Developing a Thesis Statement

Your thesis statement helps you stay focused on your goals for communicating with others in a public speaking situation. But staying focused on goals also matters in communication contexts such as running a meeting. As we discussed in Chapter 10, clearly stating the purpose of your meeting and organizing your agenda around it helps everyone stay focused and makes you more likely to achieve your goals.

Once you have homed in on your topic, general purpose, and specific speech purpose, you can start to encapsulate your speech in the form of a thesis statement, a statement that conveys the central idea about your topic. The thesis statement must clearly summarize what you want the audience to get out of your speech, but is not the same thing as your specific purpose statement; as noted, it is more specific. Revisiting the example about volunteer reading programs, note how your thesis statement works with your general purpose and specific speech purpose and how it expresses the core idea that you want your listeners to walk away with:

Thesis statement: Volunteers who read with local elementary school children through programs such as Read to a Child improve young lives by enhancing children’s self-esteem and expanding their possibilities for academic success.

Can you see how the thesis statement works? Offering a solid thesis statement your audience will remember long after your visual aids have faded from their minds will help you achieve your general purpose and your specific purpose: to persuade your listeners to get out there and read with local kids. For additional examples of thesis statements, see Table 12.2.

Table :

TABLE 12.2 GENERATING A THESIS STATEMENT
Topic General Purpose Specific Purpose Thesis Statement
Low-carbohydrate diets To inform To inform listeners about low-carbohydrate diets so that they can make good decisions about their own eating habits Before choosing to start a low-carbohydrate diet, it is important to have a thorough understanding of how carbohydrates affect your body and what the possible benefits and risks of the diet are so that you can make an informed decision about your health.
Study-abroad programs To persuade To have listeners realize that studying abroad is an exciting opportunity and encourage them to consider spending a semester taking classes in another country Studying abroad is an amazing opportunity to learn about another culture, to enhance your educational experience, and to make yourself more appealing to prospective graduate schools and employers.
My grandparents To honor an amazing couple on their fiftieth wedding anniversary (special occasion) To celebrate with my family and my grandparents’ friends in light of this happy milestone in their lives In big and small ways, my grandparents have shared their fifty years of love and commitment with their family, their congregation, and their students, having been dedicated teachers for three decades.