentative thesis statement at the outset can help your paper remain focused and grounded. However, as you continue researching you might find that your thesis is somehow inadequate and must be revised. This is a normal part of the writing process. Remember that your thesis must be:
   • Clear
   • Specific
   • Arguable
   • Rooted in facts, not pure opinions (though sometimes expert opinion can count as evidence)
   • Non-judgmental and non-confrontational
   • Relevant to the assignment
   • Significant
7. Make a timeline. One of the most useful things you can do before you begin writing is to carefully plan the trajectory of your research, writing, and revising process. Be sure that you leave yourself plenty of time to accomplish each task, and leave yourself some leeway in case you encounter any roadblocks in your research. Depending on the length and expectations of your thesis, you might spend anywhere from a few weeks to over a year working on a thesis.

Compiling Your Research

1. Determine the kind of research required of your thesis. Different fields of study will have different conventions about what counts as research. For example, a social science field might require that you engage in surveys of human subjects. A lab science field might require that you spend several weeks conducting experiments before you can begin writing. A humanities field might require that you closely examine several primary text sources, such as letters, diaries, novels, or historical documents. Each of these kinds of research might require a different time investment, so keep this in mind as you prepare your thesis.
   • If your research involves human subjects, remember that you are usually required to get approval from an Institutional Review Board. This can take extra time, so be sure that you submit your project proposal early.
2. Examine relevant commentary about your topic. No matter your field of study, other professionals and experts will have written analyses on your topic or closely related topics. Many theses have a section known as the literature review, in which you describe these major scholarly conversations and debates. Having a thorough literature review will allow you to explain where you stand in these debates. Some types of commentaries you might encounter include:
   • The results of related scientific experiments
   • The results of related social science surveys
   • Theoretical analysis of your topic
   • Historical analysis of your topic
3. Use searchable databases to acquire sources. Many colleges and universities subscribe to online databases that compile relevant research materials. Sometimes these databases are specific to a single field of study (such as the Literature Online database); others are more general (such as Jstor). By using keyword searches and Library of Congress subject heading searches within these databases, you can acquire a solid list of potential sources that will aid your literature review.
   • Sometimes these databases will provide you with direct access to an online copy of a book or article. At other times it will provide you with a title that you must track down yourself at another library.
   • If your university does not subscribe to an online database related to your field of study, you can use open-access searches such as Google Scholar. You might also visit your local public library to see if they have access to online databases that can help you.
4. Use a research library to acquire sources. Many colleges and universities have a Do-Research-in-a-Library that has extensive holdings that include periodicals, books, and other media (such as films or photographs). Use the library catalog search engine in order to narrow down some potential journal articles and books for you to read.
   • Remember to scan the shelves that surround the book titles you acquired during your search. Many libraries shelve according to subject, and there might be relevant materials in the immediate vicinity of the books you identified.
   • Research libraries often employ research librarians who can help you identify additional sources and databases to aid you in your search. Talk to the library staff to see if someone might be willing to assist you with your research project.
5. Ensure the accuracy of your research and sources. Not every source you find will be an accurate, scholarly source. Be wary of random internet searches. Make sure that your sources have gone through a peer review process, are published in legitimate journals or with established scholarly presses, and cite their sources properly.
6. Take excellent notes. Write down key pieces of information as you read your research materials, such as their thesis, methods, key terms, pithy quotations, and major sources of evidence. It can also be helpful to look through the citations of your research materials to get ideas for other sources you might read. It is important to write this information down because you will likely be reading through dozens of sources: it will be easy to forget vital pieces of information.
7. Cite all your sources carefully. In order to ensure that you do not plagiarize, be very careful about citing all of your sources. Whenever you quote another author, refer to another study, or paraphrase a scholarly argument, you must cite your sources. It is the responsible thing to do, and you might suffer huge consequences for failing to cite your sources properly.
8. Consider whether you still believe your tentative thesis statement. After you complete the bulk of your research process, you will have a lot more expertise in your research topic. Take another look at your tentative research statement. Do you still believe it? Or does your thesis require some revision? Take some time to think hard and carefully about what your new thesis statement might be.
9. Organize your research into an outline. An outline is a general, organized sketch of a large piece of writing. It provides a brief overview of each section of your thesis and will likely list the evidence you will use in each section. Be sure that each stage of your thesis helps to affirm your thesis statement.
   • As you write, you can use the outline as a guide to keep you focused and relevant. However, many people find that they must depart somewhat from the outline as they write: this is a normal part of the writing process.
   • Many long theses are arranged in several, related sections. Consider what sections and section headers you might use to organize your thesis.

Drafting Your Introduction

1. Identify the reader. The most effective thesis allows the reader to understand and hopefully agree with the author. Consider who your reader might be and what information they require to understand your topic. For most theses, your imagined reader will be someone who is conversant in your general field of study but is not an expert in your specific research topic.
2. Begin with a strong declaration of your argument. The best introductions include a thesis statement in their first two paragraphs. The thesis statement should be strong, clear, and concise. Make sure your reader understands what question your thesis will be answering as well as the methods your paper will use to answer that question.
3. Explain why your argument is significant. The best theses are ones that are not only accurate but also meaningful. Do not just explain what your argument is: explain why you think your argument is important. Does your thesis change the way your reader might think about history? Does your thesis posit a new method for analyzing cells? Have you uncovered a new angle on a philosophical topic? Describe what is new, interesting, and important about your work.
4. Provide your reader with important background information. Remember that your reader will not have done the extensive background reading that you have. This means that you have to act as a teacher, explaining what certain terms, events, dates, or methods mean and why they are significant. Do not talk down to your reader. Rather, address your reader as an intelligent person who simply requires a summary of what you have learned during your extensive research.

Drafting Your Body Paragraphs

1. Refer to your outline frequently. As you work through the body of your paper, take a look at your outline several times. Make sure that you are keeping on track and that your body text is always working in service of your thesis statement.
   • As you write, you might find that you have to revise your outline or change your focus slightly. This is perfectly fine: just remember to keep your thesis statement in mind at all times as you write.
2. Make sure each body paragraph is relevant to the thesis. A paragraph is a set of sentences unified by a single idea or closely related set of ideas. You should treat each paragraph as a separate piece of writing in order to ensure that each paragraph is well-organized and unified. However, each body paragraph must also work in order to further your support of your overarching thesis statement. Make sure that you are not including any irrelevant information or digressions.
   • Topic sentences are a great way to ensure that your body paragraphs remain focused. Ask yourself whether the topic sentence of each paragraph supports your thesis statement.
3. Use transition sentences between paragraphs. Ideally, body paragraphs will build off of one another, adding up to conclusive support for your thesis. Transition sentences can be used in between paragraphs in order to describe how two paragraphs are related. This can help orient your reader to your way of thinking, and it will also help make your thesis seem more unified.
4. Analyze evidence in every paragraph. Every paragraph should include some kind of evidence, such as a quotation from a primary source (like a letter or poem), analysis from a secondary source (such as a quotation from an expert historian or the result of a previous scientific study), or the results from your own research investigation (such as the results from a survey you administer). Remember that you have to analyze your evidence: don't simply list it. Explain why you think each piece of evidence is relevant and important. If possible, try to come up with your own interpretation of the evidence.
5. Provide context for your research. Consider your reader at all times. Orient your reader to important contexts for the evidence you present. Do not expect your reader to be able to understand the evidence as well as you can: think of yourself as a teacher who must explain the context of each piece of evidence.
6. Write in an objective manner. Persuasive theses are rooted in fact, not opinion or hyperbolic rhetoric. Keep your tone neutral and professional. Do not use statements such as "I think" or "As everyone should know." Instead, present your evidence clearly and analyze your evidence compellingly. This will be a more effective persuasion technique.
7. Consider possible counter evidence. It might be tempting to hide or minimize counter evidence that you find in your research. However, the most effective theses take such counter evidence into consideration. Think carefully about why the counterevidence should not be as persuasive as the evidence that you present, and ask yourself why your argument is superior to that of those who might disagree with you. If you can deal with counterevidence and counterarguments in a measured and effective way, your thesis will be all the more persuasive for it.
8. Don't worry about perfection. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. A first draft should get your ideas, evidence, and analysis on the table. However, there will likely be rough patches, confusing sections, or paragraphs that you will have to rewrite later. Don't get hung up on small details: get the large ideas on paper, and worry about the small things during the revision process.

Drafting Your Conclusion

1. Consider whether your evidence supports your thesis statement. After you have finished drafting the body of your essay, take a few moments to consider whether it is persuasive enough to conclusively support your thesis. Does your evidence add up to what you say it adds up to? Or does it add up to something else? It is possible that you will have to revise your thesis statement again after drafting the bulk of the essay. If you have to change your thesis statement, don't beat yourself up about it. Be proud that you are improving your essay at each stage.
2. Summarize the argument of your thesis. A good conclusion should remind your reader about the overarching argument of your paper. What was the purpose of the thesis? What were your methods? Especially for lengthy theses, a conclusion has to tie up the various sections together in order to remind the reader how they are all connected.
3. Explain why your argument is significant. The best conclusions explain why the previous pages were important. How should your reader's mind be changed after having read your thesis? How have you shifted scholarly discussion? Feel free to move beyond your very specific topic and discuss more general claims.
4. Explore alternative explanations or weak points. A conclusion is also a great place to discuss parts of your paper that might require further thought. Are there other possible explanations for the phenomenon you discovered through your experiments? Were there variables that you did not take into consideration? Think about some of the gaps of your thesis, and address them in your concluding section.
5. Suggest avenues for further research. The best theses will answer their research question but then posit new, significant questions. How might this topic be pushed even further in future work? What would you like to see other scholars work on in the coming years? Has your thesis opened up new veins for scholarly work that other people might explore?

Revising Your Thesis

1. Give yourself some space from your essay. Ideally, you should take a few days off in between drafting your essay and revising it. Effective revision has to be done while you are rested, refreshed, and after you have a little bit of distance from your essay. This is an excellent time to work on other projects, catch up on sleep or housework, or do some fun activities with friends.
2. Pretend like you are a member of a jury. As you sit down with your thesis draft, pretend like you are somebody objective, like a jury member or a journal editor. Try to put yourself into a different mind-space than where you were when you originally wrote the thesis. This will help you identify unclear sentences, sloppy thinking, and poor phrasing more easily.
3. Read your essay out loud. It can be easy to miss typos, grammatical errors, and unclear or incomplete sentences when you are reading a piece of paper. Take the time to read the essay out loud to yourself, at a slow pace. Use a highlighter to mark every word, sentence, or paragraph that seemed confusing or wrong when you said it out loud.
4. Ask yourself whether your research question has been answered. When you finish reading the essay, consider whether the problem you initially set out to solve has in fact been solved. Be honest with yourself: is your conclusion accurate? If you were a member of a jury, would you believe that your thesis statement has been conclusively proven? If so, great! If not, you might have to consider more serious revision such as:
   • Changing your thesis statement to reflect the evidence more accurately
   • Finding new sources of evidence to help prove your case
   • Adding more of your own analysis to the evidence you have already provided
   • Dealing more thoroughly with potential counterarguments
5. Consider whether each sentence makes sense. Each sentence should be clear and concise. Stay away from long-winded, abstract, or repetitive sentences. Limit your use of jargon when possible.
6. Consider whether each paragraph is well organized. Remember that each paragraph should be unified, should have an effective transition sentence to relate it to the previous paragraph(s), should have a topic sentence to describe the paragraph, compelling pieces of evidence, and compelling analysis of the evidence. You might find that some paragraphs require more detail, and other paragraphs have irrelevant sentences that should be cut. Other paragraphs might need to be split into two separate paragraphs if they include too much information.
7. Write a "reverse outline." In order to determine whether a thesis's overall structure is convincing, write a "reverse outline." A reverse outline is made up of the individual topic sentences of each paragraph that you have already written. (This is opposed to a regular outline that you write before you have drafted an essay.) Copy and paste each topic sentence into a separate document, in the order you present them in your essay draft. If the "reverse outline" makes logical sense and is convincing, it is likely that you have a solid structure for your paper. If your reverse outline is jumbled up, repetitive, or disorganized, you might have to rearrange your body paragraphs.
8. Use appropriately formal language. A thesis should not use contractions, slang, or swear words. Keep your essay appropriate for its scholarly context: it should be professional and objective.
9. Check your spelling and grammar yourself. Many computer programs will help spell-check and grammar-check your essays. Sometimes these can catch errors and typos. Sometimes, however, they miss typos and might even auto-correct your writing in a way that causes further errors. Don't just rely on your computer to proofread your essay: do it yourself, at a slow pace. Be sure that you catch all grammatical errors and spelling errors.
   • It can sometimes help to change your font or use a different color of ink when you proofread. Your eyes are more likely to catch an error when your essay is presented in a different format from when you originally typed it.
10. Make sure all sources are properly cited. Double-check that every quotation and citation is properly referenced and that your bibliography is accurate. Use whatever citation format your instructor suggests, such as MLA, APA, or Chicago. There are many citation guides that can help you ensure that your citations and bibliography are formatted correctly.
11. Ask a friend to read your thesis. Sometimes it can be difficult to catch errors, inaccuracies, or clunky writing in your own work because you are too familiar with it. Ask your friends or colleagues if you could trade papers. You will help your colleague edit her paper if she will take a look at yours. Rely on another set of eyes to catch the mistakes that you could not catch.
    • Sometimes those who edit your paper will provide you with helpful notes. At other times, it might be best for you to follow your own instincts: do not make changes just because a fellow student tells you to. Think carefully about the suggestions, and make corrections as you see fit.
    • Sometimes you are required to submit a draft of your thesis to an advisor or external reader, who will provide you with comments to help you revise the thesis.

Tips

• If you get stuck, try writing in a new environment--preferably one that provides some background noises, such as a cafe. That can help your concentration and ease your anxiety.
• Write in an environment with lots of natural light to help you stay focused.
• Take frequent breaks.
• Give yourself lots of time to percolate and reorganize your ideas.
• Feel free to explore your own unique writing style, as long as it is within the bounds of the assignment.

Warnings

• Never cheat or plagiarize. You could jeopardize your grade in the class or your entire academic career. Be sure that your thesis is entirely your own work, and that every source is accurately cited.
• Do not fabricate data. It is much better to analyze authentic data than falsified data. Perhaps your thesis won't be as dramatic, but at least it will be accurate.

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