A thesis statement is a statement in an essay that you plan to support, discuss or prove. Not all thesis statements can be empirically proven, but many of them represent an argument. A thesis statement should also stand out as an indicator of the clear direction in which you will take your essay. It should be strongly worded, impossible to miss, and in shorter essays of a few pages, it should show up in the first paragraph or introduction of your paper.

Most essays live or die by the strength of their thesis statements, and by their ability to keep focused on their thesis. If you haven’t clearly indicated your focus or your argument, it’s difficult to stay focused on the issue you plan to discuss, argue or explain. Even if your essay is about how to build the perfect peanut butter sandwich, you significantly improve the quality of your essay by letting your readers know that this is what your subject is.

Though some people strive for an eloquently worded thesis statement, there’s nothing wrong in most cases with being perfectly direct. If using first person is permissible in your essay, you can easily turn a thesis statement into something like the following:

In this essay, I will discuss how to make the best peanut butter sandwich in the world, with emphasis on bread choice, jam choice and variants of the basic recipe.

If first person is not allowed in the essay, you can choose to say This essay will discuss instead of I will discuss.

To create a good thesis statement, you can ask yourself a single question: What is the main focus of my essay? Sometimes, when you must write assigned essays, the answer is already provided for you. If an assignment tells you exactly what you need to write about, you have your focus readymade. If a writing prompt is in the form of a question, simply restate the question into a statement, then set about creating a body of paragraphs that support that statement.

When you conclude your essay, you may want to briefly restate your thesis statement, and refer to how you’ve supported it. It should be clear by the end of your essay that you’ve stayed focused on your topic, and done all you could to write a clear paper. At the end of the peanut butter sandwich essay, you might tell your audience that you’ve fulfilled your task.

When you write speeches, the thesis statement is just as valuable, perhaps even more so. Most speech teachers will mention the three key elements to a speech are to tell the audience what you’re going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them. A short essay should work much in the same manner. Thesis equals telling the audience. The body of your essay is the exploration of your thesis, and the conclusion restates what you told your audience. With these ideas in mind, you can focus on writing a terrific thesis for each work that will help you clearly organize and present your thoughts for both written and spoken material.