Defining Your Essay Thesis
Like topic sentences, an essay thesis can be simple (presented clearly, either in one or several consecutive sentences), deferred-completion (started in one sentence and finished at certain point later in your paper), assembled (dotted in pieces and bits throughout your essay), or inferred (never clearly stated–left for your audience to surmise). But the essay thesis is introduced, it must be clearly defined or in case of an inferred essay thesis, it should clearly definable. Even though you have selected to employ a deferred-completion, inferred, or assembled essay thesis, you need to be capable to articulate your thesis in a simple and clear statement.
Two things occur if you fail to determine your thesis obviously:
1. You do not see what you have dedicated yourself to- actually, you may not have dedicated yourself to anything. Thus, your essay lacks unity. A unified paper is a work in which all your arguments, indirectly or directly, support your essay thesis. (Though pro-writers acknowledge opposing positions and may even admit an opinion, they typically do this for rhetorical aims–to improve their own reliability by indicating they are conscious and able of replying to opposing positions.) If you have not determined your thesis obviously, you will never know what your proofs should support. No matter what unity you achieve, this will be mainly accidental.
2. The next consequence of a poorly defined essay thesis stems straight from the first: if you do not know to what you have dedicated yourself, your paper lacks unity, and the audience has no thread to assist them to find their way via your thoughts. When you ramble, your audience gropes.