Turn a subject into a claim
A subject is a category; a topic is that subject pointed at an argument a reader can agree or disagree with.
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Placement assumes you already have a thesis. The harder, prior problem — how you get one — was the whole business of a workshop I ran called "What Should I Write About?" The starting principle: simply stating a subject is not a claim.
Three moves that make a claim
Writing about a broad subject creates a lack of stakes and focus. Three techniques converted subjects into claims in that session. The action verb: find the verb at the heart of what is happening — "working from home" becomes "home has shifted from a refuge to a workplace." The "so what?" ladder: a partner asks "so what?" three times, driving down to bedrock — one writer in our community, Naz, brought the FIRE movement as a subject, and it survived the ladder as a far deeper claim about regret. The three-sentence frame: "I am writing about [topic] because I want to figure out [question] so that my reader can better understand [value]" — and the middle slot must hold a question.
If the middle slot is a noun, you have a subject, not a topic.
Try it
- Name the action verb at the centre of your subject, and rebuild the sentence around it.
- Push the subject through three "so what?"s to find the stakes already buried in it.
- Fill the three-sentence frame, and keep working until the middle slot is a genuine question.
- Once you have the claim, put it where the reader expects it.
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