What is a thesis and theory?

Believe it or not, there are not a great many rules in essay writing. The rules that there are are meant to keep you organized while you write and to keep the reader organized as he or she reads.

Every essay needs to have a first paragraph that is an introduction. That should include a little overview of what you are going to discuss, a way to get the reader's attention, sometimes called "a hook," and a thesis statement. So, for example, if I were writing an essay about education, I would make a few general statements about education and perhaps say something about how everyone has strong opinions about it. 

A thesis statement, which should be the last sentence in your introduction, should state what the main idea in your essay is and list the ways you are going to support that idea. For example, you might be writing an argumentative essay on capital punishment. Your main idea might be that you think there should be capital punishment. Or your main idea might be that there should not be capital punishment. Either way, the thesis statement needs to let the reader know what your thought is on this issue. The other part of the thesis statement needs to let the reader know what the points are you are going to make to support your idea on this subject. In other words, you need to say "There should be capital punishment because of A, B, and C" or you need to say "There should not be capital punishment because of A, B, and C."  That is the form that a thesis statement can take, stating your main idea and the reasons for that idea.

What happens next is that you need to write a paragraph for each of those reasons.  These paragraphs should be in the order in which you list the reasons in the thesis statement.  Reason A would be your first body paragraph, Reason B would be your second body paragraph, and Reason C would be your third body paragraph.

Each body paragraph needs to begin with a topic sentence that lets the reader know which point is going to be discussed in that paragraph. The rest of the paragraph needs to have evidence to support that point. You might have statistics or some opinions from experts or support your point with logic.  To keep each body paragraph organized, you must use evidence that is about the point of the paragraph, not about the point of some other paragraph.  Each should be focused on just that one point.

Finally, you need a paragraph that is a conclusion to the essay.  In the conclusion, you remind the reader what your main idea is, not in the same words as the thesis statement, though, using another way to express that idea.  You also need to review for the reader the points you have made, so the reader has a reminder of all you have had to say.

Whether you are writing a literary analysis, a persuasive essay, an argumentative essay, a problem/solution essay, a cause and effect essay, or a compare and contrast essay, these are the basic rules for writing. You can see that most of these rules are a way to get you and keep you organized as you write and that when you follow these rules, you make it easier for the reader to stay organized, too, which helps the reader to understand and follow along very easily.