Refining Your Thesis

The sentence you write last, and put first

• The thesis appears at the start of an essay and should be written near the end of your planning.
• You cannot know what your evidence supports until you have looked at it.
• Writing the thesis first is how students end up defending a position their evidence does not reach.

Writing the thesis before checking the evidence is like printing a menu before seeing what is in the kitchen.

Narrow it until it excludes

• A thesis should be specific enough to constrain what follows.
• Test: name a paragraph your thesis rules out. If you cannot, it is not directing anything.
• "Education matters" rules nothing out; "this measure improves the figure it reports and nothing else" rules out most of the essay you might have written.

Qualify it to the ground you can hold

• An unqualified thesis is defeated by one counter-example.
• Narrow it to the ground your evidence actually covers: in these cases, where X holds, for this group.
• A qualified thesis is not a weaker thesis — it is a defensible one.

Change it when the evidence says so

• If, while drafting, the evidence does not support the thesis you began with, change the thesis.
• Examiners reward an argument that fits its evidence.
• There are no marks for having predicted your own conclusion.

Four checks before you commit

• Could a reasonable person disagree? Can I name a paragraph it rules out?
• Does it respond to the prompt as asked? Does my evidence actually reach this far?
• A thesis that passes all four is worth the sentence it takes.

Write from evidence that only covers year 11

• The evidence is all from year 11. The first thesis said the whole school.
• Say how the thesis should change, and when it should be worded.