Writing for academic purposes/ENGA102/Building strong arguments/Matching

What is academic writing?

Make a choice

In this section you are going to further explore what makes up a thesis statement. Here is are some good and bad thesis statements. Choose the good or bad one based on the knowledge you have picked up in the last sections.

• This paper will address the characteristics of a good President or Prime Minister.
  • Good
    • Incorrect. The thesis makes no claim, a better thesis statement would be: The very traits that makes for an effective President or Prime Minister—the drive to succeed and lead—can also make the leader domineering and therefore ineffective.
  • Bad
    • Correct. The thesis makes no claim, a better thesis statement would be: The very traits that makes for an effective President or Prime Minister—the drive to succeed and lead—can also make the leader domineering and therefore ineffective.
• Resistance to publishing in open access journals is largely driven by misconceptions about their quality and a desire to not rock the academic boat. This paper will look at this resistance and break down the misconceptions around the presumed quality of traditional journals.
  • Good
    • Correct. This thesis statement looks at a specific part of an issue. A bad example, which would be obviously true or a statement of fact, would be something like "Open Access Journals are less popular with Academics than traditional journals."
  • Bad
    • Incorrect. This thesis statement looks at a specific part of an issue. A bad example, which would be obviously true or a statement of fact, would be something like "Open Access Journals are less popular with Academics than traditional journals."
• Videogames are bad for children.
  • Good
    • Incorrect. This thesis restates conventional wisdom without adding any new thought or complexity. A solution would be to dig deeper into the content and make it more complex. So, a good example would be: There are differing views on whether violence in videogames influences children in a negative way. In this paper I will look at both sides of the argument and make the argument that there are no negative outcomes.
  • Bad
    • Correct. This thesis restates conventional wisdom without adding any new thought or complexity. A solution would be to dig deeper into the content and make it more complex. So, a good example would be: There are differing views on whether violence in videogames influences children in a negative way. In this paper I will look at both sides of the argument and make the argument that there are no negative outcomes.
• Citizen Kane is a film about a man and his love for a childhood toy.
  • Good
    • Incorrect. This thesis makes an overly broad claim, it has made an assertion that is broad enough to fit a wide range of films and thus says nothing in particular about the film at hand. Instead you could write: Citizen Kane is the story of a wealthy man who, despite his successes, has spent a life time longing for the simpler times of his youth, as embodied in his childhood sled.
  • Bad
    • Correct. This thesis makes an overly broad claim, it has made an assertion that is broad enough to fit a wide range of films and thus says nothing in particular about the film at hand. Instead you could write: Citizen Kane is the story of a wealthy man who, despite his successes, has spent a life time longing for the simpler times of his youth, as embodied in his childhood sled.