College essay thesis writing is the single most important writing skill that a student needs during his/her higher education experience. The average length requirement for a college essay is four to six pages. The best way to meet this requirement is to open with a clear and concise thesis. The thesis serves as an outline and summary for the rest of the essay, and informs the reader of the order that information will appear, as well as provides the primary argument of the essay, which will be supported in the body of the essay by quotations from the text that is under scrutiny.
Constructing a Thesis
The thesis of an essay is the sentence that gives the essay its foundation and authority. It is best to limit the thesis to one sentence, and it should be the very last sentence in the introductory paragraph. The key to a good thesis is to break down the main topic of the essay into three parts. (Three is a nice, round number, and keeps the thesis from being to wordy or confusing). For example, if a student is writing a critical essay on Herman Melville's Billy Budd, Sailor, arguing that Billy is a one-dimensional character, a good thesis sentence would be:
"In Herman Melville's Billy Budd, Sailor, Billy is a one-dimensional character because he is ignorant of cruelty, his goodness and purity manifest physically in his appearance, and despite being a foundling, he is well-born."
The author and title of the work should always be included in the first part of the thesis sentence. Most importantly, the thesis sentence should be a clear summary of the main topics of the essay.
Also, the title of an essay should be an even more concise restatement of the thesis. For example, the title of the essay that uses the sample thesis provided would likely resemble: "Ignorance, Appearance, and Breeding: the One-Dimensionality of Billy Budd." A title should always give the reader a clear idea of what he/she is about to read.
Body Paragraphs
Directly related to thesis writing is the organization of body paragraphs. Each topic section of the body of the essay should begin with a sentence that is constructed from the corresponding segment of the thesis. This is commonly known as a topic sentence. An example of a topic sentence from the Billy Budd sample thesis is: "Billy Budd is a one-dimensional character because he is ignorant of cruelty." From here, the essay should explain in detail how and why this is the case, and cite examples within the text itself as evidence. The order of body paragraphs should correspond directly to the order that their respective topics occur in the thesis sentence.
A tip to satisfying length requirements when working in the body of the essay it to break up each section of the body into two paragraphs per topic. Therefore, the student should keep in mind during the thesis writing process that each topic should be able to be reasonably broken up into two parts.
Using Quotations
Thesis writing depends on quotations as the concrete evidence to support each topic. The best rule to follow, regarding quotations, is to use at least one relevant quote per paragraph, but no more than three. Quotations in academic writing come in two forms: embedded, and block quotes. A common mistake made by college students is to use a quotation as if it were part of their own sentence. This is a mistake for three reasons: 1) it's poor form, and runs the risk of confusing the reader, which inevitably lowers the grade; 2) it can look a lot like plagiarism, and makes citation more challenging and awkward; 3) it uses less space and fewer words, making it more difficult to meet length requirements.
Each quote should be introduced independently and very specifically. For example:
"The reader can see Billy's ignorance of cruelty from the following: '...the impression made upon him by the first formal gangway-punishment he had ever witnessed...He could not understand it, and it more than vexed him' (Melville 38-38). From this passage the reader learns that Billy has never before witnessed corporeal punishment, and has been thus far ignorant of such cruelty."
Once a quote has been introduced, provided, and meticulously cited, the writer should also paraphrase the quote very briefly, and explain to the reader how the quote is relevant, as in the example above. Block quotations should be used only when the quote exceeds three lines on the page. Block quotes do not use quotation marks; rather, they are indented and single-spaced to set them apart from the rest of the essay.
Regarding the use of quotation marks, the rule stands thus: for embedded quotes, double quotation marks, (" "), outline the quote in its entirety, and single quotation marks, (' '), outline dialog. For block quotes, which use no quotation marks around the quote itself, double quotation marks are used to outline dialog.
With practice, and by following these rules of thesis writing, receiving consistently good grades on college essays will become less and less challenging. By remembering the importance of paragraph organization and quotation usage, the student will easily master the process of thesis writing for college.
Cited:
Melville, Herman. Billy Budd, Sailor. New York: Pocket Books, 2006.
