Guidelines for Writing a Thesis Synopsis

1)  First Sentence: Identify the author's thesis statement; their main idea of the secondary essay.

2)  Rest of the Synopsis: Incorporate examples of the author's evidence to document their reasoning that supports the thesis as well as providing commentary to connect the evidence to the thesis.

- Basically, the student is identifying the author's AE: Assertion and Evidence and is providing their own C: Commentary over the secondary essay.  The student becomes better at identifying these writing skills, therefore, they become better writers at AEC.

3) Avoid the passive voice; use the Active voice.

            Active Voice: “Lighting struck the barn.”

            Passive Voice: “The barn was struck by lightning.”

            Active Voice: “My cat broke the vase.”

            Passive Voice: “The vase was broken.”

An active construction has a subject, a transitive verb, and a direct object.  Active voice follows a standard English subject-verb-object word order and makes for concise and compact essays.  Also, it enables the writer to be specific with the subject. 

4) Use commas; complex and compound sentences.  Avoid a series of short sentences by incorporating sentences that support or elaborate over a fact through examples or the writer’s analysis.  Usually the simple sentence sets up a complex sentence.

5) Use short quotes; preferably a phrase and never longer than a sentence.  Often a phrase can sum up an author’s thesis.

6) Capitalization needs emphasis.

7) Subject/Verb agreement must mesh in addition to the tense.

8) Avoid over use of indefinite pronouns it, they, and you.

    Avoid general pronoun problems such as the ambiguous reference he.

9) Do no re-write the essay, deal with the author’s main point and support the main theme.  The writer needs to demonstrate an understanding of the reading through their writing. 

10) Factually support your contentions. “For example, ……

11) Use transition words to move from one position to another; however, moreover, furthermore, in addition, etc.

12) Write your thesis synopsis in one or two concise paragraph(s).

13) Write in the third person.

14) Store the thesis synopsis on a computer disk.

15) Breakdown of a Thesis Synopsis:

    a) First Sentence should be the author's main point or main argument of the essay, followed by their points or thesis points that will serve as topic sentences.  The rest should consist of an analysis of the topic sentences along with a couple of examples and commentary.