Level 5 — Advanced · Structural & Academic Writing
Task 49: Stating Your Own Thesis
Write a short paragraph that states an overall position and backs it with two or three supporting points — the writer's-side mirror of Lesson 49's book-level thesis reading.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this task, you should be able to:
- State an overall position in one clear sentence
- Back that position with two or three distinct supporting points
- Keep the supporting points genuinely different from each other, not restatements
Introduction
Lesson 49 taught you to reconstruct an author's overall argument across a whole book — the thesis, and the points built to support it — before evaluating any of it. This task has you build that same structure yourself, in miniature: one thesis, a small set of distinct reasons behind it.
The Rule, for Writing
Core Concept
A thesis is one sentence stating your overall position — not a topic, not a question, a position someone could disagree with. The supporting points that follow should each give a genuinely different reason for believing it, the way a book's chapters each add a different kind of support to its overall argument rather than repeating the same one.
Example
Thesis: "The company should move its customer support team back in-house." Support 1: response times have gotten worse since it was outsourced. Support 2: customers increasingly complain about not being understood. Support 3: the cost savings from outsourcing were smaller than projected. Three different kinds of reasons — speed, quality, cost — not the same point said three ways.
Your Turn
Your Turn
Write a short paragraph (100-150 words). Start with one sentence stating a clear position on something you actually believe — about your work, your studies, or something in your daily life. Follow it with 2-3 sentences, each giving a distinct supporting reason.
Vocabulary in Context
thesisnounformal
the main position or argument a piece of writing defends (মূল বক্তব্য)
Often with central thesis, defend a thesis, state a thesis
“The essay's thesis is that reliability matters more than price.”
distinctadjectiveformal
clearly different from something else, not overlapping (স্বতন্ত্র)
Often with distinct from, clearly distinct, two distinct categories
“Safety and security are distinct concepts.”
Model Answer
Show a model answer
Our team should switch to a four-day work week. Productivity data from similar companies shows output per employee did not drop after the change, which removes the main financial worry. Employee retention has also improved wherever it was tried, saving on hiring and training costs over time. Finally, our own recent survey found that scheduling flexibility was the single most requested change among staff, which means the shift addresses a real, stated need rather than a guess about what people want.
Self-Check
Self-Check
- Is your first sentence a genuine position someone could reasonably disagree with, not just a topic?
- Does each supporting point give a different kind of reason, not the same reason restated?
- Would a reader who only read your first sentence know exactly what you're arguing for?
Next: Writing 50 — Reading and Writing "Although" Together: writing sentences that concede a point before stating your real claim, the capstone structural pattern from Lesson 50.