ELA 8

Name:______________
Informative Paper Thesis
How to Write a Good Thesis Statement-Chronological Order
The thesis is truly the heart and soul of any research paper. It states what the paper is about and
gives the reader an idea of what information will follow.
Think of it as the topic sentence for your entire paper.
The informative essay is actually one of the most straightforward assignments you will ever
encounter. Its purpose is simply to describe or explain a specific topic to the reader, using factual
information. You do not have to develop an argument or prove anything in an expository essay;
you only have to understand your topic and present it to the reader in a logical, cogent manner.
An expository-writing prompt will ask you to describe the changes wrought by the Industrial
Revolution, but it will not require you to take a position on whether the Industrial Revolution had
a positive or negative impact on America.
For your informative essay, you will be writing about one, specific event in history that had an
impact on culture.
However, you will still have to write a thesis statement for this. You can do this two ways:
explaining the event chronologically or by explaining the cause and effect of that event.
By explaining an event chronologically, you will tell how the event started, how it continued,
and how it ended. This is usually done by breaking down the event into three smaller events
within it. You can use the following graphic to help you:

Blank was an
important event in
history that

Event

started with____,
continued with___,
and ended with___.

3 Parts of Event

Thesis

Lets try an example:

The Bed-Ins for
Peace was an
important event in
history that

Started with the

Vietnam War,
continued with John
and Yokos protest,
and ended with their
song.

The Bed-Ins for Peace was an

important event in history that
started with the Vietnam War,
continued with John and Yoko
s protest, and ended with
their song.

ELA 8
How to Write a Good Thesis Statement-Cause/Effect
The other way to write an informative essay is to explain it from a causational standpoint. In
other words, you will inform your reader about the topic by explaining what caused it and two
effects that the event had on culture. You can use the following graphic to help you:

As a result of blank,

this happened to
culture and this
happened to culture.

Lets try an example:

As a result of the BedIns for peace,

many people
criticized war and
todays society feels
more comfortable
protesting.

As a result of the Bed-Ins for

Peace, many people criticized war
and todays society feels more
comfortable protesting.

Next, choose one approach and try filling in the graphic organizer for your topic as the first
step in creating your thesis statement:

Use the information in your graphic organizer to write a final thesis statement in the space
provided below. Remember, the thesis statement will act like the topic sentence for your entire
informative essay. Be sure to follow the guidelines for writing a thesis statement.
Thesis statement:
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________