When reading a piece of writing, one of the components of the piece that helps to guide you through the piece is the thesis statement. This is the main idea of the entire piece, or the point that the author is trying to
prove. (You typically only find these in non-fiction pieces, but they may occasionally show up in fictional
pieces.) In order to write strong thesis statements, you have to practice. The two
main components for a
good thesis statement are the subject (what you are talking about) and your opinion (how you feel about it).
Of course, we have to do this in a professional way, so you can't just write something like, "Dogs are cool."
Let's imagine that you are writing a research essay about how the brain works. (That's a hint, by the way!)
What type of thesis statement could you write? Here is one example. "The brain is amazing because of its
capacity to remember things." or "Our psychological processes are incredibly complicated. Each of these
has a subject (brain remembering things, or psychological processes) and an opinion (amazing or incredibly
complicated). Now, your task today is to create 5 thesis statements. I'd suggest that you write them about
the brain to get a head start on your big project, or you can pick any subject you know something about. The
most important thing is that they have a subject and an opinion! Write these 5 thesis statements and submit
them to your instructor.