example of a thesis statement on communication

How to Write a Thesis Statement on Effective Communication

Writing a good thesis statement on effective communication involves communicating your motive in a statement of original and significant thought. The purpose you indicate in your thesis statement is the paper's main point – insight, argument or point of view – backed up by compelling research evidence. An effective communication thesis statement contains your proposed argument and support for your claim. It lets the reader know and understand the point of your paper in one or two sentences. Everything you write in your paper works toward building your thesis statement's strength. Remember that writing an effective communication thesis statement is different than writing one for most subjects; your educated readers will already know communication theory, application of techniques and personal experiences associated with effective communication.

Choose a topic for your thesis statement – if one is not assigned by your teacher – from a vast subject area with many diverse extended ideas. Examine how, what, when, where and whom in the process of gathering information for choosing the best topic. Narrow your focus if possible.

Explore a variety of research references on your topic that include journals, encyclopedias, books, newspapers and websites. Maintain notes that are detailed to help you conceptualize your thesis statement. Mark, underscore or highlight the most important data to back up your argument. Research acts as the basis for your specific, well-thought-out and defined thesis statement.

Decide whether the purpose of your composition is to inform or persuade. Formulate a thesis statement plan.

Review and analyze your notes to compose a thesis statement. An impressive thesis statement is made up of your argument proposal and claim support. Write down your thesis statement on a piece of paper. This allows you to see your thesis statement proposal in clear and logical terms.

Revise and adjust your thesis statement as you go along. Be sure it keeps the most fundamental and significant characteristics found in its original form. Pinpoint the two basics of your thesis: what your ideas relate to and what the angle of your ideas are. Make sure your thesis statement concentrates on these two basic points.

Establish individual insight in regard to your clear thesis statement. Your angle should reflect your own argument, ideas, analysis and interpretation of the effective communication topic.

Think about what might be argued against your thesis statement and refine your statement accordingly. Reflecting on possible counter-arguments allows you to consider differing opinions you will have to critique later in your essay.

• 1 Fastweb; Essay Tips: 7 Tips on Writing an Effective Essay; 2009

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Communication Studies Theses, Dissertations, and Professional Papers

This collection includes theses, dissertations, and professional papers from the University of Montana Department of Communication Studies. Theses, dissertations, and professional papers from all University of Montana departments and programs may be searched here.

Theses/Dissertations from 2023 2023

COMEDY, CAMARADERIE, AND CONFLICT: USING HUMOR TO DEFUSE DISPUTES AMONG FRIENDS , Sheena A. Bringa

Navigating Toxic Identities Within League of Legends , Jeremy Thomas Miner

Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022

UNDERSTANDING MEDIA RICHNESS AND SOCIAL PRESENCE: EXPLORING THE IMPACTS OF MEDIA CHANNELS ON INDIVIDUALS’ LEVELS OF LONELINESS, WELL-BEING, AND BELONGING , Ashley M. Arsenault

CANCELING VS. #CANCEL CULTURE: AN ANALYSIS ON THE SURVEILLANCE AND DISCIPLINE OF SOCIAL MEDIA BEHAVIOR THROUGH COMPETING DISCOURSES OF POWER , Julia G. Bezio

DISTAL SIBLING GRIEF: EXPLORING EMOTIONAL AFFECT AND SALIENCE OF LISTENER BEHAVIORS IN STORIES OF SIBLING DEATH , Margaret C. Brock

Is Loss a Laughing Matter?: A Study of Humor Reactions and Benign Violation Theory in the Context of Grief. , Miranda B. Henrich

The Request Is Not Compatible: Competing Frames of Public Lands Discourse in the Lolo Peak Ski Resort Controversy , Philip A. Sharp

Patient Expectations, Satisfaction, and Provider Communication Within the Oncology Experience , Elizabeth Margaret Sholey

Psychological Safety at Amazon: A CCO Approach , Kathryn K. Zyskowski

Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021

Discourse of Renewal: A Qualitative Analysis of the University of Montana’s COVID-19 Crisis Communication , Haley Renae Gabel

Activating Hope: How Functional Support Can Improve Hope in Unemployed Individuals , Rylee P. Walter

Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020

THE HOME AS A SITE OF FAMILY COMMUNICATED NARRATIVE SENSE-MAKING: GRIEF, MEANING, AND IDENTITY THROUGH “CLEANING OUT THE CLOSET” , Kendyl A. Barney

CRISIS AS A CONSTANT: UNDERSTANDING THE COMMUNICATIVE ENACTMENT OF COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE WITHIN THE EXTENSION DISASTER EDUCATION NETWORK (EDEN) , Danielle Maria Farley

FOSTERING COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE IN COMPREHENSIVE SEX EDUCATION: EVALUATION AND RECOMMENDATIONS ON THE FOUNDATIONS TRAINING , Shanay L. Healy

Belonging for Dementia Caregivers , Sabrina Singh

Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019

Making the Most of People We Do Not Like: Capitalizing on Negative Feedback , Christopher Edward Anderson

Understanding the Relationship Between Discursive Resources and Risk-Taking Behaviors in Outdoor Adventure Athletes , Mira Ione Cleveland

Service Failure Management in High-End Hospitality Resorts , Hunter A. Dietrich

Fear, Power, & Teeth (2007) , Olivia Hockenbroch

The climate change sublime: Leveraging the immense awe of the planetary threat of climate change , Sean D. Quartz

Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018

The Relationship Between Memorable Messages and Identity Construction , Raphaela P. Barros Campbell

Wonder Woman: A Case Study for Critical Media Literacy , Adriana N. Fehrs

Curated Chaos: A Rhetorical Study of Axmen , Rebekah A. McDonald

THE ROLE OF BIPOLAR DISORDER, STIGMA, AND HURTFUL MESSAGES IN ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS , Callie Parrish

Cruising to be a Board Gamer: Understanding Socialization Relating to Board Gaming and The Dice Tower , Benjamin Wassink

Theses/Dissertations from 2017 2017

STEAMED: EXAMINATIONS OF POWER STRUGGLES ON THE VALUE FORUM , richard E. babb

Beyond the Bike; Identity and Belonging of Free Cycles Members , Caitlyn Lewis

Adherence and Uncertainty Management: A Test Of The Theory Of Motivated Information Management , Ryan Thiel

Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016

Redskins Revisited: Competing Constructions of the Washington Redskins Mascot , Eean Grimshaw

A Qualitative Analysis of Belonging in Communities of Practice: Exploring Transformative Organizational Elements within the Choral Arts , Aubrielle J. Holly

Training the Professoraite of Tomorrow: Implementing the Needs Centered Training Model to Instruct Graduate Teaching Assistants in the use of Teacher Immediacy , Leah R. Johnson

Beyond Blood: Examining the Communicative Challenges of Adoptive Families , Mackensie C. Minniear

Attitudes Toward Execution: The Tragic and Grotesque Framing of Capital Punishment in the News , Katherine Shuy

Knowledge and Resistance: Feminine Style and Signifyin[g] in Michelle Obama’s Public Address , Tracy Valgento

Theses/Dissertations from 2015 2015

BLENDED FRAMEWORK: BILL MCKIBBEN'S USE OF MELODRAMA AND COMEDY IN ENVIRONMENTAL RHETORIC , Megan E. Cullinan

THE INFLUENCE OF MEDICAL DRAMAS ON PATIENT EXPECTATIONS OF PHYSICIAN COMMUNICATION , Kayla M. Fadenrecht

Diabesties: How Diabetic Support on Campus can Alleviate Diabetic Burnout , Kassandra E. Martin

Resisting NSA Surveillance: Glenn Greenwald and the public sphere debate about privacy , Rebecca Rice

Rhetoric, participation, and democracy: The positioning of public hearings under the National Environmental Policy Act , Kevin C. Stone

Socialization and Volunteers: A Training Program for Volunteer Managers , Allison M. Sullivan

Theses/Dissertations from 2014 2014

THIRD PARTY EFFECTS OF AFFECTIONATE COMMUNICATION IN FAMILY SUBSYSTEMS: EXAMINING INFLUENCE ON AFFECTIONATE COMMUNICATION, MENTAL WELL-BEING, AND FAMILY SATISFACTION , Timothy M. Curran

Commodity or Dignity? Nurturing Managers' Courtesy Nurtures Workers' Productivity , Montana Rafferty Moss

"It Was My Job to Keep My Children Safe": Sandra Steingraber and the Parental Rhetoric of Precaution , Mollie Katherine Murphy

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Free Markets: ALEC's Populist Constructions of "the People" in State Politics , Anne Sherwood

Theses/Dissertations from 2013 2013

COMMUNICATIVE CONSTRUCTION OF EXPECTATIONS: AN EXAMINATION OF EXPECTATIONS REGARDING MOTHERS IN NARRATIVE CONSTRUCTION , Jordan A. Allen

Let’s talk about sex: A training program for parents of 4th and 5th grade children , Elizabeth Kay Eickhoff

"You Is The Church": Identity and Identification in Church Leadership , Megan E. Gesler

This land is your land, this land is my land: A qualitative study of tensions in an environmental decision making group , Gabriel Patrick Grelle

The Constitution of Queer Identity in the 1972 APA Panel, "Psychiatry: Friend or Foe to Homosexuals? A Dialogue" , Dustin Vern Edward Schneider

The Effect of Religious Similarity on the Use of Relational Maintenance Strategies in Marriages , Jamie Karen Taylor

Justice, Equality, and SlutWalk: The Rhetoric of Protesting Rape Culture , Dana Whitney Underwood

Theses/Dissertations from 2012 2012

Collective Privacy Boundary Turbulence and Facework Strategies: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of South Korea and the United States , Min Kyong Cho

COMMUNICATING ARTIFACTS: AN ANALYSIS OF HOW MUSEUMS COMMUNICATE ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTITY DURING TIMES OF CONTROVERSY AND FINANCIAL STRAIN , Amanda Renee Cornuke

Communication Apprehension and Perceived Responsiveness , Elise Alexandra Fanney

Improving Patient-Provider Communication in the Health Care context , Charlotte M. Glidden

What They Consider, How They Decide: Best Practices of Technical Experts in Environmental Decision-Making , Cassandra J. Hemphill

Rebuilding Place: Exploring Strategies to Align Place Identity During Relocation , Brigette Renee McKamey

Sarah Palin, Conservative Feminism, and the Politics of Family , Jasmine Rose Zink

Theses/Dissertations from 2011 2011

Salud, Dignidad, Justicia: Articulating "Choice" and "Reproductive Justice" for Latinas in the United States , Kathleen Maire de Onis

Environmental Documentary Film: A Contemporary Tool For Social Movement , Rachel Gregg

In The Pink: The (Un)Healthy Complexion of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month , Kira Stacey Jones

Jihad as an Ideograph: Osama bin Laden's rhetorical weapon of choice , Faye Lingarajan

The Heart of the Matter: The Function and Relational Effects of Humor for Cardiovascular Patients , Nicholas Lee Lockwood

Feeling the Burn: A Discursive Analysis of Organizational Burnout in Seasonal Wildland Firefighters , Whitney Eleanor Marie Maphis

Making A Comeback: An Exploration of Nontraditional Students & Identity Support , Jessica Kate McFadden

In the Game of Love, Play by the Rules: Implications of Relationship Rule Consensus over Honesty and Deception in Romantic Relationships , Katlyn Elise Roggensack

Assessing the balance: Burkean frames and Lil' Bush , Elizabeth Anne Sills

Theses/Dissertations from 2010 2010

The Discipline of Identity: Examining the Challenges of Developing Interdisciplinary Identities Within the Science Disciplines , Nicholas Richard Burk

Occupational Therapists: A Study of Managing Multiple Identities , Katherine Elise Lloyd

Discourse, Identity, and Culture in Diverse Organizations: A Study of The Muslim Students Association (University of Montana) , Burhanuddin Bin Omar

The Skinny on Weight Watchers: A Critical Analysis of Weight Watcher's Use of Metaphors , Ashlynn Laura Reynolds-Dyk

You Got the Job, Now What?: An Evaluation of the New Employee Orientation Program at the University of Montana , Shiloh M. A. Sullivan

Theses/Dissertations from 2009 2009

Because We Have the Power to Choose: A Critical Analysis of the Rhetorical Strategies Used in Merck's Gardasil Campaign , Brittney Lee Buttweiler

Communicative Strategies Used in the Introduction of Spirituality in the Workplace , Matthew Alan Condon

Cultures in Residence: Intercultural Communication Competence for Residence Life Staff , Bridget Eileen Flaherty

The Influence of Sibling Support on Children's Post-Divorce Adjustment: A Turning Point Analysis , Kimberly Ann Jacobs

TALK ABOUT “HOOKING UP”: HOW COLLEGE STUDENTS‟ ACCOUNTS OF “HOOKING UP” IN SOCIAL NETWORKS INFLUENCES ENGAGING IN RISKY SEXUAL BEHAVIOR , Amanda J. Olson

The Effect of Imagined Interactions on Secret Revelation and Health , Adam Stephens Richards

Teaching Intercultural Communication Competence in the Healthcare Context , Jelena Stojakovic

Quitting versus Not Quitting: The Process and Development of an Assimilation Program Within Opportunity Resources, Inc. , Amanda N. Stovall

Theses/Dissertations from 2008 2008

IMAGES AS A LAYER OF POSITIVE RHETORIC: A VALUES-BASED CASE STUDY EXPLORING THE INTERACTION BETWEEN VISUAL AND VERBAL ELEMENTS FOUND ON A RURAL NATURAL RESOURCES NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION WEBSITE , Vailferree Stilwell Brechtel

Relational Transgressions in Romantic Relationships: How Individuals Negotiate the Revelation and Concealment of Transgression Information within the Social Network , Melissa A. Maier

Theses/Dissertations from 2007 2007

THE SOCIALIZATION OF SEASONAL EMPLOYEES , Maria Dawn Blevins

Friends the family you choose (no matter what: An investigation of fictive kin relationships amoung young adults. , Kimberly Anne Clinger

Public relations in nonprofit organizations: A guide to establishing public relations programs in nonprofit settings , Megan Kate Gale

Negotiated Forgiveness in Parent-Child Relationships: Investigating Links to Politeness, Wellness and Sickness , Jennifer Lynn Geist

Developing and Communicating Better Sexual Harassment Policies Through Ethics and Human Rights , Thain Yates Hagan

Managing Multiple Identities: A Qualitative Study of Nurses and Implications for Work-Family Balance , Claire Marie Spanier

BEYOND ORGANIC: DEFINING ALTERNATIVES TO USDA CERTIFIED ORGANIC , Jennifer Ann von Sehlen

Theses/Dissertations from 2006 2006

Graduate Teaching Assistant Interpretations and Responses to Student Immediacy Cues , Clair Owen Canfield

Verbal negotiation of affection in romantic relationships , Andrea Ann Richards

Theses/Dissertations from 2005 2005

Art of forgiveness , Carrie Benedict

"We shall fight for the things we have always held nearest our hearts": Rhetorical strategies in the U.S. woman suffrage movement , Stephanie L. Durnford

War on Terror Middle-East peace and a drive around the ranch: The rhetoric of US-Saudi diplomacy in the post-911 period , J. Robert Harper

What do you mean by competence?: A comparison of perceived communication competence among North Americans and Chinese , Chao He

Rhetoric of public interest in an inter-organizational environmental debate: The Fernie mining controversy. , Shelby Jo. Long

Investigation of the initiation of short-term relationships in a vacation setting. , Aneta Milojevic

"It 's the other way around"| Sustainability, promotion, and the shaping of identity in nonprofit arts organizations , Georgi A. Rausch

Child left behind: An examination of comforting strategies goals and outcomes following the death of a child , Kelly R. Rossetto

Profile of the modern smokejumper| A tension-centered lens on identity and identification , Cade Wesley Spaulding

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Communication Studies

The #1 resource for the communication field, how to write a thesis statement.

Academic writing can be intimidating, especially for an individual who is new to this type of composition. One important aspect of many academic papers is a solid thesis statement.

What is a Thesis Statement?

A thesis statement consists of one or two sentences that provide the reader with a brief summary of the direction of the paper. Rather than simply stating the topic, a thesis statement should indicate what argument is being made about that topic. A thesis is intended to answer a question, so a good thesis statement should briefly explain the basic premise of the argument.

How to Generate a Thesis Statement

When it is time to write a thesis statement, the author should already be deeply familiar with the material and the question being answered. One of the first steps in creating a thesis statement is isolating the primary question being answered by the paper. The rest of the thesis statement should be a concise answer to that question.

It is important to be specific because a vague answer does not give the reader a reasonable idea of what to expect. Additionally, the argument presented should be a claim that readers or experts could reasonably dispute. A statement that cannot be proven false is not a good thesis. Finally, the thesis statement and the paper should be fully connected. A paper that strays greatly or frequently from the thesis will lose readers.

Qualities of a Good Thesis Statement

• The thesis should answer the question
• It should be specific and avoid cramming too many ideas into one or two sentences. Vague statements should also be avoided
• The thesis statement should describe a disputable argument. If the statement cannot be proven false, it is not a good thesis statement
• A good thesis statement should use reader-friendly and accessible language. The potential audience should be considered

Example Thesis Statements

Male participants outperform females in spatial navigation tasks. This relatively short statement answers a question of male versus female performance on a particular task. The statement is a specific answer to that question. A fellow researcher could easily attempt to dispute those findings.

The downward shift in the economy promotes the election of polarizing political extremists. This statement should precede a paper that discusses how a troubled economy could contribute to the election of extreme politicians. Readers and researchers can dispute such a claim.

The convenience and accessibility of social media marketing makes traditional advertisement methods obsolete. This specific and disputable statement narrows the focus to how more modern technologies are making older methods of advertisement outdated.

Practice will eventually make generating thesis statements an automatic step in the writing process. By following the appropriate steps and examining the aspects of a good thesis statement, this step of academic writing can be mastered.

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Thesis Statements

This guide offers essential tips on thesis statements, but it’s important to note that thesis statement content, structure, and placement can vary widely depending on the discipline, level, and genre. One good way to get a sense of how thesis statements might be constructed in your field is to read some related scholarly articles.

A thesis statement articulates a writer’s main argument, point, or message in a piece of writing. Strong thesis statements will tell your audience what your topic is and what your position on that topic is. Also, they will often provide an overview of key supporting arguments that you will explore throughout your paper. A well-written thesis statement demonstrates that you have explored the topic thoroughly and can defend your claims. 

For short, undergraduate-level papers, a thesis statement will usually be one to three sentences in length, often occurring at the end of the first paragraph. Its main function is to tie all of your ideas and arguments together. As you continue to present your evidence and argue your stance, your thesis will connect throughout your essay like a puzzle. 

e.g., Closing the border between Greece and Macedonia has led to unnecessary suffering among refugees by preventing humanitarian aid from getting to those camps that need it most 1. Resolving this human rights problem will ultimately require cooperative effort from local, regional, and international agencies 2. 

Statement of topic and main argument 

Further details about topic that give your reader a sense of how the paper will be structured

Building Effective Thesis Statements

A strong thesis statement should be clear, concise, focused, and supportable. Unless your essay is simply explanatory, it should also be debatable (i.e., if your position on a topic is one that almost nobody would dispute, it may not be the best choice for an argumentative paper). 

The following steps will help you throughout the process of developing your thesis statement:: 

Read the assignment thoroughly. Make sure you are clear about the expectations. 

Do preliminary, general research: collect and organize information about your topic. 

Form a tentative thesis. The following questions may help you focus your research into a tentative thesis: 

What’s new about this topic? 

What important about this topic? 

What’s interesting about this topic? 

What have others missed in their discussions about this topic? 

What about this topic is worth writing about? 

Do additional research. Once you have narrowed your focus, you can perform targeted research to find evidence to support your thesis. As you research, your understanding of the topic will change. This is normal and even desirable. 

Refine your thesis statement. After doing extensive research and evaluating many sources, rewrite your thesis so it expresses your angle or position on your topic more clearly.

Sample Thesis Statements

This guide offers essential tips on the thesis statements, but it's important to note that thesis statement content, structure, and placement can vary widely depending on the discipline, level, and genre. One good way to get a sense of how thesis statements might be constructed in your field is to read some related scholarly articles.

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How to Write a Strong Thesis Statement: 4 Steps + Examples

What’s Covered:

What is the purpose of a thesis statement, writing a good thesis statement: 4 steps, common pitfalls to avoid, where to get your essay edited for free.

When you set out to write an essay, there has to be some kind of point to it, right? Otherwise, your essay would just be a big jumble of word salad that makes absolutely no sense. An essay needs a central point that ties into everything else. That main point is called a thesis statement, and it’s the core of any essay or research paper.

You may hear about Master degree candidates writing a thesis, and that is an entire paper–not to be confused with the thesis statement, which is typically one sentence that contains your paper’s focus. 

Read on to learn more about thesis statements and how to write them. We’ve also included some solid examples for you to reference.

Typically the last sentence of your introductory paragraph, the thesis statement serves as the roadmap for your essay. When your reader gets to the thesis statement, they should have a clear outline of your main point, as well as the information you’ll be presenting in order to either prove or support your point. 

The thesis statement should not be confused for a topic sentence , which is the first sentence of every paragraph in your essay. If you need help writing topic sentences, numerous resources are available. Topic sentences should go along with your thesis statement, though.

Since the thesis statement is the most important sentence of your entire essay or paper, it’s imperative that you get this part right. Otherwise, your paper will not have a good flow and will seem disjointed. That’s why it’s vital not to rush through developing one. It’s a methodical process with steps that you need to follow in order to create the best thesis statement possible.

Step 1: Decide what kind of paper you’re writing

When you’re assigned an essay, there are several different types you may get. Argumentative essays are designed to get the reader to agree with you on a topic. Informative or expository essays present information to the reader. Analytical essays offer up a point and then expand on it by analyzing relevant information. Thesis statements can look and sound different based on the type of paper you’re writing. For example:

• Argumentative: The United States needs a viable third political party to decrease bipartisanship, increase options, and help reduce corruption in government.
• Informative: The Libertarian party has thrown off elections before by gaining enough support in states to get on the ballot and by taking away crucial votes from candidates.
• Analytical: An analysis of past presidential elections shows that while third party votes may have been the minority, they did affect the outcome of the elections in 2020, 2016, and beyond.

Step 2: Figure out what point you want to make

Once you know what type of paper you’re writing, you then need to figure out the point you want to make with your thesis statement, and subsequently, your paper. In other words, you need to decide to answer a question about something, such as:

• What impact did reality TV have on American society?
• How has the musical Hamilton affected perception of American history?
• Why do I want to major in [chosen major here]?

If you have an argumentative essay, then you will be writing about an opinion. To make it easier, you may want to choose an opinion that you feel passionate about so that you’re writing about something that interests you. For example, if you have an interest in preserving the environment, you may want to choose a topic that relates to that. 

If you’re writing your college essay and they ask why you want to attend that school, you may want to have a main point and back it up with information, something along the lines of:

“Attending Harvard University would benefit me both academically and professionally, as it would give me a strong knowledge base upon which to build my career, develop my network, and hopefully give me an advantage in my chosen field.”

Step 3: Determine what information you’ll use to back up your point

Once you have the point you want to make, you need to figure out how you plan to back it up throughout the rest of your essay. Without this information, it will be hard to either prove or argue the main point of your thesis statement. If you decide to write about the Hamilton example, you may decide to address any falsehoods that the writer put into the musical, such as:

“The musical Hamilton, while accurate in many ways, leaves out key parts of American history, presents a nationalist view of founding fathers, and downplays the racism of the times.”

Once you’ve written your initial working thesis statement, you’ll then need to get information to back that up. For example, the musical completely leaves out Benjamin Franklin, portrays the founding fathers in a nationalist way that is too complimentary, and shows Hamilton as a staunch abolitionist despite the fact that his family likely did own slaves. 

Step 4: Revise and refine your thesis statement before you start writing

Read through your thesis statement several times before you begin to compose your full essay. You need to make sure the statement is ironclad, since it is the foundation of the entire paper. Edit it or have a peer review it for you to make sure everything makes sense and that you feel like you can truly write a paper on the topic. Once you’ve done that, you can then begin writing your paper.

When writing a thesis statement, there are some common pitfalls you should avoid so that your paper can be as solid as possible. Make sure you always edit the thesis statement before you do anything else. You also want to ensure that the thesis statement is clear and concise. Don’t make your reader hunt for your point. Finally, put your thesis statement at the end of the first paragraph and have your introduction flow toward that statement. Your reader will expect to find your statement in its traditional spot.

If you’re having trouble getting started, or need some guidance on your essay, there are tools available that can help you. CollegeVine offers a free peer essay review tool where one of your peers can read through your essay and provide you with valuable feedback. Getting essay feedback from a peer can help you wow your instructor or college admissions officer with an impactful essay that effectively illustrates your point.

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Writing a Paper: Thesis Statements

Basics of thesis statements.

The thesis statement is the brief articulation of your paper's central argument and purpose. You might hear it referred to as simply a "thesis." Every scholarly paper should have a thesis statement, and strong thesis statements are concise, specific, and arguable. Concise means the thesis is short: perhaps one or two sentences for a shorter paper. Specific means the thesis deals with a narrow and focused topic, appropriate to the paper's length. Arguable means that a scholar in your field could disagree (or perhaps already has!).

Strong thesis statements address specific intellectual questions, have clear positions, and use a structure that reflects the overall structure of the paper. Read on to learn more about constructing a strong thesis statement.

Being Specific

This thesis statement has no specific argument:

Needs Improvement: In this essay, I will examine two scholarly articles to find similarities and differences.

This statement is concise, but it is neither specific nor arguable—a reader might wonder, "Which scholarly articles? What is the topic of this paper? What field is the author writing in?" Additionally, the purpose of the paper—to "examine…to find similarities and differences" is not of a scholarly level. Identifying similarities and differences is a good first step, but strong academic argument goes further, analyzing what those similarities and differences might mean or imply.

Better: In this essay, I will argue that Bowler's (2003) autocratic management style, when coupled with Smith's (2007) theory of social cognition, can reduce the expenses associated with employee turnover.

The new revision here is still concise, as well as specific and arguable.  We can see that it is specific because the writer is mentioning (a) concrete ideas and (b) exact authors.  We can also gather the field (business) and the topic (management and employee turnover). The statement is arguable because the student goes beyond merely comparing; he or she draws conclusions from that comparison ("can reduce the expenses associated with employee turnover").

Making a Unique Argument

This thesis draft repeats the language of the writing prompt without making a unique argument:

Needs Improvement: The purpose of this essay is to monitor, assess, and evaluate an educational program for its strengths and weaknesses. Then, I will provide suggestions for improvement.

You can see here that the student has simply stated the paper's assignment, without articulating specifically how he or she will address it. The student can correct this error simply by phrasing the thesis statement as a specific answer to the assignment prompt.

Better: Through a series of student interviews, I found that Kennedy High School's antibullying program was ineffective. In order to address issues of conflict between students, I argue that Kennedy High School should embrace policies outlined by the California Department of Education (2010).

Words like "ineffective" and "argue" show here that the student has clearly thought through the assignment and analyzed the material; he or she is putting forth a specific and debatable position. The concrete information ("student interviews," "antibullying") further prepares the reader for the body of the paper and demonstrates how the student has addressed the assignment prompt without just restating that language.

Creating a Debate

This thesis statement includes only obvious fact or plot summary instead of argument:

Needs Improvement: Leadership is an important quality in nurse educators.

A good strategy to determine if your thesis statement is too broad (and therefore, not arguable) is to ask yourself, "Would a scholar in my field disagree with this point?" Here, we can see easily that no scholar is likely to argue that leadership is an unimportant quality in nurse educators.  The student needs to come up with a more arguable claim, and probably a narrower one; remember that a short paper needs a more focused topic than a dissertation.

Better: Roderick's (2009) theory of participatory leadership  is particularly appropriate to nurse educators working within the emergency medicine field, where students benefit most from collegial and kinesthetic learning.

Here, the student has identified a particular type of leadership ("participatory leadership"), narrowing the topic, and has made an arguable claim (this type of leadership is "appropriate" to a specific type of nurse educator). Conceivably, a scholar in the nursing field might disagree with this approach. The student's paper can now proceed, providing specific pieces of evidence to support the arguable central claim.

Choosing the Right Words

This thesis statement uses large or scholarly-sounding words that have no real substance:

Needs Improvement: Scholars should work to seize metacognitive outcomes by harnessing discipline-based networks to empower collaborative infrastructures.

There are many words in this sentence that may be buzzwords in the student's field or key terms taken from other texts, but together they do not communicate a clear, specific meaning. Sometimes students think scholarly writing means constructing complex sentences using special language, but actually it's usually a stronger choice to write clear, simple sentences. When in doubt, remember that your ideas should be complex, not your sentence structure.

Better: Ecologists should work to educate the U.S. public on conservation methods by making use of local and national green organizations to create a widespread communication plan.

Notice in the revision that the field is now clear (ecology), and the language has been made much more field-specific ("conservation methods," "green organizations"), so the reader is able to see concretely the ideas the student is communicating.

Leaving Room for Discussion

This thesis statement is not capable of development or advancement in the paper:

Needs Improvement: There are always alternatives to illegal drug use.

This sample thesis statement makes a claim, but it is not a claim that will sustain extended discussion. This claim is the type of claim that might be appropriate for the conclusion of a paper, but in the beginning of the paper, the student is left with nowhere to go. What further points can be made? If there are "always alternatives" to the problem the student is identifying, then why bother developing a paper around that claim? Ideally, a thesis statement should be complex enough to explore over the length of the entire paper.

Better: The most effective treatment plan for methamphetamine addiction may be a combination of pharmacological and cognitive therapy, as argued by Baker (2008), Smith (2009), and Xavier (2011).

In the revised thesis, you can see the student make a specific, debatable claim that has the potential to generate several pages' worth of discussion. When drafting a thesis statement, think about the questions your thesis statement will generate: What follow-up inquiries might a reader have? In the first example, there are almost no additional questions implied, but the revised example allows for a good deal more exploration.

Thesis Mad Libs

If you are having trouble getting started, try using the models below to generate a rough model of a thesis statement! These models are intended for drafting purposes only and should not appear in your final work.

• In this essay, I argue ____, using ______ to assert _____.
• While scholars have often argued ______, I argue______, because_______.
• Through an analysis of ______, I argue ______, which is important because_______.

Words to Avoid and to Embrace

When drafting your thesis statement, avoid words like explore, investigate, learn, compile, summarize , and explain to describe the main purpose of your paper. These words imply a paper that summarizes or "reports," rather than synthesizing and analyzing.

Instead of the terms above, try words like argue, critique, question , and interrogate . These more analytical words may help you begin strongly, by articulating a specific, critical, scholarly position.

Read Kayla's blog post for tips on taking a stand in a well-crafted thesis statement.

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Didn't find what you need? Email us at [email protected] .

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25 Thesis Statement Examples That Will Make Writing a Breeze

Understanding what makes a good thesis statement is one of the major keys to writing a great research paper or argumentative essay. The thesis statement is where you make a claim that will guide you through your entire paper. If you find yourself struggling to make sense of your paper or your topic, then it's likely due to a weak thesis statement.

Let's take a minute to first understand what makes a solid thesis statement, and what key components you need to write one of your own.

A thesis statement always goes at the beginning of the paper. It will typically be in the first couple of paragraphs of the paper so that it can introduce the body paragraphs, which are the supporting evidence for your thesis statement.

Your thesis statement should clearly identify an argument. You need to have a statement that is not only easy to understand, but one that is debatable. What that means is that you can't just put any statement of fact and have it be your thesis. For example, everyone knows that puppies are cute . An ineffective thesis statement would be, "Puppies are adorable and everyone knows it." This isn't really something that's a debatable topic.

Something that would be more debatable would be, "A puppy's cuteness is derived from its floppy ears, small body, and playfulness." These are three things that can be debated on. Some people might think that the cutest thing about puppies is the fact that they follow you around or that they're really soft and fuzzy.

All cuteness aside, you want to make sure that your thesis statement is not only debatable, but that it also actually thoroughly answers the research question that was posed. You always want to make sure that your evidence is supporting a claim that you made (and not the other way around). This is why it's crucial to read and research about a topic first and come to a conclusion later. If you try to get your research to fit your thesis statement, then it may not work out as neatly as you think. As you learn more, you discover more (and the outcome may not be what you originally thought).

Additionally, your thesis statement shouldn't be too big or too grand. It'll be hard to cover everything in a thesis statement like, "The federal government should act now on climate change." The topic is just too large to actually say something new and meaningful. Instead, a more effective thesis statement might be, "Local governments can combat climate change by providing citizens with larger recycling bins and offering local classes about composting and conservation." This is easier to work with because it's a smaller idea, but you can also discuss the overall topic that you might be interested in, which is climate change.

So, now that we know what makes a good, solid thesis statement, you can start to write your own. If you find that you're getting stuck or you are the type of person who needs to look at examples before you start something, then check out our list of thesis statement examples below.

Thesis statement examples

A quick note that these thesis statements have not been fully researched. These are merely examples to show you what a thesis statement might look like and how you can implement your own ideas into one that you think of independently. As such, you should not use these thesis statements for your own research paper purposes. They are meant to be used as examples only.

• Vaccinations Because many children are unable to vaccinate due to illness, we must require that all healthy and able children be vaccinated in order to have herd immunity.
• Educational Resources for Low-Income Students Schools should provide educational resources for low-income students during the summers so that they don't forget what they've learned throughout the school year.
• School Uniforms School uniforms may be an upfront cost for families, but they eradicate the visual differences in income between students and provide a more egalitarian atmosphere at school.
• Populism The rise in populism on the 2016 political stage was in reaction to increasing globalization, the decline of manufacturing jobs, and the Syrian refugee crisis.
• Public Libraries Libraries are essential resources for communities and should be funded more heavily by local municipalities.
• Cyber Bullying With more and more teens using smartphones and social media, cyber bullying is on the rise. Cyber bullying puts a lot of stress on many teens, and can cause depression, anxiety, and even suicidal thoughts. Parents should limit the usage of smart phones, monitor their children's online activity, and report any cyber bullying to school officials in order to combat this problem.
• Medical Marijuana for Veterans Studies have shown that the use of medicinal marijuana has been helpful to veterans who suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Medicinal marijuana prescriptions should be legal in all states and provided to these veterans. Additional medical or therapy services should also be researched and implemented in order to help them re-integrate back into civilian life.
• Work-Life Balance Corporations should provide more work from home opportunities and six-hour workdays so that office workers have a better work-life balance and are more likely to be productive when they are in the office.
• Teaching Youths about Consensual Sex Although sex education that includes a discussion of consensual sex would likely lead to less sexual assault, parents need to teach their children the meaning of consent from a young age with age appropriate lessons.
• Whether or Not to Attend University A degree from a university provides invaluable lessons on life and a future career, but not every high school student should be encouraged to attend a university directly after graduation. Some students may benefit from a trade school or a "gap year" where they can think more intensely about what it is they want to do for a career and how they can accomplish this.
• Studying Abroad Studying abroad is one of the most culturally valuable experiences you can have in college. It is the only way to get completely immersed in another language and learn how other cultures and countries are different from your own.
• Women's Body Image Magazines have done a lot in the last five years to include a more diverse group of models, but there is still a long way to go to promote a healthy woman's body image collectively as a culture.
• Cigarette Tax Heavily taxing and increasing the price of cigarettes is essentially a tax on the poorest Americans, and it doesn't deter them from purchasing. Instead, the state and federal governments should target those economically disenfranchised with early education about the dangers of smoking.
• Veganism A vegan diet, while a healthy and ethical way to consume food, indicates a position of privilege. It also limits you to other cultural food experiences if you travel around the world.
• University Athletes Should be Compensated University athletes should be compensated for their service to the university, as it is difficult for these students to procure and hold a job with busy academic and athletic schedules. Many student athletes on scholarship also come from low-income neighborhoods and it is a struggle to make ends meet when they are participating in athletics.
• Women in the Workforce Sheryl Sandberg makes a lot of interesting points in her best-selling book, Lean In , but she only addressed the very privileged working woman and failed to speak to those in lower-skilled, lower-wage jobs.
• Assisted Suicide Assisted suicide should be legal and doctors should have the ability to make sure their patients have the end-of-life care that they want to receive.
• Celebrity and Political Activism Although Taylor Swift's lyrics are indicative of a feminist perspective, she should be more politically active and vocal to use her position of power for the betterment of society.
• The Civil War The insistence from many Southerners that the South seceded from the Union for states' rights versus the fact that they seceded for the purposes of continuing slavery is a harmful myth that still affects race relations today.
• Blue Collar Workers Coal miners and other blue-collar workers whose jobs are slowly disappearing from the workforce should be re-trained in jobs in the technology sector or in renewable energy. A program to re-train these workers would not only improve local economies where jobs have been displaced, but would also lead to lower unemployment nationally.
• Diversity in the Workforce Having a diverse group of people in an office setting leads to richer ideas, more cooperation, and more empathy between people with different skin colors or backgrounds.
• Re-Imagining the Nuclear Family The nuclear family was traditionally defined as one mother, one father, and 2.5 children. This outdated depiction of family life doesn't quite fit with modern society. The definition of normal family life shouldn't be limited to two-parent households.
• Digital Literacy Skills With more information readily available than ever before, it's crucial that students are prepared to examine the material they're reading and determine whether or not it's a good source or if it has misleading information. Teaching students digital literacy and helping them to understand the difference between opinion or propaganda from legitimate, real information is integral.
• Beauty Pageants Beauty pageants are presented with the angle that they empower women. However, putting women in a swimsuit on a stage while simultaneously judging them on how well they answer an impossible question in a short period of time is cruel and purely for the amusement of men. Therefore, we should stop televising beauty pageants.
• Supporting More Women to Run for a Political Position In order to get more women into political positions, more women must run for office. There must be a grassroots effort to educate women on how to run for office, who among them should run, and support for a future candidate for getting started on a political career.

Still stuck? Need some help with your thesis statement?

If you are still uncertain about how to write a thesis statement or what a good thesis statement is, be sure to consult with your teacher or professor to make sure you're on the right track. It's always a good idea to check in and make sure that your thesis statement is making a solid argument and that it can be supported by your research.

After you're done writing, it's important to have someone take a second look at your paper so that you can ensure there are no mistakes or errors. It's difficult to spot your own mistakes, which is why it's always recommended to have someone help you with the revision process, whether that's a teacher, the writing center at school, or a professional editor such as one from ServiceScape .

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Communication Studies

What this handout is about.

This handout describes some steps for planning and writing papers in communication studies courses.

Courses in communication studies combine material from the humanities, fine arts, and social sciences in order to explain how and why people interact in the ways that they do. Within communication studies, there are four different approaches to understanding these interactions. Your course probably falls into one of these four areas of emphasis:

• Interpersonal and organizational communication: Interpersonal communication concerns one-on-one conversations as well as small group behaviors. Organizational communication focuses on large group dynamics.
• Rhetoric: Rhetoric examines persuasion and argumentation in political settings and within social movements.
• Performance studies: Performance studies analyze the relationships among literature, theater, and everyday life.
• Media/film studies: Media and film studies explore the cultural influences and practical techniques of television and film, as well as new technologies.

Understanding your assignment

The content and purpose of your assignments will vary according to what kind of course you are in, so pay close attention to the course description, syllabus, and assignment sheet when you begin to write. If you’d like to learn more about deciphering writing assignments or developing your academic writing, see our Writing Center handouts on these topics. For now, let’s see how a general topic, same-sex friendships, might be treated in each of the different areas. These illustrations are only examples, but you can use them as springboards to help you identify how your course might approach discussing a broad topic.

Interpersonal communication

An interpersonal communication perspective could focus on the verbal and nonverbal differences and similarities between how women communicate with other women and how men communicate with other men. This topic would allow you to explore the ways in which gender affects our behaviors in close relationships.

Organizational communication

Organizational communication would take a less personal approach, perhaps by addressing same-sex friendships in the form of workplace mentoring programs that pair employees of the same sex. This would require you to discuss and analyze group dynamics and effectiveness in the work environment.

A rhetorical analysis could involve comparing and contrasting references to friendship in the speeches of two well-known figures. For instance, you could compare Aristotle’s comments about Plato to Plato’s comments about Aristotle in order to discover more about the relationship between these two men and how each defined their friendship and/or same-sex friendship in general.

Performance studies

A performance approach might involve describing how a literary work uses dramatic conventions to portray same-sex friendships, as well as critiquing how believable those portrayals are. An analysis of the play Waiting for Godot could unpack the lifelong friendship between the two main characters by identifying what binds the men together, how these ties are effectively or ineffectively conveyed to the audience, and what the play teaches us about same-sex friendships in our own lives.

Media and film studies

Finally, a media and film studies analysis might explain the evolution of a same-sex friendship by examining a cinematic text. For example, you could trace the development of the main friendship in the movie Thelma and Louise to discover how certain events or gender stereotypes affect the relationship between the two female characters.

General writing tips

Writing papers in communication studies often requires you to do three tasks common to academic writing: analyze material, read and critique others’ analyses of material, and develop your own argument around that material. You will need to build an original argument (sometimes called a “theory” or “plausible explanation”) about how a communication phenomenon can be better understood. The word phenomenon can refer to a particular communication event, text, act, or conversation. To develop an argument for this kind of paper, you need to follow several steps and include several kinds of information in your paper. (For more information about developing an argument, see our handout on arguments ). First, you must demonstrate your knowledge of the phenomenon and what others have said about it. This usually involves synthesizing previous research or ideas. Second, you must develop your own original perspective, reading, or “take” on the phenomenon and give evidence to support your way of thinking about it. Your “take” on the topic will constitute your “argument,” “theory,” or “explanation.” You will need to write a thesis statement that encapsulates your argument and guides you and the reader to the main point of your paper. Third, you should critically analyze the arguments of others in order to show how your argument contributes to our general understanding of the phenomenon. In other words, you should identify the shortcomings of previous research or ideas and explain how your paper corrects some or all of those deficits. Assume that your audience for your paper includes your classmates as well as your instructor, unless otherwise indicated in the assignment.

Choosing a topic to write about

Your topic might be as specific as the effects of a single word in conversation (such as how the use of the word “well” creates tentativeness in dialogue) or as broad as how the notion of individuality affects our relationships in public and private spheres of human activity. In deciding the scope of your topic, look again at the purpose of the course and the aim of the assignment. Check with your instructor to gauge the appropriateness of your topic before you go too far in the writing process.

Try to choose a topic in which you have some interest or investment. Your writing for communications will not only be about the topic, but also about yourself—why you care about the topic, how it affects you, etc. It is common in the field of communication studies not only to consider why the topic intrigues you, but also to write about the experiences and/or cognitive processes you went through before choosing your topic. Including this kind of introspection helps readers understand your position and how that position affects both your selection of the topic and your analysis within the paper. You can make your argument more persuasive by knowing what is at stake, including both objective research and personal knowledge in what you write.

Using evidence to support your ideas

Your argument should be supported with evidence, which may include, but is not limited to, related studies or articles, films or television programs, interview materials, statistics, and critical analysis of your own making. Relevant studies or articles can be found in such journals as Journal of Communication , Quarterly Journal of Speech , Communication Education , and Communication Monographs . Databases, such as Infotrac and ERIC, may also be helpful for finding articles and books on your topic (connecting to these databases via NC Live requires a UNC IP address or UNC PID). As always, be careful when using Internet materials—check your sources to make sure they are reputable.

Refrain from using evidence, especially quotations, without explicitly and concretely explaining what the evidence shows in your own words. Jumping from quote to quote does not demonstrate your knowledge of the material or help the reader recognize the development of your thesis statement. A good paper will link the evidence to the overall argument by explaining how the two correspond to one another and how that relationship extends our understanding of the communication phenomenon. In other words, each example and quote should be explained, and each paragraph should relate to the topic.

As mentioned above, your evidence and analysis should not only support the thesis statement but should also develop it in ways that complement your paper’s argument. Do not just repeat the thesis statement after each section of your paper; instead, try to tell what that section adds to the argument and what is special about that section when the thesis statement is taken into consideration. You may also include a discussion of the paper’s limitations. Describing what cannot be known or discussed at this time—perhaps because of the limited scope of your project, lack of new research, etc.—keeps you honest and realistic about what you have accomplished and shows your awareness of the topic’s complexity.

Communication studies idiosyncrasies

• Using the first person (I/me) is welcomed in nearly all areas of communication studies. It is probably best to ask your professor to be sure, but do not be surprised if you are required to talk about yourself within the paper as a researcher, writer, and/or subject. Some assignments may require you to write from a personal perspective and expect you to use “I” to express your ideas.
• Always include a Works Cited (MLA) or References list (APA) unless you are told not to. Not giving appropriate credit to those whom you quote or whose ideas inform your argument is plagiarism. More and more communication studies courses are requiring bibliographies and in-text citations with each writing assignment. Ask your professor which citation format (MLA/APA) to use and see the corresponding handbook for citation rules.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Informative Speaking

The topic, purpose, and thesis.

Before any work can be done on crafting the body of your speech or presentation, you must first do some prep work—selecting a topic, formulating a purpose statement, and crafting a thesis statement. In doing so, you lay the foundation for your speech by making important decisions about what you will speak about and for what purpose you will speak. These decisions will influence and guide the entire speechwriting process, so it is wise to think carefully and critically during these beginning stages.

I think reading is important in any form. I think a person who’s trying to learn to like reading should start off reading about a topic they are interested in, or a person they are interested in. – Ice Cube

Questions for Selecting a Topic

• What important events are occurring locally, nationally and internationally?
• What do I care about most?
• Is there someone or something I can advocate for?
• What makes me angry/happy?
• What beliefs/attitudes do I want to share?
• Is there some information the audience needs to know?

Selecting a Topic

“The Reader” by Shakespearesmonkey. CC-BY-NC .

Generally, speakers focus on one or more interrelated topics—relatively broad concepts, ideas, or problems that are relevant for particular audiences. The most common way that speakers discover topics is by simply observing what is happening around them—at their school, in their local government, or around the world. This is because all speeches are brought into existence as a result of circumstances, the multiplicity of activities going on at any one given moment in a particular place. For instance, presidential candidates craft short policy speeches that can be employed during debates, interviews, or town hall meetings during campaign seasons. When one of the candidates realizes he or she will not be successful, the particular circumstances change and the person must craft different kinds of speeches—a concession speech, for example. In other words, their campaign for presidency, and its many related events, necessitates the creation of various speeches. Rhetorical theorist Lloyd Bitzer [1] describes this as the rhetorical situation. Put simply, the rhetorical situation is the combination of factors that make speeches and other discourse meaningful and a useful way to change the way something is. Student government leaders, for example, speak or write to other students when their campus is facing tuition or fee increases, or when students have achieved something spectacular, like lobbying campus administrators for lower student fees and succeeding. In either case, it is the situation that makes their speeches appropriate and useful for their audience of students and university employees. More importantly, they speak when there is an opportunity to change a university policy or to alter the way students think or behave in relation to a particular event on campus.

But you need not run for president or student government in order to give a meaningful speech. On the contrary, opportunities abound for those interested in engaging speech as a tool for change. Perhaps the simplest way to find a topic is to ask yourself a few questions. See the textbox entitled “Questions for Selecting a Topic” for a few questions that will help you choose a topic.

There are other questions you might ask yourself, too, but these should lead you to at least a few topical choices. The most important work that these questions do is to locate topics within your pre-existing sphere of knowledge and interest. David Zarefsky [2] also identifies brainstorming as a way to develop speech topics, a strategy that can be helpful if the questions listed in the textbox did not yield an appropriate or interesting topic.

Starting with a topic you are already interested in will likely make writing and presenting your speech a more enjoyable and meaningful experience. It means that your entire speechwriting process will focus on something you find important and that you can present this information to people who stand to benefit from your speech.

Once you have answered these questions and narrowed your responses, you are still not done selecting your topic. For instance, you might have decided that you really care about conserving habitat for bog turtles. This is a very broad topic and could easily lead to a dozen different speeches. To resolve this problem, speakers must also consider the audience to whom they will speak, the scope of their presentation, and the outcome they wish to achieve. If the bog turtle enthusiast knows that she will be talking to a local zoning board and that she hopes to stop them from allowing businesses to locate on important bog turtle habitat, her topic can easily morph into something more specific. Now, her speech topic is two-pronged: bog turtle habitat and zoning rules.

Formulating the Purpose Statements

“Bog turtle sunning” by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Public domain.

By honing in on a very specific topic, you begin the work of formulating your purpose statement . In short, a purpose statement clearly states what it is you would like to achieve. Purpose statements are especially helpful for guiding you as you prepare your speech. When deciding which main points, facts, and examples to include, you should simply ask yourself whether they are relevant not only to the topic you have selected, but also whether they support the goal you outlined in your purpose statement. The general purpose statement of a speech may be to inform, to persuade, to inspire, to celebrate, to mourn, or to entertain. Thus, it is common to frame a specific purpose statement around one of these goals. According to O’Hair, Stewart, and Rubenstein, a specific purpose statement “expresses both the topic and the general speech purpose in action form and in terms of the specific objectives you hope to achieve.” [3] For instance, the bog turtle habitat activist might write the following specific purpose statement: At the end of my speech, the Clarke County Zoning Commission will understand that locating businesses in bog turtle habitat is a poor choice with a range of negative consequences. In short, the general purpose statement lays out the broader goal of the speech while the specific purpose statement describes precisely what the speech is intended to do.

Success demands singleness of purpose. – Vince Lombardi

Writing the Thesis Statement

The specific purpose statement is a tool that you will use as you write your talk, but it is unlikely that it will appear verbatim in your speech. Instead, you will want to convert the specific purpose statement into a thesis statement that you will share with your audience. A thesis statement encapsulates the main points of a speech in just a sentence or two, and it is designed to give audiences a quick preview of what the entire speech will be about. The thesis statement for a speech, like the thesis of a research- based essay, should be easily identifiable and ought to very succinctly sum up the main points you will present. Moreover, the thesis statement should reflect the general purpose of your speech; if your purpose is to persuade or educate, for instance, the thesis should alert audience members to this goal. The bog turtle enthusiast might prepare the following thesis statement based on her specific purpose statement: Bog turtle habitats are sensitive to a variety of activities, but land development is particularly harmful to unstable habitats. The Clarke County Zoning Commission should protect bog turtle habitats by choosing to prohibit business from locating in these habitats. In this example, the thesis statement outlines the main points and implies that the speaker will be arguing for certain zoning practices.

• Bitzer, L. (1968). The rhetorical situation. Philosophy & Rhetoric , 1 (1), 1 – 14. ↵
• Zarefsky, D. (2010). Public speaking: Strategies for success (6th edition). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. ↵
• O’Hair, D., Stewart, R., Rubenstein, H. (2004). A speaker’s guidebook: Text and reference (2nd edition). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s. ↵
• Chapter 8 The Topic, Purpose, and Thesis. Authored by : Joshua Trey Barnett. Provided by : University of Indiana, Bloomington, IN. Located at : http://publicspeakingproject.org/psvirtualtext.html . Project : The Public Speaking Project. License : CC BY-NC-ND: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
• The Reader. Authored by : Shakespearesmonkey. Located at : https://www.flickr.com/photos/shakespearesmonkey/4939289974/ . License : CC BY-NC: Attribution-NonCommercial
• Image of a bog turtle . Authored by : R. G. Tucker, Jr.. Provided by : United States Fish and Wildlife Service. Located at : http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bog_turtle_sunning.jpg . License : Public Domain: No Known Copyright

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Tips and Examples for Writing Thesis Statements

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Tips for Writing Your Thesis Statement

1. Determine what kind of paper you are writing:

• An analytical paper breaks down an issue or an idea into its component parts, evaluates the issue or idea, and presents this breakdown and evaluation to the audience.
• An expository (explanatory) paper explains something to the audience.
• An argumentative paper makes a claim about a topic and justifies this claim with specific evidence. The claim could be an opinion, a policy proposal, an evaluation, a cause-and-effect statement, or an interpretation. The goal of the argumentative paper is to convince the audience that the claim is true based on the evidence provided.

If you are writing a text that does not fall under these three categories (e.g., a narrative), a thesis statement somewhere in the first paragraph could still be helpful to your reader.

2. Your thesis statement should be specific—it should cover only what you will discuss in your paper and should be supported with specific evidence.

3. The thesis statement usually appears at the end of the first paragraph of a paper.

4. Your topic may change as you write, so you may need to revise your thesis statement to reflect exactly what you have discussed in the paper.

Thesis Statement Examples

Example of an analytical thesis statement:

The paper that follows should:

• Explain the analysis of the college admission process
• Explain the challenge facing admissions counselors

Example of an expository (explanatory) thesis statement:

• Explain how students spend their time studying, attending class, and socializing with peers

Example of an argumentative thesis statement:

• Present an argument and give evidence to support the claim that students should pursue community projects before entering college

25 Thesis Statement Examples

A thesis statement is needed in an essay or dissertation . There are multiple types of thesis statements – but generally we can divide them into expository and argumentative. An expository statement is a statement of fact (common in expository essays and process essays) while an argumentative statement is a statement of opinion (common in argumentative essays and dissertations). Below are examples of each.

Strong Thesis Statement Examples

1. School Uniforms

“Mandatory school uniforms should be implemented in educational institutions as they promote a sense of equality, reduce distractions, and foster a focused and professional learning environment.”

Best For: Argumentative Essay or Debate

Read More: School Uniforms Pros and Cons

2. Nature vs Nurture

“This essay will explore how both genetic inheritance and environmental factors equally contribute to shaping human behavior and personality.”

Best For: Compare and Contrast Essay

Read More: Nature vs Nurture Debate

3. American Dream

“The American Dream, a symbol of opportunity and success, is increasingly elusive in today’s socio-economic landscape, revealing deeper inequalities in society.”

Best For: Persuasive Essay

Read More: What is the American Dream?

4. Social Media

“Social media has revolutionized communication and societal interactions, but it also presents significant challenges related to privacy, mental health, and misinformation.”

Best For: Expository Essay

Read More: The Pros and Cons of Social Media

5. Globalization

“Globalization has created a world more interconnected than ever before, yet it also amplifies economic disparities and cultural homogenization.”

Read More: Globalization Pros and Cons

6. Urbanization

“Urbanization drives economic growth and social development, but it also poses unique challenges in sustainability and quality of life.”

Read More: Learn about Urbanization

7. Immigration

“Immigration enriches receiving countries culturally and economically, outweighing any perceived social or economic burdens.”

Read More: Immigration Pros and Cons

8. Cultural Identity

“In a globalized world, maintaining distinct cultural identities is crucial for preserving cultural diversity and fostering global understanding, despite the challenges of assimilation and homogenization.”

Best For: Argumentative Essay

Read More: Learn about Cultural Identity

9. Technology

“Medical technologies in care institutions in Toronto has increased subjcetive outcomes for patients with chronic pain.”

Best For: Research Paper

10. Capitalism vs Socialism

“The debate between capitalism and socialism centers on balancing economic freedom and inequality, each presenting distinct approaches to resource distribution and social welfare.”

11. Cultural Heritage

“The preservation of cultural heritage is essential, not only for cultural identity but also for educating future generations, outweighing the arguments for modernization and commercialization.”

12. Pseudoscience

“Pseudoscience, characterized by a lack of empirical support, continues to influence public perception and decision-making, often at the expense of scientific credibility.”

Read More: Examples of Pseudoscience

13. Free Will

“The concept of free will is largely an illusion, with human behavior and decisions predominantly determined by biological and environmental factors.”

Read More: Do we have Free Will?

14. Gender Roles

“Traditional gender roles are outdated and harmful, restricting individual freedoms and perpetuating gender inequalities in modern society.”

Read More: What are Traditional Gender Roles?

15. Work-Life Ballance

“The trend to online and distance work in the 2020s led to improved subjective feelings of work-life balance but simultaneously increased self-reported loneliness.”

Read More: Work-Life Balance Examples

16. Universal Healthcare

“Universal healthcare is a fundamental human right and the most effective system for ensuring health equity and societal well-being, outweighing concerns about government involvement and costs.”

Read More: The Pros and Cons of Universal Healthcare

17. Minimum Wage

“The implementation of a fair minimum wage is vital for reducing economic inequality, yet it is often contentious due to its potential impact on businesses and employment rates.”

Read More: The Pros and Cons of Raising the Minimum Wage

18. Homework

“The homework provided throughout this semester has enabled me to achieve greater self-reflection, identify gaps in my knowledge, and reinforce those gaps through spaced repetition.”

Best For: Reflective Essay

Read More: Reasons Homework Should be Banned

19. Charter Schools

“Charter schools offer alternatives to traditional public education, promising innovation and choice but also raising questions about accountability and educational equity.”

Read More: The Pros and Cons of Charter Schools

20. Effects of the Internet

“The Internet has drastically reshaped human communication, access to information, and societal dynamics, generally with a net positive effect on society.”

Read More: The Pros and Cons of the Internet

21. Affirmative Action

“Affirmative action is essential for rectifying historical injustices and achieving true meritocracy in education and employment, contrary to claims of reverse discrimination.”

Best For: Essay

Read More: Affirmative Action Pros and Cons

22. Soft Skills

“Soft skills, such as communication and empathy, are increasingly recognized as essential for success in the modern workforce, and therefore should be a strong focus at school and university level.”

Read More: Soft Skills Examples

23. Moral Panic

“Moral panic, often fueled by media and cultural anxieties, can lead to exaggerated societal responses that sometimes overlook rational analysis and evidence.”

Read More: Moral Panic Examples

24. Freedom of the Press

“Freedom of the press is critical for democracy and informed citizenship, yet it faces challenges from censorship, media bias, and the proliferation of misinformation.”

Read More: Freedom of the Press Examples

25. Mass Media

“Mass media shapes public opinion and cultural norms, but its concentration of ownership and commercial interests raise concerns about bias and the quality of information.”

Best For: Critical Analysis

Read More: Mass Media Examples

Checklist: How to use your Thesis Statement

✅ Position: If your statement is for an argumentative or persuasive essay, or a dissertation, ensure it takes a clear stance on the topic. ✅ Specificity: It addresses a specific aspect of the topic, providing focus for the essay. ✅ Conciseness: Typically, a thesis statement is one to two sentences long. It should be concise, clear, and easily identifiable. ✅ Direction: The thesis statement guides the direction of the essay, providing a roadmap for the argument, narrative, or explanation. ✅ Evidence-based: While the thesis statement itself doesn’t include evidence, it sets up an argument that can be supported with evidence in the body of the essay. ✅ Placement: Generally, the thesis statement is placed at the end of the introduction of an essay.

Try These AI Prompts – Thesis Statement Generator!

One way to brainstorm thesis statements is to get AI to brainstorm some for you! Try this AI prompt:

💡 AI PROMPT FOR EXPOSITORY THESIS STATEMENT I am writing an essay on [TOPIC] and these are the instructions my teacher gave me: [INSTUCTIONS]. I want you to create an expository thesis statement that doesn’t argue a position, but demonstrates depth of knowledge about the topic.

💡 AI PROMPT FOR ARGUMENTATIVE THESIS STATEMENT I am writing an essay on [TOPIC] and these are the instructions my teacher gave me: [INSTRUCTIONS]. I want you to create an argumentative thesis statement that clearly takes a position on this issue.

💡 AI PROMPT FOR COMPARE AND CONTRAST THESIS STATEMENT I am writing a compare and contrast essay that compares [Concept 1] and [Concept2]. Give me 5 potential single-sentence thesis statements that remain objective.

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 5 Top Tips for Succeeding at University
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 50 Durable Goods Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 100 Consumer Goods Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 30 Globalization Pros and Cons

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9.1 Selecting and Narrowing a Topic

Learning objectives.

• Employ audience analysis.
• Determine the general purpose of a speech.
• List strategies for narrowing a speech topic.
• Compose an audience-centered, specific purpose statement for a speech.
• Compose a thesis statement that summarizes the central idea of a speech.

There are many steps that go into the speech-making process. Many people do not approach speech preparation in an informed and systematic way, which results in many poorly planned or executed speeches that are not pleasant to sit through as an audience member and don’t reflect well on the speaker. Good speaking skills can help you stand out from the crowd in increasingly competitive environments. While a polished delivery is important and will be discussed more in Chapter 10 “Delivering a Speech” , good speaking skills must be practiced much earlier in the speech-making process.

Analyze Your Audience

Audience analysis is key for a speaker to achieve his or her speech goal. One of the first questions you should ask yourself is “Who is my audience?” While there are some generalizations you can make about an audience, a competent speaker always assumes there is a diversity of opinion and background among his or her listeners. You can’t assume from looking that everyone in your audience is the same age, race, sexual orientation, religion, or many other factors. Even if you did have a fairly homogenous audience, with only one or two people who don’t match up, you should still consider those one or two people. When I have a class with one or two older students, I still consider the different age demographics even though twenty other students are eighteen to twenty-two years old. In short, a good speaker shouldn’t intentionally alienate even one audience member. Of course, a speaker could still unintentionally alienate certain audience members, especially in persuasive speaking situations. While this may be unavoidable, speakers can still think critically about what content they include in the speech and the effects it may have.

Good speakers should always assume a diversity of backgrounds and opinions among their audience members.

TEDx UniversityofTulsa – Audience – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Even though you should remain conscious of the differences among audience members, you can also focus on commonalities. When delivering a speech in a college classroom, you can rightfully assume that everyone in your audience is currently living in the general area of the school, is enrolled at the school, and is currently taking the same speech class. In professional speeches, you can often assume that everyone is part of the same professional organization if you present at a conference, employed at the same place or in the same field if you are giving a sales presentation, or experiencing the nervousness of starting a new job if you are leading an orientation or training. You may not be able to assume much more, but that’s enough to add some tailored points to your speech that will make the content more relevant.

Demographic Audience Analysis

Demographics are broad sociocultural categories, such as age, gender, race, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, education level, religion, ethnicity, and nationality that are used to segment a larger population. Since you are always going to have diverse demographics among your audience members, it would be unwise to focus solely on one group over another. As a speaker, being aware of diverse demographics is useful in that you can tailor and vary examples to appeal to different groups of people. As you can read in the “Getting Real” feature in this chapter, engaging in audience segmentation based on demographics is much more targeted in some careers.

Psychological Audience Analysis

Psychological audience analysis considers your audience’s psychological dispositions toward the topic, speaker, and occasion and how their attitudes, beliefs, and values inform those dispositions. When considering your audience’s disposition toward your topic, you want to assess your audience’s knowledge of the subject. You wouldn’t include a lesson on calculus in an introductory math course. You also wouldn’t go into the intricacies of a heart transplant to an audience with no medical training. A speech on how to give a speech would be redundant in a public speaking class, but it could be useful for high school students or older adults who are going through a career transition. Students in my class recently had to theme their informative speeches around the topic of renewable energy. They were able to tie their various topics to a new renewable energy production plant that opened that semester on our campus. They had to be careful not to overrun their speech with scientific jargon. One student compared the concept of biogasification to the natural gas production that comes from living creatures like humans and cows. This comparison got a laugh from the audience and also made the seemingly complex concept more understandable.

The audience may or may not have preconceptions about you as a speaker. One way to positively engage your audience is to make sure you establish your credibility. In terms of credibility , you want the audience to see you as competent, trustworthy, and engaging. If the audience is already familiar with you, they may already see you as a credible speaker because they’ve seen you speak before, have heard other people evaluate you positively, or know that you have credentials and/or experience that make you competent. If you know you have a reputation that isn’t as positive, you will want to work hard to overcome those perceptions. To establish your trustworthiness, you want to incorporate good supporting material into your speech, verbally cite sources, and present information and arguments in a balanced, noncoercive, and nonmanipulative way. To establish yourself as engaging, you want to have a well-delivered speech, which requires you to practice, get feedback, and practice some more. Your verbal and nonverbal delivery should be fluent and appropriate to the audience and occasion. We will discuss speech delivery more in Chapter 10 “Delivering a Speech” .

The circumstances that led your audience to attend your speech will affect their view of the occasion. A captive audience includes people who are required to attend your presentation. Mandatory meetings are common in workplace settings. Whether you are presenting for a group of your employees, coworkers, classmates, or even residents in your dorm if you are a resident advisor, you shouldn’t let the fact that the meeting is required give you license to give a half-hearted speech. In fact, you may want to build common ground with your audience to overcome any potential resentment for the required gathering. In your speech class, your classmates are captive audience members.

When you speak in a classroom or at a business meeting, you may have a captive audience.

Presbyterian Women – Business Meeting – CC BY-NC 2.0.

View having a captive classroom audience as a challenge, and use this space as a public speaking testing laboratory. You can try new things and push your boundaries more, because this audience is very forgiving and understanding since they have to go through the same things you do. In general, you may have to work harder to maintain the attention of a captive audience. Since coworkers may expect to hear the same content they hear every time this particular meeting comes around, and classmates have to sit through dozens and dozens of speeches, use your speech as an opportunity to stand out from the crowd or from what’s been done before.

A voluntary audience includes people who have decided to come hear your speech. This is perhaps one of the best compliments a speaker can receive, even before they’ve delivered the speech. Speaking for a voluntary audience often makes me have more speaking anxiety than I do when speaking in front of my class or my colleagues, because I know the audience may have preconceived notions or expectations that I must live up to. This is something to be aware of if you are used to speaking in front of captive audiences. To help adapt to a voluntary audience, ask yourself what the audience members expect. Why are they here? If they’ve decided to come and see you, they must be interested in your topic or you as a speaker. Perhaps you have a reputation for being humorous, being able to translate complicated information into more digestible parts, or being interactive with the audience and responding to questions. Whatever the reason or reasons, it’s important to make sure you deliver on those aspects. If people are voluntarily giving up their time to hear you, you want to make sure they get what they expected.

A final aspect of psychological audience analysis involves considering the audience’s attitudes, beliefs, and values, as they will influence all the perceptions mentioned previously. As you can see in Figure 9.1 “Psychological Analysis: Attitudes, Beliefs, and Values” , we can think of our attitudes, beliefs, and values as layers that make up our perception and knowledge.

Figure 9.1 Psychological Analysis: Attitudes, Beliefs, and Values

At the outermost level, attitudes are our likes and dislikes, and they are easier to influence than beliefs or values because they are often reactionary. If you’ve ever followed the approval rating of a politician, you know that people’s likes and dislikes change frequently and can change dramatically based on recent developments. This is also true interpersonally. For those of you who have siblings, think about how you can go from liking your sisters or brothers, maybe because they did something nice for you, to disliking them because they upset you. This seesaw of attitudes can go up and down over the course of a day or even a few minutes, but it can still be useful for a speaker to consider. If there is something going on in popular culture or current events that has captured people’s attention and favor or disfavor, then you can tap into that as a speaker to better relate to your audience.

When considering beliefs, we are dealing with what we believe “is or isn’t” or “true or false.” We come to hold our beliefs based on what we are taught, experience for ourselves, or have faith in. Our beliefs change if we encounter new information or experiences that counter previous ones. As people age and experience more, their beliefs are likely to change, which is natural.

Our values deal with what we view as right or wrong, good or bad. Our values do change over time but usually as a result of a life transition or life-changing event such as a birth, death, or trauma. For example, when many people leave their parents’ control for the first time and move away from home, they have a shift in values that occurs as they make this important and challenging life transition. In summary, audiences enter a speaking situation with various psychological dispositions, and considering what those may be can help speakers adapt their messages and better meet their speech goals.

Situational Audience Analysis

Situational audience analysis considers the physical surroundings and setting of a speech. It’s always a good idea to visit the place you will be speaking ahead of time so you will know what to expect. If you expect to have a lectern and arrive to find only a table at the front of the room, that little difference could end up increasing your anxiety and diminishing your speaking effectiveness. I have traveled to many different universities, conference facilities, and organizations to speak, and I always ask my host to show me the room I will be speaking in. I take note of the seating arrangement, the presence of technology and its compatibility with what I plan on using, the layout of the room including windows and doors, and anything else that’s relevant to my speech. Knowing your physical setting ahead of time allows you to alter the physical setting, when possible, or alter your message or speaking strategies if needed. Sometimes I open or close blinds, move seats around, plug my computer in to make sure it works, or even practice some or all of my presentation. I have also revised a speech to be more interactive and informal when I realized I would speak in a lounge rather than a classroom or lecture hall.

“Getting Real”

Marketing Careers and Audience Segmentation

Advertisers and marketers use sophisticated people and programs to ensure that their message is targeted to particular audiences. These people are often called marketing specialists (Career Cruising, 2012). They research products and trends in markets and consumer behaviors and may work for advertising agencies, marketing firms, consulting firms, or other types of agencies or businesses. The pay range is varied, from $35,000 to $166,000 a year for most, and good communication, creativity, and analytic thinking skills are a must. If you stop to think about it, we are all targeted based on our demographics, psychographics, and life situations. Whereas advertisers used to engage in more mass marketing, to undifferentiated receivers, the categories are now much more refined and the target audiences more defined. We only need to look at the recent increase in marketing toward “tweens” or the eight-to-twelve age group. Although this group was once lumped in with younger kids or older teens, they are now targeted because they have “more of their own money to spend and more influence over familial decisions than ever before” (Siegel et al., 2004).

Whether it’s Red Bull aggressively marketing to the college-aged group or gyms marketing to single, working, young adults, much thought and effort goes into crafting a message with a particular receiver in mind. Some companies even create an “ideal customer,” going as far as to name the person, create a psychological and behavioral profile for them, and talk about them as if they were real during message development (Solomon, 2006).

Facebook has also revolutionized targeted marketing, which has led to some controversy and backlash (Greenwell, 2012). The “Like” button on Facebook that was introduced in 2010 is now popping up on news sites, company pages, and other websites. When you click the “Like” button, you are providing important information about your consumer behaviors that can then be fed into complicated algorithms that also incorporate demographic and psychographic data pulled from your Facebook profile and even information from your friends. All this is in an effort to more directly market to you, which became easier in January of 2012 when Facebook started allowing targeted advertisements to go directly into users’ “newsfeeds.”

Markets are obviously segmented based on demographics like gender and age, but here are some other categories and examples of market segments: geography (region, city size, climate), lifestyle (couch potato, economical/frugal, outdoorsy, status seeker), family life cycle (bachelors, newlyweds, full nesters, empty nesters), and perceived benefit of use (convenience, durability, value for the money, social acceptance), just to name a few (Schiffman & Kanuk, 2000).

• Make a list of the various segments you think marketers might put you in. Have you ever thought about these before? Why or why not?
• Take note of the advertisements that catch your eye over a couple days. Do they match up with any of the segments you listed in the first question?
• Are there any groups that you think it would be unethical to segment and target for marketing? Explain your answer.

Determine Your Purpose, Topic, and Thesis

General purpose.

Your speeches will usually fall into one of three categories. In some cases we speak to inform, meaning we attempt to teach our audience using factual objective evidence. In other cases, we speak to persuade, as we try to influence an audience’s beliefs, attitudes, values, or behaviors. Last, we may speak to entertain or amuse our audience. In summary, the general purpose of your speech will be to inform, to persuade, or to entertain.

You can see various topics that may fit into the three general purposes for speaking in Table 9.1 “General Purposes and Speech Topics” . Some of the topics listed could fall into another general purpose category depending on how the speaker approached the topic, or they could contain elements of more than one general purpose. For example, you may have to inform your audience about your topic in one main point before you can persuade them, or you may include some entertaining elements in an informative or persuasive speech to help make the content more engaging for the audience. There should not be elements of persuasion included in an informative speech, however, since persuading is contrary to the objective approach that defines an informative general purpose. In any case, while there may be some overlap between general purposes, most speeches can be placed into one of the categories based on the overall content of the speech.

Table 9.1 General Purposes and Speech Topics

Choosing a Topic

Once you have determined (or been assigned) your general purpose, you can begin the process of choosing a topic. In this class, you may be given the option to choose any topic for your informative or persuasive speech, but in most academic, professional, and personal settings, there will be some parameters set that will help guide your topic selection. Speeches in future classes will likely be organized around the content being covered in the class. Speeches delivered at work will usually be directed toward a specific goal such as welcoming new employees, informing about changes in workplace policies, or presenting quarterly sales figures. We are also usually compelled to speak about specific things in our personal lives, like addressing a problem at our child’s school by speaking out at a school board meeting. In short, it’s not often that you’ll be starting from scratch when you begin to choose a topic.

Whether you’ve received parameters that narrow your topic range or not, the first step in choosing a topic is brainstorming. Brainstorming involves generating many potential topic ideas in a fast-paced and nonjudgmental manner. Brainstorming can take place multiple times as you narrow your topic. For example, you may begin by brainstorming a list of your personal interests that can then be narrowed down to a speech topic. It makes sense that you will enjoy speaking about something that you care about or find interesting. The research and writing will be more interesting, and the delivery will be easier since you won’t have to fake enthusiasm for your topic. Speaking about something you’re familiar with and interested in can also help you manage speaking anxiety. While it’s good to start with your personal interests, some speakers may get stuck here if they don’t feel like they can make their interests relevant to the audience. In that case, you can look around for ideas. If your topic is something that’s being discussed in newspapers, on television, in the lounge of your dorm, or around your family’s dinner table, then it’s likely to be of interest and be relevant since it’s current. Figure 9.1 “Psychological Analysis: Attitudes, Beliefs, and Values” shows how brainstorming works in stages. A list of topics that interest the speaker are on the top row. The speaker can brainstorm subtopics for each idea to see which one may work the best. In this case, the speaker could decide to focus his or her informative speech on three common ways people come to own dogs: through breeders, pet stores, or shelters.

Figure 9.2 Brainstorming and Narrowing a Topic

Overall you can follow these tips as you select and narrow your topic:

• Brainstorm topics that you are familiar with, interest you, and/or are currently topics of discussion.
• Choose a topic appropriate for the assignment/occasion.
• Choose a topic that you can make relevant to your audience.
• Choose a topic that you have the resources to research (access to information, people to interview, etc.).

Specific Purpose

Once you have brainstormed, narrowed, and chosen your topic, you can begin to draft your specific purpose statement. Your specific purpose is a one-sentence statement that includes the objective you want to accomplish in your speech. You do not speak aloud your specific purpose during your speech; you use it to guide your researching, organizing, and writing. A good specific purpose statement is audience centered, agrees with the general purpose, addresses one main idea, and is realistic.

An audience-centered specific purpose statement usually contains an explicit reference to the audience—for example, “my audience” or “the audience.” Since a speaker may want to see if he or she effectively met his or her specific purpose, the objective should be written in such a way that it could be measured or assessed, and since a speaker actually wants to achieve his or her speech goal, the specific purpose should also be realistic. You won’t be able to teach the audience a foreign language or persuade an atheist to Christianity in a six- to nine-minute speech. The following is a good example of a good specific purpose statement for an informative speech: “By the end of my speech, the audience will be better informed about the effects the green movement has had on schools.” The statement is audience centered and matches with the general purpose by stating, “the audience will be better informed.” The speaker could also test this specific purpose by asking the audience to write down, at the end of the speech, three effects the green movement has had on schools.

Thesis Statement

Your thesis statement is a one-sentence summary of the central idea of your speech that you either explain or defend. You would explain the thesis statement for an informative speech, since these speeches are based on factual, objective material. You would defend your thesis statement for a persuasive speech, because these speeches are argumentative and your thesis should clearly indicate a stance on a particular issue. In order to make sure your thesis is argumentative and your stance clear, it is helpful to start your thesis with the words “I believe.” When starting to work on a persuasive speech, it can also be beneficial to write out a counterargument to your thesis to ensure that it is arguable.

The thesis statement is different from the specific purpose in two main ways. First, the thesis statement is content centered, while the specific purpose statement is audience centered. Second, the thesis statement is incorporated into the spoken portion of your speech, while the specific purpose serves as a guide for your research and writing and an objective that you can measure. A good thesis statement is declarative, agrees with the general and specific purposes, and focuses and narrows your topic. Although you will likely end up revising and refining your thesis as you research and write, it is good to draft a thesis statement soon after drafting a specific purpose to help guide your progress. As with the specific purpose statement, your thesis helps ensure that your research, organizing, and writing are focused so you don’t end up wasting time with irrelevant materials. Keep your specific purpose and thesis statement handy (drafting them at the top of your working outline is a good idea) so you can reference them often. The following examples show how a general purpose, specific purpose, and thesis statement match up with a topic area:

Topic: My Craziest Adventure

General purpose: To Entertain

Specific purpose: By the end of my speech, the audience will appreciate the lasting memories that result from an eighteen-year-old visiting New Orleans for the first time.

Thesis statement: New Orleans offers young tourists many opportunities for fun and excitement.

Topic: Renewable Energy

General purpose: To Inform

Specific purpose: By the end of my speech, the audience will be able to explain the basics of using biomass as fuel.

Thesis statement: Biomass is a renewable resource that releases gases that can be used for fuel.

Topic: Privacy Rights

General purpose: To Persuade

Specific purpose : By the end of my speech, my audience will believe that parents should not be able to use tracking devices to monitor their teenage child’s activities.

Thesis statement: I believe that it is a violation of a child’s privacy to be electronically monitored by his or her parents.

Key Takeaways

• Getting integrated: Public speaking training builds transferrable skills that are useful in your college classes, career, personal relationships, and civic life.
• Demographic, psychographic, and situational audience analysis help tailor your speech content to your audience.
• The general and specific purposes of your speech are based on the speaking occasion and include the objective you would like to accomplish by the end of your speech. Determining these early in the speech-making process will help focus your research and writing.
• Brainstorm to identify topics that fit within your interests, and then narrow your topic based on audience analysis and the guidelines provided.
• A thesis statement summarizes the central idea of your speech and will be explained or defended using supporting material. Referencing your thesis statement often will help ensure that your speech is coherent.
• Getting integrated: Why do some people dread public speaking or just want to avoid it? Identify some potential benefits of public speaking in academic, professional, personal, and civic contexts that might make people see public speaking in a different light.
• Conduct some preliminary audience analysis of your class and your classroom. What are some demographics that might be useful for you to consider? What might be some attitudes, beliefs, and values people have that might be relevant to your speech topics? What situational factors might you want to consider before giving your speech?
• Pay attention to the news (in the paper, on the Internet, television, or radio). Identify two informative and two persuasive speech topics that are based in current events.

Career Cruising, “Marketing Specialist,” Career Cruising: Explore Careers , accessed January 24, 2012, http://www.careercruising.com .

Greenwell, D., “You Might Not ‘Like’ Facebook So Much after Reading This…” The Times (London) , sec. T2, January 13, 2012, 4–5.

Siegel, D. L., Timothy J. Coffey, and Gregory Livingston, The Great Tween Buying Machine (Chicago, IL: Dearborn Trade, 2004).

Solomon, M. R., Consumer Behavior: Buying, Having, and Being , 7th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2006), 10–11.

Communication in the Real World Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Home > College of Arts and Letters > Communication Studies > Communication Studies Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Communication Studies Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Theses/projects/dissertations from 2024 2024.

“BARBIE IS AS MUCH ABOUT FASHION AS SHE IS ABOUT CULTURE AND EMPOWERMENT”: FEMINISM IN BARBIE THE MOVIE AND ITS POSTFEMINIST MARKETING , Brooke Ashley Shepherd

Theses/Projects/Dissertations from 2023 2023

CEZZARTT: BUILDING COMMUNITY THROUGH THE ARTS , Cesar Aguiar

BLACK WOMEN PROFESSIONALS CHARGED WITH DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION WORK: USE SILENCING ^VOICE TO RESIST AND NAVIGATE EMBEDDED STRUCTURES OF WHITENESS IN HIERARCHICAL ACADEMIA , Malika Bratton

TRANSFORMING BLACK STUDENTS’ HIGHER EDUCATION EXPERIENCES AND LIVES: A PROPOSAL FOR THE CSU , Don Lundy

THE PATRIARCHY BECOMES THAT GIRL: TIKTOK AND THE MEDIATIZATION OF HEGEMONIC FEMININITY , Irene Molinar

“YO SÍ SOY BORICUA, PA’ QUE TÚ LO SEPAS”: A DECOLONIAL AND INTERSECTIONAL ANALYSIS OF ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ , Jocelin Monge

Public Relations for Cryptocurrency: Coinbase Guidebook , Logan Odneal

CONNECTING STUDENTS WITH COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATIONS FOR INFORMAL, SHORT-TERM EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES: A PORTAL PROPOSAL FOR CSUSB , Dia Poole

Anticolonial Feminism, Sylvia Moreno-Garcia, and the Female Gothic: A Textual Analysis of Mexican Gothic , Hana Vega

Theses/Projects/Dissertations from 2022 2022

"ADVANCING PRIDE": HOW NEW TURKISH HISTORICAL DRAMAS CHALLENGED WESTERN MEDIA'S STEREOTYPICAL IMAGES OF MUSLIMS , Naim Aburaddi

THE PANDEMIC IS NOT KILLING US, THE POLICE ARE KILLING US: HOW THE CHANGE IN THE SUBJECTIVE REALITY OF NIGERIAN CITIZENS BROUGHT ABOUT THE #ENDSARS PROTESTS , Olabode Adefemi Lawal

UNAPOLOGETICALLY HER: A NOMADIC-INTERSECTIONAL CASE STUDY ANALYSIS ON LIZZO AND JILLIAN MICHAELS , Alexia Berlynn Martinez

THE RAIN OVER HANOI: A PERSONAL PROJECT ABOUT SCREENPLAY STRUCTURE, STORY, REPRESENTATION AND INTERGENERATIONAL STRUGGLE , Joan Moua

BLACK FEMALE ATHLETES’ USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOR ACTIVISM: AN INTERSECTIONAL AND CYBERFEMINIST ANALYSIS OF U.S. HAMMER-THROWER, GWEN BERRY'S 2019 AND 2021 PODIUM PROTESTS , Ariel Newell

GIRL POWER?: 2017’S WONDER WOMAN AS A FEMINIST TEXT AND ICON IN AN ERA OF POST-FEMINIST MEDIA , Rachel Richardson

OVERCOMING SELF-OBJECTIFICATION THROUGH A MIND BODY AWARENESS PROGRAM , Alexandra Winner-Bachus

Theses/Projects/Dissertations from 2021 2021

THE LOUDEST VOICE IN THE ROOM IS OUR SILENCE: NARRATIVE POSSIBILITIES OF SILENCED ADULTS , Rebeccah Avila

How Couples YouTube Channels Forge "Friendships" With Their Viewers: A Thematic Textual Analysis , Marisol Botello

THE CURIOUS CASES OF CANCEL CULTURE , Loydie Solange Burmah

“DID THAT JUST HAPPEN?”: INFLUENCE OF EMBODIMENT AND IMMERSION ON CHARACTER IDENTIFICATION IN VIRTUAL REALITY ENVIRONMENTS , Shane Burrell

INTO THE COLLEGE CLASSROOM, ANOTHER TOUR OF DUTY: A GUIDE FOR INSTRUCTORS OF VETERAN STUDENTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION , Steven deWalden

DECOLONIAL LESSONS FROM HISTORICAL AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY LEADERS: RECONSTRUCTING AFRICAN AMERICAN IDENTITY AS RESISTANCE IN PRAXIS , Rhejean King-Johnson

WELCOMING FAMILIES WITH CHILDREN TO CSUSB: MAKING AN INTERGENERATIONAL DIFFERENCE , Leslie Leach

INCLUSIVITY IN PRACTICE: A QUEER EXAMINATION OF THE ACCEPTANCE OF TRANS COMMUNITIES FROM THE STANDPOINTS OF TRANS UNIVERSITY STUDENTS , Sean Maulding

ENHANCING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STUDENTS AND TEACHERS IN A SOCIALLY DISTANCED WORLD BY HUMANIZING ONLINE EDUCATION: A GUIDE FOR HIGHER EDUCATION INSTRUCTORS , Gilma Linette Ramirez Reyes

COMMUNICATION APPREHENSION: A PRESSING MATTER FOR STUDENTS, A PROJECT ADDRESSING UNIQUE NEEDS USING COMMUNICATION IN THE DISCIPLINE WORKSHOPS , Brenda L. Rombalski

When the Victim Becomes the Accused: A Critical Analysis of Silence and Power in the Sexual Harassment Case of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh , Erendira Torres

MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS TRAINING MANUAL: FOR FACULTY TO HELP STUDENTS , Ricardo Vega

THE IMPACT OF RACIST COMMUNICATION PRACTICES (RCP) ON A FORMERLY INCARCERATED STUDENT BEFORE, DURING, AND AFTER PRISON , George Zaragoza

Theses/Projects/Dissertations from 2020 2020

REPORTING ON SUICIDE: A THEMATIC DISCOURSE ANALYSIS ON DISCOURSES REGARDING SUICIDE IN 2010S HIP-HOP SONGS , Andy Allen Acosta Jr.

COMMUNICATION COMPETENCE TRAINING WITHIN MINORITY-OWNED SMALL BUSINESSES , Shirleena Racine Baggett

“REAL ME VERSUS SOCIAL MEDIA ME:” FILTERS, SNAPCHAT DYSMORPHIA, AND BEAUTY PERCEPTIONS AMONG YOUNG WOMEN , Janella Eshiet

DESDE LA PERIFERIA DE LA MILPA: TESTIMONIOS DE MSM DE LOS RANCHOS Y LOS PUEBLOS DE SOUTHERN MEXICO (FROM THE PERIPHERY OF THE CORNFIELD: TESTIMONIES OF MSM FROM THE RANCHES AND TOWNS OF SOUTHERN MEXICO) , Luis Esparza

WORKPLACE COMMUNICATION: EXAMINING LEADER-MEMBER EXCHANGE THEORY, UNCERTAINTY AVOIDANCE, AND SOCIAL STYLES , Guy Robinson

Passing vs Non-Passing: Latina/o/x Experiences and Understandings of Being Presumed White , Francisco Rodriguez

Theses/Projects/Dissertations from 2019 2019

Fully Immersed, Fully Present: Examining the User Experience Through the Multimodal Presence Scale and Virtual Reality Gaming Variables , Andre Adame

AN EXPLORATORY STUDY: COMMUNICATIVE DISSOCIATION BETWEEN BLACK AMERICANS AND AFRICAN IMMIGRANTS , Melody Adejare

TAKING A KNEE: AN INTERPRETIVE STUDY ON PRINT NEWS COVERAGE OF THE COLIN KAEPERNICK PROTESTS , Kriston Costello

TO BE OR NOT TO BE: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF INTERCULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN MEXICAN AMERICAN AND CAUCASIAN AMERICAN ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS , Jessica Helen Vierra

Theses/Projects/Dissertations from 2018 2018

"I JUST GOT OUT; I NEED A PLACE TO LIVE": A BUSINESS PLAN FOR TRANSITIONAL HOUSING , Walker Beverly V

Performing Stereotypical Tropes on Social Media Sites: How Popular Latina Performers Reinscribe Heteropatriarchy on Instagram , Ariana Arely Cano

NEGOTIATING STRATEGIES: AN EFFECTIVE WAY FOR PARENTS OF CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES TO COMMUNICATE FOR SERVICES , Dorothea Cartwright

A COMMUNICATION GUIDE FOR EX-OFFENDERS , Richard Anthony Contreras

AUTHENTICALLY DISNEY, DISTINCTLY CHINESE: A CASE STUDY OF GLOCALIZATION THROUGH SHANGHAI DISNEYLAND’S BRAND NARRATIVE , Chelsea Michelle Galvez

“I AM NOT A PRINCESS BUT…”: AN IDEOLOGICAL CRITICISM OF “FEMINIST” IDEOLOGIES IN DISNEY’S MOANA , Victoria Luckner

MEETING “THE ONE” AT MIDNIGHT IS YOUR DESTINY: THE ROLE OF YUAN IN USE OF THE TAIWANESE SOCIAL NETWORK, DCARD , Wen-Yueh Shu

Theses/Projects/Dissertations from 2017 2017

HANDBOOK ON TEACHER-STUDENT RELATIONSHIPS , Michael Anthony Arteaga

TRAGIC MULATTA 2.0: A POSTCOLONIAL APPROXIMATION AND CRITIQUE OF THE REPRESENTATIONS OF BI-ETHNIC WOMEN IN U.S. FILM AND TV , Hadia Nouria Bendelhoum

MEETING THE DISTANCE EDUCATION CHALLENGE: A GUIDE FOR DESIGNING ONLINE CLASSROOMS , Patrick Allen Bungard

MASTERING THE TASK AND TENDING TO THE SELF: A GUIDE FOR THE GRADUATE TEACHING ASSOCIATE , Angelina Nicole Burkhart

The Construction of Candidate’s Political Image on Social Media: A Thematic Analysis of Facebook Comments in the 2014 Presidential Election in Indonesia , Siti A. Rachim Marpaung Malik

BACKPEDALING NUGGET SMUGGLERS: A FACEBOOK AND NEWS ARTICLE THEMATIC ANALYSIS OF CHICK-FIL-A VS. GAY MARRIAGE , Stacy M. Wiedmaier

Theses/Projects/Dissertations from 2015 2015

Value Driven: An Analysis of Attitudes and Values Via BET Programming Past and Present , Sasha M. Rice

Theses/Projects/Dissertations from 2014 2014

CELEBRITIES, DRINKS, AND DRUGS: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF CELEBRITY SUBSTANCE ABUSE AS PORTRAYED IN THE NEW YORK TIMES , Brent John Austin

THE DEVELOPMENT OF A NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION, KEEP IN TOUCH, AS A SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM OF VISITATION , Shalom Z. LaPoint and Shalom Z. LaPoint

Selling Disbelief , Gregory S. McKinley-Powell

Theses/Dissertations from 2013 2013

Media and corporate blame: Gate keeping and framing of the British Petroleum oil spill of 2010 , Kudratdeep Kaur Dhaliwal

Sperm stealers & post gay politics: Lesbian-parented families in film and television , Elena Rose Martinez

Theses/Dissertations from 2012 2012

Like us on Facebook: A social media campaign's effect on relationship management outcomes for a non-profit organization , Natalia Isabel López-Thismón

Theses/Dissertations from 2011 2011

This is not a love story: A semiotic discourse analysis of romantic comedies , Stephanie Lynn Gomez

Blackness as a weapon: A critical discourse analysis of the 2009 Henry Louis Gates arrest in national mainstream media , Ashley Ann Jones

Fabulistic: Examination and application of narratology and screenplay craft , Nicholas DeVan Snead

Theses/Dissertations from 2010 2010

The effect of cold calling and culture on communication apprehension , Kimberly Noreen Aguilar

The artistry of teaching: Commedia Dell'arte's improvisational strategies and its implications for classroom participation , Jean Artemis Vezzalini

Theses/Dissertations from 2009 2009

Internet marketing strategy and the cognitive response approach: Achieving online fundraising success with targeted donor outreach , Carrie Dawn Cornwall

Theses/Dissertations from 2008 2008

The design of an intercultural communication skills training for multicultural Catholic parishes in the Diocese of San Bernardino , Marco Aurelio De Tolosa Raposo

Religious social support groups: Strengthening leadership with communication competence , JoAnne Irene Flynn

Parametric media: A strategic market analysis and marketing plan for a digital signage, interactive kiosk and content company , Helena Irita Fowler

Factors affecting cognitive dissonance among automobile magazine subscribers , Petroulla Giasoumi

Web templates: Unifying the Web presence of California State University San Bernardino , Angela Marie Gillespie

United States media portrayals of the developing world: A semiotic analysis of the One campaign's internet web site , Lindsey Marie Haussamen

The Use of Violence as Feminist Rhetoric: Third-Wave Feminism in Tarantino's Kill Bill Films , Leah Andrea Katona

Superior-subordinate relationships found in Scrubs: A discourse analysis , Nicolle Elizabeth Quick

Theses/Dissertations from 2007 2007

A cultural studies analysis of the Christian women vocalists movement from the 1980's to 2000: Influences, stars and lyrical meaning making , Mary Elizabeth Akers

The application of marketing and communication theories on community festival event planning , Khara Louise Dizmon

The mad rhetoric: Toward a rigor on radical creativity and its function in consciousness as a communicative principle , Eugene David Hetzel

Millennial pre-camp staff training: Incorporating generational knowledge, learning strategies and compliance gaining techniques , Dana Robin Magilen

Images and lyrics: Representations of African American women in blues lyrics written by black women , Danette Marie Pugh-Patton

Theses/Dissertations from 2006 2006

Views from the center: Middle-class white men and perspectives on social privilege , Sandra Jane Cross

Rendering whiteness visible in the Filipino culture through skin-whitening cosmetic advertisements , Beverly Romero Natividad

Bias in the network nightly news coverage of the 2004 presidential election , Stephen Arthur Shelton

Theses/Dissertations from 2005 2005

A proposed resource development plan for the Department of Communication Studies, California State University San Bernardino , Donna Louise Cooley

From 9/11 to Iraq: Analysis and critique of the rhetoric of the Bush Administration leading to the war in Iraq , LaKesha Nicole Covington

A queer look at feminist science fiction: Examing Sally Miller Gearhart's The Kanshou , Jennifer Jodelle Floerke

Proposed marketing and advertising campaign for the United Negro College Fund , Rashida Patrice Hamm

The online marketing plan for Indra Jewelry Company, Thailand , Vorapoj Liyawarakhun

A metaphoric cluster analysis of the rhetoric of digital technology , Michael Eugene Marse and Nicholas Negroponte

Talking about drugs: Examining self-disclosure and trust in adult children from substance abusive families , Susan Renee Mattson

The public relations campaign for Bangkok fashion week, Thailand , Chanoknart Paitoonmongkon

A web design shop for local business owners , Mary Colleen Rice

International students' reliance on home-country related internet use , Songkwun Sukontapatipak

Theses/Dissertations from 2004 2004

Zapatistas: The shifting rhetoric of a modern revolution , Ofelia Morales Bejar

Globalization, values, and consumer trends: A French and USA comparison , Alexandre Hatlestad-Shey

Values and symbols: An intercultural analysis of web pages on the Internet , Aura Constanza Mosquera

Creating community through communication: The case of East Desert Unified School District , Michelle Elizabeth Shader

A comparison of women's roles as portrayed in Taiwanese and Chinese magazine print advertising , Yi-Chen Yang

Theses/Dissertations from 2003 2003

The concept of interest in the Western and Middle Eastern society , Mustapha Ben Amira

A comprehensive examination of the precode horror comic books of the 1950's , Gene Marshall Broxson

Narrative versus traditional journalism: Appeal, believability, understanding, retention , John David Emig

Relationships of cultural orientations to online public relations message preferences among United States and South Korean college students , Seongjung Jeong

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13 Writing the Thesis and Outline

Learning objectives.

After completing the activities in this chapter, you will be able to:

• Identify three ways to organize your ideas
• Identify the components of a thesis statement
• Evaluate thesis statements
• Identify the steps needed to create an outline
• Create a thesis statement and outline

To write well, you need to understand your audience and purpose. Once you know why you are writing, and to whom, you can start to organize your ideas. One way to get organized is to create an outline before you begin to write. An outline is the blueprint to your finished product.

Research Question

It’s a good idea to start a writing project with a research question. If your instructor has provided you with a broad topic, creating a research question might help you narrow that topic down:

Now you need to do research to determine your answer to the question. Doing some preliminary research will give you a broad understanding of your narrowed topic, which will help you decide your stance and determine how you can support your stance.

Creating a Thesis Statement

You can write a draft thesis statement after you’ve done some preliminary research. You need to do this research first to ensure that you can answer your research question using credible sources. See the Researching chapter of this book for more details.

Your thesis statement is a concise one-sentence answer to your research question.

The thesis statement expresses three things:

• the specific topic of the paper
• your stance (or, “opinion” or “position”) on that topic
• the main reasons for your opinion

The table below shows how a thesis statement evolves from a broad topic.

Can you identify the three necessary components in each of the thesis statements above?  Notice that all of the thesis statements above are for papers that will have three body paragraphs; which one thesis is for an essay that will have only two body paragraphs?

Learning Check

Check your understanding of thesis statements. Consider this example thesis statement and answer the questions below:

Culture shock can negatively affect international students emotionally, physically, and academically.

Parallel Structure in Thesis Statements

Notice that the supporting reasons in each thesis above are given in parallel structure.

Thesis Statement Placement

Your thesis is the single most important sentence in your writing. In academic writing, the thesis statement is placed at the end of the introductory paragraph.

Develop a working thesis statement that states your controlling idea for the piece of writing you are doing. On a sheet of paper, write your working thesis statement.

You will make several attempts before you devise a working thesis statement that you think is effective. Each draft of the thesis statement will bring you closer to the wording that expresses your meaning exactly.

Information in this section has been adapted from Chapter 8.2: Outlining in Writing for Success by University of Minnesota Libraries [1] which is made available by Pressbooks under a CC BY-NC-SA license except where otherwise noted.

For an essay question on a test or a brief oral presentation in class, all you may need to prepare is a short, informal outline in which you jot down key ideas in the order you will present them. This kind of outline reminds you to stay focused in a stressful situation and to include all the good ideas that help you explain or prove your point.

For a longer assignment, like an essay or a research paper, many college instructors require students to submit their outline for approval before writing and submitting the paper for grading. This is a way to be sure you are on the right track and are working in an organized manner.

A formal outline is a detailed guide that shows how all your supporting ideas relate to each other. It helps you distinguish between ideas that are of equal importance and ones that are of lesser importance. You build your paper based on the framework created by the outline. Instructors may also require you to submit an outline with your final draft to check the direction of the assignment and the logic of your final draft. If you must submit an outline with the final draft of a paper, remember to revise the outline to reflect any changes you made while writing the paper.

Here’s an example of a detailed outline for a standard 5-paragraph essay [2] :

Notice that there are three body paragraphs (II, III, and IV). Each body paragraph contains four main ideas (a-d) and each main idea is further supported with a few specific details (i-iii). In a research essay, those specific details should be facts from reliable sources and there should be an APA in-text citation   (Author, year, location) next to each one.

Organizing Ideas

The three common methods of organizing writing are chronological, spatial, and importance.

As you create your outline, be mindful of how you organize your supporting body paragraphs. In the example outline above, the writer has chosen to present ideas in “order of importance” with the last, and most persuasive, reason last. Putting the most important reason at the end is an effective strategy for persuasive writing.

Checklist: Writing an Effective Outline

• Do I have a controlling idea that guides the development of the entire piece of writing?
• Do I have three or more main points that I want to make in this piece of writing? Does each main point connect to my controlling idea?
• Is my outline in the best order—chronological order, spatial order, or order of importance—for me to present my main points? Will this order help me get my main point across?
• Do I have supporting details that will help me inform, explain, or prove my main points?
• Do I need to add more support? If so, where?
• Do I need to make any adjustments in my working thesis statement before I consider it the final version?
• University of Minnesota Libraries. (2015). Writing for success . Pressbooks. https://open.lib.umn.edu/writingforsuccess/ ↵
• Veillieux, H. (2021, April 9). 5 Paragraph Outline Example [Digital Image]. In Writing the thesis and outline . Confederation College. https://bit.ly/36aiBWn . CC BY 4.0 . ↵

a writer's position, or opinion, on their topic

Supporting points are the main reasons that explain your point of view on a topic. In a research paper, support should be facts and opinion of experts that you have located from reliable sources. In reflective writing, support might include your personal experiences.

In grammar, parallelism, also known as parallel structure or parallel construction, is a balance within one or more sentences of similar phrases or clauses that have the same grammatical structure. The application of parallelism affects readability and may make texts easier to process.

Provide an in-text citation (with author and date information) along with a reference entry (containing complete retrieval information) to tell the reader the original source of the information used.

Intercultural Business Communication Copyright © 2021 by Confederation College is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Informative Speech Thesis Statement

Unlock the power of effective communication with informative speech thesis statement examples. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the art of crafting compelling thesis statements for informative speeches. From unraveling the intricacies of informative speech thesis statements to providing step-by-step writing strategies, you’ll gain valuable insights into captivating your audience’s attention and delivering informative speeches that leave a lasting impact. Elevate your speaking prowess with expert tips tailored to engaging and enlightening your listeners.

What is an Informative Speech Thesis Statement? – Definition

An informative speech thesis statement is a concise and focused sentence that encapsulates the main idea or central message of an informative speech. It serves as a roadmap for the audience, providing them with a clear preview of the topics, concepts, or information that will be presented in the speech. The informative speech thesis statement helps the audience understand the purpose of the speech and what they can expect to learn or gain from listening.

What is an Example of Informative Speech Thesis Statement?

Example: “In this informative speech, I will explore the history, cultural significance, and health benefits of traditional herbal remedies used by indigenous communities around the world.”

In this example, the informative speech thesis statement clearly outlines the main topics that will be covered in the speech. It indicates that the speech will delve into the history, cultural importance, and positive health effects of traditional herbal remedies within indigenous cultures globally. This thesis statement provides a roadmap for the audience, giving them a glimpse of the informative content that will follow in the speech.  In addition, you should review our  thesis statement for personal essay .

100 Informative Speech Thesis Statement Examples

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• Today, we’ll explore the mysterious world of the deep sea and the creatures that inhabit it.
• The history of chocolate reveals a complex journey from Mayan rituals to modern day luxury.
• Understanding the basics of solar energy can lead us to sustainable solutions for the future.
• The Great Wall of China represents centuries of historical evolution, defense strategies, and cultural significance.
• Let’s delve into the intricate world of bee communication and the role of pheromones.
• The human brain’s plasticity offers insights into learning, memory, and recovery.
• The art of origami goes beyond paper folding, reflecting Japanese traditions and philosophical insights.
• Mount Everest’s geological formation, history, and climbing challenges are both captivating and daunting.
• Sleep is a complex process that affects our mental, emotional, and physical health in surprising ways.
• Leonardo da Vinci’s inventions showcase the genius of a Renaissance man.
• The process of wine-making, from grape to glass, combines art and science.
• By understanding the different waves of feminism, we can appreciate the evolution of gender rights.
• The history of the Olympics traces the evolution of human athleticism and global unity.
• Artificial intelligence’s rise and implications touch every facet of our modern lives.
• Delve into the mysterious culture and rituals of the Maasai tribe in East Africa.
• The Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, is a natural wonder driven by Earth’s magnetism.
• The evolution of the internet has transformed global communication, commerce, and culture.
• The Silk Road was more than a trade route; it was a bridge between cultures and epochs.
• The health benefits of meditation extend beyond relaxation, influencing brain structure and function.
• Exploring the dynamics of black holes uncovers the universe’s enigmatic phenomena.
• The ancient pyramids of Egypt tell tales of pharaohs, engineers, and a civilization ahead of its time.
• Yoga, beyond flexibility, promotes holistic health and spiritual growth.
• The migration patterns of monarch butterflies are one of nature’s most astonishing journeys.
• Unpacking the ethical implications of cloning gives insights into the future of biotechnology.
• The life cycle of a star reveals the universe’s beauty, complexity, and constant change.
• From farm to cup, the journey of coffee beans impacts economies, cultures, and your morning ritual.
• The Renaissance era: an explosion of art, science, and thought that shaped the modern world.
• The complexities of the human immune system defend us against microscopic invaders daily.
• Antarctica’s ecosystem is a fragile balance of life, adapting to the planet’s harshest conditions.
• The Titanic’s tragic voyage remains a lesson in hubris, safety, and fate.
• Let’s understand the intricacies of quantum mechanics and its revolution in modern physics.
• Delve into the world of paleontology and the mysteries of dinosaur existence.
• Sign languages around the world are rich, diverse modes of communication beyond spoken words.
• The world of dreams: decoding symbols, understanding stages, and their impact on our psyche.
• The Wright brothers’ journey was a testament to innovation, persistence, and the human spirit.
• The evolution of musical genres reflects societal changes, technological advancements, and cultural blends.
• Samurai warriors embody the ethos, discipline, and martial traditions of feudal Japan.
• The three states of matter offer a basic understanding of the universe’s physical essence.
• The Hubble Space Telescope has revolutionized our perception of the universe and our place within it.
• Journey through the rich tapestry of African tribal cultures, traditions, and histories.
• The concept of time travel, while popular in fiction, presents scientific and philosophical challenges.
• Explore the world of forensic science and its pivotal role in modern criminal justice.
• Delve into the world of cryptocurrencies, their workings, and their potential to redefine finance.
• The linguistic diversity of the Indian subcontinent showcases a mosaic of cultures, histories, and beliefs.
• The process of photosynthesis is nature’s way of converting light into life.
• The mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle have intrigued scientists, historians, and travelers alike.
• Uncover the importance and workings of vaccines in combating infectious diseases.
• The Eiffel Tower is more than an icon; it’s a testament to engineering and cultural symbolism.
• Delving into the myths, facts, and history of the majestic white wolves of the Arctic.
• The cultural, economic, and culinary significance of rice in global civilizations.
• Discover the beauty, function, and preservation of coral reefs, the oceans’ rainforests.
• The enigma of Stonehenge reflects ancient engineering, astronomical knowledge, and cultural rituals.
• Human memory is a complex interplay of neurons, experiences, and emotions.
• The history of jazz music: its roots, evolution, and impact on modern music genres.
• The incredible world of bioluminescence in deep-sea creatures.
• The philosophy and practices of Buddhism offer a path to enlightenment and inner peace.
• The Big Bang Theory unravels the universe’s origin, expansion, and eventual fate.
• Examine the rich history, culture, and significance of Native American tribes.
• The formation and importance of wetlands in maintaining global ecological balance.
• The metamorphosis process in butterflies: a dance of genes, hormones, and time.
• Delve into the wonders of the human genome and the secrets it holds about our evolution.
• The history and future of space exploration: from the moon landings to Mars missions.
• Discover the dynamic world of volcanoes, their formation, eruption, and influence on ecosystems.
• The French Revolution: its causes, timeline, and lasting impacts on global politics.
• Breaking down the science and art behind architectural marvels across history.
• The multifaceted world of the Amazon rainforest: its biodiversity, tribes, and conservation challenges.
• The principles and practices of sustainable farming in modern agriculture.
• Decoding the mysteries of the ancient Indus Valley Civilization.
• The art of bonsai: a journey of patience, aesthetics, and nature’s miniaturization.
• The Second World War: its origins, major events, and lasting global implications.
• The water cycle: nature’s way of sustaining life on Earth.
• Understanding autism: its spectrum, challenges, and societal implications.
• The cultural, historical, and spiritual significance of the holy city of Jerusalem.
• The physics and thrill of skydiving: conquering gravity and fear.
• The impact of the printing press on literature, religion, and the dissemination of knowledge.
• Delve into the intriguing world of espionage: its history, techniques, and impact on geopolitics.
• The cinematic evolution of Hollywood: from silent films to digital masterpieces.
• The profound impact of the Harlem Renaissance on art, literature, and black consciousness.
• The fascinating science behind earthquakes and our quest to predict them.
• The challenges, resilience, and beauty of life in the world’s deserts.
• The role and significance of the United Nations in global peace and diplomacy.
• The fashion revolutions of the 20th century and their socio-cultural impacts.
• Journey through the intricate and diverse world of spiders.
• The principles and history of the art of storytelling across civilizations.
• The enigma and allure of the Mona Lisa: beyond the smile and into da Vinci’s world.
• The magic of magnetism: its principles, applications, and mysteries.
• The impact of social media on society: communication, psychology, and privacy concerns.
• The mysteries and significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls in biblical research.
• The innovations and challenges of deep-sea exploration.
• Explore the evolution, beauty, and significance of Japanese tea ceremonies.
• The majestic world of eagles: species, habitats, and their role in ecosystems.
• The cultural and historical significance of ancient Greek theater.
• Dive into the art and techniques of cinematography in filmmaking.
• The complex history and geopolitics of the Panama Canal.
• The practice and significance of animal migration across species and ecosystems.
• The legacy and lessons of the Roman Empire.
• The beauty, challenges, and adaptations of alpine flora and fauna.
• The history, techniques, and significance of mural painting across cultures.
• The science and wonder of rainbows: from mythologies to optics.
• Discover the significance and celebrations of Diwali, the festival of lights.

Informative Speech Thesis Statement Examples for Introduction

An introductory informative speech thesis statement sets the stage, creating intrigue or establishing the context for the topic that follows. It lays the groundwork for what listeners can anticipate.

• Let’s embark on a journey through the ages, exploring the timeless allure of ancient civilizations.
• As we unravel the secrets of the universe, we begin with its most mysterious element: dark matter.
• Today, let’s understand the fabric of our global economy and the threads that weave it together.
• Venturing into the digital realm, we’ll discover the evolution and impact of social media on human connections.
• Set sail with me to explore the enigmatic world of lost cities submerged beneath the seas.
• Journeying back in time, we delve into the age of chivalry and the knights of old.
• Let us embark on an odyssey into the intricate realm of modern art and its diverse interpretations.
• Today, we set foot in the mesmerizing world of optical illusions and the psychology behind them.
• Navigating through the labyrinth of the human mind, we begin with dreams and their interpretations.
• As we chart our course today, let’s explore the unsung heroes behind history’s greatest discoveries.

Informative Speech Thesis Statement Examples for Graduation

Graduation speeches are pivotal moments, focusing on accomplishments, transition, and the journey ahead. A  concise thesis statement should resonate with the gravity of the milestone.

• Today, we celebrate not just the culmination of years of hard work but the dawn of new beginnings.
• Graduation is a testament to perseverance, growth, and the dreams we dared to chase.
• We stand on the threshold of a new era, armed with knowledge, experiences, and ambitions.
• Together, we’ve climbed mountains of challenges, and today, we pause to admire the view.
• This graduation isn’t an endpoint but a launching pad for dreams yet to be realized.
• Through shared challenges and achievements, we’ve woven a tapestry of memories and aspirations.
• Today, as we close this chapter, we eagerly await the stories we’re destined to write.
• Graduation is a reflection of past endeavors and the beacon guiding our future journeys.
• As we don the cap and gown, we embrace the responsibilities and promises of tomorrow.
• This ceremony is a tribute to our resilience, aspirations, and the legacy we’re beginning to build.

Informative Speech Thesis Statement Examples For Autism

Autism speeches inform and spread awareness. The thesis should be insightful, compassionate, and devoid of any stereotypes.

• Autism, in its spectrum, paints a vivid tapestry of diverse experiences and unique strengths.
• Delving into autism, we discover not just challenges but unparalleled potential and perspectives.
• Unpacking the world of autism offers a glimpse into diverse minds shaping our world uniquely.
• Autism is not a limitation but a different lens through which the world is perceived.
• Through understanding autism, we pave the way for inclusivity, appreciation, and holistic growth.
• Autism, in its essence, challenges societal norms, urging us to redefine success and potential.
• Embracing the autistic community is embracing diversity, creativity, and the myriad ways of being human.
• Navigating the realm of autism, we find tales of resilience, innovation, and boundless spirit.
• Autism stands as a testament to human neurodiversity and the endless forms of intelligence.
• In the heart of autism lies the profound message of acceptance, understanding, and unbridled potential.

Informative Speech Thesis Statement Examples on Depression

When discussing depression, the thesis should be sensitive, informed, and aimed at eliminating stigma while spreading awareness.

• Depression, often silent, is a profound emotional experience that impacts countless lives globally.
• Delving into the depths of depression, we uncover its nuances, challenges, and paths to healing.
• Today, we shine a light on the shadows of depression, fostering understanding and empathy.
• Depression, beyond just a mood, is a complex interplay of biology, environment, and experiences.
• Recognizing and addressing depression is pivotal to building a compassionate and resilient society.
• In understanding depression, we equip ourselves with tools for empathy, intervention, and support.
• Depression, while daunting, also presents stories of strength, recovery, and hope.
• Through the lens of depression, we see the urgent need for mental health advocacy and education.
• Navigating the intricate world of depression helps dispel myths and foster genuine understanding.
• As we unravel the fabric of depression, we realize its universality and the importance of collective support.

Informative Speech Thesis Statement Examples on Life

Life, in its vastness, offers endless topics. A thesis on life should be profound, insightful, and universally resonant.

• Life, in its ebb and flow, presents a mosaic of experiences, challenges, and joys.
• Delving into the journey of life, we find lessons in the most unexpected moments.
• Life, with its unpredictable twists, teaches us resilience, adaptability, and the value of time.
• Through life’s lens, we appreciate the transient beauty of moments, relationships, and dreams.
• Life’s tapestry is woven with threads of memories, decisions, and the pursuit of purpose.
• Navigating the terrain of life, we encounter peaks of joy and valleys of introspection.
• Life’s rhythm is a dance of challenges met, lessons learned, and love discovered.
• Embracing life means acknowledging its imperfections, uncertainties, and boundless potentials.
• Life is a rich canvas, painted with choices, experiences, and the colors of emotions.
• In the vast expanse of life, we find the significance of connections, growth, and self-awareness.

Informative Speech Thesis Statement Examples Conclusion

Conclusion thesis statements wrap up the essence of the speech, leaving listeners with poignant thoughts or a call to action.

• As we journeyed through the annals of history, we’re reminded of the footprints we’re destined to leave.
• Having delved deep into the human psyche, we come away enlightened, empowered, and introspective.
• As our exploration concludes, let’s carry forward the knowledge, empathy, and drive to make a difference.
• Wrapping up our journey, we realize that every end is but a new beginning in disguise.
• As we draw the curtains, the lessons imbibed urge us to reflect, act, and evolve.
• In conclusion, the tapestry we’ve woven today serves as a testament to our collective potential.
• As our discourse comes to an end, let’s pledge to be torchbearers of change, understanding, and progress.
• Concluding today’s journey, we’re left with insights, questions, and a renewed sense of purpose.
• As we wrap up, the stories shared serve as beacons, illuminating our paths and choices.
• In the final note, let’s carry the essence of today’s exploration, making it a catalyst for growth and understanding.

What is a good thesis statement for an informative essay?

A good thesis statement for an informative essay is a clear, concise declaration that presents the main point or argument of your essay. It informs the reader about the specific topic you will discuss without offering a personal opinion or taking a stance. The ideal thesis statement is:

• Specific: It should narrow down the subject so readers understand the essay’s scope.
• Arguable: Though it doesn’t express an opinion, it should still be something that might be disputed or clarified.
• Clear: It should be easily understandable without any ambiguity.
• Focused: The thesis should relate directly to the topic, ensuring it doesn’t stray into irrelevant areas.
• Brief: While it should encapsulate your main point, it shouldn’t be excessively long.

Example: “The process of photosynthesis in plants is crucial for converting carbon dioxide into oxygen, a transformation that sustains most life forms on Earth.”

Does an informative speech need a thesis?

Yes, an informative speech does need a thesis. The thesis acts as a compass for your audience, providing them with a clear understanding of what they will learn or gain from your speech. It sets the tone, focuses the content, and provides a roadmap for listeners to follow. An informative speech thesis helps the audience:

• Understand the Purpose: It clearly states what the speech will cover.
• Anticipate Content: It sets expectations for the type of information they will receive.
• Stay Engaged: By knowing the direction, listeners can follow along more easily and attentively.
• Retain Information: With a clear foundation laid by the thesis, the audience can more easily remember key takeaways.

How do you write an Informative speech thesis statement? – Step by Step Guide

Crafting a strong and effective specific thesis statement for an informative speech is vital to convey the essence of your message clearly. Here’s a comprehensive step-by-step guide to help you through the process:

• Select a Suitable Topic: Start with a subject that is engaging and you’re knowledgeable about. This will give your thesis authenticity and enthusiasm.
• Refine Your Topic: A broad subject can be overwhelming for both the speaker and the audience. Narrow it down to a specific aspect or angle that you want to focus on.
• Conduct Preliminary Research: Even if you’re familiar with the subject, conduct some research to ensure you have updated and factual information. This will give your thesis credibility.
• Determine the Main Points: From your research and knowledge, deduce the primary points or messages you wish to convey to your audience.
• Formulate a Draft Thesis: Using your main points, write a draft of your thesis statement. This doesn’t have to be perfect; it’s just a starting point.
• Keep it Clear and Concise: Your thesis should be easily understandable. Avoid jargon and complex words unless they are crucial and you plan to explain them during your speech.
• Ensure Objectivity: An informative thesis aims to educate, not to persuade. Keep it neutral and avoid any personal bias.
• Test for Specificity: Your thesis should be specific enough to give your audience a clear idea of what to expect, but broad enough to encompass the main idea of your speech.
• Seek Feedback: Share your draft thesis with friends, colleagues, or mentors. Their perspectives might offer valuable insights or point out aspects you hadn’t considered.
• Revise and Refine: Based on feedback and further reflection, refine your thesis. Ensure it’s concise, specific, and clearly conveys the main idea of your speech.
• Practice it Aloud: Say your thesis statement out loud a few times. This helps you ensure it flows well and can be easily understood when spoken.
• Align with Content: As you develop the content of your speech, revisit your thesis to ensure it remains consistent with the information you’re presenting. Adjust if necessary.
• Finalize: Once you’re satisfied, finalize your thesis statement. It should be a strong and clear representation of what your audience can expect from your speech.

Remember, your thesis is the foundation of your informative speech. It sets the stage for everything that follows, so taking the time to craft it meticulously is crucial for the effectiveness of your speech.

Tips for Writing an Informative Speech Thesis Statement

• Stay Objective: Avoid personal biases. Your goal is to inform, not persuade.
• Be Specific: General statements can disengage your audience. Specificity grabs attention.
• Limit Your Scope: Don’t try to cover too much. Stick to what’s essential to avoid overwhelming your audience.
• Prioritize Clarity: Use simple, direct language. Avoid jargon unless it’s pertinent and you plan to explain it.
• Test It Out: Before finalizing, say your thesis out loud. This will help identify any awkward phrasings.
• Stay Relevant: Make sure your thesis relates directly to the rest of your speech.
• Avoid Questions: Your thesis should be a statement, not a question.
• Revise as Needed: As you flesh out your speech, revisit your thesis to ensure it still aligns.
• Stay Consistent: The tone and style of your thesis should match the rest of your speech.
• Seek Inspiration: Listen to other informative speeches or read essays to see how experts craft their thesis statements.

Remember, your thesis statement is the anchor of your speech. Invest time in crafting one that is clear, compelling, and informative.  You should also take a look at our  final thesis statement .

Informative Speech Generator

Text prompt

• Instructive
• Professional

Create an Informative Speech Thesis Statement on the history of the internet

Write an Informative Speech Thesis Statement for a talk on the evolution of human rights

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Part 3: The Medium

3.10 Communication Through Art

Learning Objectives

• To reflect on the value of art for risk communication.
• To understand how to incorporate an artistic component into a communication campaign.

Art for Communication

The Crochet Coral Reef Project: A global participatory project to raise awareness of coral reef bleaching due to climate change.

Risk and Time: A Data Sculpture on Nature, Disasters, and Finance. At a forum on the impact of natural disasters on finance co-hosted by the World Bank and the Government of Vanuatu, a data sculpture summarized 25 years of disaster data.

#SciPop: Twitter users employ this hashtag to share ongoing efforts to communicate science via art.

A recurring theme in this text is the importance of engaging audiences with a message. There is a growing body of work that suggests that art can be used to engage audiences because humans are naturally visual creatures and art has the ability to elicit emotion.

While much of risk communication focuses on the cognitive domain of learning (i.e. comprehension and understanding), art can also stimulate the affective domain (i.e. appreciation, attitudes and feelings) (Friedman 2013). Perhaps because of its power to change attitudes, some work has also articulated that community-driven art engagement can affect meaningful change in some areas, such as around environmental issues (Evans 2014). Lesen et al. (2016) suggest that art can be a particularly effective medium for issues such as climate change which evoke emotional responses that promote behavioural change. Further, arts-based communication efforts have been shown to be particularly impactful when they are interactive and when the audience participates (i.e., the audience becomes a collaborator making the art as opposed to a passive observer of the art) (Lesen et al. 2016). See this article by Dr. Timothy Caufield for a more detailed description of the value of bringing art to science communication.

All of this sounds good, right? Engage your audience, involve them in the process, make some art and affect change. But perhaps you’re saying, how do I get started? I’m not an artist, so how can I use art to communicate my message effectively? This is where the value of collaboration comes in. Collaboration with artists at the outset of a communication campaign can help to identify appropriate uses of art and opportunities to engage communities in risk-based art communications. This requires ongoing communication with collaborators as well as synchronizing goals, motivations and key outputs from the campaign.

When developing a communication campaign involving art, Lesen et al. have outlined a number of important considerations, including:

• What are your goals? Are the goals of the scientist and artist aligned?
• Who are your collaborators and what is the extent of the collaboration?
• Who is participating in the project?
• Who is your audience and what are the learning outcomes for the audience?
• How will you assess if your goal is achieved (e.g. participant surveys, audience size/attendance)?
• How will you evaluate both the scientific and artistic value of the project?

For more detailed information on how to conduct project evaluation and collaborative team performance measures using art, see the 2016 Lesen et al. article .

Key Takeaways

• Art can be a valuable medium for risk and science communication because it appeals to people’s visual sense and can elicit emotions.
• To incorporate artistic components in your communication campaign, engage artists from the community and identify shared goals and outputs early on in the project.

Media Attributions

• Crocheted coral reef © Steve Jurvetson is licensed under a CC BY (Attribution) license

The Mission, the Message, and the Medium Copyright © by Chelsea Himsworth, Kaylee Byers, and Jennifer Gardy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Digital Commons @ USF > College of Arts and Sciences > Mass Communications > Theses and Dissertations

Mass Communications Theses and Dissertations

Theses/dissertations from 2023 2023.

An Experimental Analysis of the Effect of Crisis Response Message Strategies on Consumer Emotions, Perceptual Beliefs and Intended Behavior , Valentina Ahumada

How the Taiwanese podcast Bailingguo News framed the 2019 Hong Kong movement: A framing analysis of the anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill , Yu-Fei Chiu

Advocating for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: A Study of the NHL’s #HockeyIsForEveryone Campaign on Twitter , Jessica Martinez

Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022

An Analysis of International Soccer Fans’ Knowledge of Qatar, Perceptions of Qatar’s Country Image, and Intention to Support the 2022 FIFA World Cup , Taleb Al-Adbah

Analysis of Prescription Drug Brand Mentions in Music: Prevalence and Consumer Perceptions , Lisa A. Blake

Elements of Instagram Influencer Posts that Drive Follower Engagement , Yishan Li

Communicating Breast Cancer Awareness: Using the Health Belief Model to Develop Mass Communication Themes to Influence Early Detection Behaviors , Srisai Kamakshi Ramya Harika Pucha

The European Super League (ESL): A Political Economy and Media Framing Analysis , Patrick Sidwell

Inaugural Addresses, Framing Theory, and the Impact on American Perceptions of the Presidency , Kalin Meagan Velez

The Use of Social Media by Leaders in Times of Crisis: 2020–21 United States Election Protests , Cagdas Yuksel

Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021

The Influence of Hate Speech on TikTok on Chinese College Students , Tengyue Chen

Cultivating Courage: Medical Dramas and Portrayals of Patient Self-Advocacy , Alyssa H. Harrell

The Media Reproduction of Racial Violence: A Content Analysis of News Coverage Following the Death of George Floyd Jr. , Keylon Lovett

Credibility of Spokespersons and E-cigarette Prevention Messages: Elaboration Likelihood Model and The Moderating Role of Perceived Risk , Emmanuel Maduneme

An Examination of COVID-19 Health Behaviors and Public Health Messaging Using the Health Belief Model and Organization-Public Relationship Quality , Aaron L. Nichols

The Extended Parallel Processing Model (EPPM) and Risk Perceptions of Twitter messages related to COVID-19 , Muhammad E. Rasul

Framing #MeToo movement in China A Content Analysis of China Women’s News Coverage , Wenminzi Wu

Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020

Super Bowl Ads and the Donald Trump Culture War , Jessica Barron

A Case Study on Black Twitter’s Reactions to the Framing of Blacks in Dove’s 2017 Facebook Advertisement , Shereena Farrington

The Roles of Emotional Cues and Purchasing Incentives in WeChat Commerce: A Content Analysis , Xuezhu Hao

People with Parkinson’s and Care Partners of PwPs’ Uncertainty Management Through Information Strategies , Amy Haywood

Asian Male Stereotypes: An Investigation of Current Beliefs About Asian Males and Stereotypes Perpetuated by U.S. Modern Cinema , Noelle Knopp

Developing Design Elements for a Parkinson’s Disease Informative Website: A Social Marketing Approach , Emilie R. Madsen

Evaluation of Native Advertisement though Third Person Effect Theory: An Experimental Design , Inga Nafetvaridze

EPPM and Its Effectiveness in Advertisements of Colorectal Cancer Screening among Young Adults , Anh T. Nguyen

The Role of Threat and Efficacy in Anti-Vaping Ads: A Test of the Extended Parallel Process Model , Ryan Noone

An Experimental Investigation into the Impact of Crisis Response Strategies and Relationship Management in the Pharmaceutical Industry , Nikoletta Pappas

Media Fandom: Social Media Use and Collective Identity in China: A Case Study of Z.Tao’s Weibo Fandom , Mier Sha

'Golden Spike': Examining Atlanta United FC Communications During the Launch of the Team , Maria Tsyruleva

The Role of Influencer Endorsement in Consumer Brand Engagement on Sina Weibo , Xiaofan Wei

One News Event, Three Media Frames , Le Xin

Applying the Situational Theory of Publics to Children's Sex Education in China , Baoyi Zeng

Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019

The Role of Social Media Journalists in TV News:Their Effects on the Profession and Identity of TV Journalism, the Quality of News, and theAudience Engagement , Yousuf Humiad AL Yousufi

Relationship Management Communications by NHL Teams on Twitter , Kelsey M. Baker

2018 China-United States Trade War: Framing Analysis of Online News Coverage in the United States and China as portrayed by the New York Times and the People’s Daily , Jiangling Huang

The Research on the Determinants of Users' Willingness to Pay for Chinese Paid Sports Model Based on Use and Gratification Theory , Jing Li

Online MMORPG Games in China: Player Motivations and the Mediating Role of Flow , Jiaxin Liu

The Hostile Media Effect and Its Potential Consequences: Examining the Influence of Presumed Influence of International Media Coverage , Zhennan Liu

Womenpreneurs in a Digital Environment: Utilizing Instagram to Build a Personal Brand , Michelle N. Nuñez

Objectification of Women in Bollywood Item Numbers , Zahabia Z. Slatewala

A Research on eSports Users’ Motives and Satisfaction in China The Case of League of Legends , Qianyin Sun

An Analysis of the Language and the Relationship of the President of the USA Related Twitter Accounts toward the National Media , Sait Serif Turhan

Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018

Perception of Kazakhstan in the U.S through the New York Times Coverage , Tursynay Alikhanova

The Influence of Instagram Selfies on Female Millennials’ Appearance Satisfaction , Diliara Bagautdinova

Women’s Body Image in the Media: Fitspiration on Instagram , Brook M. Bryant

Political Talk Shows in Taiwan: First- and Third-Person Effects, Their Attitudinal Antecedents and Consequences , Shou-Chen Hsieh

An Examination of Image Repair Theory and BP’s Response to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill , William Anthony Korte Jr.

An Analysis of Organ Donation Presentations on Weibo , Shengfei Li

Gender Sexualization in Digital Games: Exploring Female Character Changes in Tomb Raider , Jingjing Liu

Shithole Countries: An Analysis of News Coverage in the U.S. , Murewa O. Olubela

Self-esteem, motivation, and self-enhancement presentation on WeChat , Xiao Qiu

The Portrayal of Women in the Oldest Russian Women’s Magazine “Rabotnitsa” From 1970-2017 , Anastasiia Utiuzh

Cultural Adaptation and Maintenance: Chinese International Students' Use of Facebook and WeChat , Mengni Wang

The Understanding of Absolute Right to Freedom of Expression in the Case of Hate Speech , Qinqin Wang

Body Image, Self-Esteem and Eating Disturbance among Chinese Women: Testing the Tripartite Influence model , Weiwei Wang

I’m Your Fan – Engaging in Celebrity’s Social Media Page with the Mediation of Parasocial Interaction and Parasocial Relationship , Jiahui Zhuang

Theses/Dissertations from 2017 2017

Household Food Waste Prevention in Malaysia: An Issue Processes Model Perspective , Syahirah Abd Razak

Countering the Questionable Actions of the CPD and FEC , Brian C. Cole

“You Know Who I Am, Don’t You? I’m the One They’re Writing About in the Newspapers and on TV” , Casey Killen Crane

To Tell the Truth: The Credibility of Cable News Networks In an Era of Increasingly Partisan Political News Coverage , Christopher Jadick

Political Media Bias in the United States: Immigration and the Trump Administration , Bryce Josepher

Social Media Use and Political Participation in China: The Mediating Role of Political Efficacy , Bingyang Liu

Framing Genetically-modified Foods Communication in China: A Content Analysis of News Coverage of People’s Daily and Southern Metropolis , Linqi Lu

Conceptualizing Social Wealth in the Digital Age: A Mixed Methods Approach , Kristina Oliva

The Road to the White House: A Correlational Analysis of Twitter Sentiment and National Polls in the 2016 Election Cycle , Melissa G. Pelletier

Using Green Messages to Cue Recycling Tendencies , Danielle Quichocho

Traversing Privacy Issues on Social Networking Sites Among Kuwaiti Females , Shahad Shihab

Chinese National Identity and Media Framing , Yufeng Tian

Smog Pollution in China: News Framing and Issue-Attention Cycle per the , Yingying Zhang

Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016

Corporate Social Responsibility Communication: Beliefs in Motives, First- and Third-Person Effects and Behavioral Consequences , Nianyuan Cheng

Crimean Referendum: Annexation VS Reunification. Framing Analysis of Online News Coverage in Russia and the U.S. , Anna Dedova

Investigating the Determinants of Recycling Behavior in Youth by Using Theory of Planned Behavior. , Tejaswini Gadiraju

Media Perceptions on Sexual Assault on College Campuses , Maggie M. Hall

The Impact of Emojis and Emoticons on Online Consumer Reviews, Perceived Company Response Quality, Brand Relationship, and Purchase Intent. , Jayme Hill Hill

Media Multitasking and Memory: The Role of Message Modalities , Le Nguyen

Cultivating Philanthropy in Community Colleges: A Dual-Model Approach , Rachel Faith Pleasant

Avatar Self-Identification, Self-Esteem, and Perceived Social Capital in the Real World: A Study of World of Warcraft Players and their Avatars , Melissa Watts

The Effects of Mission Statement Design on Behavioral Intention , Jonathan David West

Impact of a Brand Crisis on Nation Branding: An Analysis of Tweets about VW’s Emissions Crisis , Kara Julie Whytas

Theses/Dissertations from 2015 2015

Responding to a Rumor: How Crisis Response Strategies Influence Relationship Outcomes , Bo Breuklander

Crisis Communication and Celebrity Scandal: An Experiment on Response Strategies , Leah Champion

Speaking Their Language: Textisms in Today's Communication , Adam Lloyd Drum

Direct-to-Consumer Messaging: A Phenomenological Examination of DTC Best Practices , Nicholas Dominick Fancera

Examining Endorsement and Viewership Effects on the Source Credibility of YouTubers , Stephanie Fred

The Cultivation of Eating Disorders through Instagram , Kendall O'Brien

Online Game Advertising and Chinese College Students: Attitudes, First- and Third-Person Effects , Yan Tang

On the Convergence of Cinema and Theme Parks: Developing a Predictable Model for Creative Design , Ryan Luke Terry

I Threw My Pie for You: Engagement and Loyalty on TV Show Facebook Pages , Tracy M. Wisneski

First- and Third-Person Effects of Alcohol Advertising on Chinese College Students , Dong Xue

Framing Occupy Central: A Content Analysis of Hong Kong, American and British Newspaper Coverage , Mengjiao Yu

Theses/Dissertations from 2014 2014

Climate Change, Situational Theory of Problem Solving, and Issue Framing Effects , Michael Eddie Burch

British Cultural Narrative in Winston Churchill's Political Communication , Andres L. Faza

Communication Behavior Study of Support in the Arts Using the Situational Theory of Publics and the Theory of Reasoned Action , Ashleigh Gallant

A Comparison Study on Violent Video Games: Explained by the Gamers Themselves , Christopher John Kneifer

Applying Public Relations Theory to Assess Service-Learning Relationships , Karen Strand

EFFECTS OF COUNTRY OF ORIGIN, COUNTRY ANIMOSITY AND FOREIGN PRODUCT USAGE EXPERIENCES ON PRODUCT JUDGEMENT: A STUDY OF CHINESE CUSTOMERS , Cong Sui

The Accidental Motivator: Florida's Medicinal Marijuana Ballot Initiative's Impact on the Youth Vote , Robert Winsler

An Examination of Motives, Experiences, and Behaviors of MMORPG Players , Theresa Lynn Woods

Social Media Use During The College Transition , Kevin J. Yurasek

Theses/Dissertations from 2013 2013

Media and USF Students' Perception of Terrorism , Mamdoh Suleiman Al-Ameri

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