T he beginning of all discourse is a subject. The subject may be given to the author or the author may choose the subject, but the subject must be defined. Something must be predicated of the subject in order to create a thesis. Hundreds of students are defeated every year in composition classes because they can not define their subjects. How to get from Subject to Thesis L atin rhetoricians used a formula to discover the point of issue in trials, a technique that is still used in law schools today.
Questions have an uncertain or tentative quality that make the issue fuzzy.
Commands, unlike statements, do not assert or deny anything. I t takes considerable practice before a student acquires an ability to define a thesis sharply. Students can foster that ability by formulating a thesis statement for any reading that they do. That is the purpose of reading in a composition course. C omputers are wonderful tools, even for writers .