Thesis I Worksheet

The truth is rarely pure and never simple Oscar Wilde

Your thesis SHOULD NOT:

Make a claim that can be applied wholesale to other texts. If you
can insert the title of another text in your thesis and it is still true,
your thesis is too general.
Ex. One:Somethings Gotta Give tells a tale of love lost
and, after a series of harrowing misadventures, regained.
Ex. Two: Elf tells a tale of love lost and, after a series
of harrowing misadventures, regained.
Works okay, doesnt it? Thats not okay.

Invoke or rephrase a clich.

Ex.: It has been said opposites attract.
Give shows us just how true that can be.

Somethings Gotta

Make any claim about Society, The History of Mankind, People

Since the Beginning of Time, All the People of the World, Everyone
Who Ever Lived, etc. [n.b.: starting with a definition from
Websters is almost as bad, since its been done a million times!]
Ex. One: Since the time of Adam and Eve, men and women have
had difficulty seeing eye to eye. Somethings Gotta Give
updates this age-old formula for the modern day.
Ex. Two: In modern society, older women are anything but
sexy. Somethings Gotta Give goes against this, showing
how women can gain, rather than lose, attractiveness as
they age.

Your thesis statement SHOULD:

Rule out most of the material of a text, focusing tightly enough to
make a specific claim.
Be a little strange. In other words, it should assert something that

initially seems counterintuitive or surprising. You will then make

sense of it as you move through the paper.
Be able to fit into this structure, the Magic Thesis Sentence:
By looking at ___________, we can see ______________, which most readers don't see;
this is important because _______________.
Ex.:
On the surface, Somethings Gotta Give is a frothy
screwball comedy in which opposites gradually attract. If
we look beyond the central romance, however, and focus on
the relationships across the generation gap, a different
picture emerges. From this perspective, this seemingly
innocuous film seethes with Baby Boomer resentment at being
replaced by their children in the public eye.

Note how this thesis hones in on a particular aspect of the filmthe

intergenerational relationshipsand says something weird about it,
something casual viewers might miss...