Thesis statement viability
Here are first 4 of 7 positive signs

Learning how to write a good thesis statement means learning to cull potential duds. Some essential thesis characteristics are obvious — or at least they should be obvious.

Unfortunately, when students are just learning to write, they'll be thrilled just to get words on paper. It won't occur to them to do a thesis analysis to see if what they wrote is actually a statement.

(Let's be honest. They may not even realize that the sentence format is part of what defines a thesis statement.)

If they won't look for the obvious things like a complete sentence, they certainly won't look for subtle differences between potential thesis statement winners and losers until they discover them for themselves. Trial and error is a potent teaching tool.

Signs of thesis viability

There are seven signs of a potentially viable thesis. The signs near the top of the list are the most important — and quickest to learn. Students will need a fair amount of writing practice before they see the importance of the later items.

1) Single-sentence format

Statement is a synonym for sentence. Fragments like "causes of poor spelling" or "narrative poems" cannot be used as a thesis because they are not complete sentences. A working thesis must always be a complete sentence.

By the same rule, two or more sentences or sentence fragments won't cut it. The main idea must be one complete sentence, no more, no less.

2) Declarative sentence

A thesis must not only be a sentence, but it must also be a declarative sentence.

Writers cannot use questions as their main idea and expect to produce a decent piece of writing. Questions straddle an issue instead of taking a stand.

Writers need to take a stand in order to explore an idea thoroughly. (If need be, they can change their position after they gather evidence.)

A sentence has to express an opinion — even if it's a timid opinion — or it can't function as the main idea of an essay.

3) Clear, precise terms

A good thesis must be free of terms that could be interpreted differently by different readers.

For example, one person might understand "lots of people" to be more than would fit in his living room. Another person might understand it to mean more than half the world population.

Rather than be vague, writers should use specific terms in their working thesis even at the risk of guessing or exaggerating.

If writers have to do formal research to develop their essays, the main words in the thesis statement become search key words. A phrase like "all college-bound seniors" or "Democratic voters in Mercer County" will be a better search term than "lots of people."

After writers sift the evidence pertinent to their theses they can reword their working theses to fit the facts before they put them into their papers.

4) Concise wording

Urge students to keep to fewer than 25 words — the fewer the better. Like a road sign "Franklin, next right," all the statement has to do is keep the writer headed in the right direction.

The initial working statement is just for the student's personal use. Nobody else has to see it, so it doesn't have to be fancy.

Signs 5, 6, and 7 plus a tip for teaching students how to write a good thesis statement are on a new page.