Generally speaking, whenever anyone writes anything, they want to accomplish some objective, argue some idea, express an opinion, make a point. Writing, however, is a little harder than some imagine, and it can often get in the way of a well-argued thesis. Somewhere between having the idea and making the argument, the author falls into a series of labyrinthine mazes surrounded by endless linguistic dead ends, infinite mangled grammar structures, and enough semantic smoke and mirrors to foil even the most earnest essayist. Many writers simply lose track of their objective, and their thesis dies a slow and painful death beneath a mountain of rubble consisting of headless nouns, crippled verbs, dead adjectives, mindless adverbs, stumbling articles, and wild interjections. The thesis lies crushed under this heap of flotsam and jetsam even before it has had a chance to flower, to be heard, to sing. The writing, of course, would be easier if the writer would isolate the thesis ahead of time, make sure that it is arguable, and focus it under a microscope before some lame attempt at exposing it to the world before it is ready. A great thesis should be neither too general nor too specific. It should not be a straw man that the writer would like to knock over in some naive way. A great thesis should not suggest black and white answers. A great thesis should establish a problem that the author wishes to address in some specific way. In this way, the author may explore alternatives and options that may or may not establish a clear answer. Not all thesis have either complete answers or clear solutions. A thesis will give a reader something to think about as the author marshals their arguments for or against. Yet, a thesis should not be so ambiguous that it can serve any argument or any line of reasoning. A thesis is a stance on a subject which the author must either attack or defend or dismiss or defend. A spurious thesis based on fallacious underpinnings and untrue suppositions should always be left on the ash heap of discarded writings. The first and most important parameter for a good thesis is that it be true in some honest and earnest way. This is the ethical responsibility of the essay writer, whether he/she be writing about politics, religion, art, sex, war, literature, or history. The thesis must be defensible within the realm of reasonable scholarship and accepted paradigms which have been accepted and established by the vast majority of writers in that field. Being a complete naysayer or iconoclast, though interesting, can often lead the thesis writer right out into left-field. Purposefully leading people astray is both dishonest and disheartening. Writing a paper without a thesis is like trying to find a treasure without a map: you may bang around in the dark for a long time, but you will never find anything. A good thesis is concise without being pedantic, suggestive without being overbearing, intriguing without being arcane. The thesis will lead a writer to tame the verbs, choose the nouns, avoid the adverbs, and carefully select their adjectives before blindly running downhill to their conclusions. Often, a great thesis cannot be completely proved or disproved, especially if the object of that thesis is a question with many answers or a conundrum with no answers.