Informative Thesis Statement

Are you working on an informative essay? If so, then one of your biggest challenges is to write a thesis statement. Your thesis statement will explain what your essay is all about, and it’s an important way of summarizing your major findings and setting the stage for your readers. Yet an informative thesis statement isn’t necessarily simple to write. In this statement, you are telling the purpose of your essay, but you are not making an argument or expressing a view as you might in a different piece of writing. Your thesis statement should be clear and accessible to readers, and it should also make them want to keep reading to learn more about the topic. The examples in this lesson show you what a thesis statement might look like in an informative essay about a variety of topics.

Some Examples

Okay, here are examples of information thesis statements. We’ll go through these examples one at a time and then examine them with a little more depth.

Literature from the Soviet Union tends to use strategies of realism and to depict the proletariat as happy and hard-working.

This is an example of an informative thesis statement that sets the stage for an essay about a body of literature. While the statement might be construed as making an argument, it’s also clear and generally non-controversial. This type of thesis statement summarizes facts and ideas from a variety of sources. The essay that follows it should offer facts that prove the ideas in the thesis statement. It’s important to note that the thesis is broad and factual in nature, and shows that the rest of the essay will be teaching the readers information about a particular topic.

The Reconstruction Era saw massive transformations in African American leadership in the United States.

This example shows what an informative thesis statement might look like in the context of history or social studies. As with the previous example, the statement is clear, direct, and gets right to the point. The organization of the essay that follows will be dedicated to showing what the massive transformations were and why they mattered historically.

The biodiversity in the United States is being threatened due to climate change.

This thesis statement shows how an informative essay about science might commence. This example is also important because if phrased differently, the statement might seem argumentative or persuasive rather than informative. However, the statement is written as a fact, not as an opinion about climate change. It intentionally makes a strong and clear statement, avoiding any words that might be construed as subjective or argumentative. The essay that follows will be dedicated to providing information that proves the statement given in this thesis.

In this essay, I will show that the Impressionists relied on three major techniques: innovative use of color, soft brush strokes, and a willingness to see from a new and less realistic perspective.

Thesis statements that begin with ‘in this essay’ are controversial. Some critics see this as a problematic way to begin, while others consider it a strong way to organize a piece of writing and clearly lay out what you’re going to say. It’s up to you and your instructors to decide your own view on this writing tool. In any case, if you’re going to set up your thesis statement this way, you will want to get as specific as you can with the type of information your essay will provide. The thesis statement functions as an outline here, describing exactly what each of the major sections or paragraphs of the essay will be about.

The life and times of Euclid offer important insights into what he was able to contribute to geometry.

Sometimes informative essays are biographical in nature. If you’re writing a biography of a person as an informative essay, you’ll want to create a thesis statement that generalizes the major thing you want to teach about their life without getting into too much detail. Try to think of one or two things that really summarize the importance of the person’s life or their work. Remember that you will have the rest of your essay to flesh out your general statement using detailed evidence from their life and work.

Lesson Summary

Let’s take a couple of moments to review what we’ve learned in this lesson covering informative thesis statement examples. First off, we learned that a thesis statement explains what an essay is all about and an important way of summarizing your major findings and setting the stage for your readers. We looked at several different examples of thesis statements in different contexts, but the following main points should be considered in pretty much all cases.

A good thesis statement:

• Summarizes facts and ideas from a variety of sources
• Is clear, direct, and gets right to the point
• Is written as a fact, not as an opinion, but still makes strong and clear statements
• Avoids any words that might be construed as subjective or argumentative
• May or may not contain the words ‘in this essay,’ since they’re considered controversial (it’s up to you and your instructors to decide your own view on this writing tool)
• When covering a biographical subject, generalizes the major thing you want to teach about their life without getting into too much detail

Now you should have a good idea of crafting an effective thesis statement, so try and recall these examples and pointers the next time you’re struggling to figure out how to craft a thesis for a big essay.