Thesis Statements for MSN Course Papers

    

One of the ways to develop a thesis statement for papers in a Masters Program is to look at the grading criteria and develop a purpose of the paper sentence.  From that purpose statement, develop a clear sentence, which makes a claim, or states a fact for the overall topic of the paper.

For example:

The purpose of this paper is to help students learn scholarly writing. 

Thesis statement options:

Scholarly writing is not only required, but carefully scrutinized in advanced degree nursing programs.
OR
Scholarly writing is a challenge for many nurses.

As you can see, a thesis statement is really the over arching, broad based Main Point of a paper.  The remainder of the paper will address all the other literature related to the topic.Then each for each article analyze the information according to depth, breadth, advantages, disadvantages, comparisons and contrasts all related to the main topic.Finally, a summary of the paper as a whole helps to recap all the main points of each section in a paper.

By developing a strong, yet simple thesis statement, as well as a straightforward purpose of the paper sentence, whenever you feel your self “rambling”, you simply look back at these two sentences to stay focused.  You may even want to write these two sentences down and place them in front of you as you write.

Dr. Maggie