Thesis Statement

and Controlling
Idea
By: Cahyaning & Hidayatur Rochmah
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

01 What is thesis statement?

03 Steps to write the thesis
statement.

What are the characteristics

02 of thesis statement? 04 Parts of the thesis statement.
 What is the tesis statement?
Thesis statement contains the main idea for the whole essay. Just as major supporting
sentences need to directly support the topic sentence in a paragraph, the body paragraphs
in an essay must support the thesis statement in an essay .

A thesis statement is a sentence that states the topic and purpose of your essay. A good
thesis statement will direct the structure of your essay and will allow your reader to
understand the ideas you will discuss within your essay.
What are the characteristics of thesis statement
1. A thesis statement must be a statement, not a question.
2. A thesis statement must be a complete sentence. This mean that it must have a subject
and verb with a tense.
3. A thesis statement is an opinion or shows intent; it cannot be a simple statement of
fact. A fact does not need any support, and therefore you cannot write an essay about
it.
4. A thesis statement must state the controlling idea. This mean that you must state your
position on the topic; you simply annouce the topic of your essay.
 Steps to write the thesis statement
• Know the topic sentence.
• Make a question.
• Revisi the prompt or question into a preliminary or “working” thesis.

For example:
Topic: Corruption.
Question: what is the impact of corruption cases?
Revisi: The increasing number of corruption cases has a huge impact on the economy

Paragraph 2: The first impact is the increase in external debt.

Paragraph 3: corruption also has the potential to increase poverty.
Paragraph 4: High levels of corruption tend to discourage foreign investment.
Paragraph 5: concluding
 Parts of the thesis statement
A thesis statement for a long essay contains two parts:

Topic Controlling idea

The topic is the subject of the
essay or what the essay is
about.
Controlling idea is what you are going to
say about topic in ypur essay. A body
paragraph will then be written about
each listed controlling idea.
For example:
• For me, it is the sense of smell rather than the sense of taste that brings back happy
memorise.
• The sense off smell is much stronger in dogs then it is in human.
• Many scientists belive that the sense of smell is the most basic off all the sense in
humans.

Blue: topic
Red: controlling idea
 Parts of the thesis statement
Some thesis statements may also have a third component is topic, controlling idea and
predictor.
The predictor of a thesis statement can tell the reader how many body paragraph there
will be in the essay and/or what their content will be. The word “predictor “ is is used
because these devices help the reader “precict” what the rest of the text will be.
for examples:
• The movie was a joy to watch because of its visual effects, surround sound, and
actors.
• The daefening noise, the strong smells, and the ugly sights are the three main
disadvantages to living in a large city.

Blue: topic
Red: controlling idea
Green: predictor
Controlling idea
The controlling idea would be the overall argument or point that you’re trying
to make. At an essay level, a thesis statement would usually contain this main
idea. For a body paragraph in an essay, a controlling idea is a word a phrase in
the topic sentence of the paragraph that indicates what the paragraph is about.
Examples of controlling ideas
Topic sentence: I order to effectively control a country’s population, the
government must have a well-developed system of birth registration.
Controlling idea: “system of birth registration”
Exercise
Creating the thesis statement (topic, controlling idea, predictor) for:
 Smoking has two main negative effects on people’s health; it causes cancer
and high blood pressure.
 Living in a large city has two main disadvantages; big cities have excess of
pollution and traffic congestion.
Now identify the thesis statement in paragraph!

Although I was born in Hong Kong. I have spent most of my life in the United
STATES. However, my parents have always made sure that I did not forget my roots.
They always tell stories of what it was like to live in Hong Kong. To make sure my
brothers and sister and I know what is happening in China, my parents subscribe to
chinese cable TV. When we where growing up, we would watch the celebration of the
Chinese New Year, the news from Asia, and Chinese movies and music videos. As a
result, I value Chinese culture even though I am an American.
 When I was young, I always knew that I wanted to become a teacher someday.
When I played, I would often gather my dolls together and pretend to teach them how to
do math problems or how to read a book. As I grew older, my desire to become an ESL
teacher became clearer as I did some voulenteer teaching overseas and in the United
States. As I look back on my reasons for becoming a teacher, there are three reasons that
stand out. They are: my love for the English language, my innate interest in how people
learn, and my desire to help other people.
…Thank You…