A thesis statement is a single sentence that represents the central concept of a research paper or essay, such as an expository or argumentative essay. It makes a claim in response to a direct query. In most cases, your thesis statement may be found near the end of the first paragraph of your research paper or essay. It is important to understand that while your thesis statement articulates one main idea for your essay, it can be expressed in many ways using specific language. For example, "The major causes of death on Earth are cancer, heart disease, and stroke" could be stated as a single sentence: "Cancer, heart disease, and stroke are the main causes of death on Earth." Here, the word main has been used to indicate that these are the most significant factors contributing to death on Earth. This single sentence expresses two ideas: first, that these are the most significant factors contributing to death on Earth; second, that people die from these things (cancer, heart disease, and stroke). This second idea is called the minor premise and it will be used later in writing out the formal structure of our essay. Now that we have an understanding of what a thesis statement is and how it is used, let's look at some examples of essays with different types of structures and varying degrees of complexity. The first example is an argument essay, which is divided into three sections: introduction, body, and conclusion.