Help with a Thesis Statement..

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iBananaCrazy

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Sep 20, 2010
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I have an persuasive essay due tomorrow about why the No Child Left Behind Act is doing more harm than good, yes it's persuasive, so it doesn't matter if the point its not completely true, I'm just trying to argue it, but the only problem is that I can't think of a good opening paragraph, like a thesis statement, and the "grabber", as my teacher calls it.

Any help please? And no trolling would be nice.
 

Hairetos

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Jul 5, 2010
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In English, a thesis statement should be a very basic summation of what you're going to talk about. So if your position is against NCLB, then say something along the lines of "NCLB does more harm than good because of x, y, z". That's the most basic form. Alternatively, you can combine x, y, and z into one generalized statement to avoid sounding really...boring.

Example A: NCLB does more harm than good, as it cripples funding for underperforming schools, eliminates meritocratic education, and places too much attention on testing. (Yes, I just pulled those out of my ass).

Example B: NCLB does more harm than good as evidenced by its negative impact on underperforming schools and damage to healthy educational dynamics.

Notice in example B I merged the last two points of Example A into "healthy educational dynamic". It sometimes sounds better and less prescriptive to do it that way, but then requires you to define "healthy educational dynamic" later in your paper. When writing papers, I just follow the "what sounds good" philosophy. Also, don't use acronym's in an intro paragraph (or at all if you can help it).

Also, your teacher should differentiate between thesis and grabber, because they are two different things. A "grabber" is something that grabs the reader's attention in the first paragraph, usually the first sentence. It's often a rhetorical question, statistic, etc. that pertains to the subject matter that better captivates the reader than just jumping right in.
 

iBananaCrazy

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Sep 20, 2010
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Alright, thanks a lot for the help. You explained how to make one better than Google did. My problem was knowing what to write the thesis statement about, but seeing as you said you write it about what your going to be talking about, I finally understand.

Thanks again,
Chris