The Circle of Crafting a Thesis

There is nothing more stressful than trying to draft the perfect thesis. It’s crazy that so much pressure is put on just one sentence, and most of the time, I don’t honestly know what my thesis is until I finish a paper. I usually start with a great idea, but it takes me writing the paper to realize what I am trying to prove. Yes, I could hypothetically write the paper first and decide on the thesis after, but so often, teachers ask for the thesis first, and doing things in reverse order will only make things more complicated for me. So I have often questioned: what is the perfect way to craft a thesis? I tried countless organizational charts from well-meaning teachers, but they always focused more on the paper as a whole than on building a thesis. I tried asking my friends for help most of the time, but they seemed just as confused as me. Kena’s thesis-building presentation was wonderful because it felt like I was finally getting instructions. One of my biggest pet peeves is when a teacher assigns extremely open-ended questions. I think there should always be at least some guidelines for work because if not, you can’t blame the student when they get a bad grade. (To clarify, if the teacher has a rubric, but the student doesn’t bother to read it, that would be the fault of the student) Sadly theses are always open-ended; it’s all about what you want to prove and your creativity. The presentation made me understand the true boundaries of a thesis and how to write it. My biggest takeaway was, to be specific, which I am realizing is something I need help with. Most of the time, I like to make big broad claims because I am scared of being wrong, and I have so much that I want to say in a paper. However, I need to focus on honing in on what it is I want to say. Once again leading me back to my original problem of never knowing what I am trying to say until I write the paper. This is the circle of crafting a thesis.