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How to Write a Thesis Statement

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How to Write a Thesis Statement

By Christopher Pell

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This post will show you how to write a good thesis statement and how we need to vary them according to
which kind of question we are asked in the IELTS writing test.

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This post will look at:

what a thesis statement is;
how to identify the different question types;
how to write a thesis statement for each question.
What is a thesis statement?
Thesis- An idea put forward for consideration, especially one to be discussed or analysed.
A thesis statement is the most important sentence in your IELTS writing task 2 answer. It is contained in the
introduction and each introduction should have one; along with a paraphrase of the question and an outline
statement.
A thesis statement is your main idea and I often describe it to students as how you feel about the whole issue
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in one sentence. It tells the examiner that you have understood the question and will lead to a clearer; more
coherent essay.
Lets look at an example of a thesis statement:
Question: There is a good deal of evidence that increasing car use is contributing to global warming and
having other undesirable effects on peoples health and well-being.
To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Thesis statement: This essay agrees that increasing use of motor vehicles is contributing to rising global
temperatures and certain health issues.
As you can see, this sentence makes it absolutely clear to the examiner how you feel about the question. The
rest of your essay should support this statement.
How do I know what to write?
The first thing we need to do is to identify which type of question it is and look at the action words. For
example, in the question below the action words are do you agree or disagree?
Question: There is a good deal of evidence that increasing car use is contributing to global warming and
having other undesirable effects on peoples health and well-being.
To what extent do you agree or disagree?
We therefore need to tell the examiner clearly whether we agree or disagree and this will influence our thesis
statement.
Lets look at other examples:
1. Computers are being used more and more in education.
Discuss the advantages and disadvantages and give your own opinion.
2. Computers are being used more and more in education. Some people say that this is a positive trend,
while others argue that it is leading to negative consequences.
Discuss both sides of this argument and then give your own opinion.
3. Students are becoming more and more reliant on computers.
What are some of the problems associated with reliance on computers, and what are some of the possible
solutions?

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In each of the three questions above the main keywords are more or less the same- education and
computers. However, if we look at the action words we can see that we are required to answer the three
questions in very different ways and this will affect our thesis statement.
The action words are:
1. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages and give your own opinion.
2. Discuss both sides of this argument and then give your own opinion.
3. What are some of the problems and what are some of the possible solutions?
It is therefore important to take some time to analyse the question and establish what the question is actually
asking us to do.
How do I write a thesis statement for each question?
Once we have established what the question wants us to do, we can now think about our thesis statement.
Below we will look at how to write a thesis statement for four different kinds of question:
Opinion Question (Do you agree or Disagree)
Discussion Question (Discuss both points of view)
Advantages and Disadvantage
Problem and Solution.
You should remember that although IELTS writing part 2 questions normally follow a standard format as above,
they sometimes change and you should be prepared for that.
Opinion Question
Some aspects of celebrity culture have a bad influence on young people.
To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?
We have three choices with this kind of question:
1. I agree
2. I disagree
3. I both agree and disagree
I tell my students to only choose options one or two. Choosing option three will often lead to a confused
and/or very long essay. If you have just one opinion and you stick to this, it will lead to a clear and well argued
essay.
You therefore have two choices.
1. I agree that some aspects of celebrity culture have a bad influence on young people.
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2. I disagree that some aspects of celebrity culture have a bad influence on young people.
All of your thesis statements for this kind of question should start with:
This essay agrees that..
or
This essay disagrees that..
We should try to avoid using personal pronouns like I and we therefore use This essay. instead.
Also remember that we should not copy the question as this is not allowed in the IELTS writing test and instead
we should paraphrase.
For example, This essay agrees that the some famous peoples lifestyles have a detrimental effect on the
youth of today.
Second Example Opinion Question
Increasing the price of petrol is the best way to solve growing traffic and pollution problems.
To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Thesis Statement: This essay disagrees that the best way to resolve increasing pollution and congestion
problems is to raise the cost of fuel.
Discussion Question
Computers are being used more and more in education. Some people say that this is a positive
trend, while others argue that it is leading to negative consequences.
Discuss both sides of this argument and then give your own opinion.
For this kind of question we need to clearly state both sides of the argument and state our own opinion.
We do this by simply paraphrasing the question; thus stating both sides, and then giving our own opinion. Our
own opinion will be just one side of the argument.
Even if you favour both sides of the argument, just state one. Again, this leads to a clearer answer.
Thesis statement: Some argue that schools and universities increasing use of computers is a beneficial
trend, while others are opposed to this view. This essay agrees that growing use of technology by educators is
a positive development.

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As you can see, this student has clearly stated both sides of the argument and stated which side of the
argument she prefers.
Second Example Discussion Question
Some people think that parents should teach children how to be good members of society. Others,
however, believe that school is the best place to learn this.
Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.
Thesis statement: Some argue that teachers should teach youngsters how to be upstanding members of the
community, whereas others feel this is the role of the mother and father. This essay agrees that this duty
should be filled primarily by parents.
Advantage and Disadvantages Question
Computers are being used more and more in education.
Discuss the advantages and disadvantages and give your own opinion.
In this kind of question we need to clearly state what we think the main advantage is and what the main
disadvantage is.
Thesis Statement: The principal advantage is the amount of information instantly available to students and
the main disadvantage is the lack of discipline and motivation provided by computers.
Second Advantage and Disadvantages Question
Some experts believe that it is better for children to begin learning a foreign language at primary
school rather than secondary school.
Do the advantages of this outweigh the disadvantages?
Thesis statement: The principal advantage is that exposing children to languages as early as possible leads
to higher levels of proficiency later in life and this outweighs the main disadvantage of young children being
overwhelmed by too many subjects.
Problem and Solution Question
Students are becoming more and more reliant on computers.
What are some of the problems associated with reliance on computers, and what are some of the
possible solutions?
Our thesis statement will need to state one main problem and one main solution. Some teachers will advise
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you to state more than problem and solution. There is nothing wrong with this, but I like my students to choose
two good ideas and develop these fully.
Thesis statement: The principal problem is students allowing machines to do all the work for them without
thinking for themselves and a possible solution is to have stricter supervision from teachers and parents.
Cause and Solution Question
In some countries the average weight of people is increasing and their levels of health and fitness
are decreasing.
What do you think are the causes of these problems and what measures could be taken to solve
them?
Thesis statement: The principal cause of this problem is peoples sedentary lifestyles and a possible solution
is to educate society about the dangers of not keeping fit.
Next Steps
This is just a broad overview of thesis statements and it should be read in conjunction with my article on how
to write an effective introduction in order to be fully understood.
It should be reiterated that although these are the four common question that normally come up in the IELTS
writing test, they sometimes do vary and you should be ready to change your thesis statements and
introductions accordingly.
Here is Lisa Simpson with a summary.

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Comments

eflnotes says
April 1, 2015 at 12:56 pm

http://ieltsadvantage.com/2015/04/01/how-to-write-ielts-thesis-statement/

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interesting post thx, i dont do IELTS so maybe that is why the starter It is disagreed that sounds
odd?
a quick corpus search on COCA-BYU finds no instances?
ta
mura
Reply

christopherpell444 says
April 1, 2015 at 1:16 pm
Its very academic language. Could also use This essay will argue etc.
Reply

doichuoinon says
April 1, 2015 at 5:00 pm
Reblogged this on doichuoinon and commented:
This is exactly what we need to learn to write in ielts.
Reply

Feri says
July 26, 2015 at 12:35 pm
I think the topic How Many Words? is linked to the topic How to Write a Thesis Statement! Could
you check it please? Thanks.
Reply

esha says
http://ieltsadvantage.com/2015/04/01/how-to-write-ielts-thesis-statement/

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How to Write a Thesis Statement

July 30, 2015 at 8:27 pm

Hi sir Cristopher. I would like to ask about the usage of personal pronoun I in the introductory part of
the essay. I am confused because some of the essays ask about the opinion of the examinee like the
questions: what is your opinion?, do you agree or disagree.. In these cases, how should a testaker
respond to the question in order to tell that the examinee is already stating his/her own opinion?
thanks a lot.
Reply

Christopher Pell says

July 31, 2015 at 8:31 am
Very good question. I think I will write a full article about this in the future, however, the short
answer is you can use personal pronouns when giving your opinion or using personal
examples, but I would avoid using them in the rest of the essay.
Reply

April says
August 30, 2015 at 6:56 pm
Hi Chris:
Quick question:
Advantage and Disadvantages Question
Computers are being used more and more in education.
Discuss the advantages and disadvantages and give your own opinion.
In this kind of question we need to clearly state what we think the main advantage is and what the
main disadvantage is.
Thesis Statement: The principal advantage is the amount of information instantly available to
students and the main disadvantage is the lack of discipline and motivation provided by computers.
As the question stated to give your opinion, the Thesis, however, did not address this and you
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mentioned what we should do in this kind of question is to state what disadvantage/advantage is. I
am just wondering in this case, or the whole Advantages and disadvantages question, if we are
supposed to state our own opinion? If so, what kind of own opinion should be given? The
advantages outweigh the disadvantages?
Thanks heaps,
April
Reply

Christopher Pell says

August 31, 2015 at 10:58 am
State your opinion on computers being used more and more in education. You dont have to
link your opinion to ad. or dis.
Reply

April says
August 31, 2015 at 5:45 pm
Thanks Chris. It makes more sense and is really helpful.
Reply

nader says
September 11, 2015 at 10:32 am
hi Chris
is ( its agreed that ) equal to ( in my own opinion i ) in academic writing?
Reply

Christopher Pell says

September 12, 2015 at 3:38 pm
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How to Write a Thesis Statement

Yes.
Reply

Krunal says
November 17, 2015 at 8:00 am
hello sir,
i am still confused about this kind of situation.
So, do i need to make additional thesis statement to address my opinion?
or opinion is not necessary to add in introduction, but the supporting paragraphs or conclusion?
Reply

Christopher Pell says

November 18, 2015 at 1:51 pm
Opinion should always be included in the introduction and conclusion.
Reply

lauay says
November 26, 2015 at 2:33 am
very nice really your site is amazing, I am very interested in studying under instructions of a big
teacher like you ,by the way, Lisa of the Simpsons illustrates important things, was really nice thing
Reply

Reachsak says
December 10, 2015 at 9:13 pm
Thanks Chris , for a well-inform tutorial , But I notice that for the Ads vs Disads , Problems and
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solution and Cause Solution , the thesis have mentioned the things that Im gonna use for the
outlining statement part, so how can i deal with this ?in the outline statement part Should I
paraphrase and restate these idea ? No outlining statement ? Or add more idea ?
Thanks
Reply

Christopher Pell says

December 12, 2015 at 8:28 am
Simply outline the main ideas for advantages and disadvantages or problem and solution
essays and this will count as your opinion.
Reply

Ravil says
March 18, 2016 at 9:27 am
Chrisopher, I checked a couple of other popular IELTS resources and they suggest to answer
opinion questions with I agree or I fully disagree, as It is agreed can be evaluated as a not
complete answer on the task. I want to be 100% sure about this one, because it can really lower the
score.
Reply

Darshan says
July 29, 2016 at 11:26 am
Hello Sir!
Could you tell me that In what types of question or demand I should not write an opinion in the
essay?
Reply

Christopher Pell says

July 29, 2016 at 6:40 pm
http://ieltsadvantage.com/2015/04/01/how-to-write-ielts-thesis-statement/

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How to Write a Thesis Statement

The ones that dont ask for one.

Reply

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