How to Write a Thesis Statement For Your Research Paper

Writing a good, solid thesis statement is an important skill to learn. The thesis statement serves many purposes: Its the springboard for the rest of your paper and the central point of your arguments. A well-formed thesis statement makes this process more fluid. A poor thesis statement makes it all the more difficult. It helps your reader understand what they should get out of the paper. Its your elevator pitch, a way to persuade the reader to your side. Heres how to write a rock-solid thesis statement: First Step Write some drafts. Your thesis statement isnt an immediate process. After doing enough research, you should be able to decide what side or point of view youre taking on a topic. Write down a list of 5 practice thesis statements that are summaries of your opinion. For example, if your topic is â€Å"How does the Syrian refugee crisis affect Europe?† you can write down some thoughts based on your research: Some citizens in European countries complain of increased violence (Cologne attacks on New Years Eve, Paris attacks, other individual cases). Some citizens are afraid of increased Muslim presence in their cities as they associate Muslims with terrorism. There are cultural conflicts and conflicts in values. It puts a strain on economic resources at a time when many countries are experiencing an economic crisis. There are many movements that encourage and welcome the refugees including some grassroots organizations to help clothe, feed and house them. As you write these sentences, you may notice specific recurring themes or threads. Gather the best of these themes and write a practice thesis statement: The Syrian refugee crisis has brought up a lot of fears and conflicts among European citizens. Second Step Test it to see if it holds up: Once youve identified the basic theme you wish to argue, youre now ready to edit your thesis statement. A good thesis statement has the following qualities: Its specific. A thesis statement needs to address a specific topic. A sentence like â€Å"Since the beginning of time, refugees have had a hard time integrating with their new nations† is too general and doesnt tell the reader enough about what you plan to discuss in your paper. If your statement is too general, narrow it down. Its polemic. A good thesis statement takes a strong stance. Dont take the middle road and be neutral. Whether or not you have a strong opinion on the topic, youll need to pick a side in order to present your research. A statement like the one in step 1 â€Å"The Syrian refugee crisis has brought up a lot of fears and conflicts among European citizens.† is a good start but it doesnt state an opinion. Try this instead: â€Å"The Syrian refugee crisis has had a negative impact on many European cities.† Someone could argue for or against this statement. Its supported by solid research. Maybe your personal opinion on this issue is that the Syrian refugee crisis has had a positive impact on Europe. But you havent been able to find enough evidence to support this viewpoint. In that case, your best bet is to go with the side where you can present the most convincing evidence, regardless of personal views. Its engaging. Does it make someone want to read further? Is it stated in such a way that intrigues someone and makes them want to find out more? If so, its a successful thesis statement. An ideal thesis statement is one that interests the readers and takes a strong stand on a controversial question. Take time to rework and edit your thesis statement before delving into the rest of your essay as it will form the way you present your evidence. Good luck and happy writing!

French and Haitian Revolutions essays

French and Haitian Revolutions essays Throughout the French and Haitian Revolutions both political and social revolutions occurred. With the revolutions occurring first in France, lead to the need for Haitians to create there own government. A revolution takes place when people attempt to change the features of their society, that effect people as a whole. Most revolutions are decided by mass violence, which cant be controlled by the ones that started the action. Power over nations doesnt always come to the most authoritative and successful leaders, but also to countries that have financial success. Leading into 1614, France struggled to be financially secured. Louis XVI found a problem with the governments technique of selling congressional chairs to produce profit, because it took the absolute power that the king had previously. With the king beginning to feel pressured, steps where taken to prevent the public to become part of the governing body. In 1789, the Estates-General meet for the first time since 1614. The Estate-General was called to deal with the financial crisis. This Estate-General consists of the First Estate, the clergy, the Second Estate, the nobility, and the Third Estate, commoners. There purpose was to address the parliament of Paris, because of an attack on the parliament that gives agreement to the royal plan for taxing the nobility. At this point Louis XVI expected not to lose power to the owners of seats (nobles), or commissioners that made up what was called the third estate. The third estate was composed of a group that held one vote. This group was complied from the rich merchants to the poor peasants. These people where normally out voted by the other two estates, and they felt they were being deal with unfairly. With being barred from attending a meeting, the members met at in an indoor tennis court, where they came up with the Tennis Court Oath, which would break away from the Estate-General, and declare them the National As...

Traditional and Patient-centered Outcomes with Three Classes of Asthma Article

Traditional and Patient-centered Outcomes with Three Classes of Asthma Medication - Article Example By ‘clinical variables’, the authors mean traditional end-points like symptoms, reliever use, forced expiratory volume in one second percent predicted, morning peak expiratory flow and airway hyperresponsiveness; ‘subjective variables’ mean patient-centred benefits like quality of life, patient global assessments and the feeling of improvement as determined by asthma control questionnaire. There are 2 hypotheses in this study which are: 1) Some traditional measurements (clinical variables) of improvement during asthma treatment may not reflect the estimation of benefit by the patient. 2) Patients may benefit (subjective variables) from a specific class of asthma medication in ways which were not captured by the measurement of lung function. Measures of asthma control are a much-debated topic in the recent times. This is because there are various measures to determine the efficacy of treatment. Most researchers use lung function and clinical improvement as criteria for improvement; even the international guidelines are based on these. However, what the researchers perceive as improvement may not be the same in case of patients. Patients may have their own meaning of improvement and only if they feel that a particular class of medicine is effective will they adhere to treatment. This is the basis of the hypotheses in the article under study. This study included 58 subjects from three sites in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia. Only those with mild to moderate asthma, who had previously used a short-acting ß2-agonist with/without an inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) 500  µg beclomethasone equivalent and in the age group 16 to 75 years, were included in the study. In all subjects, ICS treatment was ceased at an entry to the study. Those with mild to moderate asthma were only considered because, in reality, these patients need only monotherapy and they are symptomatic enough to show a treatment response.  Ã‚  

Wuthering Heights Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Wuthering Heights - Essay Example Mr. Earnshaw walked sixty miles with him wrapped in his coat, the beginning of his hardship. Upon his arrival, the only person who wanted him is Mr. Earnshaw. Other than the fact that Mrs. Earnshaw took an instant dislike to him, she complains about the added financial burden of another child in their home. â€Å"She did fly up―asking how he could fashion to bring that gipsy [sic] brat into the house, when they had their own bairns to feed, and to fend for† (35). the same; and we plagued and went on with him shamefully, for I wasnt reasonable enough to feel my injustice, and the mistress never put in a word on his behalf, when she saw him wronged† (36). The few time Mrs. Earnshaw is mentioned in the novel, she is not depicted as a nurturing person. She dies and her own children did not seemed to morn her loss. Heathcliffs hardship begins in his infancy, Nelly said he seemed as old as Catherine yet, he spoke gibberish, and she stated that â€Å"it crept Mr. Earnshaws door,† suggesting that he could not walk. A child who cannot walk at six, shows gross neglect in nurturing. He is an abandoned child, no one claimed him when Mr. Earnshaw found him and inquired about his where abouts. From hell on the streets to hell in the Earnshaws home is Heathcliffs plight. Catherine is the only person who befriends him. Mr. Earnshaw defends him but they never bonded. At an early age Heathcliff learns to keep his feelings inward. He never smiles or shows emotions; he becomes diabolical, due to the harsh treatments he received, especially from Hindley. An essay on eCheat.com, titled â€Å"Wuthering Heights-Catherine and Heathcliff† agrees that Heathcliff s stamina to endure pain is uncanny. Although Heathcliff was once subjected to vicious racism due to his dark skin color and experienced wearisome orphan years in Liverpool, this distortion had already begun when Mr. Earnshaw brought him into Wuthering Heights, a

Greatness of Los Angles Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Greatness of Los Angles - Essay Example The sun in LA is mostly blanketed by the fog. Sometimes, when the sunlight manages to make its way through the mist, the sand changes its color from grey to a pale shade of purplish pink. Shadows begin to squeeze short. As soon as the humidity increases, the brightness increases more than necessary. The sunlight falls on particles between me and the distant mountains. Millions of tiny prisms of fog droplets create a mirror like effect and reflect and refract the sunlight in every direction. The mess of bounced beams of light crowds the atmosphere until the brightness gets so intense that it causes a blinding effect. Mountains merge into the background, until they become completely unidentifiable from other features of the scenery. Cinematographers spend millions of dollars to create an effect like that artificially. All of that money can be saved by shooting in LA. In this way, LA not only enriches the movie with natural light effects, but also makes the shooting more profitable.

Ex-Convict Discrimination in Singapore

Ex-Convict Discrimination in Singapore After leaving the physical incarceration, ex-offenders find themselves entering into the second prison, where they have to tear down the invisible walls formed by the social stigma, the fear and distrust from the society (Youth Reloaded, 2005). Because mindset and attitudes are difficult to change, they often find difficulties in integrating back to the society. If the situation does not improve, inequality will continue to exist in the society. We should then implement pragmatic solutions to alleviate the discrimination against them. The Issues and Who Are Involved Ex-offenders are those who have finished serving their prison term or those with a criminal record or history (Guralnik, 1970). Every year in Singapore, around 11,000 ex-convicts are released back to the society (Singapore Prison Service). The employment statistics is one of the key indicators on the ability of these ex-offenders to reintegrate successfully in the society. Industrial Services Co-Operative Society (ISCOS) has helped 3,000 ex-offenders to find jobs so far (938Live, 2010). 81 percent of those who got a job stayed on for 3 months (Singapore Corporation of Rehabilitative Enterprises, 2008). In this essay, I seek to discuss on the causes, implications, and propose solutions on discrimination against ex-offenders. Support programmes such as the Yellow Ribbon Project (YRP) and organisations such as SCORE exist and it is important that we evaluate the effectiveness of these organisations in helping ex-offenders to reintegrate into the society. In my opinion, isolating other effects, the re-integration rate will therefore serves as an indication of the level of discrimination against these ex-offenders. The little interaction between the public and ex-inmates is a result of feeling of unequal treatments and stereotyping. The public treats ex-offenders unfairly as they feel that they should compensate for their wrongdoing. Ex-offenders themselves are also aware of the prejudice against them. Some resigned this to their fate and ended up avoid opening up to the society. It is therefore important that we recognize the existence of such issues and raise awareness to reduce the degree of discrimination and to assist these ex-offenders. Firstly, most of the offenders have tattoos on their body, which signifies status, power and belonging to a certain group. Because of stereotyping, we tend to group those who have tattoos as those who have committed crimes. Out of fear and concerns of being associated with these people, we reacted by standing far away. What we failed to recognise is that how we interpret the information we obtained affects our judgement. These tattoos could have been due to a moment of folly during their adolescent stage. On an organisational level, some employers are still unwilling to hire ex-offenders, because they believe that leopards can never change its spots. It is heartening to see the number of ex-offenders being employed have increased with the years but we cannot guarantee that they have been given equal rights as the others. For example, at least 30 employees at the Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa had to leave their job because all of them failed the Casino Regulatory Authority (CRA)s background checks. Failure to disclose was taken to assess the applicants integrity, honesty and character (Lim Lim, 2010). There is no difference on whether if those with criminal records declared or not, they still had their contracts terminated anyway. Does the criminal history necessarily the best and only predictors for future performance? Do we judge those have continuously erred and condemn that they do not deserve the chance to repent? In addition, job applicants are required to declare that if they have been convicted in a court in any country before. Because this is usually a one-liner question, ex-offenders applications can be filtered out without considering the seriousness of the offences or even the recidivism rate of the offender (Youth Reloaded, 2005). This may provide an opportunity for employers to screen out ex-offenders and justify if there any inappropriate acts in the company in future (Coble-Krings,2007).Being desperate, these applicants may lie about their background and will be marked down further for dishonesty. Moving up to legislation, the Registration to Criminals Act was amended in 2005, to allow the ex-offenders to mark their records as spent, meaning that there is no need to discuss the existence of the records in most cases, if the offences committed are minor and they were crime-free for five years (Attorney-Generals Chambers, 2005). This means that those with serious offences such as sentences imposed include imprisonment term of more than 3 months or a fine exceeding $200,000, are not allowed to do so, thus, the implementation of the policy is unfair as it deprives those with a serious offence a chance to start anew. Comparing with United States, the treatments of ex-offenders in Singapore are, in my opinion, much better. In the United States, the ex-offenders were not allowed to apply for employment licenses or work in organisations dealing with those that needs more attention, such as elderly and children (Love, 2006). Why is it important for us to talk about it? The society plays a significant role in the reintegration of the ex-offenders. Ex-offenders, no matter what mistakes they made, are still part of us and are assets to the society. However, despite their willingness to start to from ground zero, we shun away and discriminate them. High unemployment is linked to increase in rate of recidivism (Finn, 1998).Therefore, when they are unable to secure a job, the path of recidivism seems easier and they will revert back to their old ways to survive. This remains risky although the recidivism rate in Singapore has remained at 25 % since 2006 (Singapore Prison Service, 2009). Where can we start to fix the problem? No steady source of income means ex-offenders and their families may not be able to afford basic necessities for survival and cannot move away from their social class. Those families that grew desperate may resort to crimes to get what they wanted. Thus, it is difficult for ex-offenders to live a better life when they are not given the same opportunities. The vicious cycle continues as their future generations may follow the footsteps of the older generations. To reduce and even eliminate the stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination against these ex-offenders, it is important that we find out the root causes of this issue and implement various programmes and activities to encourage active participation as increased interaction may improve the perspective of the public towards ex-offenders. To begin with, organizations should organize more activities to provide both the public and ex-offenders an opportunity to interact. Such activities may be visit to the prisons and / or halfway houses, outdoor and indoor activities, community service projects or even, encourage ex-offenders to participate in existing events such as Yellow Ribbon Prison Run. Through interaction, we develop bonds and trust and these may change the perspective of the public towards them and therefore reduce the extent of discrimination. Many ex-offenders have low self-esteem and are afraid of rejection. Therefore, we should involve the ex-offenders in the planning and executing of events in the community. These events provide an opportunity for the ex- inmates to showcase their talents in various areas. Also, besides the technical skills acquired from the support programmes, the programmes should also focus on soft skills such as interpersonal skills. These ex-convicts should also learn more about resume writing and interview skills, as these will help them to market themselves well. As mentioned above, employers often do not want to give ex-offenders a second chance. Non-acceptance has killed the only hope that these ex-offenders have to reintegrate into the society. Currently, we have campaigns such as Help To Unlock The Second Prison (Yellow Ribbon Project), which focuses on the role that society plays. However, I feel that the campaigns should also focus on the ability and skills that these ex-offenders have to contribute. We have job seminars from SCORE and ISCOS, but to enhance the public confidence in them, we can consider cooperating with companies to provide these ex-offenders transitional jobs as probationers (Fahey, Roberts Engel, 2006) to start them off for several years so that they have relevant working experience, instead of merely skills acquiring in the rehabilitative programmes. After the transition period, these organizations can also help to recommend the employees to other companies. We should further improve on the interview question so that it allows the ex-offender to declare that they have convicted for which offences and also the year of conviction. Company can now decide if these offences are detrimental to the interests of the stakeholders. The company will suffer the heaviest losses if the ex-offenders cause any troubles. Also, the job applicants gain from this as the employers are practising selective screening rather than a total elimination. There are also calls to ban the declaration box so that past criminal record will not affect employment. (Henry Jacobs, 2007). However, I feel that the employers are right to protect their interests and the ex-offenders should be honest and convince the employers on their efforts to stay out of crime. I acknowledge that the amendment to the Registration of Criminals Act is a good move to redress discrimination. However, I feel that this should be made applicable to all ex-offenders, retaining the five years crime-free period, but instead of disqualifying serious offenders, their time-frame could be extended up to 10 years. If the solutions proposed above are being implemented on a long-term basis, the mindset of the public may change and be more accepting towards ex-offenders and the Singapore will move towards as a progressive society as a whole.

Essay on the Love Story of Antony and Cleopatra -- Antony Cleopatra Es

The Love Story of Antony and Cleopatra      Ã‚   The tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra can be said to have an overall effect of comical lightness. In this way, it is altogether different from the preceding tragedies, although the tragedy that leads to the death and destruction of Antony and Cleopatra is definitely a matter of choice rather than of circumstances that engulf the hero. Yet, ultimately their tragic ending differs greatly from the ominous feeling of those that preceded it. Antony and Cleopatra concerns itself with typically distressing and grave imagery, most importantly the theme of permanent loss. Although circumstance plays a part, the tragic hero is damned by what he himself does and is an active participant in his own downfall. In this sense, Antony is a tragic hero, although Shakespeare also presents him as a man torn between the tragedy of a powerful Rome and comedy in the pleasurable Egypt. In due course Antony could not sustain his duty to Rome, confused by his unwillingness and incapability to disregard his passion for Cleopatra. He most flippantly wed Octavia knowing fully that he could not give up his prior love. He relayed "I will to Egypt: And though I make this marriage for my peace, I’ th’ East my pleasure lies" (2.3.39-41). His underestimation of consequence at this time directly led to his tragic ending. In a conversation about Cleopatra, even Antony’s attendant Enobarbus showed understanding of Antony’s character flaws and the depth of his passions:   Ã‚  Ã‚   MAECENAS. Now Antony must leave her utterly.   Ã‚  Ã‚   ENOBARBUS. Never; he will not. (2.2.239-240) The virtue of irremediable loss was also explored by Antony. His deficiency of true Roman character during the Battle of Actium resulted in h... ...t love story with an ironically happy conclusion. Works Cited and Consulted Adelman, Janet. "Infinite Variety: Uncertainty and Judgment in Antony and Cleopatra." William Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1988, 21-34. Bloom, Harold, ed. Introduction. Modern Critical Interpretations: William Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1988. ---. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. New York: Riverhead Books, 1998. Kittredge, George Lyman. Introduction. Antony and Cleopatra. By William Shakespeare. Waltham, MA: Blaisdell Publishing Company, 1966. Markels, Julian. The Pillar of the World: Antony and Cleopatra in Shakespeare's Development. Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1968. Shakespeare, William. Antony and Cleopatra. Ed. John Wilders. London: Routledge, 1995.