what is a good thesis statement for forgiveness

66 Forgiveness Essay: Examples, Titles, & Thesis Statement

A forgiveness essay is an exciting yet challenging task. In our article, you can find good forgiveness essay examples in literature, history, religion, and other spheres

📝 Writing a Forgiveness Theme Statement

🏆 best forgiveness essay examples, 🔍 simple forgiveness titles for essay, 💡 interesting forgiveness essay examples.

In your forgiveness essay, focus on different aspects of forgiveness. Some good forgiveness titles for the essay reveal themes of revenge, justice, and personal forgiveness. You can write an excellent reflective or argumentative essay on forgiveness – it is a versatile topic.

Regardless of your forgiveness essay’s specific topic and type, you should develop a strong thesis statement. Below we will provide recommendations on making a good forgiveness theme statement. This will help you come up with a solid base and arguments to prove your position.

Check these tips to make a powerful forgiveness thesis statemen:

Determine the primary idea. What are you trying to prove? Can anything be forgiven, or are there cases when it’s not possible? Introduce your one main idea and the angle from which you will look at it. You can also include some facts or opinions about the acuteness of the topic.
Work out your argumentation. It is crucial to have a firm structure in your forgiveness essay. You need to support the thesis statement with several arguments and evidence to demonstrate the consistency of your paper.
Think of the opposing views. Every argument has a counterargument. When working on your forgiveness theme statement, always keep an opposite thesis statement in mind. Having considered counter positions, you gain additional arguments for your position.
Don’t quote others in your thesis statement. A thesis statement is the first and foremost chance to introduce your point of view. Use your own strongest words to reach a reader. This is where they get the first impression about the whole work.

We also have lots of other tips on developing A+ thesis statements. Check our free thesis statement generator to discover more information and get a perfect forgiveness theme statement.

Christ’s Atonement and the Concept of Forgiveness This study will connect the atonement of Jesus Christ and attitudes towards forgiveness through the revision of the current church, Love and God’s commandment to forgive.
Forgiveness in the Christian Texts and the World Today The apostle calls upon the church’s people to stop the punishment of the wrongdoer and forgive, comfort, and affirm their love for him. It instructs Muslims to follow God and forgive others instead of following […]
Divine and Human Forgiveness in “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” By Samuel Taylor Coleridge After killing the albatross who was suppose to provide them with wind, all the people in the ship died but he managed to survive because he had asked God to forgive him all the sins […]
Hamlet and Forgiveness: A Personal Reflection Some of the most prominent themes in the story are the ideas of mutual forgiveness, people’s motivation to be proactive and take risks, and their willingness to forgive and ask for forgiveness.
Service Recovery and Customer Forgiveness Studies suggest that after apologizing to customers plus taking responsibility for the problem, getting to the root of the problem is very important to prevent such occurrences in the future. Getting to the root of […]
Racial Inequality Targeted Student Loan Forgiveness Programs The research into this topic seems highly significant as the reduction of racial inequality was one of the most debated topics in the U.S.for the last several decades.
Philosophy of Forgiveness I believe that if anyone had gone through all the pain and horror that Simon had, and was asked to forgive Karl, the instinct, and most humane reaction at that moment would be to strongly […]
The Effects of Forgiveness Therapy After gathering the relevant data, the researchers compared the recovery of the participants to their controls to determine the effects of forgiveness therapy.
Self-Forgiveness: The Step Child of Forgiveness Research Other than the similarities and the differences, the two types of forgiveness relate to each other as self-forgiveness facilitates interpersonal forgiveness, this is through allowance of one to identify with one’s offender.
The Amish Philosophy of Forgiveness It is important to note that the immediate forgiveness of the enemy does not mean that the Amish will let the perpetrators of crime go free.
Review: “Interventions Studies on Forgiveness: A Meta-analysis” by Baskin T. and Enright R. In the church, members come to the pastor with a variety of social and psychological issues. The first step the pastor should undertake is to sympathise with the victims.
Self-Forgiveness as the Path to Learning to Forgive the Others The key issues that the given research responds to or, at least, attempts to solve, are the definition of self-forgiveness, the relation between self-forgiveness and interpersonal forgiveness, and the means to differentiate between self-forgiveness and […]
The Effects of Forgiveness Therapy on Depression, Anxiety and Posttraumatic Stress for Women After Spousal Emotional Abuse Enright forgiveness model applied in the study proved effective since it systematically addressed the forgiveness process identified the negative attributes caused by the abuse, and prepared the women for positive responses.
Forgiveness & Reconciliation: The Differing Perspectives of Psychologists and Christian Theologians Based on the research design there is evidence of measures put in place to control against most of these biases which strengthens the study findings; this is the strength to the study.
Forgiveness and Reconciliation Critique Availability of literature; as stated in the literature though the area of forgiveness is new in the field of psychology, but there is enough literature to cover the study.
Forgiveness in Simon Wiesenthal’s Work The Sunflower Taking into account the major themes of the book The Sunflower, one is to make a conclusion that such response to atrocities as forgiveness is considered to be the key aspect of humanity.
Forgiveness in Martin Luther’s Movement for Rights Blacks The bible teachings tell us that God exists in the holy trinity and the only way to forgive others is for us to be able to forgive our own transgressions.
The Idea Of Forgiveness Resonates Differently With Every Individual
Accident Forgiveness in Automobile Insurance
The Association Of Feathers And Forgiveness
Christians’ Beliefs About Justice And Forgiveness
Debt Forgiveness: The Missing Link in Closing Gap with Third World
Christian Beliefs about Justice, Forgiveness and Reconciliation
Learning About Forgiveness From the Teachings of the Bible
Crusades and the Forgiveness of Sins of the Sinners
Feelings Surrounding the Need for Forgiveness in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights
Why Forgiveness Is Essential and the Forgiveness Manadala
The Desirability of Forgiveness in Regulatory Enforcement
The Styles of Forgiveness Communication in Association with Determinants of Forgiveness in In the Wake of Transgressions, an Article by Andy Merolla
The Spiritual Principle of Forgiveness in Wes Anderson’s Film The Royal Tenenbaums, Saint Augustine’s Confessions, and the Biblical Story of Adam and Eve
The Problems With Forgiveness: An Analysis of Literary Works
The Relationship Between Forgiveness and Sleep Quality
The Themes of Betrayal and Forgiveness in Paradise Lost by John Milton and A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen
Love, Forgiveness, and Trust: Critical Values of the Modern Leader
Compassion and Forgiveness: Wilde’s Insincerity
The Secret Life of Bees An Analysis of Forgiveness and Responsibility
Themes Of Forgiveness In The Tempest By William Shakespeare
Resolutions of Forgiveness, Repentance and Reconciliation in Shakespeare
The Kite Runner: Forgiveness, Loyalty, and the Quest for Redemption
Why Forgiveness Is Vital In Our Society
Morals And Forgiveness In Simon Wiesenthal’s The Sunflower
The Emotional and Physical Benefits of the Act of Forgiveness
The Monster’s Lack of Forgiveness in Frankenstein, a Book by Mary Shelley
Conflict Management : Forgiveness And Reconciliation
Man Alive: A True Story Of Violence, Forgiveness And Becoming
The Renaissance Figure That Wonders the Lands in Hope of Bring Forgiveness in the Pardoner and His Tale
The Impact of Acceptance, Tolerance, and Forgiveness in Frankenstein, a Novel by Mary Shelley
Racism, Redemption, Forgiveness and Hope in Minor Miracle, a Poem by Marilyn Nelson
Why Perspective in Forgiveness and Redemption is so Important
The Themes Punishment vs. Forgiveness Present in the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Dynamics of Corporate Debt forgiveness and Contract Renegotiation
Throwing Stones-Resilience and Forgiveness in The Glass Castle
The Importance of Granting Forgiveness to One’s Enemies in Simon Wiesenthal’s The Sunflower: on Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness
The Meaning and Significance for Christians Today of Forgiveness
Penalties and Exclusion in the Rescheduling and Forgiveness of International Loans
Gender Differences in the Relationship Between Empathy and Forgiveness
Conflicts And Forgiveness In Family
The Importance of Perspectives in Forgiveness and Redemption
The Economic And Ethical Ambiguities Of African Debt Forgiveness
Exploring the Themes of Forgiveness and Reconciliation in The Tempest by William Shakespeare
Vengeance and Forgiveness in Shakespeare’s The Tempest
The Effects of Forgiveness Therapy on Depression
Theme Of Betrayal, Revenge, And Forgiveness
Unbroken A Story Of Redemption And Forgiveness By Laura
The Christian View On Justice Forgiveness And Reconciliation
Positive Psychology Titles
Consciousness Ideas
Bible Questions
Virtue Essay Ideas
Moral Development Essay Topics
Belief Questions
Idealism Paper Topics
Personal Values Ideas
Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, February 24). 66 Forgiveness Essay: Examples, Titles, & Thesis Statement. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/forgiveness-essay-examples/

"66 Forgiveness Essay: Examples, Titles, & Thesis Statement." IvyPanda , 24 Feb. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/topic/forgiveness-essay-examples/.

IvyPanda . (2024) '66 Forgiveness Essay: Examples, Titles, & Thesis Statement'. 24 February.

IvyPanda . 2024. "66 Forgiveness Essay: Examples, Titles, & Thesis Statement." February 24, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/forgiveness-essay-examples/.

1. IvyPanda . "66 Forgiveness Essay: Examples, Titles, & Thesis Statement." February 24, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/forgiveness-essay-examples/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "66 Forgiveness Essay: Examples, Titles, & Thesis Statement." February 24, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/forgiveness-essay-examples/.

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

Knowledge Base
How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples

How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples

Published on January 11, 2019 by Shona McCombes . Revised on August 15, 2023 by Eoghan Ryan.

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . It usually comes near the end of your introduction .

Your thesis will look a bit different depending on the type of essay you’re writing. But the thesis statement should always clearly state the main idea you want to get across. Everything else in your essay should relate back to this idea.

You can write your thesis statement by following four simple steps:

Start with a question
Write your initial answer
Develop your answer
Refine your thesis statement

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Upload your document to correct all your mistakes in minutes

What is a thesis statement, placement of the thesis statement, step 1: start with a question, step 2: write your initial answer, step 3: develop your answer, step 4: refine your thesis statement, types of thesis statements, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about thesis statements.

A thesis statement summarizes the central points of your essay. It is a signpost telling the reader what the essay will argue and why.

The best thesis statements are:

Concise: A good thesis statement is short and sweet—don’t use more words than necessary. State your point clearly and directly in one or two sentences.
Contentious: Your thesis shouldn’t be a simple statement of fact that everyone already knows. A good thesis statement is a claim that requires further evidence or analysis to back it up.
Coherent: Everything mentioned in your thesis statement must be supported and explained in the rest of your paper.

Receive feedback on language, structure, and formatting

Professional editors proofread and edit your paper by focusing on:

Academic style
Vague sentences
Style consistency

See an example

what is a good thesis statement for forgiveness

The thesis statement generally appears at the end of your essay introduction or research paper introduction .

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts and among young people more generally is hotly debated. For many who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its many benefits for education: the internet facilitates easier access to information, exposure to different perspectives, and a flexible learning environment for both students and teachers.

You should come up with an initial thesis, sometimes called a working thesis , early in the writing process . As soon as you’ve decided on your essay topic , you need to work out what you want to say about it—a clear thesis will give your essay direction and structure.

You might already have a question in your assignment, but if not, try to come up with your own. What would you like to find out or decide about your topic?

For example, you might ask:

After some initial research, you can formulate a tentative answer to this question. At this stage it can be simple, and it should guide the research process and writing process .

Here's why students love Scribbr's proofreading services

Discover proofreading & editing

Now you need to consider why this is your answer and how you will convince your reader to agree with you. As you read more about your topic and begin writing, your answer should get more detailed.

In your essay about the internet and education, the thesis states your position and sketches out the key arguments you’ll use to support it.

The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its many benefits for education because it facilitates easier access to information.

In your essay about braille, the thesis statement summarizes the key historical development that you’ll explain.

The invention of braille in the 19th century transformed the lives of blind people, allowing them to participate more actively in public life.

A strong thesis statement should tell the reader:

Why you hold this position
What they’ll learn from your essay
The key points of your argument or narrative

The final thesis statement doesn’t just state your position, but summarizes your overall argument or the entire topic you’re going to explain. To strengthen a weak thesis statement, it can help to consider the broader context of your topic.

These examples are more specific and show that you’ll explore your topic in depth.

Your thesis statement should match the goals of your essay, which vary depending on the type of essay you’re writing:

In an argumentative essay , your thesis statement should take a strong position. Your aim in the essay is to convince your reader of this thesis based on evidence and logical reasoning.
In an expository essay , you’ll aim to explain the facts of a topic or process. Your thesis statement doesn’t have to include a strong opinion in this case, but it should clearly state the central point you want to make, and mention the key elements you’ll explain.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

Ad hominem fallacy
Post hoc fallacy
Appeal to authority fallacy
False cause fallacy
Sunk cost fallacy

College essays

Choosing Essay Topic
Write a College Essay
Write a Diversity Essay
College Essay Format & Structure
Comparing and Contrasting in an Essay

(AI) Tools

Grammar Checker
Paraphrasing Tool
Text Summarizer
AI Detector
Plagiarism Checker
Citation Generator

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

The thesis statement is essential in any academic essay or research paper for two main reasons:

It gives your writing direction and focus.
It gives the reader a concise summary of your main point.

Without a clear thesis statement, an essay can end up rambling and unfocused, leaving your reader unsure of exactly what you want to say.

Follow these four steps to come up with a thesis statement :

Ask a question about your topic .
Write your initial answer.
Develop your answer by including reasons.
Refine your answer, adding more detail and nuance.

The thesis statement should be placed at the end of your essay introduction .

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

McCombes, S. (2023, August 15). How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved August 13, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/thesis-statement/

Is this article helpful?

Shona McCombes

Other students also liked, how to write an essay introduction | 4 steps & examples, how to write topic sentences | 4 steps, examples & purpose, academic paragraph structure | step-by-step guide & examples, "i thought ai proofreading was useless but..".

I've been using Scribbr for years now and I know it's a service that won't disappoint. It does a good job spotting mistakes”

Psychology of Forgiveness: 10+ Fascinating Research Findings

These grievances only offer a lifetime of hurt and should be dealt with.

Despite the enormity of suffering a person may have faced, it is possible to let this pain go and forgive.

Not only is forgiveness good for the soul, but it also has positive benefits on our mental and even physical wellbeing (Luskin, 2003).

“ Pain in life is inevitable. Suffering, on the other hand, is optional ,” writes compassion and mindfulness expert Dr. Shauna Shapiro (2020).

In this article, we explore the research behind forgiveness and look at tools to help us along the journey.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Emotional Intelligence Exercises for free . These science-based exercises will not only enhance your ability to understand and work with your emotions but will also give you the tools to foster the emotional intelligence of your clients, students, or employees.

This Article Contains

The science behind forgiveness: 10+ findings, positive psychology research, 5 skills for forgiveness, benefits of forgiveness, tools for forgiveness, useful books, a take-home message.

In his book, Forgive for Good , Dr. Frederic Luskin, Director of the Stanford University Forgiveness Project (2003), describes his personal and academic journey into forgiveness.

When Luskin began his research, there were few studies in the field of forgiveness and limited knowledge of the tools that could help those who had suffered the most.

In the absence of clear guidance, Luskin began his work with several untested assumptions:

The process of forgiveness remains the same, irrespective of the offense.
Forgiveness is more about our past than our present life.
Forgiveness should be about all grievances – big and small.

Forgiveness is a process. And while the duration and difficulty will vary significantly, it can be equally applied to all levels of pain – whether it’s the result of someone being rude to us in a store, a life cut short, or a partner cheating.

For one of his studies, he recruited students between 18 and 30 who wished to attend forgiveness training to resolve personal issues. Split into groups, he interviewed them before and after the training.

Results confirmed that forgiveness training helps people:

Feel significantly less hurt
Learn techniques for forgiving specific and more general resentment
Forgive the particular person who had caused them pain

Overall, findings suggested that learning to forgive improves psychological and physiological wellness and offers protection against future upsets. Forgiveness training also leads individuals to become emotionally stronger, experience greater confidence, and be increasingly optimistic (Luskin, 2003).

Such findings were echoed in Luskin’s later work. As part of the Stanford University Forgiveness Project working with adults between 25 and 50 years of age, forgiveness training was also found to reduce stress and improve overall health.

More recently, as part of the Northern Ireland HOPE Project, Luskin worked with families whose loved ones were murdered during the political troubles of Northern Ireland.

One of the groups included women whose sons had been tragically killed, often shot for no other reason than their religious or political upbringing.

Understandably, these women – even years after their son’s death – were suffering extreme pain and anger and felt their healing had been largely ignored.

The forgiveness training offered by the team at Stanford had incredible, life-changing results.

On arrival, the women averaged a hurt score of 8.5 out of 10. By the time they left, their self-reported hurt had reduced to 3.5. Also, longer term, the women reported fewer feelings of depression and increased optimism.

While previously entirely consumed by anger, hurt, and grief, they left still mourning their loved ones but with a measure of forgiveness and the ability to cope.

If I develop bad feelings toward those who make me suffer, this will only destroy my own peace of mind. But if I forgive, my mind becomes calm.

The power of forgiveness, while at times painfully difficult, can be life changing and life affirming (McCullough, Root, Tabak, & Van Oyen Witvliet, 2020).

Increasing positive emotions while reducing negative ones, such as blame and anger, benefits our cardiovascular health and reduces ill health (Tennen & Affleck, 1990; Miller, Smith, Turner, Guijarro, & Hallet, 1996).

Forgiveness is essential for a fully functional society and has considerable personal benefits – increasing our potential for making connections with others and having a more positive, happier outlook on life.

Crucially, as we have already seen, forgiveness can be learned and used in many different contexts, including:

Children of neglectful parents
Older people experiencing lack of care
Women abused as children
People whose partners were unfaithful

One of the earliest studies focusing specifically on the link between forgiveness and health benefits found that even thinking about forgiving an offender improved people’s cardiovascular and nervous system (Van Oyen Witvliet, Ludwig, & Laan, 2001).

Furthermore, by mentally switching between thoughts of goodwill and holding a grudge, blood pressure, heart rate, and muscle tension increased, while feelings of control (linked to mental toughness) reduced.

Also, Luskin (2003) reported that the mental benefits of forgiveness training – including increased optimism, self-confidence, compassion, reduced stress, and spiritual inclinations – were still present six months after training.

Though the number of studies is small, there does not appear, medically speaking, to be a downside to forgiveness. Elsewhere, work is underway to manage stress responses in premenopausal women and lower blood pressure in cardiac patients.

It is clear from the ongoing research that forgiveness – of both day-to-day incidental issues and longer term grudges – offers prolonged physical, emotional, and spiritual healing.

Download 3 Free Emotional Intelligence Exercises (PDF)

These detailed, science-based exercises will help you or your clients understand and use emotions advantageously.

Download 3 Free Emotional Intelligence Tools Pack (PDF)

By filling out your name and email address below.

“ Forgiveness is perhaps the most challenging of all the resources available to us–and the most transformational ,” writes Shauna Shapiro in Rewire Your Mind: Discover the Science + Practice of Mindfulness (2020).

Forgiveness is not one skill but several, including acceptance, shifting perspectives, emotional regulation, compassion, and radical responsibility.

Finding the right balance helps you forgive not only those whom you have grievances against but also the daily annoyances we face. It can lead you to be more compassionate and satisfied, and feel your life is complete.

Shapiro addresses each of the skills in turn:

1. Acceptance

Acceptance is not about defeat or resignation; it is about accepting what has happened.

After all, while change is inevitable, suffering is the result of our resistance to it.

Acceptance shifts the balance. Your view of what is happening alters. You “ separate the pain that is inevitable from the suffering that is optional ” (Shapiro, 2020).

To forgive, you must accept the past. That is not to say you like it or that it was within your power to stop it, but it has happened – and cannot be undone.

2. Emotional regulation

Emotional regulation helps you manage your emotions and avoid “hijacking” your amygdala – the part of the brain responsible for initiating your fight or flight reaction .

Research has shown that you cannot suppress negative emotions. And indeed, if it appears you have (based on your behavior), your limbic system tells a different story and remains highly active.

Instead, it is better to become aware of your emotions, recognize and label them, and interrupt and calm your response.

“ I feel tense ,” “ My heart is beating so fast ,” or “ I am scared .”

Naming emotions provides space, and emotional regulation helps you identify and learn from your feelings. This is important for forgiveness, where you need to be aware of the hurt, anger, and grief you may be facing.

World’s Largest Positive Psychology Resource

The Positive Psychology Toolkit© is a groundbreaking practitioner resource containing over 500 science-based exercises , activities, interventions, questionnaires, and assessments created by experts using the latest positive psychology research.

Updated monthly. 100% Science-based.

“The best positive psychology resource out there!” — Emiliya Zhivotovskaya , Flourishing Center CEO

3. Shifting perspectives

Shifting perspectives can help you stand back and observe your thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations. You cease to be a slave to your selfish narrative.

An awareness of the sensation is very different from experiencing it and can provide the psychological distancing needed to move forward.

Observing anger is not the same as being angry.

Mindfulness practices can provide a practical path to shifting your perspective and seeing that your experiences do not define who you are.

4. Empathy and compassion

Empathy and compassion help you feel what another is experiencing and can be incredibly helpful on the path to forgiveness.

While empathy is powerful at understanding the pain of another, compassion encourages you to take action needed to reduce that suffering.

5. Radical responsibility

Radical responsibility requires being accountable for yourself, owning your actions, feelings, thoughts, and behavior.

Rather than reacting with fear, running away, or denying you have any power over what is happening, you must take action to avoid recurring, harmful behavior.

You must recognize behaviors that are unhealthy – without judgment – and take responsibility.

The process does not attempt to ignore suffering – your own or others – but instead strengthens your capacity to remove emotional barriers to finding happiness.

And forgiveness provides vital benefits to your mental and physical wellbeing, summarized as follows (Luskin, 2003):

A reduction in:

Cardiovascular disease

Increases and improvements in:

Self-confidence
Immune response

Forgiveness provides us with “ a powerful path to reduce our suffering and bring greater dignity and harmony to our life ,” writes Shapiro (2020).

Recently research has begun to uncover the links between “ emotional stability, agreeableness, a focus on others, and religious commitment” (McCullough et al., 2020). If associated with an apology, signs of remorse, and restitution, forgiveness can be adopted more easily and provide effective relief from hurt.

Self-Compassion, a widely discussed topic in positive psychology, is one of several skills needed for forgiveness.

To better understand this concept, let’s explore the definition provided by Dr. Kristin Neff, a renowned expert in the field. Dr. Neff identifies three key elements that comprise self-compassion:

Self-Kindness versus Self-Judgment: Self-kindness refers to the inclination to treat oneself with care and understanding instead of engaging in self-criticism. Rather than attacking and berating oneself for perceived flaws or shortcomings, self-compassion offers warmth and unconditional acceptance.
Common Humanity versus Isolation : Recognizing our common humanity involves acknowledging that all individuals are imperfect and prone to failure, mistakes, and significant life challenges. It’s an understanding that these adversities are not unique to oneself but are experiences shared by all.
Mindfulness versus Over-Identification : Mindfulness entails being aware of one’s painful experiences in a manner that neither disregards nor amplifies distressing thoughts and emotions. It involves cultivating an awareness of personal suffering without becoming overly identified or consumed by it. This mindful approach is essential for extending compassion towards oneself.

Simply put, self-compassion includes being kind and understanding towards oneself, recognizing our shared human experiences, and maintaining a mindful awareness of personal suffering without becoming overwhelmed by it.

Forgiveness is most successful when you know how you feel and what was wrong about what happened, and you can share your experiences with a couple of trusted people (Luskin, 2003).

To begin forgiveness, you need to take responsibility for how you feel. That is not to say that you must like what has happened, and it is certainly not the case that what took place was your fault.

Instead, you can regain control of how you react, in terms of your emotions and behavior.

This is your life, and that should not be taken away from you.

Luskin uses a three-step process to take responsibility for feeling by learning how to relax and use good feelings to focus on the positive (modified from Luskin, 2003):

Step one – Dust off your remote control

Try to remember that pain is an integral part of life and that you can still appreciate the good while hurting.

While we typically overly focus on what is wrong in our lives, there is much for which we should be grateful.

A rude comment by someone in a store should not outweigh the beauty of a sunrise or the joy in seeing our child doing something new.

Luskin uses the TV remote as a metaphor for choosing the channel we watch on a day to day basis. Rather than remain on the grievance channel, we must regularly tune in to what is right in our lives: love, beauty, and forgiveness.

A sample of practical actions to help include (modified from Luskin, 2003):

At a supermarket, be thankful for the fantastic food available.
At a hospital, appreciate your health.
Recognize and thank the salesperson in a store.
Appreciate the beauty of the clouds when you are stuck in traffic.
Step into nature and be overwhelmed by its wonder.
Listen to stories of people who have forgiven others.
Practice forgiving the small upsets you carry on a day-to-day basis.
Forgive those you love and recognize how easy it is.
Observe love in families and friends.

Step two – Practice the “breath of thanks”

Allocate time daily to the breath of thanks:

Stop, sit, and focus on your breathing (our Anchor Breathing worksheet can offer a useful introduction).
Recognize your breath – each inhalation and exhalation.
Breathe slowly and deeply for three to five breaths.
For each of the next five breaths, silently say the words thank you while registering how lucky you are to be alive.
Gently return to normal breathing before returning to your earlier activities.

Step three – Practice the “heart focus”

Repeat the heart focus practice three or more times a week:

As above, draw your attention to your breathing.
Focus on a time when you experienced intense feelings of love or a peaceful scene, perhaps beside the sea or in a forest.
Re-experience these feelings deeply.
When you drift away from them, gently return.
Maintain for up to 15 minutes.

Positive Emotion Refocusing Technique

While the three-step process is incredibly powerful for focusing on what is positive and avoiding long-term pain and upset, when a painful experience hits us, we need something more immediate.

The Positive Emotion Refocusing Technique (PERT) can help (modified from Luskin, 2003).

PERT can be performed in less than a minute and can discreetly return you to a state of calm, restore control, and prepare you to make useful decisions:

Find a comfortable place to sit and attend to each inhalation and exhalation.
On the third breath, focus on someone you love.
Breathe gently, maintain focus, experiencing the emotions deeply.
Ask yourself what you can do to overcome the present difficulty.

Use the above practices for both ongoing emotional maintenance and emergencies.

For further reading, we have a blog post dedicated to forgiveness exercises .

17 Exercises To Develop Emotional Intelligence

These 17 Emotional Intelligence Exercises [PDF] will help others strengthen their relationships, lower stress, and enhance their wellbeing through improved EQ.

Created by Experts. 100% Science-based.

1. Forgive for Good

Author: Frederic Luskin

This book provides an incredible insight into both the science and practice of forgiveness, reminding us of our good fortune while tackling issues from the past.

Available on Amazon .

2. Rewire Your Mind: Discover the Science + Practice of Mindfulness

Author: Shauna Shapiro

An authoritative and enjoyable guide to using mindfulness to regain control over our life and rewire our brain for positivity.

3. The Art of Forgiveness, Loving Kindness, and Peace

Author: Jack Kornfield

Showing that peace is in every situation we face in life.

4. What Doesn’t Kill Us: A Guide to Overcoming Adversity and Moving Forward

Author: Stephen Joseph

Working with survivors of trauma, Joseph explores how growth can rise out of the most challenging situations.

There are 86,400 seconds in a day. How do you spend them?

For many of us, we choose to focus on the wrongs done to us. A peer doesn’t listen to us in a meeting; a sibling takes something without asking; a waiter ignores us while on their phone.

These grievances are small, and yet we devote an excessive amount of time to them.

But what if we forgave those who upset us?

Perhaps we could redress the imbalance in our lives, focusing on a world full of beauty, kindness, and love, instead of anger, annoyance, and even hate.

And what of those incidents that are much bigger? A partner cheats on us, a drunk driver injures a loved one, or a father murders a mother.

Research suggests that while immeasurably more painful, the process is the same. Forgiveness ultimately frees us from a pain that we hold so close that it damages our physical and mental wellbeing, along with our happiness.

Work through some of the tools provided, seek appropriate support where needed, and take back control of your life. Check out some of the stories on The Forgiveness Project; recognize and embrace the strength of others to do what we find difficult to do ourselves: forgive.

While bad things cannot always be stopped, you can choose how you respond and how they shape your life.

If you wish to learn more, our Emotional Intelligence Masterclass© is a 6-module emotional intelligence training package for practitioners which contains all the materials you’ll need to become an emotional intelligence expert, helping your clients harness their emotions and cultivate emotional connection in their lives.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Emotional Intelligence Exercises for free .

Joseph, S. (2013). What doesn’t kill us: A guide to overcoming adversity and moving forward . London, UK: Piatkus.
Kornfield, J. (2008). The art of forgiveness, lovingkindness and peace, Illustrated ed. New York, NY: Bantam.
Luskin, F. (2003). Forgive for good . New York, NY: HarperOne.
McCullough, M. E., Root, L. M., Tabak, B. A., & Van Oyen Witvliet, C. (2020). Forgiveness. In C. R. Snyder & S. J. Lopez (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of positive psychology (pp. 427–435). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Miller, T. Q., Smith, T. W., Turner, C. W., Guijarro, M. L., & Hallet, A. J. (1996). A meta-analytic review of research on hostility and physical health. Psychological Bulletin , 119 (2), 322–348.
Shapiro, S. L. (2020). Rewire your mind: Discover the science + practice of mindfulness . London, UK: Aster.
Tennen, H., & Affleck, G. (1990). Blaming others for threatening events. Psychological Bulletin , 108 (2), 209–232.
Van Oyen Witvliet, C., Ludwig, T. E., & Laan, K. L. (2001). Granting forgiveness or harboring grudges: Implications for emotion, physiology, and health. Psychological Science , 12 (2), 117–123.

Share this article:

Article feedback

What our readers think.

This is such an important subject – for all types of situations where forgiveness may be necessary for a person to resolve emotions and move on. I was in a situation at work, where I was extremely angry with one of my colleagues. To the extent that I didn’t even want to work with the person anymore. It was getting to a “them or me” situation in my head. A friend recommended Colin Tipping’s book Radical Forgiveness with a caveat as his perspective is not for everyone. In my own experience, I could only relate to about half of what he says and from a metaphorical sense only. What “tipped” me into forgiveness was the thought experiment that what if this other person and I knew each other from some other plane of existence and we made a deal to help each other grow? We then set out to challenge each other emotionally through our actions, words etc. The other person gets to us because we have willingly and purposefully given them the “keys to our soul” and they are acting out of a profound sense of love toward us to help us control our reactions to challenges we come up against in the world. It was was the most bizarre transformation for me. Almost immediately, the anger toward this other person evaporated and I could see them as someone with feelings, insecurities and sensitivities of their own. I felt ashamed for denying the “gift” they were trying to give me. It has been over a year now and the feelings have not returned even though the other person has not changed. I have changed and I thank them for their help. Look forward to reading more on this subject at Positive Psychology.

Let us know your thoughts Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Understanding Empathy vs. Sympathy: What’s the Difference?

Empathy and sympathy go to the core of what it means to be human. We are a social and highly cooperative animal that depends on [...]

What Is Compassion Fatigue? 24 Causes & Symptoms Explained

Are you in a caring profession? If so, do you ever feel preoccupied with the suffering of the people you work with? In a helping [...]

Empathy 101: 3+ Examples and Psychology Definitions

Have you ever experienced someone else’s emotions as your own? Has a book, film, or photograph ever driven you to tears? Or have you ever [...]

Download 3 Free Self-Compassion Tools Pack (PDF)

3 Self-Compassion Tools (PDF)

University of Notre Dame

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

Home ›
Reviews ›

The Ethics of Forgiveness: A Collection of Essays

Christel Fricke (ed.), The Ethics of Forgiveness: A Collection of Essays , Routledge, 2011, 212pp., $125.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780415885430.

Reviewed by Linda Radzik, Texas A&M University

Christel Fricke's rich collection of essays arose from a conference held in Oslo in 2008 on Charles L. Griswold's 2007 book Forgiveness . However, very little of the text is spent critiquing Griswold's work. Instead, Fricke's authors use Griswold's text as a map that points to areas worthy of further exploration. Like Griswold, most of these writers resist the temptation to develop simple, unified accounts of forgiveness and instead dedicate themselves to plotting the complexities of human interaction in the aftermath of wrongdoing. The examples the authors use along the way range from subtle, personal failings to large-scale atrocities. While most of the contributions are works in moral theory, the volume also represents other disciplinary approaches to issues of forgiveness, including literary criticism and linguistics. The result is a satisfyingly diverse range of perspectives on the nature, justification and limits of forgiveness.

Part I includes a pair of essays dedicated to the interpretation of particular, historical traditions of forgiveness. In "Forgiveness and Forbearance in Ancient China," Christoph Harbsmeier surveys the language of forgiveness in Chinese, arguing that, "for a Chinese person to forgive, is always to forgive 'in terms of' one of the concepts outlined" (21). Harbsmeier goes on to present twenty-nine different terms in ancient and modern Chinese related to "forgiveness." To me, their differences were not as remarkable as their similarity. All seemed to portray forgiveness as a matter of letting the wrongdoer off, in some way, from the possible consequences of wrongdoing. Shù , which Harbsmeier suggests as the best translation for 'forgiveness,' involves a general sort of empathetic forbearance.

So far, the virtue of shù will seem familiar enough to contemporary Westerners. But Harbsmeier emphasizes that it must be understood in a hierarchically structured culture, where, he tells us, "egalitarianism is not in any way envisaged or aspired to at any level, practical or psychological" (13). Shù is something one shows to people below oneself on the social scale. What one owes to people above oneself is, in contrast, zhong , "doing one's moral best" (22). When those above oneself commit wrongs, then, the question of forgiveness does not really arise. Instead the question for the underling is how to continue to do his duty to his superior in this new context. Harbsmeier's analysis helps explain, for example, why in China the question "whether they forgive or do not forgive Deng Xiaoping [for the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989] has become purely academic (i.e., quite irrelevant)" (14).

Ilaria E. Ramelli's contribution on forgiveness in Christian thought argues that what is almost invariably labeled as "the Christian view" is historically inaccurate. It is commonplace for contemporary writers on the ethics of forgiveness to assert that Christianity requires its followers to forgive wrongs unconditionally , that is, to forgive whether or not their abusers have met any conditions, such as apologizing, repenting or making amends. Ramelli painstakingly reviews an impressive range of ancient sources to show that, throughout the early history of Christianity, forgiveness was always predicated on repentance. Her argument is so convincing that I was left wondering how it has come to be that most contemporary writers -- and, I would add, all my students who self-identify as Christians -- have come to see a commitment to unconditional forgiveness as central to Christianity.

Part II on "Forgiveness and Selfhood" begins with Fricke's contribution, "What We Cannot Do to Each Other: On Forgiveness and Moral Vulnerability." Fricke provides an admirable description of the normative terrain of forgiveness and specifically the interconnections between moral and social norms. Fricke anchors her discussion of forgiveness in a social, relational understanding of the nature and consequences of moral wrongdoing. Wrongdoing damages the trust that normally marks relations among victims, wrongdoers and their communities; forgiveness is one way of repairing that damage.

Fricke goes on to emphasize that, as complex selves, we relate to one another, not just as moral agents, but also as friends, partners and neighbors. This leads her to distinguish between personal forgiveness, in which personal relationships such as friendships are repaired, and moral forgiveness, in which victims come to once again see their abusers as having intrinsic moral value as human beings. She argues plausibly that one may morally forgive a wrongdoer without personally forgiving. I was less convinced by her claim that "personal forgiveness always implies moral forgiveness" because "any close personal relationship includes mutual respect of moral value or dignity" (63). Might not someone who does not value humanity as such (say, a mafia hitman) value his personal relationships (with other mafiosos)? This combination of attitudes may not be able to be held in a fully, rationally consistent way, but it seems psychologically possible. The last portion of the essay poses the question of whether wrongdoers can deserve forgiveness and victims can be morally required to forgive in either of the two senses of forgiveness; however, Fricke provides no clear answers to those questions.

The next pair of articles pursues Griswold's claim that forgiveness requires a narration of the past, one which will both acknowledge its wrongful character yet allow for the forgiver to overcome her negative attitudes toward the wrongdoer. Garry L. Hagberg and Peter Goldie each ask how this might work in cases of self-forgiveness. Both worry whether "in self-forgiveness there is not the possibility of a narrative accounting from an appropriate distanced perspective" (Goldie, 83-4). In "Self-Forgiveness and the Narrative Sense of Self," Goldie suggests that such distancing is enabled by the wrongdoer's ability to think about herself in a way that is "essentially ironic" and involves seeing one's past, wrongdoing self as, in a sense, another person (87):

This opens up the epistemic and evaluative ironic gap that is at the heart of the notion of narrative: an epistemic gap because one now knows what one did not know then; and an evaluative gap because one can now take an evaluative stance which differs from the stance that one took then (87).

Hagberg, in "Forgiveness and the Constitution of Selfhood," rejects this dyadic view of the self as phenomenologically inaccurate. Instead, he believes that self-forgiveness is enabled by "one identity seeing bi-focally, not two persons gazing from a distance upon each other" (75). Hagberg draws on literary concepts to explain his view, comparing self-forgiveness to the experience of reading fiction, wherein "we simultaneously identify with a character in fiction but also stand apart from that narratively-entwined persona" (75). For Hagberg, this narrative process is not performed by a later self that is independently distinguishable from the wrongdoing self, but is instead what constitutes the new, forgivable self. Both Goldie's and Hagberg's essays provide satisfyingly complex examples of processes of self-forgiveness. Goldie's essay is also notable for its discussion of the odd case of self-pardoning, in which one regards one's own action as involuntary on the grounds that the circumstances overstrained one's nature without actually undermining one's freedom.

Part III includes six essays that address the limits of forgiveness, that is, a variety of possible restrictions on the possibility or permissibility of forgiveness. For example, almost all theorists of forgiveness claim that forgiveness is not possible where there is no wrong. But in "Forgiveness Without Blame," Espen Gamlund defends the position that forgiveness can occur even when harm-causing is not blameworthy but rather excused or justified. Cases of agent-regret (such as the regret felt by an unlucky driver who faultlessly kills a child), disagreements over culpability between the harmed and the harm-causer, and moral dilemmas all present disruptions to peace of mind and social relations that can be solved by the sorts of interactions and changes in view that we associate with forgiveness and self-forgiveness. While critics may insist that forgiveness requires culpability by definition, Gamlund's discussion will lead many readers to find such a stipulation unsatisfying.

A major debate in the literature on forgiveness is whether forgiveness is "conditional," meaning that forgiveness is only appropriate in cases where the wrongdoer has met some sort of requirement, such as repentance or moral improvement. Jerome Neu's essay, "On Loving Our Enemies," defends the conditional view. Drawing on work by Jeffrie Murphy, Neu argues that resentment is a morally appropriate reaction to being victimized that can be set aside only for a moral reason. Also working within a conditional framework, Arne Johan Vetlesen asks whether there are cases where no moral reason could justify forgiveness and where forgiveness is, therefore, wrong. In this rather unwieldy essay, Vetlesen emphasizes the relevance of the characteristics of the wrongful acts themselves, rather than the characteristics of the agents who perform the acts, claiming that "some acts are worse, morally speaking, than any individual agent" (161).

Eve Garrard and David McNaughton, in contrast to Neu and Vetlesen, defend the position that forgiveness is unconditional by addressing objections posed by Griswold and others. The authors argue that some critics of unconditional forgiveness conflate two senses in which forgiveness can be unconditional: "(1) forgiving no matter what condition the wrongdoer is in; and (2) forgiving no matter what the reason for doing so is" (102). While defending the view that "there is sufficient reason to forgive a wrongdoer whatever his state of mind" (97), Garrard and McNaughton go on to identify reasons for extending such unmerited forgiveness. While the points made in favor of unconditional forgiveness are perhaps not novel, the skill with which the issues are explained and defended makes this essay a good candidate for course syllabuses on forgiveness.

Geoffrey Scarre strays slightly from the theme of forgiveness to look at issues of apology. In "Apologising for Historic Injustices," Scarre dives into the controversy surrounding Australia's official apology to the "Stolen Generations," which addressed the century-long practice of removing aboriginal children from their parents' care, a practice that ended only in the late 1960s or early 1970s. In 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered an official apology for this history, which was met with general approval from both the aboriginal and settler populations. Scarre argues that the apology was not appropriate because the people doing the apologizing did not have "ownership" of the wrongful deeds. While he defends the legitimacy of "insider-regret," a particular form of negative reactive attitude towards one's group's historical injustices, Scarre denies that this attitude can ground the practice of apology. Debates about the nature of collective responsibility are well established in the literature and are not much advanced by the arguments to be found here. However, Scarre's essay does provide opportunity for reflection on the nature and functions of apology. Scarre's clear and straightforward account of when an apology can be given and what functions it can perform is quite narrow and so leaves the reader reflecting on what a broader concept of apology might look like.

Finally, literary scholar Jakob Lothe provides a reading of W. G. Sebald's novel Austerlitz . Sebald was a writer who was born in Germany in 1944 but who lived most of his adult life in England. His fiction and non-fiction writings have become important to current discussions of how German identity has been shaped by the memory of World War II and the Holocaust. The narrator of the novel, who, like Sebald, is a German exile of the immediate postwar generation, develops an unusual friendship with a Jewish man who survived the Holocaust as a child and is now attempting to recover the story of his parents' lives and deaths in the camps. Lothe argues that Sebald's narrative techniques reveal that the main theme of the novel is forgiveness. This claim remains puzzling for much of the essay, but by the end it becomes clear that Lothe's theme is not 'what is involved in granting forgiveness,' but instead 'what it is like to feel the need to be forgiven for the injustices of previous generations.' As such, the essay is fruitfully paired with Scarre's contribution.

Griswold, C. L., Forgiveness: A Philosophical Exploration , Cambridge University Press, (2007).

Murphy, J. G. and J. Hampton (eds.), Forgiveness and Mercy , Cambridge University Pres, (1988).

Murphy, J. G., Getting Even , Oxford University Press, (2003).

The Writing Center • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Thesis Statements

What this handout is about.

This handout describes what a thesis statement is, how thesis statements work in your writing, and how you can craft or refine one for your draft.

Introduction

Writing in college often takes the form of persuasion—convincing others that you have an interesting, logical point of view on the subject you are studying. Persuasion is a skill you practice regularly in your daily life. You persuade your roommate to clean up, your parents to let you borrow the car, your friend to vote for your favorite candidate or policy. In college, course assignments often ask you to make a persuasive case in writing. You are asked to convince your reader of your point of view. This form of persuasion, often called academic argument, follows a predictable pattern in writing. After a brief introduction of your topic, you state your point of view on the topic directly and often in one sentence. This sentence is the thesis statement, and it serves as a summary of the argument you’ll make in the rest of your paper.

What is a thesis statement?

A thesis statement:

tells the reader how you will interpret the significance of the subject matter under discussion.
is a road map for the paper; in other words, it tells the reader what to expect from the rest of the paper.
directly answers the question asked of you. A thesis is an interpretation of a question or subject, not the subject itself. The subject, or topic, of an essay might be World War II or Moby Dick; a thesis must then offer a way to understand the war or the novel.
makes a claim that others might dispute.
is usually a single sentence near the beginning of your paper (most often, at the end of the first paragraph) that presents your argument to the reader. The rest of the paper, the body of the essay, gathers and organizes evidence that will persuade the reader of the logic of your interpretation.

If your assignment asks you to take a position or develop a claim about a subject, you may need to convey that position or claim in a thesis statement near the beginning of your draft. The assignment may not explicitly state that you need a thesis statement because your instructor may assume you will include one. When in doubt, ask your instructor if the assignment requires a thesis statement. When an assignment asks you to analyze, to interpret, to compare and contrast, to demonstrate cause and effect, or to take a stand on an issue, it is likely that you are being asked to develop a thesis and to support it persuasively. (Check out our handout on understanding assignments for more information.)

How do I create a thesis?

A thesis is the result of a lengthy thinking process. Formulating a thesis is not the first thing you do after reading an essay assignment. Before you develop an argument on any topic, you have to collect and organize evidence, look for possible relationships between known facts (such as surprising contrasts or similarities), and think about the significance of these relationships. Once you do this thinking, you will probably have a “working thesis” that presents a basic or main idea and an argument that you think you can support with evidence. Both the argument and your thesis are likely to need adjustment along the way.

Writers use all kinds of techniques to stimulate their thinking and to help them clarify relationships or comprehend the broader significance of a topic and arrive at a thesis statement. For more ideas on how to get started, see our handout on brainstorming .

How do I know if my thesis is strong?

If there’s time, run it by your instructor or make an appointment at the Writing Center to get some feedback. Even if you do not have time to get advice elsewhere, you can do some thesis evaluation of your own. When reviewing your first draft and its working thesis, ask yourself the following :

Do I answer the question? Re-reading the question prompt after constructing a working thesis can help you fix an argument that misses the focus of the question. If the prompt isn’t phrased as a question, try to rephrase it. For example, “Discuss the effect of X on Y” can be rephrased as “What is the effect of X on Y?”
Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? If your thesis simply states facts that no one would, or even could, disagree with, it’s possible that you are simply providing a summary, rather than making an argument.
Is my thesis statement specific enough? Thesis statements that are too vague often do not have a strong argument. If your thesis contains words like “good” or “successful,” see if you could be more specific: why is something “good”; what specifically makes something “successful”?
Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? If a reader’s first response is likely to be “So what?” then you need to clarify, to forge a relationship, or to connect to a larger issue.
Does my essay support my thesis specifically and without wandering? If your thesis and the body of your essay do not seem to go together, one of them has to change. It’s okay to change your working thesis to reflect things you have figured out in the course of writing your paper. Remember, always reassess and revise your writing as necessary.
Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? If a reader’s first response is “how?” or “why?” your thesis may be too open-ended and lack guidance for the reader. See what you can add to give the reader a better take on your position right from the beginning.

Suppose you are taking a course on contemporary communication, and the instructor hands out the following essay assignment: “Discuss the impact of social media on public awareness.” Looking back at your notes, you might start with this working thesis:

Social media impacts public awareness in both positive and negative ways.

You can use the questions above to help you revise this general statement into a stronger thesis.

Do I answer the question? You can analyze this if you rephrase “discuss the impact” as “what is the impact?” This way, you can see that you’ve answered the question only very generally with the vague “positive and negative ways.”
Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? Not likely. Only people who maintain that social media has a solely positive or solely negative impact could disagree.
Is my thesis statement specific enough? No. What are the positive effects? What are the negative effects?
Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? No. Why are they positive? How are they positive? What are their causes? Why are they negative? How are they negative? What are their causes?
Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? No. Why should anyone care about the positive and/or negative impact of social media?

After thinking about your answers to these questions, you decide to focus on the one impact you feel strongly about and have strong evidence for:

Because not every voice on social media is reliable, people have become much more critical consumers of information, and thus, more informed voters.

This version is a much stronger thesis! It answers the question, takes a specific position that others can challenge, and it gives a sense of why it matters.

Let’s try another. Suppose your literature professor hands out the following assignment in a class on the American novel: Write an analysis of some aspect of Mark Twain’s novel Huckleberry Finn. “This will be easy,” you think. “I loved Huckleberry Finn!” You grab a pad of paper and write:

Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn is a great American novel.

You begin to analyze your thesis:

Do I answer the question? No. The prompt asks you to analyze some aspect of the novel. Your working thesis is a statement of general appreciation for the entire novel.

Think about aspects of the novel that are important to its structure or meaning—for example, the role of storytelling, the contrasting scenes between the shore and the river, or the relationships between adults and children. Now you write:

In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain develops a contrast between life on the river and life on the shore.

Do I answer the question? Yes!
Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? Not really. This contrast is well-known and accepted.
Is my thesis statement specific enough? It’s getting there–you have highlighted an important aspect of the novel for investigation. However, it’s still not clear what your analysis will reveal.
Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? Not yet. Compare scenes from the book and see what you discover. Free write, make lists, jot down Huck’s actions and reactions and anything else that seems interesting.
Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? What’s the point of this contrast? What does it signify?”

After examining the evidence and considering your own insights, you write:

Through its contrasting river and shore scenes, Twain’s Huckleberry Finn suggests that to find the true expression of American democratic ideals, one must leave “civilized” society and go back to nature.

This final thesis statement presents an interpretation of a literary work based on an analysis of its content. Of course, for the essay itself to be successful, you must now present evidence from the novel that will convince the reader of your interpretation.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Anson, Chris M., and Robert A. Schwegler. 2010. The Longman Handbook for Writers and Readers , 6th ed. New York: Longman.

Lunsford, Andrea A. 2015. The St. Martin’s Handbook , 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Ramage, John D., John C. Bean, and June Johnson. 2018. The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing , 8th ed. New York: Pearson.

Ruszkiewicz, John J., Christy Friend, Daniel Seward, and Maxine Hairston. 2010. The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers , 9th ed. Boston: Pearson Education.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Make a Gift

Reference management. Clean and simple.

How to write a thesis statement + examples

What is a thesis statement?

Is a thesis statement a question, how do you write a good thesis statement, how do i know if my thesis statement is good, examples of thesis statements, helpful resources on how to write a thesis statement, frequently asked questions about writing a thesis statement, related articles.

A thesis statement is the main argument of your paper or thesis.

The thesis statement is one of the most important elements of any piece of academic writing . It is a brief statement of your paper’s main argument. Essentially, you are stating what you will be writing about.

You can see your thesis statement as an answer to a question. While it also contains the question, it should really give an answer to the question with new information and not just restate or reiterate it.

Your thesis statement is part of your introduction. Learn more about how to write a good thesis introduction in our introduction guide .

A thesis statement is not a question. A statement must be arguable and provable through evidence and analysis. While your thesis might stem from a research question, it should be in the form of a statement.

Tip: A thesis statement is typically 1-2 sentences. For a longer project like a thesis, the statement may be several sentences or a paragraph.

A good thesis statement needs to do the following:

Condense the main idea of your thesis into one or two sentences.
Answer your project’s main research question.
Clearly state your position in relation to the topic .
Make an argument that requires support or evidence.

Once you have written down a thesis statement, check if it fulfills the following criteria:

Your statement needs to be provable by evidence. As an argument, a thesis statement needs to be debatable.
Your statement needs to be precise. Do not give away too much information in the thesis statement and do not load it with unnecessary information.
Your statement cannot say that one solution is simply right or simply wrong as a matter of fact. You should draw upon verified facts to persuade the reader of your solution, but you cannot just declare something as right or wrong.

As previously mentioned, your thesis statement should answer a question.

If the question is:

What do you think the City of New York should do to reduce traffic congestion?

A good thesis statement restates the question and answers it:

In this paper, I will argue that the City of New York should focus on providing exclusive lanes for public transport and adaptive traffic signals to reduce traffic congestion by the year 2035.

Here is another example. If the question is:

How can we end poverty?

A good thesis statement should give more than one solution to the problem in question:

In this paper, I will argue that introducing universal basic income can help reduce poverty and positively impact the way we work.

The Writing Center of the University of North Carolina has a list of questions to ask to see if your thesis is strong .

A thesis statement is part of the introduction of your paper. It is usually found in the first or second paragraph to let the reader know your research purpose from the beginning.

In general, a thesis statement should have one or two sentences. But the length really depends on the overall length of your project. Take a look at our guide about the length of thesis statements for more insight on this topic.

Here is a list of Thesis Statement Examples that will help you understand better how to write them.

Every good essay should include a thesis statement as part of its introduction, no matter the academic level. Of course, if you are a high school student you are not expected to have the same type of thesis as a PhD student.

Here is a great YouTube tutorial showing How To Write An Essay: Thesis Statements .

What are your chances of acceptance?

Calculate for all schools, your chance of acceptance.

Your chancing factors

Extracurriculars.

How to Write a Strong Thesis Statement: 4 Steps + Examples

What’s Covered:

What is the purpose of a thesis statement, writing a good thesis statement: 4 steps, common pitfalls to avoid, where to get your essay edited for free.

When you set out to write an essay, there has to be some kind of point to it, right? Otherwise, your essay would just be a big jumble of word salad that makes absolutely no sense. An essay needs a central point that ties into everything else. That main point is called a thesis statement, and it’s the core of any essay or research paper.

You may hear about Master degree candidates writing a thesis, and that is an entire paper–not to be confused with the thesis statement, which is typically one sentence that contains your paper’s focus.

Read on to learn more about thesis statements and how to write them. We’ve also included some solid examples for you to reference.

Typically the last sentence of your introductory paragraph, the thesis statement serves as the roadmap for your essay. When your reader gets to the thesis statement, they should have a clear outline of your main point, as well as the information you’ll be presenting in order to either prove or support your point.

The thesis statement should not be confused for a topic sentence , which is the first sentence of every paragraph in your essay. If you need help writing topic sentences, numerous resources are available. Topic sentences should go along with your thesis statement, though.

Since the thesis statement is the most important sentence of your entire essay or paper, it’s imperative that you get this part right. Otherwise, your paper will not have a good flow and will seem disjointed. That’s why it’s vital not to rush through developing one. It’s a methodical process with steps that you need to follow in order to create the best thesis statement possible.

Step 1: Decide what kind of paper you’re writing

When you’re assigned an essay, there are several different types you may get. Argumentative essays are designed to get the reader to agree with you on a topic. Informative or expository essays present information to the reader. Analytical essays offer up a point and then expand on it by analyzing relevant information. Thesis statements can look and sound different based on the type of paper you’re writing. For example:

Argumentative: The United States needs a viable third political party to decrease bipartisanship, increase options, and help reduce corruption in government.
Informative: The Libertarian party has thrown off elections before by gaining enough support in states to get on the ballot and by taking away crucial votes from candidates.
Analytical: An analysis of past presidential elections shows that while third party votes may have been the minority, they did affect the outcome of the elections in 2020, 2016, and beyond.

Step 2: Figure out what point you want to make

Once you know what type of paper you’re writing, you then need to figure out the point you want to make with your thesis statement, and subsequently, your paper. In other words, you need to decide to answer a question about something, such as:

What impact did reality TV have on American society?
How has the musical Hamilton affected perception of American history?
Why do I want to major in [chosen major here]?

If you have an argumentative essay, then you will be writing about an opinion. To make it easier, you may want to choose an opinion that you feel passionate about so that you’re writing about something that interests you. For example, if you have an interest in preserving the environment, you may want to choose a topic that relates to that.

If you’re writing your college essay and they ask why you want to attend that school, you may want to have a main point and back it up with information, something along the lines of:

“Attending Harvard University would benefit me both academically and professionally, as it would give me a strong knowledge base upon which to build my career, develop my network, and hopefully give me an advantage in my chosen field.”

Step 3: Determine what information you’ll use to back up your point

Once you have the point you want to make, you need to figure out how you plan to back it up throughout the rest of your essay. Without this information, it will be hard to either prove or argue the main point of your thesis statement. If you decide to write about the Hamilton example, you may decide to address any falsehoods that the writer put into the musical, such as:

“The musical Hamilton, while accurate in many ways, leaves out key parts of American history, presents a nationalist view of founding fathers, and downplays the racism of the times.”

Once you’ve written your initial working thesis statement, you’ll then need to get information to back that up. For example, the musical completely leaves out Benjamin Franklin, portrays the founding fathers in a nationalist way that is too complimentary, and shows Hamilton as a staunch abolitionist despite the fact that his family likely did own slaves.

Step 4: Revise and refine your thesis statement before you start writing

Read through your thesis statement several times before you begin to compose your full essay. You need to make sure the statement is ironclad, since it is the foundation of the entire paper. Edit it or have a peer review it for you to make sure everything makes sense and that you feel like you can truly write a paper on the topic. Once you’ve done that, you can then begin writing your paper.

When writing a thesis statement, there are some common pitfalls you should avoid so that your paper can be as solid as possible. Make sure you always edit the thesis statement before you do anything else. You also want to ensure that the thesis statement is clear and concise. Don’t make your reader hunt for your point. Finally, put your thesis statement at the end of the first paragraph and have your introduction flow toward that statement. Your reader will expect to find your statement in its traditional spot.

If you’re having trouble getting started, or need some guidance on your essay, there are tools available that can help you. CollegeVine offers a free peer essay review tool where one of your peers can read through your essay and provide you with valuable feedback. Getting essay feedback from a peer can help you wow your instructor or college admissions officer with an impactful essay that effectively illustrates your point.

The Power of Forgiveness

Categories: Forgiveness Mental Health

About this sample

Words: 742 |

Published: Mar 25, 2024

Words: 742 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Prof Ernest (PhD)

Verified writer

Expert in: Life Nursing & Health

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

5 pages / 2495 words

2 pages / 938 words

1 pages / 580 words

3 pages / 1583 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Forgiveness

Wiesenthal, Simon. The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness. Schocken, 1997.Szabłowski, Zenon. 'Between Forgiveness and Unforgiveness.' UNESCO Courier, vol. 52, no. 11, 1999, pp. 41-43.Behreandt, Dennis. [...]

Hall, J. H., & Fincham, F. D. (2005). Self-forgiveness: The Stepchild of Forgiveness Research. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 24(5), 621-637.Clinton, T., Hart, A., & Ohlschlager, G. (2005). Caring for People God’s [...]

Forgiveness is a complex and multifaceted concept that has been explored in various fields, including psychology, theology, and philosophy. It involves the conscious decision to let go of resentment or vengeance toward an [...]

Forgiveness is a complex and deeply personal process that often involves confronting painful experiences and reconciling with those who have caused us harm. In the context of familial relationships, forgiving a parent can be [...]

As we journey through life we sometimes experience challenges and trials that are caused by other people. This is unavoidable. People hurt us for all kinds of reasons, on accident, for revenge, or sometimes they may hurt us [...]

Forgiving is not an easy task to do. On the contrary, when we feel someone has caused us a lot of harm, we usually think that person is not worthy of being forgiven. However, forgiveness does not only have to do with the other [...]

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

Instructions Followed To The Letter
Deadlines Met At Every Stage
Unique And Plagiarism Free

The Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research

Forgiveness

The science of forgiveness and why it's good for you, a body of research demonstrates that forgiving someone promotes mental health..

Posted May 1, 2023 | Reviewed by Davia Sills

The Importance of Forgiveness
Take our Empathy Test
Find a therapist near me
A systematic review finds that interventions that promote forgiveness can improve mental health.
Some people learn how to forgive in therapy, but others can cultivate forgiveness on their own using evidence-based exercises.

Unfortunately, injustice and wrongdoing are part of everyday life. Whether you experience someone cutting to the front of the line at the grocery store or you are the victim of a serious crime , transgression is a part of the human experience.

While it’s natural to get upset when something unfair happens, a growing body of research demonstrates that how we react to injustices affects our overall well-being. Psychologists have shown that holding onto wrongdoing and reliving angry feelings perpetuates negative thoughts and emotions, which ultimately contributes to poor mental health and harms your overall well-being.

Researchers have come up with all sorts of ways to promote forgiveness , primarily through interventions designed to be delivered during counseling sessions.

One systematic review collected data from 15 randomized, controlled studies that measured the effectiveness of these interventions. The analysis found that forgiveness interventions reduce levels of depression , anger , and hostility, along with improving mood and stress levels.

But you don’t need a therapy appointment to start working on forgiveness. A leading forgiveness researcher—psychology professor Everett Worthington—has created self-directed forgiveness interventions designed to help anyone explore their feelings and learn forgiveness.

Worthington's most recent workbook includes exercises that take about two hours to complete. The program is called REACH, and involves the following five stages:

Recall the hurt by remembering what happened to you and deciding that you want to forgive.
Empathize with the offender. Try to understand what the offender may have been thinking or feeling.
Give the altruistic gift of forgiveness. It may be helpful to remember a time that you hurt someone else who forgave you. Offer this same gift to the person who wronged you.
Commit publicly to forgiveness. This could mean writing a note to yourself or the person who wronged you, telling a trusted friend, or talking to the person who wronged you.
Hold onto the forgiveness. You will doubtless remember the injustice and your angry feelings. Remind yourself that you have made a choice to forgive.

Worthington has studied this program across the globe. His most recent study used the two-hour-long workbook to teach forgiveness to more than 7,000 participants in five countries. The study found that the workbook promoted forgiveness and improved symptoms of depression and anxiety among participants compared to those who didn’t complete the workbook.

The take-home message: Forgiveness is not simply a nice thing to do. Learning how to forgive people for transgressions—both large and small—is proven to help improve your mental health and overall well-being.

The Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research at Cornell University is focused on using research findings to improve health and well-being of people at all stages of life.

Find a Therapist
Find a Treatment Center
Find a Psychiatrist
Find a Support Group
Find Online Therapy
United States
Brooklyn, NY
Chicago, IL
Houston, TX
Los Angeles, CA
New York, NY
Portland, OR
San Diego, CA
San Francisco, CA
Seattle, WA
Washington, DC
Asperger's
Bipolar Disorder
Chronic Pain
Eating Disorders
Passive Aggression
Personality
Goal Setting
Positive Psychology
Stopping Smoking
Low Sexual Desire
Relationships
Child Development
Self Tests NEW
Therapy Center
Diagnosis Dictionary
Types of Therapy

Sticking up for yourself is no easy task. But there are concrete skills you can use to hone your assertiveness and advocate for yourself.

Emotional Intelligence
Gaslighting
Affective Forecasting
Neuroscience

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Developing Strong Thesis Statements

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

The thesis statement or main claim must be debatable

An argumentative or persuasive piece of writing must begin with a debatable thesis or claim. In other words, the thesis must be something that people could reasonably have differing opinions on. If your thesis is something that is generally agreed upon or accepted as fact then there is no reason to try to persuade people.

Example of a non-debatable thesis statement:

This thesis statement is not debatable. First, the word pollution implies that something is bad or negative in some way. Furthermore, all studies agree that pollution is a problem; they simply disagree on the impact it will have or the scope of the problem. No one could reasonably argue that pollution is unambiguously good.

Example of a debatable thesis statement:

This is an example of a debatable thesis because reasonable people could disagree with it. Some people might think that this is how we should spend the nation's money. Others might feel that we should be spending more money on education. Still others could argue that corporations, not the government, should be paying to limit pollution.

Another example of a debatable thesis statement:

In this example there is also room for disagreement between rational individuals. Some citizens might think focusing on recycling programs rather than private automobiles is the most effective strategy.

The thesis needs to be narrow

Although the scope of your paper might seem overwhelming at the start, generally the narrower the thesis the more effective your argument will be. Your thesis or claim must be supported by evidence. The broader your claim is, the more evidence you will need to convince readers that your position is right.

Example of a thesis that is too broad:

There are several reasons this statement is too broad to argue. First, what is included in the category "drugs"? Is the author talking about illegal drug use, recreational drug use (which might include alcohol and cigarettes), or all uses of medication in general? Second, in what ways are drugs detrimental? Is drug use causing deaths (and is the author equating deaths from overdoses and deaths from drug related violence)? Is drug use changing the moral climate or causing the economy to decline? Finally, what does the author mean by "society"? Is the author referring only to America or to the global population? Does the author make any distinction between the effects on children and adults? There are just too many questions that the claim leaves open. The author could not cover all of the topics listed above, yet the generality of the claim leaves all of these possibilities open to debate.

Example of a narrow or focused thesis:

In this example the topic of drugs has been narrowed down to illegal drugs and the detriment has been narrowed down to gang violence. This is a much more manageable topic.

We could narrow each debatable thesis from the previous examples in the following way:

Narrowed debatable thesis 1:

This thesis narrows the scope of the argument by specifying not just the amount of money used but also how the money could actually help to control pollution.

Narrowed debatable thesis 2:

This thesis narrows the scope of the argument by specifying not just what the focus of a national anti-pollution campaign should be but also why this is the appropriate focus.

Qualifiers such as " typically ," " generally ," " usually ," or " on average " also help to limit the scope of your claim by allowing for the almost inevitable exception to the rule.

Types of claims

Claims typically fall into one of four categories. Thinking about how you want to approach your topic, or, in other words, what type of claim you want to make, is one way to focus your thesis on one particular aspect of your broader topic.

Claims of fact or definition: These claims argue about what the definition of something is or whether something is a settled fact. Example:

Claims of cause and effect: These claims argue that one person, thing, or event caused another thing or event to occur. Example:

Claims about value: These are claims made of what something is worth, whether we value it or not, how we would rate or categorize something. Example:

Claims about solutions or policies: These are claims that argue for or against a certain solution or policy approach to a problem. Example:

Which type of claim is right for your argument? Which type of thesis or claim you use for your argument will depend on your position and knowledge of the topic, your audience, and the context of your paper. You might want to think about where you imagine your audience to be on this topic and pinpoint where you think the biggest difference in viewpoints might be. Even if you start with one type of claim you probably will be using several within the paper. Regardless of the type of claim you choose to utilize it is key to identify the controversy or debate you are addressing and to define your position early on in the paper.

Thesis Statements: Examples

Where Do Theses Come From?

Bullying in elementary schools is getting worse, because children model what they see at home and there are more cases of physical and emotional child abuse, and this causes various emotional problems in children.

In order to be truly effective, anti-bullying policies should focus on the home life of the bully, because of the strong connection between parental actions and attitudes and the way a student treats his or her peers.

Explanation

The first example tries to cover too many topics: bullying is getting worse, bullying is related to the student's home life, and bullying causes various emotional problems in children. The second example focuses only on the connection between a student's home life and tendency towards bullying.

Abortion is a terrible practice that only deranged, baby-killing monsters would advocate under the guise of being pro-choice.

Despite the appeal of freedom of choice, the legalization of abortion has been detrimental to the well-being of women in America.

The first example states a strong opinion, but does not offer any facts to back it up. The explosive language is likely to alienate even readers who may have been sympathetic to the writer's position. The second example promises to offer a rational, if still opinioned, look at the issue.

Texting your sister who is in the next room to ask her to bring you your backpack means that you should get a life.

The use of technology to replace face to face communication increases the feeling of isolation among American youth.

The first statement is too specific to be a thesis statement. If reworded for a more academic structure, the specific anecdote could be used to prove a broader point, but, as it is, the author would have difficulty writing an entire paper about this one incident. The second thesis statement is broad enough that an entire paper could be written about it.

The government should legalize the use of marijuana.

The governement should legalize the use of marijuana in order to benefit from sales taxes of the drug and in order to make it more easily available to people who need it for medical reasons.

The first statement is debatable, but gives no sign that the author has any reasons for making such a statement. The second thesis statement offers logical reasons, which the reader can assume the author will expound upon in the rest of the paper.

People who are healthy and have healthy organs should be allowed to find other people in need of organs that they don't need, like a kidney, and sell them to the other people because that could save lives if a financial incentive was offered, instead of just relying on people's charity.

The purchase and sale of organs should be legalized in order to better facilitate the saving of lives.

More words don't always make a better thesis. The second thesis statement is much clearer. The example of the first thesis statement could be included earlier in the paragraph to help illustrate what is being argued, especially since the subject matter is rather unusual.

Beauty contests are sexist and detrimental to society, and they should be banned everywhere.

Beauty contests, while they may increase confidence in those who perform in them, can be sexist and harmful because they encourage objectification of women and put an overemphasis on physical appearance.

The first example is too simple and opinionated. The writer gives his or her point of view, but does not back it up with reasons or facts -- it is just stated. It also offers an overly simplified and extreme solution to the problem. The second example, while still offering a concrete opinion on the subject, gives reasons for this view. The writer is informing the reader of how he or she will go about defending his or her stance.

Smoking causes lung damage and other health problems.

Smoking should be made illegal in the United States because of the health problems that it causes.

The first example is not a point that can be argued against; it is widely known and accepted that smoking is unhealthy. Why write a paper explaining something that everybody already knows and agrees about? The second example can be argued, however: making smoking illegal is one possible solution to the problem, but it still needs to have evidence and argument to back it up because not everybody believes that this is a good solution.

Exams are not the best way to determine academic successs.

Exams determine students' talent at test-taking and recall rather than their actual understanding of the material; therefore, instead of exams alone, instructors should employ several different ways of measuring student success, including papers and projects.

The first example is too broad; it is more of a general topic rather than a thesis. The second example is much more specific. It narrows the thesis down from the problem itself to the solution to the problem.

Prompt: Describe a character from the movie who shows compassion.

Jack shows compassion.

Jack shows compassion through his kind words, his selfless volunteering, and his forgiveness of Alicia's quick temper.

The first example simply uses the prompt as the thesis statement. The second example offers support for the statement, preparing the reader for an essay about how Jack's kind words, selfless volunteering and forgiveness show his compassion.

One thing I am going to talk about today is one thing that happened to me one time when I was on this one trip at a place that I was staying at for a certain amount of time.

Standing on a mountain-top in Israel was an experience that redefined my faith and helped me decide to become an archeologist.

The first example is very vague, providing the reader with almost no information. The second example gives the reader a clear idea of what the essay is going to be about. The first example also announces what the author plans to do. It is much better to launch right into the essay, thereby demosntrating to the reader the purpose of the essay.

<< Previous: Where Do Theses Come From?
Last Updated: May 17, 2023 3:15 PM
URL: https://libguides.grace.edu/thesisstatements

1 Lancer Way

Winona Lake, IN 46590

(574) 372-5100 ext. 6297

[email protected]

Accessibility Statement

Librarian Login

Grace College

Grace College Online

Grace Theological Seminary

Translators
Graphic Designers

Please enter the email address you used for your account. Your sign in information will be sent to your email address after it has been verified.

25 Thesis Statement Examples That Will Make Writing a Breeze

Understanding what makes a good thesis statement is one of the major keys to writing a great research paper or argumentative essay. The thesis statement is where you make a claim that will guide you through your entire paper. If you find yourself struggling to make sense of your paper or your topic, then it's likely due to a weak thesis statement.

Let's take a minute to first understand what makes a solid thesis statement, and what key components you need to write one of your own.

A thesis statement always goes at the beginning of the paper. It will typically be in the first couple of paragraphs of the paper so that it can introduce the body paragraphs, which are the supporting evidence for your thesis statement.

Your thesis statement should clearly identify an argument. You need to have a statement that is not only easy to understand, but one that is debatable. What that means is that you can't just put any statement of fact and have it be your thesis. For example, everyone knows that puppies are cute . An ineffective thesis statement would be, "Puppies are adorable and everyone knows it." This isn't really something that's a debatable topic.

Something that would be more debatable would be, "A puppy's cuteness is derived from its floppy ears, small body, and playfulness." These are three things that can be debated on. Some people might think that the cutest thing about puppies is the fact that they follow you around or that they're really soft and fuzzy.

All cuteness aside, you want to make sure that your thesis statement is not only debatable, but that it also actually thoroughly answers the research question that was posed. You always want to make sure that your evidence is supporting a claim that you made (and not the other way around). This is why it's crucial to read and research about a topic first and come to a conclusion later. If you try to get your research to fit your thesis statement, then it may not work out as neatly as you think. As you learn more, you discover more (and the outcome may not be what you originally thought).

Additionally, your thesis statement shouldn't be too big or too grand. It'll be hard to cover everything in a thesis statement like, "The federal government should act now on climate change." The topic is just too large to actually say something new and meaningful. Instead, a more effective thesis statement might be, "Local governments can combat climate change by providing citizens with larger recycling bins and offering local classes about composting and conservation." This is easier to work with because it's a smaller idea, but you can also discuss the overall topic that you might be interested in, which is climate change.

So, now that we know what makes a good, solid thesis statement, you can start to write your own. If you find that you're getting stuck or you are the type of person who needs to look at examples before you start something, then check out our list of thesis statement examples below.

Thesis statement examples

A quick note that these thesis statements have not been fully researched. These are merely examples to show you what a thesis statement might look like and how you can implement your own ideas into one that you think of independently. As such, you should not use these thesis statements for your own research paper purposes. They are meant to be used as examples only.

Vaccinations Because many children are unable to vaccinate due to illness, we must require that all healthy and able children be vaccinated in order to have herd immunity.
Educational Resources for Low-Income Students Schools should provide educational resources for low-income students during the summers so that they don't forget what they've learned throughout the school year.
School Uniforms School uniforms may be an upfront cost for families, but they eradicate the visual differences in income between students and provide a more egalitarian atmosphere at school.
Populism The rise in populism on the 2016 political stage was in reaction to increasing globalization, the decline of manufacturing jobs, and the Syrian refugee crisis.
Public Libraries Libraries are essential resources for communities and should be funded more heavily by local municipalities.
Cyber Bullying With more and more teens using smartphones and social media, cyber bullying is on the rise. Cyber bullying puts a lot of stress on many teens, and can cause depression, anxiety, and even suicidal thoughts. Parents should limit the usage of smart phones, monitor their children's online activity, and report any cyber bullying to school officials in order to combat this problem.
Medical Marijuana for Veterans Studies have shown that the use of medicinal marijuana has been helpful to veterans who suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Medicinal marijuana prescriptions should be legal in all states and provided to these veterans. Additional medical or therapy services should also be researched and implemented in order to help them re-integrate back into civilian life.
Work-Life Balance Corporations should provide more work from home opportunities and six-hour workdays so that office workers have a better work-life balance and are more likely to be productive when they are in the office.
Teaching Youths about Consensual Sex Although sex education that includes a discussion of consensual sex would likely lead to less sexual assault, parents need to teach their children the meaning of consent from a young age with age appropriate lessons.
Whether or Not to Attend University A degree from a university provides invaluable lessons on life and a future career, but not every high school student should be encouraged to attend a university directly after graduation. Some students may benefit from a trade school or a "gap year" where they can think more intensely about what it is they want to do for a career and how they can accomplish this.
Studying Abroad Studying abroad is one of the most culturally valuable experiences you can have in college. It is the only way to get completely immersed in another language and learn how other cultures and countries are different from your own.
Women's Body Image Magazines have done a lot in the last five years to include a more diverse group of models, but there is still a long way to go to promote a healthy woman's body image collectively as a culture.
Cigarette Tax Heavily taxing and increasing the price of cigarettes is essentially a tax on the poorest Americans, and it doesn't deter them from purchasing. Instead, the state and federal governments should target those economically disenfranchised with early education about the dangers of smoking.
Veganism A vegan diet, while a healthy and ethical way to consume food, indicates a position of privilege. It also limits you to other cultural food experiences if you travel around the world.
University Athletes Should be Compensated University athletes should be compensated for their service to the university, as it is difficult for these students to procure and hold a job with busy academic and athletic schedules. Many student athletes on scholarship also come from low-income neighborhoods and it is a struggle to make ends meet when they are participating in athletics.
Women in the Workforce Sheryl Sandberg makes a lot of interesting points in her best-selling book, Lean In , but she only addressed the very privileged working woman and failed to speak to those in lower-skilled, lower-wage jobs.
Assisted Suicide Assisted suicide should be legal and doctors should have the ability to make sure their patients have the end-of-life care that they want to receive.
Celebrity and Political Activism Although Taylor Swift's lyrics are indicative of a feminist perspective, she should be more politically active and vocal to use her position of power for the betterment of society.
The Civil War The insistence from many Southerners that the South seceded from the Union for states' rights versus the fact that they seceded for the purposes of continuing slavery is a harmful myth that still affects race relations today.
Blue Collar Workers Coal miners and other blue-collar workers whose jobs are slowly disappearing from the workforce should be re-trained in jobs in the technology sector or in renewable energy. A program to re-train these workers would not only improve local economies where jobs have been displaced, but would also lead to lower unemployment nationally.
Diversity in the Workforce Having a diverse group of people in an office setting leads to richer ideas, more cooperation, and more empathy between people with different skin colors or backgrounds.
Re-Imagining the Nuclear Family The nuclear family was traditionally defined as one mother, one father, and 2.5 children. This outdated depiction of family life doesn't quite fit with modern society. The definition of normal family life shouldn't be limited to two-parent households.
Digital Literacy Skills With more information readily available than ever before, it's crucial that students are prepared to examine the material they're reading and determine whether or not it's a good source or if it has misleading information. Teaching students digital literacy and helping them to understand the difference between opinion or propaganda from legitimate, real information is integral.
Beauty Pageants Beauty pageants are presented with the angle that they empower women. However, putting women in a swimsuit on a stage while simultaneously judging them on how well they answer an impossible question in a short period of time is cruel and purely for the amusement of men. Therefore, we should stop televising beauty pageants.
Supporting More Women to Run for a Political Position In order to get more women into political positions, more women must run for office. There must be a grassroots effort to educate women on how to run for office, who among them should run, and support for a future candidate for getting started on a political career.

Still stuck? Need some help with your thesis statement?

If you are still uncertain about how to write a thesis statement or what a good thesis statement is, be sure to consult with your teacher or professor to make sure you're on the right track. It's always a good idea to check in and make sure that your thesis statement is making a solid argument and that it can be supported by your research.

After you're done writing, it's important to have someone take a second look at your paper so that you can ensure there are no mistakes or errors. It's difficult to spot your own mistakes, which is why it's always recommended to have someone help you with the revision process, whether that's a teacher, the writing center at school, or a professional editor such as one from ServiceScape .

Blame and Forgiveness

--> Roadevin, Cristina (2016) Blame and Forgiveness. PhD thesis, University of Sheffield.

This thesis discusses the nature of two interrelated moral phenomena, blame and forgiveness. The two main questions this thesis addresses are: What is it to blame someone? What is involved in forgiveness? I begin by offering an account of blame which fits well with the attitudes of apology and forgiveness, as responses to wrongdoing. I introduce the idea that we blame wrongdoers for the disrespect and lack of consideration expressed in their actions and behaviour. I use the broad Kantian idea that whenever people wrong each other there is a failure of respect involved. Following this idea, I propose to understand wrongdoing as expressing disrespect for the victim and therefore creating a deficit of respect. I argue that there is something corrective about the expression of blame. Wrongdoers create a deficit of respect when they wrong us and blame expressively makes good that disrespect. I then develop an account of earned forgiveness through apology. I argue that apologies have reason-giving powers: they make forgiveness rational. Apologies work in relation to forgiveness because in apologizing the wrongdoer recognizes that how she treated the victim was wrong and that the victim deserves to be treated better. Apology restores at an expressive level the moral balance of respect between the victim and the wrongdoer, so that forgiveness can be forthcoming. In cases of elective forgiveness, where there is no apology, I argue that forgiveness is justified by non-desert type reasons such as generosity and strong community support. These reasons both enable and justify the victim to forgive. I further ask the question of what sort of a thing forgiveness is emotionally. I argue that forgiveness involves the overcoming of retributive emotions towards the wrongdoer, as a result of deciding to trust the wrongdoer.

Supervisors:	Bennett, Christopher and Fricker, Miranda
Awarding institution:	University of Sheffield
Academic Units:
Identification Number/EthosID:	uk.bl.ethos.689329
Depositing User:	Dr Cristina Roadevin
Date Deposited:	08 Jul 2016 14:42
Last Modified:	03 Oct 2016 13:15

--> Blame and Forgiveness Thesis final --> -->

Filename: Blame and Forgiveness Thesis final.pdf

Embargo Date:

You do not need to contact us to get a copy of this thesis. Please use the 'Download' link(s) above to get a copy. You can contact us about this thesis . If you need to make a general enquiry, please see the Contact us page.

Skip to main content
Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Is it fair to forgive student loans? Examining 3 of the arguments of a heated debate

Scott Horsley

Student loan borrowers stage a rally in front of The White House on Aug. 25 to celebrate President Biden cancelling student debt. The plan has sparked heated debate, including about its economic fairness. Paul Morigi/Getty Images for We the 45m hide caption

President Biden's plan to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in student debt is sparking heated debate.

Biden last week announced plans to forgive up to $20,000 in federal student loan debt for Pell Grant recipients and up to $10,000 for others who qualify.

The news will provide relief for borrowers at a time when the cost of higher education has surged.

Student loan forgiveness is politically popular. But not all Democrats are on board

But critics are questioning the fairness of the plan and warn about the potential impact on inflation should the students with the forgiven loans increase their spending.

Here are three key arguments – for and against the wisdom of Biden's decision.

Raising living standards or adding fuel to inflation?

Undoubtedly, student debt is a big burden for a lot of people.

Under Biden's plan, 43 million people stand to have their loan payments reduced, while 20 million would have their debt forgiven altogether.

People whose payments are cut or eliminated should have more money to spend elsewhere – maybe to buy a car, put a down payment on a house or even put money aside for their own kids' college savings plan. So the debt forgiveness has the potential to raise the living standard for tens of millions of people.

Critics, however, say that additional spending power would just pour more gasoline on the inflationary fire in an economy where businesses are already struggling to keep up with consumer demand.

Inflation remains near its highest rate in 40 years and the Federal Reserve is moving to aggressively raise interest rates in hopes of bringing prices back under control.

Not all economists believe the debt forgiveness will do much to fuel inflation.

Debt forgiveness is not like the $1200 relief checks the government sent out last year, which some experts say added to inflationary pressure. Borrowers won't suddenly have $20,000 deposited in their bank accounts. Instead, they'll be relieved of making loan payments over many years.

President Biden announces student loan relief in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, D.C. on Aug. 24. Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

President Biden announces student loan relief in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, D.C. on Aug. 24.

Because the relief is dribbled out slowly, Ali Bustamante, who's with left-leaning Roosevelt Institute says Biden's move won't move the needle on inflation very much.

"It's just really a drop in the bucket when it come to just the massive level of consumer spending in our very service- and consumer-driven economy," he says.

The White House also notes that borrowers who still have outstanding student debt will have to start making payments again next year. Those payments have been on hold throughout the pandemic.

Restarting them will take money out of borrower's pockets, offsetting some of the additional spending power that comes from loan forgiveness.

Helping lower income Americans or a sop to the rich?

Another big point of contention has to do with fairness.

Forgiving loans would would effectively transfer hundreds of billions of dollars in debt from individuals and families to the federal government, and ultimately, the taxpayers.

Some believe that transfer effectively penalizes people who scrimped and saved to pay for college, as well as the majority of Americans who don't go to college.

They might not mind subsidizing a newly minted social worker, making $25,000 a year. But they might bristle at underwriting debt relief for a business school graduate who's about to go to Wall Street and earn six figures.

Students from George Washington University wear their graduation gowns outside of the White House in Washington, D.C, on May 18. Economists worry President Biden's plan to forgive student loans could encourage more people to take on debt in the hopes of also being forgiven. Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

The White House estimates 90% of the debt relief would go to people making under $75,000 a year. Lower-income borrowers who qualified for Pell Grants in college are eligible for twice as much debt forgiveness as other borrowers.

But individuals making as much as $125,000 and couples making up to $250,000 are eligible for some debt forgiveness. Subsidizing college for those upper-income borrowers might rub people the wrong way.

"I still think a lot of this benefit is going to go to doctors, lawyers, MBAs, other graduates that have very high earnings potential and may even have very high earnings this year already," says Marc Goldwein senior policy director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Helping those in need or making college tuition worse?

Goldwein also complains that the loan forgiveness doesn't address the larger problem of soaring college tuition costs.

In fact, he suggests, it might make that problem worse — like a Band-Aid that masks a more serious infection underneath.

For years, the cost of college education has risen much faster than inflation, which is one reason student debt has exploded.

And now what? The question that follows Biden's student loan forgiveness plan

By forgiving some of that debt, the government will provide relief to current and former students.

But Goldwein says the government might encourage future students to take on even more debt, while doing little to instill cost discipline at schools.

"People are going to assume there's a likelihood that debt is canceled again and again," Goldwein says. "And if you assume there's a likelihood it's canceled, you're going to be more likely to take out more debt up front. That's going to give colleges more pricing power to raise tuition without pressure and to offer more low-value degrees."

The old rule in economics is when the government subsidizes something, you tend to get more of it. And that includes high tuition and college debt.

college tuition
student loan debt
student loans
student debt forgiveness

9:30am Contemporary Service 11:00am Traditional Service

Essay on Forgiveness by C.S. Lewis

By Macmillan Publishing Company, Inc. N.Y. 1960

We say a great many things in church (and out of church too) without thinking of what we are saying. For instance, we say in the Creed " I believe in the forgiveness of sins." I had been saying it for several years before I asked myself why it was in the Creed. At first sight it seems hardly worth putting in. "If one is a Christian," I thought " of course one believes in the forgiveness of sins. It goes without saying." But the people who compiled the Creed apparently thought that this was a part of our belief which we needed to be reminded of every time we went to church. And I have begun to see that, as far as I am concerned, they were right. To believe in the forgiveness of sins is not so easy as I thought. Real belief in it is the sort of thing that easily slips away if we don't keep on polishing it up.

We believe that God forgives us our sins; but also that He will not do so unless we forgive other people their sins against us. There is no doubt about the second part of this statement. It is in the Lord's Prayer, it was emphatically stated by our Lord. If you don't forgive you will not be forgiven. No exceptions to it. He doesn't say that we are to forgive other people's sins, provided they are not too frightful, or provided there are extenuating circumstances, or anything of that sort. We are to forgive them all, however spiteful, however mean, however often they are repeated. If we don't we shall be forgiven none of our own.

Now it seems to me that we often make a mistake both about God's forgiveness of our sins and about the forgiveness we are told to offer to other people's sins. Take it first about God's forgiveness, I find that when I think I am asking God to forgive me I am often in reality (unless I watch myself very carefully) asking Him to do something quite different. I am asking him not to forgive me but to excuse me. But there is all the difference in the world between forgiving and excusing. Forgiveness says, "Yes, you have done this thing, but I accept your apology; I will never hold it against you and everything between us two will be exactly as it was before." If one was not really to blame then there is nothing to forgive. In that sense forgiveness and excusing are almost opposites. Of course, in dozens of cases, either between God and man, or between one man and another, there may be a mixture of the two. Part of what at first seemed to be the sins turns out to be really nobody's fault and is excused; the bit that is left over is forgiven. If you had a perfect excuse, you would not need forgiveness; if the whole of your actions needs forgiveness, then there was no excuse for it. But the trouble is that what we call "asking God's forgiveness" very often really consists in asking God to accept our excuses. What leads us into this mistake is the fact that there usually is some amount of excuse, some "extenuating circumstances." We are so very anxious to point these things out to God (and to ourselves) that we are apt to forget the very important thing; that is, the bit left over, the bit which excuses don't cover, the bit which is inexcusable but not, thank God, unforgivable. And if we forget this, we shall go away imagining that we have repented and been forgiven when all that has really happened is that we have satisfied ourselves without own excuses. They may be very bad excuses; we are all too easily satisfied about ourselves.

There are two remedies for this danger. One is to remember that God knows all the real excuses very much better than we do. If there are real "extenuating circumstances" there is no fear that He will overlook them. Often He must know many excuses that we have never even thought of, and therefore humble souls will, after death, have the delightful surprise of discovering that on certain occasions they sinned much less than they thought. All the real excusing He will do. What we have got to take to Him is the inexcusable bit, the sin. We are only wasting our time talking about all the parts which can (we think) be excused. When you go to a Dr. you show him the bit of you that is wrong - say, a broken arm. It would be a mere waste of time to keep on explaining that your legs and throat and eyes are all right. You may be mistaken in thinking so, and anyway, if they are really right, the doctor will know that.

The second remedy is really and truly to believe in the forgiveness of sins. A great deal of our anxiety to make excuses comes from not really believing in it, from thinking that God will not take us to Himself again unless He is satisfied that some sort of case can be made out in our favor. But that is not forgiveness at all. Real forgiveness means looking steadily at the sin, the sin that is left over without any excuse, after all allowances have been made, and seeing it in all its horror, dirt, meanness, and malice, and nevertheless being wholly reconciled to the man who has done it.

When it comes to a question of our forgiving other people, it is partly the same and partly different. It is the same because, here also forgiving does not mean excusing. Many people seem to think it does. They think that if you ask them to forgive someone who has cheated or bullied them you are trying to make out that there was really no cheating or bullying. But if that were so, there would be nothing to forgive. (This doesn't mean that you must necessarily believe his next promise. It does mean that you must make every effort to kill every taste of resentment in your own heart - every wish to humiliate or hurt him or to pay him out.) The difference between this situation and the one in which you are asking God's forgiveness is this. In our own case we accept excuses too easily, in other people's we do not accept them easily enough. As regards my own sins it is a safe bet (though not a certainty) that the excuses are not really so good as I think; as regards other men's sins against me it is a safe bet (though not a certainty) that the excuses are better than I think. One must therefore begin by attending to everything which may show that the other man was not so much to blame as we thought. But even if he is absolutely fully to blame we still have to forgive him; and even if ninety-nine per cent of his apparent guilt can be explained away by really good excuses, the problem of forgiveness begins with the one per cent of guilt that is left over. To excuse, what can really produce good excuses is not Christian charity; it is only fairness. To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.

This is hard. It is perhaps not so hard to forgive a single great injury. But to forgive the incessant provocations of daily life - to keep on forgiving the bossy mother-in-law, the bullying husband, the nagging wife, the selfish daughter, the deceitful son - How can we do it? Only, I think, by remembering where we stand, by meaning our words when we say in our prayers each night "Forgive our trespasses * as we forgive those that trespass against us." We are offered forgiveness on no other terms. To refuse it is to refuse God's mercy for ourselves. There is no hint of exceptions and God means what He says.

*Trespasses=offences, being offended or offending. (Notes are not authored to Mr. Lewis.)

Student debt forgiveness would impact nearly every aspect of people’s lives

Subscribe to global connection, stephen roll , stephen roll research assistant professor, social policy institute, brown school - washington university in st. louis jason jabbari , and jason jabbari research assistant professor - social policy institute at washington university in st. louis michal grinstein-weiss michal grinstein-weiss nonresident senior fellow - economic studies.

May 18, 2021

Though the emergency relief measures passed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic allowed student loan borrowers to defer their loan payments, student loan debt burdens still loom large for millions of U.S. households. According to the Federal Reserve , the national student debt level in the fourth quarter of 2020 was $1.7 trillion spread across 45 million borrowers—the highest level on record. Given the size of the debt burden, it is perhaps unsurprising that the possibility of student loan forgiveness has become a major policy discussion.

Most recently, President Joe Biden called for $10,000 in student debt forgiveness, while others, such as Senator Elizabeth Warren, have called for as much as $50,000 in debt forgiveness. Some have even called for total debt forgiveness, which would represent a larger amount of spending than the cumulative spending on unemployment insurance over the last 20 years . In a recent poll from the Center for Responsible Lending, 63 percent of respondents supported permanently reducing student loan debt by $20,000. As policymakers grapple with this question, it is important to explore how debt forgiveness might relate to household behaviors.

A student loan forgiveness experiment

To examine the relationship between student debt forgiveness and household behaviors, researchers at the Social Policy Institute conducted a survey experiment that asked participants with student debt to imagine a scenario in which the federal government forgave some amount of their student debt, and then had these participants report on how this would affect their decisions and behaviors. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions that featured different levels of student debt forgiveness:

Condition 1: $5,000 of student debt forgiveness
Condition 2: $10,000 of student debt forgiveness
Condition 3: $20,000 of student debt forgiveness
Condition 4: All student debt forgiven

Participants could then select different behaviors they would engage in if their student debt were forgiven. The response options were intended to capture a wide range of experiences like working less, changing purchasing behaviors, having children or getting married, saving for different purposes, or returning to school. In total, 1,009 respondents who reported having student debt participated in the experiment.

The amount of debt forgiven matters

We present the results from this experiment in Figure 1. Generally speaking, the most common ways people reported that they would change their behaviors after student debt forgiveness—regardless of the amount forgiven—concerned their balance sheets. Large proportions of student debt holders reported that they would pay down other debts, save more for emergencies, save for a down payment on a home, or save more for retirement.

Figure 1. The relationship between the amount of student debt forgiven and household behaviors

Source: Social Policy Institute

Note: These results are from a survey experiment in which student debt holders were randomly assigned to receive one of four levels of student debt forgiveness. The impacts of the different levels of debt forgiveness were estimated using logistic regression models that also controlled for the amount of student debt held by participants. N=1,009. The brackets on each bar represent the 95 percent confidence interval of each estimate.

Turning to the differences between experimental conditions, we see interesting patterns in the relationship between the amount of debt forgiven and household behaviors. In particular:

The amount of student debt forgiven was not strongly associated with either working less or paying down other debts.
Higher levels of student debt forgiveness were associated with higher reported rates of purchasing more/better food, making large purchases like a car or appliance, returning to school, and saving more for emergencies.
Student debt holders only say they would save more for retirement if all their student debt were forgiven, which implies that many student debt holders would prioritize other behaviors over the long-term goal of saving for retirement.
Student debt holders were also twice as likely to report that they would have a child if they received $10,000 of debt forgiveness or complete debt forgiveness as they would if they only received $5,000 of debt forgiveness ($20,000 of debt forgiveness did not produce a statistically significant difference from $5,000).
Higher amounts of student debt forgiveness were associated with other investment behaviors like starting a business or savings for a down payment on a home, as well as a willingness to spend more on entertainment.

The proportion of debt forgiven matters, too

In Figure 2, we shift our focus away from the amount of debt forgiveness to the proportion of debt forgiveness. For this analysis, we converted the amount of forgiveness in each experimental condition to a percentage based on each participant’s reported amount of student debt. That is, someone with $20,000 of student debt assigned to the $5,000 forgiveness condition would have 25 percent of their student debt forgiven, whereas if that person were assigned to the $10,000 forgiveness condition, they would have 50 percent of their debt forgiven. Everyone assigned to Condition 4, as well as everyone assigned to a condition that offered more student debt forgiveness than the amount of debt they owed, were coded as having 100 percent of their student debt forgiven.

Figure 2. The relationship between the proportion of student debt forgiven and household behaviors

Note: These results are from a survey experiment in which student debt holders were randomly assigned to receive one of four levels of student debt forgiveness. The proportions were calculated by diving the amount of student debt held by the proposed amount of student debt forgiven. The impacts of the different proportions of debt forgiveness were estimated using logistic regression models that also controlled for the amount of student debt held by participants. N=1,009. The brackets on each bar represent the 95 percent confidence interval of each estimate.

Interestingly, Figure 2 shows some interesting differences in response patterns when we shift from considering the amount forgiven to the proportion forgiven.

There is now a clear relationship between the proportion of student debt forgiven and working less—roughly 10 percent of respondents who had 50 percent or more of their student debt forgiven would work less, compared to almost no one having 25 percent or less of their debt forgiven.
Respondents having less than half of their student debt forgiven were much more likely to report paying down other debts than those with higher proportions of debt forgiven.
The bulk of respondents saying they would be more likely to have a child if their student debt were forgiven were those who would have all their debt forgiven.
Respondents became much more likely to report that they would save for emergencies once the proportion of their student debt forgiven exceeds 25 percent, and were more likely to return to school when the proportion exceeds 50 percent.
Respondents who had all of their debt forgiven were also much more likely to report starting a business as well.

Student debt forgiveness would benefit both high- and low-income households

As a supplemental analysis, we investigated whether or not student debt holders’ incomes influenced the relationship between student debt forgiveness amounts and hypothetical changes in their behaviors. Interestingly, for the vast majority of possible behaviors, both high- and low-income households reported that different amounts of student debt forgiveness would affect them in similar ways. The one primary exception to this was in terms of savings for emergencies—low-income households were much more likely than high-income households to say that they would increase the amount they saved for emergencies as the amount of student debt forgiveness increased.

Implications

These results show two things. First, they show how extensively student debt affects debt holders. The responses to this experiment indicate that student debt is strongly influencing decisions that can have large implications for household economic stability (e.g., emergency savings) and mobility (e.g., saving for a down payment on a home, starting a business). In addition, student debt may be altering the structure of families themselves. Roughly 7 percent of respondents reported that they would be more likely to get married (results not shown) or have children if their student debt were forgiven, indicating that this debt burden is affecting even fundamental decisions about debt holders’ life trajectories.

Second, these results show that the level of student debt forgiveness matters. In particular, setting a student debt forgiveness target too low may not lead to broad-based changes in households’ economic behaviors. However, setting a student debt forgiveness amount at a point where the average debt holder would have more than a quarter of their debt forgiven may yield large changes in savings behaviors, human capital investments (e.g., returning to school), and business starts, without leading to large changes in labor supply.

As policymakers grapple with whether or not to forgive student debt, how much to forgive, and who gets their debt forgiven, it is important to consider the impact of debt forgiveness on household behaviors and how this might differ by the amount of debt held. Our results suggest that larger amounts of debt forgiveness can improve both family stability and upward mobility—especially when these amounts make up a greater proportion of their overall student debt amounts.

A proportional approach to student loan forgiveness

Among those who are considering student debt forgiveness policies, the debate is often framed as a choice between a universal or a targeted policy approach. In this debate, proponents of targeted approaches suggest that universal approaches tend to be inequitable, as they offer benefits to individuals who don’t necessarily need them, and that these approaches tend to be unfair, as these breaks do not apply to previous debt holders who paid off their student loans. As universal approaches tend to be more expensive, proponents of targeted approaches also note fiscal trade-offs, as the money used to pay off the “luxuries” of higher earners could instead be used to help lower earners meet basic needs, such as food and housing.

While the universal approach often focuses on the dollar amount of debt forgiven and the targeted approach often focuses on the income threshold for who would qualify for debt forgiveness, our results suggest that an approach forgiving a proportion of loans should be considered as an option as well. Here, policies could take into account the actual amount of individuals’ debt and forgive a certain proportion of it. This strategy could be applied to either universal or targeted debt forgiveness, or a combination of both approaches. For example, all individuals could have a proportion of their student debt forgiven, and this proportion could increase for lower-income individuals. This approach would have the benefit of addressing the equity concerns of those advocating for a more targeted approach, while still providing real and substantial benefits to student debt holders across the income spectrum.

Forgiveness Theses Samples For Students

2 samples of this type

While studying in college, you will inevitably have to craft a lot of Theses on Forgiveness. Lucky you if putting words together and turning them into relevant content comes easy to you; if it's not the case, you can save the day by finding an already written Forgiveness Thesis example and using it as a template to follow.

This is when you will certainly find WowEssays' free samples catalog extremely useful as it embodies numerous skillfully written works on most various Forgiveness Theses topics. Ideally, you should be able to find a piece that meets your criteria and use it as a template to build your own Thesis. Alternatively, our skilled essay writers can deliver you a unique Forgiveness Thesis model crafted from scratch according to your custom instructions.

Free Thesis On Othello - The Moor Of Venice

Introduction:, thesis on christian fiath v.s. islam faith.

Don't waste your time searching for a sample.

Get your thesis done by professional writers!

Just from $10/page

Password recovery email has been sent to [email protected]

Use your new password to log in

You are not register!

By clicking Register, you agree to our Terms of Service and that you have read our Privacy Policy .

Now you can download documents directly to your device!

Check your email! An email with your password has already been sent to you! Now you can download documents directly to your device.

or Use the QR code to Save this Paper to Your Phone

The sample is NOT original!

Short on a deadline?

Don't waste time. Get help with 11% off using code - GETWOWED

No, thanks! I'm fine with missing my deadline

More From Forbes

These 4 student loan forgiveness plans may be in danger if legal challenges succeed.

Share to Facebook
Share to Twitter
Share to Linkedin

UNITED STATES - APRIL 18: Education Secretary Miguel Cardona testifies during the House ... [+] Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies hearing on Tuesday, April 18, 2023. Caronda spoke out against the latest court ruling threatening student loan forgiveness under SAVE and other income-driven plans. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Several popular federal student loan forgiveness programs may be in serious danger as legal battles continue.

Republican leaders of more than a dozen states filed legal challenges last spring to overturn the Biden administration’s SAVE plan, a new income-driven option designed to lower payments and end ballooning interest. Like all IDR plans, SAVE also provides for student loan forgiveness after 20 or 25 years in repayment, although that timeline can be reduced for certain borrowers who took out smaller loans. After a federal appeals court blocked the entire SAVE plan last week , the dispute is now headed to the Supreme Court, which may have the final say.

But while technically only the SAVE plan is under direct attack, the legal battle is having collateral effects for other student loan forgiveness and repayment programs. And if SAVE ultimately gets overturned , millions of borrowers could be impacted, even if they never enrolled in SAVE in the first place.

Student Loan Forgiveness Under The SAVE Plan Is Primary Target Of Legal Challenges

When the Republican-led states filed their lawsuits against the Biden administration in the spring, their target was the SAVE plan.

“The SAVE Plan lowers payments for almost all borrowers compared to other IDR plans because your payments are based on a smaller portion of your adjusted gross income (AGI),” explains the Education Department in published guidance. SAVE also has an interest benefit that “prevents your balance from growing due to unpaid interest,” and allows for student loan forgiveness in as little as 10 years for borrowers who took on small amounts of federal student debt.

The challenging states argue that the benefits of SAVE go too far, and exceed what Congress authorized when it passed legislation more than three decades ago establishing IDR plans. And a conservative panel of three judges on the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, which blocked the SAVE plan last week, seems to agree.

Best High-Yield Savings Accounts Of 2024

Best 5% interest savings accounts of 2024.

“The new SAVE plan,” in contrast to earlier versions of IDR, “is an order of magnitude broader than anything that has come before,” wrote the court in its ruling allowing a preliminary injunction, questioning its legality.

At least eight million borrowers have enrolled in SAVE so far, or were switched automatically to SAVE from an earlier version of the plan called REPAYE. All of these borrowers are now in an administrative forbearance while the litigation continues. If the Supreme Court ultimately takes up the Biden administration’s appeal and agrees with the 8th Circuit, the SAVE plan would likely get struck down, along with all of its benefits — including lower payments and any student loan forgiveness associated with the program.

Student Loan Forgiveness Under Other IDR Plans Could Be Impacted By SAVE Plan Legal Challenges

But the consequences of these legal challenges may not just be limited to borrowers enrolled in the SAVE plan. Borrowers enrolled in several other IDR plans could also be impacted by an adverse Supreme Court decision.

The Biden administration established the SAVE plan using authority under the Higher Education Act. This statute, passed by Congress in 1993, sets the basic parameters for IDR plans — namely, that payments cannot exceed a certain portion of a borrower’s income, and that borrowers can’t be required to pay for longer than 25 years. Congress directed the Education Department to write more detailed regulations governing other aspects of these programs. And the department has done so several times, creating Income-Contingent Repayment (also known as ICR) in 1994, and Pay As You Earn (also known as PAYE) in 2012. The REPAYE plan, which was the predecessor to the SAVE plan, came out in 2015.

But the 8th Circuit’s recent ruling granting a preliminary injunction for the SAVE plan suggests that student loan forgiveness under other IDR plans — such as ICR and PAYE — that relied on the same Higher Education Act authority could be called into question.

“We agree with the district court that the Government’s ‘interpretation’ of this provision to authorize loan forgiveness of this magnitude ‘is questionable,’ especially in light of the fact that ‘other portions of the HEA . . . explicitly permit loan forgiveness,’” wrote the 8th Circuit in its opinion. Unlike the Income-Based Repayment plan, or IBR, which Congress authorized in 2007, there is “ statutory silence regarding forgiveness under ICR plans,” wrote the court. The panel went on to say, “Congress has made it clear under what circumstances loan forgiveness is permitted, and the ICR plan is not one of those circumstances.” Here, the court meant ICR, PAYE, REPAYE, and SAVE, all of which were established using the same Higher Education Act authority.

Attorneys for the Biden administration vehemently dispute this characterization of ICR plans, noting that for over 30 years, these programs were intended to provide borrowers with affordable payments and eventual student loan forgiveness.

The underlying authority, passed by Congress, was “mandated by statute since 1993” and allows “millions of Americans to make student-loan payments tailored to their income and then have their remaining balances forgiven at the end of a fixed period of repayment,” wrote Justice Department attorneys in their brief to the Supreme Court this week. The SAVE plan, they wrote, is “a straightforward exercise of the Department’s express statutory authority to set the parameters of income-contingent repayment plans — just as it has done for three decades.” The Justice Department accused the 8th Circuit of barely bothering to even fully review the actual statutory text, let alone the legislative intent of that text.

“This injunction, if allowed to stand, would harm borrowers who have dutifully repaid their loans for up to 25 years by denying forgiveness that has been available under law for three decades,” noted Education Secretary Miguel Cardona in a statement on Monday.

Advocates for borrowers have pointed out the obvious flaw in the 8th Circuit’s reasoning: if Congress intended for borrowers to not have to pay their student loans under certain IDR plans once they reach a certain number of years in repayment, what — other than loan forgiveness — is supposed to occur at the end of that repayment period? Does the debt continue to exist, but with no payment obligation?

But if the Supreme Court ultimately sides with the 8th Circuit, student loan forgiveness under ICR and PAYE — which technically have nothing to do with the SAVE or REPAYE plans — could all be called into question.

Borrowers Pursuing PSLF Would Face Student Loan Forgiveness Headaches

The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program is another popular plan that could be impacted by these SAVE legal challenges. PSLF allows borrowers working in nonprofit or government jobs to receive student loan forgiveness in as little as 10 years, provided they are meeting the program’s requirements. One of those requirements involves repaying loans under specific repayment plans, such as IDR.

To be clear, PSLF is not being challenged as part of the SAVE plan lawsuits, and the legality of PSLF has — to date — not been questioned, as Congress expressly authorized the program through bipartisan legislation signed by President George W. Bush in 2007. But the impacts of an adverse Supreme Court ruling that adopts the 8th Circuit’s reasoning could be problematic for borrowers pursuing loan forgiveness through PSLF.

PSLF borrowers enrolled in SAVE are already facing obstacles due to the administrative forbearance associated with the SAVE plan legal challenges. The forbearance period does not count toward loan forgiveness under PSLF, leaving borrowers with limited options. While technically they could switch to a different IDR plan, the Education Department is currently unable to process IDR requests and has told borrowers to anticipate very lengthy processing delays. Borrowers could utilize a new PSLF buyback option to retroactively make a lump sum payment to get PSLF credit for the forbearance period, but the buyback program is new, largely untested, and has complicated rules — including one that doesn’t allow borrowers to even request a PSLF buyback until they have reached 120 months of qualifying employment.

If SAVE ultimately gets struck down, it is unclear whether borrowers’ PSLF credit for payments made under SAVE prior to the injunction would be impacted. But borrowers looking to utilize the PSLF buyback option at a later date to get credit for the forbearance period may wind up having to make a larger-than-expected lump-sum payment, as the payment would be calculated in accordance with available IDR plans — all of which are more expensive than SAVE. Or, they may have to continue working in their public service jobs for longer than expected, effectively extending their service obligations.

Editorial Standards
Reprints & Permissions

Join The Conversation

One Community. Many Voices. Create a free account to share your thoughts.

Forbes Community Guidelines

Our community is about connecting people through open and thoughtful conversations. We want our readers to share their views and exchange ideas and facts in a safe space.

In order to do so, please follow the posting rules in our site's Terms of Service. We've summarized some of those key rules below. Simply put, keep it civil.

Your post will be rejected if we notice that it seems to contain:

False or intentionally out-of-context or misleading information
Insults, profanity, incoherent, obscene or inflammatory language or threats of any kind
Attacks on the identity of other commenters or the article's author
Content that otherwise violates our site's terms.

User accounts will be blocked if we notice or believe that users are engaged in:

Continuous attempts to re-post comments that have been previously moderated/rejected
Racist, sexist, homophobic or other discriminatory comments
Attempts or tactics that put the site security at risk
Actions that otherwise violate our site's terms.

So, how can you be a power user?

Stay on topic and share your insights
Feel free to be clear and thoughtful to get your point across
‘Like’ or ‘Dislike’ to show your point of view.
Protect your community.
Use the report tool to alert us when someone breaks the rules.

Thanks for reading our community guidelines. Please read the full list of posting rules found in our site's Terms of Service.

IMAGES

45 Perfect Thesis Statement Templates (+ Examples) ᐅ TemplateLab
45 Perfect Thesis Statement Templates (+ Examples) ᐅ TemplateLab
How To Write a Thesis Statement (with Useful Steps and Tips) • 7ESL
Essay on Forgiveness
45 Perfect Thesis Statement Templates (+ Examples) ᐅ TemplateLab
How to Write a Good Thesis Statement

COMMENTS

66 Forgiveness Essay: Examples, Titles, & Thesis Statement
Some good forgiveness titles for the essay reveal themes of revenge, justice, and personal forgiveness. You can write an excellent reflective or argumentative essay on forgiveness - it is a versatile topic. Regardless of your forgiveness essay's specific topic and type, you should develop a strong thesis statement.
How to Write a Thesis Statement
What is a thesis statement? A thesis statement summarizes the central points of your essay. It is a signpost telling the reader what the essay will argue and why. The best thesis statements are: Concise: A good thesis statement is short and sweet—don't use more words than necessary. State your point clearly and directly in one or two sentences.
Forgiveness Essays
The Importance of Forgiveness (in 100 Words) In this paragraph I will talk on forgiveness in 100 words. Forgiveness is essential for physical, mental, and spiritual health, benefiting both the forgiver and the forgiven. It fosters love, acceptance, and harmony in families, communities, and nations.
Psychology of Forgiveness: 10+ Fascinating Research Findings
The Science Behind Forgiveness: 10+ Findings. In his book, Forgive for Good, Dr. Frederic Luskin, Director of the Stanford University Forgiveness Project (2003), describes his personal and academic journey into forgiveness. When Luskin began his research, there were few studies in the field of forgiveness and limited knowledge of the tools that could help those who had suffered the most.
What is a Thesis Statement: Writing Guide with Examples
A thesis statement is a sentence in a paper or essay (in the opening paragraph) that introduces the main topic to the reader. As one of the first things your reader sees, your thesis statement is one of the most important sentences in your entire paper—but also one of the hardest to write! In this article, we explain how to write a thesis ...
The Ethics of Forgiveness: A Collection of Essays
While the points made in favor of unconditional forgiveness are perhaps not novel, the skill with which the issues are explained and defended makes this essay a good candidate for course syllabuses on forgiveness. Geoffrey Scarre strays slightly from the theme of forgiveness to look at issues of apology.
Thesis Statements
A thesis statement: tells the reader how you will interpret the significance of the subject matter under discussion. is a road map for the paper; in other words, it tells the reader what to expect from the rest of the paper. directly answers the question asked of you. A thesis is an interpretation of a question or subject, not the subject itself.
How to write a thesis statement + Examples
It is a brief statement of your paper's main argument. Essentially, you are stating what you will be writing about. Organize your papers in one place. Try Paperpile. No credit card needed. Get 30 days free. You can see your thesis statement as an answer to a question. While it also contains the question, it should really give an answer to the ...
How to Write a Strong Thesis Statement: 4 Steps + Examples
Step 4: Revise and refine your thesis statement before you start writing. Read through your thesis statement several times before you begin to compose your full essay. You need to make sure the statement is ironclad, since it is the foundation of the entire paper. Edit it or have a peer review it for you to make sure everything makes sense and ...
The Power of Forgiveness: [Essay Example], 742 words
Forgiveness is a complex and multifaceted concept that involves letting go of negative emotions, such as anger, resentment, and revenge, towards a person who has wronged us. Studies have shown that holding onto grudges and harboring feelings of resentment can have detrimental effects on our mental and physical health.
A Function of Forgiveness: Exploring the Relationship Between Negative
Forgiveness has traditionally been defined via dictionaries as ceasing to feel anger or resentment against an offender, or forgoing a desire for revenge or restitution for a wrongdoing (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, 2011).We, however, utilize the empirical and theoretically derived definition of forgiveness as a prosocial process whereby negative, resentment-based thoughts, emotions, and ...
The Science of Forgiveness and Why It's Good For You
Commit publicly to forgiveness. This could mean writing a note to yourself or the person who wronged you, telling a trusted friend, or talking to the person who wronged you. Hold onto the forgiveness.
Strong Thesis Statements
This thesis statement is not debatable. First, the word pollution implies that something is bad or negative in some way. Furthermore, all studies agree that pollution is a problem; they simply disagree on the impact it will have or the scope of the problem. No one could reasonably argue that pollution is unambiguously good.
Thesis Statements: Examples
Example 2. Poor. Abortion is a terrible practice that only deranged, baby-killing monsters would advocate under the guise of being pro-choice. Better. Despite the appeal of freedom of choice, the legalization of abortion has been detrimental to the well-being of women in America. Explanation.
Forgiveness Essays: Examples, Topics, & Outlines
Forgiveness and Personality The impact that personality has on the ability to forgive has been a topic of much debate for many years. Many experts believe that certain personality traits can make an individual more susceptible to forgiveness. The purpose of this discussion is to examine whether or not any personality seems to be more forgiving of self and others than other personalities.
25 Thesis Statement Examples That Will Make Writing a Breeze
What that means is that you can't just put any statement of fact and have it be your thesis. For example, everyone knows that puppies are cute. An ineffective thesis statement would be, "Puppies are adorable and everyone knows it." This isn't really something that's a debatable topic. Something that would be more debatable would be, "A puppy's ...
Blame and Forgiveness
This thesis discusses the nature of two interrelated moral phenomena, blame and forgiveness. The two main questions this thesis addresses are: What is it to blame someone? What is involved in forgiveness? I begin by offering an account of blame which fits well with the attitudes of apology and forgiveness, as responses to wrongdoing. I introduce the idea that we blame wrongdoers for the ...
Examining 3 of the arguments of the student loan forgiveness debate : NPR
Examining 3 of the arguments of a heated debate. Student loan borrowers stage a rally in front of The White House on Aug. 25 to celebrate President Biden cancelling student debt. The plan has ...
Essay on Forgiveness by C.S. Lewis
Essay on Forgiveness by C.S. Lewis. By Macmillan Publishing Company, Inc. N.Y. 1960. We say a great many things in church (and out of church too) without thinking of what we are saying. For instance, we say in the Creed " I believe in the forgiveness of sins." I had been saying it for several years before I asked myself why it was in the Creed.
Student debt forgiveness would impact nearly every aspect of people's
Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions that featured different levels of student debt forgiveness: Condition 1: $5,000 of student debt forgiveness. Condition 2: $10,000 of ...
Forgiveness Thesis Examples That Really Inspire
2 samples of this type. While studying in college, you will inevitably have to craft a lot of Theses on Forgiveness. Lucky you if putting words together and turning them into relevant content comes easy to you; if it's not the case, you can save the day by finding an already written Forgiveness Thesis example and using it as a template to follow.
[Solved] what would be a good thesis statement for forgiveness with
Q Consider the following example thesis statement and state whether you think it is a weak or strong thesis statement: " Answered over 90d ago Q I need some help in turning a topic I am interested in, into a research question.
8 times when forgiveness is not the healthiest response
2. When you aren't ready: After Kate Walter was dumped by her girlfriend of 26 years, Walter didn't feel that her ex deserved forgiveness — she said the woman had reneged on long-term ...
These 4 Student Loan Forgiveness Plans May Be In Danger If ...
"We agree with the district court that the Government's 'interpretation' of this provision to authorize loan forgiveness of this magnitude 'is questionable,' especially in light of the ...

66 Forgiveness Essay: Examples, Titles, & Thesis Statement

📝 Writing a Forgiveness Theme Statement

Have a language expert improve your writing

How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Table of contents

Receive feedback on language, structure, and formatting

Here's why students love Scribbr's proofreading services

Cite this Scribbr article

Is this article helpful?

Shona McCombes

Psychology of Forgiveness: 10+ Fascinating Research Findings

This Article Contains

Download 3 Free Emotional Intelligence Exercises (PDF)

Download 3 Free Emotional Intelligence Tools Pack (PDF)

1. Acceptance

2. Emotional regulation

World’s Largest Positive Psychology Resource

3. Shifting perspectives

4. Empathy and compassion

5. Radical responsibility

Step one – Dust off your remote control

Step two – Practice the “breath of thanks”

Step three – Practice the “heart focus”

Positive Emotion Refocusing Technique

17 Exercises To Develop Emotional Intelligence

1. Forgive for Good

2. Rewire Your Mind: Discover the Science + Practice of Mindfulness

3. The Art of Forgiveness, Loving Kindness, and Peace

4. What Doesn’t Kill Us: A Guide to Overcoming Adversity and Moving Forward

Article feedback

Let us know your thoughts Cancel reply

Related articles

Understanding Empathy vs. Sympathy: What’s the Difference?

What Is Compassion Fatigue? 24 Causes & Symptoms Explained

Empathy 101: 3+ Examples and Psychology Definitions

Read other articles by their category

Download 3 Free Self-Compassion Tools Pack (PDF)

The Ethics of Forgiveness: A Collection of Essays

Thesis Statements

Introduction

What is a thesis statement?

How do I create a thesis?

How do I know if my thesis is strong?

Works consulted

How to write a thesis statement + examples

What is a thesis statement?

What are your chances of acceptance?

Your chancing factors

How to Write a Strong Thesis Statement: 4 Steps + Examples

What’s Covered:

Step 1: Decide what kind of paper you’re writing

Step 2: Figure out what point you want to make

Step 3: Determine what information you’ll use to back up your point

Step 4: Revise and refine your thesis statement before you start writing

Related CollegeVine Blog Posts

The Power of Forgiveness

Cite this Essay

Related Essays

Still can’t find what you need?

Related Essays on Forgiveness

Related Topics

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

Forgiveness

Developing Strong Thesis Statements

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

The thesis statement or main claim must be debatable

The thesis needs to be narrow

Types of claims

Thesis Statements: Examples

25 Thesis Statement Examples That Will Make Writing a Breeze

Thesis statement examples

Still stuck? Need some help with your thesis statement?

Blame and Forgiveness

--> Blame and Forgiveness Thesis final --> -->

Is it fair to forgive student loans? Examining 3 of the arguments of a heated debate

Student loan forgiveness is politically popular. But not all Democrats are on board

Raising living standards or adding fuel to inflation?

Helping lower income Americans or a sop to the rich?

Helping those in need or making college tuition worse?