Write an analytical essay, considering a research question like “What accounts for the comparatively low voter turnout numbers in the US?”

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1) A statement of your specific topic.

2) A statement of your purpose (for this class, it must be either analytical or persuasive), which will of course determine whether you are writing as an advocate of some course or position or whether you are writing in a more objective fashion.

3) A statement of your anticipated audience. (Are you writing for general readers or for some particular group – nurses, for instance, or veterans, etc.?)

4) A statement of your preliminary thesis or, if you are writing a persuasive essay, your proposition.

Let me remind you that a thesis statement is not just a sentence that tells what your topic is. Nor is it a statement of some obvious fact. Your thesis is a statement that focuses your work in on the particular issue you will be dealing with, in a clear and narrow form. For instance, “Voting is an important privilege granted by the U.S. Constitution” would not be a good thesis for a paper. It’s too broad and too obvious. How could you create a more focused thesis around the topic of voting?

Finally, if you are going to write a persuasive paper, you must have a proposition – a statement of the point you are going to argue. You cannot argue a question, nor can you argue two sides of an issue, so your proposition must take a stand. “Should more Americans vote?” would not be a proposition, but “Americans have a responsibility to inform themselves about the issues and to vote” would be. So would “Uninformed people should not vote.”

And if you were going to write an analytical essay, you might be considering a research question like “What accounts for the comparatively low voter turnout numbers in the US?”; your thesis might then be something like “Because we are assaulted by candidate ads, robo-calls, advocacy from television pundits and more, many Americans find it difficult to decide whom and what to believe and therefore simply decide not to make a decision and not to vote.”

Notice that this kind of thesis may be longer than a proposition is likely to be, because it indicates the direction in which the writer intends to take his or her analysis.