Thesis Statements and Examples

Sample Thesis and topic sentences:
Ex. 1
So the question is should we build more prisons so that we can hold more people or should we start killing the people that are in there for life?
-First, let's talk about what prison really is.
-Most prison cells consist of a very small room that has a bed, sink, and toilet in it.
-Not only do prisons sound dirty and really uncomfortable, they may also be very painful to some prisoners.
-People say that living in prison isn't even worth living.
-Prisons all over are overcrowding.
-The best choice would be to kill that people that are sentenced to prison for life.
-Although the prisoner's families are not the most important factor in what they decide to do about the overcrowding, it is still a factor.
-Another factor is the cost it will be to kill them.
-One of the biggest factors with killing the prisoners is what will they do with their bodies.
-If we were to decide to build more prisons across the world there could be many problems with it.
-Besides how much money it costs us as tax payers also think about where they are going to build these prisons.
-Another factor with building more prisons is that it is going to take a good chunk of time to build all of these prisons and with at the rate that it is going we will have to keep building forever, which will just take more time and money.
-People can argue both ways about what decision is better.
-If we were to build more prisons, they could argue how we don't have the space and that they don't deserve more prisons for them to make it more comfortable if it is their own faults they are in there.
-In conclusion, I think it will be better for us to kill the prisoners that are sentenced for life.



Ex. 2
During his arrest, Moore stated, "Life is like a video game; everybody has to die sometime." (Bradley CBS News)
-Parents and educators first began worrying about the effect that video game violence has on our youth after the Columbine shooting incident and, following that, the outbreak of school shootings across the Unite States in recent years.
-Video games first entered the mainstream media in 1971.
-One reason that this has proven difficult is because the gaming industry, lawmakers, parents and children argue that many popular video games and gaming systems are not harmful to children.
-The problem is, however, that not all families play video games together.
-As video games become more interactive, more concerns are raised.
-This has prompted numerous research studies to be conducted to examine whether or not exposure to violent video games increases, decreases, or has absolutely no effect whatsoever on aggressive behavior in adolescents.
-However, statistics in juvenile crime rate also show that while the number of overall juvenile crime is decreasing, certain types of juvenile crime are increasing.
-In an opposing view study also conducted in 2006, researchers had children play a violent video game entitled Quake II and recorded measurements of anger before, during, and after playing this video game (Unsworth, Devilly and Ward 383).
-What the critics of stricter video game regulations cannot ignore though are top research groups who have begun to contradict their claims at an alarming rate.
-Another argument against legislation being proposed to limit access to violent media is that it is a violation of parental rights.
-By being swayed to this way of thinking, we are assuming that all parents have sound judgment and spend enough time with their children to know how each one will react to each violent game that they play.
-Unfortunately, lawmakers have not been very successful in their attempts to pass legislation that would enforce stricter video game regulations and prohibit the sale and play of violent video games for youth under the age of 18.
-It is time for a federal law to be placed into action that will protect our children from the negative effects of violent video games and empower parents with the correct knowledge about the ratings systems the gaming industry uses.