Willow
New member
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2026
- Messages
- 10
I'm gonna keep it real with you all. I'm a sophomore and I thought I had this whole college thing figured out. Classes are fine, social life is fine, but then my lit professor hit us with our first major paper and suddenly I'm staring at my laptop at 2am with tears in my eyes wondering if I even know how to form a complete sentence anymore. 
Specifically? Thesis statements. I cannot write one to save my life. My professor keeps writing "too vague" or "so what?" in the margins and honestly I don't even know what she wants from me anymore. Like I'll write something I think is pretty solid and she just... destroys it. I spent three hours last night rewriting the same thesis over and over and it got WORSE each time.
I know thesis statements are like... the foundation. The essentials in writing 101 rule. But how do you even know if yours is good? What separates a C thesis from an A thesis? Because right now mine all feel like I'm just stating the obvious. "In this essay I will discuss..." No wait we're not supposed to do that anymore. "This paper argues that..." Okay but then what??
My roommate tried to help and she was like "just make it arguable" and I wanted to throw my laptop out the window. EVERYTHING is arguable if you try hard enough. Like "the sky is blue" well actually at sunset it's orange so checkmate??? That's not helping me.
I guess what I'm really asking is: what are the actual essentials in writing a thesis that doesn't suck? How do you know when you've got it right? Is there a checklist or something? Because right now I feel like I'm throwing spaghetti at the wall and nothing is sticking and my grade is suffering for it.
Specifically? Thesis statements. I cannot write one to save my life. My professor keeps writing "too vague" or "so what?" in the margins and honestly I don't even know what she wants from me anymore. Like I'll write something I think is pretty solid and she just... destroys it. I spent three hours last night rewriting the same thesis over and over and it got WORSE each time.
I know thesis statements are like... the foundation. The essentials in writing 101 rule. But how do you even know if yours is good? What separates a C thesis from an A thesis? Because right now mine all feel like I'm just stating the obvious. "In this essay I will discuss..." No wait we're not supposed to do that anymore. "This paper argues that..." Okay but then what??
My roommate tried to help and she was like "just make it arguable" and I wanted to throw my laptop out the window. EVERYTHING is arguable if you try hard enough. Like "the sky is blue" well actually at sunset it's orange so checkmate??? That's not helping me.
I guess what I'm really asking is: what are the actual essentials in writing a thesis that doesn't suck? How do you know when you've got it right? Is there a checklist or something? Because right now I feel like I'm throwing spaghetti at the wall and nothing is sticking and my grade is suffering for it.
