Assignment:
Write a statement for your generation.
Broad topic:
My generation
Narrowed topic:
My generation’s beliefs
Further narrowed topic:
My generation’s beliefs about work
Sufficiently narrowed topic:
My generation’s beliefs about the balance between work and play
It took three steps, but her “sufficiently narrowed topic” has the right level of focus and can be adequately exam-
ined within the essay structure.
Turning Your Topic into a Question
A thesis is the main idea of an essay, and is a response to a topic. In the previous example, the student narrowed
her topic to “my generation’s beliefs about the balance between work and play.” To come up with a thesis, she can
restate that topic in the form of a question: “What are my generation’s beliefs about the balance between work and
play?” The answer to that question might be, “My generation believes that life should be made up of equal parts
of work and play.”
She might never use that sentence in her essay; she could reword it while writing, or after writing, a first draft.
Nevertheless, this exercise gives her a point from which she can launch into writing. Here are two more examples
of the evolution of a tentative thesis from an assignment, a focused topic, and a question.
Assignment:
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