Thesis or Anchor Statements

What is a thesis or anchor statement?

• A thesis statement is similar to a hypothesis
• It is a proposition that needs investigative research to test its validity
• It is also the focus of the whole report or thesis

Reports which are more experimental frame their thesis statements as hypotheses. Then, the conclusion will either report that you have been able to confirm the initial hypothesis, or that your research disconfirms it.

Examples of Thesis statements [Lester, 1990: 112-3]

• Title: The Language of Television Advertising

Thesis: The rhetorical schemes of repetition enable advertisers to pitch their products effectively within a 30-second time slot.

 

• Title: Computer Control in Business Applications

Thesis: A company should program the computer to safeguard both valuable documents and its own software.

Both of these examples:

• consist of a declarative sentence, which
• focuses the argument toward an investigative issue, which
• will be resolved in the general discussion and conclusion.

Note: the distinction between topic and proposition (statement of an idea)

• A title is a topic
• A thesis (or hypothesis) is a proposition