Significance and Meaning of the Thesis Statement

According to Locke et al, the thesis statement should provide " a specific and accurate synopsis of the overall purpose of the study " .

Method and proposal-writing texts give scant attention to the thesis statement; they incorporate into discussions about other topics. For example, an author refers to it within the context of the research question and objective;as a part of the research problem and within the statement of the problem. When one closely examine the content of these passages, each reference describes the central, controlling idea in a study. For this discussion I call the description of this idea " the thesis statement " because it conveys the overall intent or purpose of a study. The problem of a study is conveyed through an introduction. The writing of research questions and objectives, a topic that deserves attention in its own right.


The construction of a good thesis statement is based on the paradigm of study. Qualitative and quantitative thesis statements address similar content, but their precise form and language differ because of the rhetorical and methodological distinctions of each paradigm.