the thesis statement and the specific purpose are the same

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

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Developing a Thesis Statement

Many papers you write require developing a thesis statement. In this section you’ll learn what a thesis statement is and how to write one.

Keep in mind that not all papers require thesis statements . If in doubt, please consult your instructor for assistance.

What is a thesis statement?

A thesis statement . . .

Makes an argumentative assertion about a topic; it states the conclusions that you have reached about your topic.
Makes a promise to the reader about the scope, purpose, and direction of your paper.
Is focused and specific enough to be “proven” within the boundaries of your paper.
Is generally located near the end of the introduction ; sometimes, in a long paper, the thesis will be expressed in several sentences or in an entire paragraph.
Identifies the relationships between the pieces of evidence that you are using to support your argument.

Not all papers require thesis statements! Ask your instructor if you’re in doubt whether you need one.

Identify a topic

Your topic is the subject about which you will write. Your assignment may suggest several ways of looking at a topic; or it may name a fairly general concept that you will explore or analyze in your paper.

Consider what your assignment asks you to do

Inform yourself about your topic, focus on one aspect of your topic, ask yourself whether your topic is worthy of your efforts, generate a topic from an assignment.

Below are some possible topics based on sample assignments.

Sample assignment 1

Analyze Spain’s neutrality in World War II.

Identified topic

Franco’s role in the diplomatic relationships between the Allies and the Axis

This topic avoids generalities such as “Spain” and “World War II,” addressing instead on Franco’s role (a specific aspect of “Spain”) and the diplomatic relations between the Allies and Axis (a specific aspect of World War II).

Sample assignment 2

Analyze one of Homer’s epic similes in the Iliad.

The relationship between the portrayal of warfare and the epic simile about Simoisius at 4.547-64.

This topic focuses on a single simile and relates it to a single aspect of the Iliad ( warfare being a major theme in that work).

Developing a Thesis Statement–Additional information

Your assignment may suggest several ways of looking at a topic, or it may name a fairly general concept that you will explore or analyze in your paper. You’ll want to read your assignment carefully, looking for key terms that you can use to focus your topic.

Sample assignment: Analyze Spain’s neutrality in World War II Key terms: analyze, Spain’s neutrality, World War II

After you’ve identified the key words in your topic, the next step is to read about them in several sources, or generate as much information as possible through an analysis of your topic. Obviously, the more material or knowledge you have, the more possibilities will be available for a strong argument. For the sample assignment above, you’ll want to look at books and articles on World War II in general, and Spain’s neutrality in particular.

As you consider your options, you must decide to focus on one aspect of your topic. This means that you cannot include everything you’ve learned about your topic, nor should you go off in several directions. If you end up covering too many different aspects of a topic, your paper will sprawl and be unconvincing in its argument, and it most likely will not fulfull the assignment requirements.

For the sample assignment above, both Spain’s neutrality and World War II are topics far too broad to explore in a paper. You may instead decide to focus on Franco’s role in the diplomatic relationships between the Allies and the Axis , which narrows down what aspects of Spain’s neutrality and World War II you want to discuss, as well as establishes a specific link between those two aspects.

Before you go too far, however, ask yourself whether your topic is worthy of your efforts. Try to avoid topics that already have too much written about them (i.e., “eating disorders and body image among adolescent women”) or that simply are not important (i.e. “why I like ice cream”). These topics may lead to a thesis that is either dry fact or a weird claim that cannot be supported. A good thesis falls somewhere between the two extremes. To arrive at this point, ask yourself what is new, interesting, contestable, or controversial about your topic.

As you work on your thesis, remember to keep the rest of your paper in mind at all times . Sometimes your thesis needs to evolve as you develop new insights, find new evidence, or take a different approach to your topic.

Derive a main point from topic

Once you have a topic, you will have to decide what the main point of your paper will be. This point, the “controlling idea,” becomes the core of your argument (thesis statement) and it is the unifying idea to which you will relate all your sub-theses. You can then turn this “controlling idea” into a purpose statement about what you intend to do in your paper.

Look for patterns in your evidence

Compose a purpose statement.

Consult the examples below for suggestions on how to look for patterns in your evidence and construct a purpose statement.

Franco first tried to negotiate with the Axis
Franco turned to the Allies when he couldn’t get some concessions that he wanted from the Axis

Possible conclusion:

Spain’s neutrality in WWII occurred for an entirely personal reason: Franco’s desire to preserve his own (and Spain’s) power.

Purpose statement

This paper will analyze Franco’s diplomacy during World War II to see how it contributed to Spain’s neutrality.

The simile compares Simoisius to a tree, which is a peaceful, natural image.
The tree in the simile is chopped down to make wheels for a chariot, which is an object used in warfare.

At first, the simile seems to take the reader away from the world of warfare, but we end up back in that world by the end.

This paper will analyze the way the simile about Simoisius at 4.547-64 moves in and out of the world of warfare.

Derive purpose statement from topic

To find out what your “controlling idea” is, you have to examine and evaluate your evidence . As you consider your evidence, you may notice patterns emerging, data repeated in more than one source, or facts that favor one view more than another. These patterns or data may then lead you to some conclusions about your topic and suggest that you can successfully argue for one idea better than another.

For instance, you might find out that Franco first tried to negotiate with the Axis, but when he couldn’t get some concessions that he wanted from them, he turned to the Allies. As you read more about Franco’s decisions, you may conclude that Spain’s neutrality in WWII occurred for an entirely personal reason: his desire to preserve his own (and Spain’s) power. Based on this conclusion, you can then write a trial thesis statement to help you decide what material belongs in your paper.

Sometimes you won’t be able to find a focus or identify your “spin” or specific argument immediately. Like some writers, you might begin with a purpose statement just to get yourself going. A purpose statement is one or more sentences that announce your topic and indicate the structure of the paper but do not state the conclusions you have drawn . Thus, you might begin with something like this:

This paper will look at modern language to see if it reflects male dominance or female oppression.
I plan to analyze anger and derision in offensive language to see if they represent a challenge of society’s authority.

At some point, you can turn a purpose statement into a thesis statement. As you think and write about your topic, you can restrict, clarify, and refine your argument, crafting your thesis statement to reflect your thinking.

As you work on your thesis, remember to keep the rest of your paper in mind at all times. Sometimes your thesis needs to evolve as you develop new insights, find new evidence, or take a different approach to your topic.

Compose a draft thesis statement

If you are writing a paper that will have an argumentative thesis and are having trouble getting started, the techniques in the table below may help you develop a temporary or “working” thesis statement.

Begin with a purpose statement that you will later turn into a thesis statement.

Assignment: Discuss the history of the Reform Party and explain its influence on the 1990 presidential and Congressional election.

Purpose Statement: This paper briefly sketches the history of the grassroots, conservative, Perot-led Reform Party and analyzes how it influenced the economic and social ideologies of the two mainstream parties.

Question-to-Assertion

If your assignment asks a specific question(s), turn the question(s) into an assertion and give reasons why it is true or reasons for your opinion.

Assignment : What do Aylmer and Rappaccini have to be proud of? Why aren’t they satisfied with these things? How does pride, as demonstrated in “The Birthmark” and “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” lead to unexpected problems?

Beginning thesis statement: Alymer and Rappaccinni are proud of their great knowledge; however, they are also very greedy and are driven to use their knowledge to alter some aspect of nature as a test of their ability. Evil results when they try to “play God.”

Write a sentence that summarizes the main idea of the essay you plan to write.

Main idea: The reason some toys succeed in the market is that they appeal to the consumers’ sense of the ridiculous and their basic desire to laugh at themselves.

Make a list of the ideas that you want to include; consider the ideas and try to group them.

nature = peaceful
war matériel = violent (competes with 1?)
need for time and space to mourn the dead
war is inescapable (competes with 3?)

Use a formula to arrive at a working thesis statement (you will revise this later).

although most readers of _______ have argued that _______, closer examination shows that _______.
_______ uses _______ and _____ to prove that ________.
phenomenon x is a result of the combination of __________, __________, and _________.

What to keep in mind as you draft an initial thesis statement

Beginning statements obtained through the methods illustrated above can serve as a framework for planning or drafting your paper, but remember they’re not yet the specific, argumentative thesis you want for the final version of your paper. In fact, in its first stages, a thesis statement usually is ill-formed or rough and serves only as a planning tool.

As you write, you may discover evidence that does not fit your temporary or “working” thesis. Or you may reach deeper insights about your topic as you do more research, and you will find that your thesis statement has to be more complicated to match the evidence that you want to use.

You must be willing to reject or omit some evidence in order to keep your paper cohesive and your reader focused. Or you may have to revise your thesis to match the evidence and insights that you want to discuss. Read your draft carefully, noting the conclusions you have drawn and the major ideas which support or prove those conclusions. These will be the elements of your final thesis statement.

Sometimes you will not be able to identify these elements in your early drafts, but as you consider how your argument is developing and how your evidence supports your main idea, ask yourself, “ What is the main point that I want to prove/discuss? ” and “ How will I convince the reader that this is true? ” When you can answer these questions, then you can begin to refine the thesis statement.

Refine and polish the thesis statement

To get to your final thesis, you’ll need to refine your draft thesis so that it’s specific and arguable.

Ask if your draft thesis addresses the assignment
Question each part of your draft thesis
Clarify vague phrases and assertions
Investigate alternatives to your draft thesis

Consult the example below for suggestions on how to refine your draft thesis statement.

Sample Assignment

Choose an activity and define it as a symbol of American culture. Your essay should cause the reader to think critically about the society which produces and enjoys that activity.

Ask The phenomenon of drive-in facilities is an interesting symbol of american culture, and these facilities demonstrate significant characteristics of our society.This statement does not fulfill the assignment because it does not require the reader to think critically about society.

Drive-ins are an interesting symbol of American culture because they represent Americans’ significant creativity and business ingenuity.

Among the types of drive-in facilities familiar during the twentieth century, drive-in movie theaters best represent American creativity, not merely because they were the forerunner of later drive-ins and drive-throughs, but because of their impact on our culture: they changed our relationship to the automobile, changed the way people experienced movies, and changed movie-going into a family activity.

While drive-in facilities such as those at fast-food establishments, banks, pharmacies, and dry cleaners symbolize America’s economic ingenuity, they also have affected our personal standards.

While drive-in facilities such as those at fast- food restaurants, banks, pharmacies, and dry cleaners symbolize (1) Americans’ business ingenuity, they also have contributed (2) to an increasing homogenization of our culture, (3) a willingness to depersonalize relationships with others, and (4) a tendency to sacrifice quality for convenience.

This statement is now specific and fulfills all parts of the assignment. This version, like any good thesis, is not self-evident; its points, 1-4, will have to be proven with evidence in the body of the paper. The numbers in this statement indicate the order in which the points will be presented. Depending on the length of the paper, there could be one paragraph for each numbered item or there could be blocks of paragraph for even pages for each one.

Complete the final thesis statement

The bottom line.

As you move through the process of crafting a thesis, you’ll need to remember four things:

Context matters! Think about your course materials and lectures. Try to relate your thesis to the ideas your instructor is discussing.
As you go through the process described in this section, always keep your assignment in mind . You will be more successful when your thesis (and paper) responds to the assignment than if it argues a semi-related idea.
Your thesis statement should be precise, focused, and contestable ; it should predict the sub-theses or blocks of information that you will use to prove your argument.
Make sure that you keep the rest of your paper in mind at all times. Change your thesis as your paper evolves, because you do not want your thesis to promise more than your paper actually delivers.

In the beginning, the thesis statement was a tool to help you sharpen your focus, limit material and establish the paper’s purpose. When your paper is finished, however, the thesis statement becomes a tool for your reader. It tells the reader what you have learned about your topic and what evidence led you to your conclusion. It keeps the reader on track–well able to understand and appreciate your argument.

the thesis statement and the specific purpose are the same

Writing Process and Structure

This is an accordion element with a series of buttons that open and close related content panels.

Getting Started with Your Paper

Interpreting Writing Assignments from Your Courses

Generating Ideas for

Creating an Argument

Thesis vs. Purpose Statements

Architecture of Arguments

Working with Sources

Quoting and Paraphrasing Sources

Using Literary Quotations

Citing Sources in Your Paper

Drafting Your Paper

Generating Ideas for Your Paper

Introductions

Paragraphing

Developing Strategic Transitions

Conclusions

Revising Your Paper

Peer Reviews

Reverse Outlines

Revising an Argumentative Paper

Revision Strategies for Longer Projects

Finishing Your Paper

Twelve Common Errors: An Editing Checklist

How to Proofread your Paper

Writing Collaboratively

Collaborative and Group Writing

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Writing a Paper: Thesis Statements

Basics of thesis statements.

The thesis statement is the brief articulation of your paper's central argument and purpose. You might hear it referred to as simply a "thesis." Every scholarly paper should have a thesis statement, and strong thesis statements are concise, specific, and arguable. Concise means the thesis is short: perhaps one or two sentences for a shorter paper. Specific means the thesis deals with a narrow and focused topic, appropriate to the paper's length. Arguable means that a scholar in your field could disagree (or perhaps already has!).

Strong thesis statements address specific intellectual questions, have clear positions, and use a structure that reflects the overall structure of the paper. Read on to learn more about constructing a strong thesis statement.

Being Specific

This thesis statement has no specific argument:

Needs Improvement: In this essay, I will examine two scholarly articles to find similarities and differences.

This statement is concise, but it is neither specific nor arguable—a reader might wonder, "Which scholarly articles? What is the topic of this paper? What field is the author writing in?" Additionally, the purpose of the paper—to "examine…to find similarities and differences" is not of a scholarly level. Identifying similarities and differences is a good first step, but strong academic argument goes further, analyzing what those similarities and differences might mean or imply.

Better: In this essay, I will argue that Bowler's (2003) autocratic management style, when coupled with Smith's (2007) theory of social cognition, can reduce the expenses associated with employee turnover.

The new revision here is still concise, as well as specific and arguable. We can see that it is specific because the writer is mentioning (a) concrete ideas and (b) exact authors. We can also gather the field (business) and the topic (management and employee turnover). The statement is arguable because the student goes beyond merely comparing; he or she draws conclusions from that comparison ("can reduce the expenses associated with employee turnover").

Making a Unique Argument

This thesis draft repeats the language of the writing prompt without making a unique argument:

Needs Improvement: The purpose of this essay is to monitor, assess, and evaluate an educational program for its strengths and weaknesses. Then, I will provide suggestions for improvement.

You can see here that the student has simply stated the paper's assignment, without articulating specifically how he or she will address it. The student can correct this error simply by phrasing the thesis statement as a specific answer to the assignment prompt.

Better: Through a series of student interviews, I found that Kennedy High School's antibullying program was ineffective. In order to address issues of conflict between students, I argue that Kennedy High School should embrace policies outlined by the California Department of Education (2010).

Words like "ineffective" and "argue" show here that the student has clearly thought through the assignment and analyzed the material; he or she is putting forth a specific and debatable position. The concrete information ("student interviews," "antibullying") further prepares the reader for the body of the paper and demonstrates how the student has addressed the assignment prompt without just restating that language.

Creating a Debate

This thesis statement includes only obvious fact or plot summary instead of argument:

Needs Improvement: Leadership is an important quality in nurse educators.

A good strategy to determine if your thesis statement is too broad (and therefore, not arguable) is to ask yourself, "Would a scholar in my field disagree with this point?" Here, we can see easily that no scholar is likely to argue that leadership is an unimportant quality in nurse educators. The student needs to come up with a more arguable claim, and probably a narrower one; remember that a short paper needs a more focused topic than a dissertation.

Better: Roderick's (2009) theory of participatory leadership is particularly appropriate to nurse educators working within the emergency medicine field, where students benefit most from collegial and kinesthetic learning.

Here, the student has identified a particular type of leadership ("participatory leadership"), narrowing the topic, and has made an arguable claim (this type of leadership is "appropriate" to a specific type of nurse educator). Conceivably, a scholar in the nursing field might disagree with this approach. The student's paper can now proceed, providing specific pieces of evidence to support the arguable central claim.

Choosing the Right Words

This thesis statement uses large or scholarly-sounding words that have no real substance:

Needs Improvement: Scholars should work to seize metacognitive outcomes by harnessing discipline-based networks to empower collaborative infrastructures.

There are many words in this sentence that may be buzzwords in the student's field or key terms taken from other texts, but together they do not communicate a clear, specific meaning. Sometimes students think scholarly writing means constructing complex sentences using special language, but actually it's usually a stronger choice to write clear, simple sentences. When in doubt, remember that your ideas should be complex, not your sentence structure.

Better: Ecologists should work to educate the U.S. public on conservation methods by making use of local and national green organizations to create a widespread communication plan.

Notice in the revision that the field is now clear (ecology), and the language has been made much more field-specific ("conservation methods," "green organizations"), so the reader is able to see concretely the ideas the student is communicating.

Leaving Room for Discussion

This thesis statement is not capable of development or advancement in the paper:

Needs Improvement: There are always alternatives to illegal drug use.

This sample thesis statement makes a claim, but it is not a claim that will sustain extended discussion. This claim is the type of claim that might be appropriate for the conclusion of a paper, but in the beginning of the paper, the student is left with nowhere to go. What further points can be made? If there are "always alternatives" to the problem the student is identifying, then why bother developing a paper around that claim? Ideally, a thesis statement should be complex enough to explore over the length of the entire paper.

Better: The most effective treatment plan for methamphetamine addiction may be a combination of pharmacological and cognitive therapy, as argued by Baker (2008), Smith (2009), and Xavier (2011).

In the revised thesis, you can see the student make a specific, debatable claim that has the potential to generate several pages' worth of discussion. When drafting a thesis statement, think about the questions your thesis statement will generate: What follow-up inquiries might a reader have? In the first example, there are almost no additional questions implied, but the revised example allows for a good deal more exploration.

Thesis Mad Libs

If you are having trouble getting started, try using the models below to generate a rough model of a thesis statement! These models are intended for drafting purposes only and should not appear in your final work.

In this essay, I argue ____, using ______ to assert _____.
While scholars have often argued ______, I argue______, because_______.
Through an analysis of ______, I argue ______, which is important because_______.

Words to Avoid and to Embrace

When drafting your thesis statement, avoid words like explore, investigate, learn, compile, summarize , and explain to describe the main purpose of your paper. These words imply a paper that summarizes or "reports," rather than synthesizing and analyzing.

Instead of the terms above, try words like argue, critique, question , and interrogate . These more analytical words may help you begin strongly, by articulating a specific, critical, scholarly position.

Read Kayla's blog post for tips on taking a stand in a well-crafted thesis statement.

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Speechwriting

8 Purpose and Thesis

Speechwriting Essentials

In this chapter . . .

As discussed in the chapter on Speaking Occasion , speechwriting begins with careful analysis of the speech occasion and its given circumstances, leading to the choice of an appropriate topic. As with essay writing, the early work of speechwriting follows familiar steps: brainstorming, research, pre-writing, thesis, and so on.

This chapter focuses on techniques that are unique to speechwriting. As a spoken form, speeches must be clear about the purpose and main idea or “takeaway.” Planned redundancy means that you will be repeating these elements several times over during the speech.

Furthermore, finding purpose and thesis are essential whether you’re preparing an outline for extemporaneous delivery or a completely written manuscript for presentation. When you know your topic, your general and specific purpose, and your thesis or central idea, you have all the elements you need to write a speech that is focused, clear, and audience friendly.

Recognizing the General Purpose

Speeches have traditionally been grouped into one of three categories according to their primary purpose: 1) to inform, 2) to persuade, or 3) to inspire, honor, or entertain. These broad goals are commonly known as the general purpose of a speech . Earlier, you learned about the actor’s tool of intention or objectives. The general purpose is like a super-objective; it defines the broadest goal of a speech. These three purposes are not necessarily exclusive to the others. A speech designed to be persuasive can also be informative and entertaining. However, a speech should have one primary goal. That is its general purpose.

Why is it helpful to talk about speeches in such broad terms? Being perfectly clear about what you want your speech to do or make happen for your audience will keep you focused. You can make a clearer distinction between whether you want your audience to leave your speech knowing more (to inform), or ready to take action (to persuade), or feeling something (to inspire)

It’s okay to use synonyms for these broad categories. Here are some of them:

To inform could be to explain, to demonstrate, to describe, to teach.
To persuade could be to convince, to argue, to motivate, to prove.
To inspire might be to honor, or entertain, to celebrate, to mourn.

In summary, the first question you must ask yourself when starting to prepare a speech is, “Is the primary purpose of my speech to inform, to persuade, or to inspire?”

Articulating Specific Purpose

A specific purpose statement builds upon your general purpose and makes it specific (as the name suggests). For example, if you have been invited to give a speech about how to do something, your general purpose is “to inform.” Choosing a topic appropriate to that general purpose, you decide to speak about how to protect a personal from cyberattacks. Now you are on your way to identifying a specific purpose.

A good specific purpose statement has three elements: goal, target audience, and content.

Goal (To + active word)	for example: to inform, to explain, to convince, to honor
Audience	my classmates, the members of my sorority, my coworkers
Content	how to bake brownies, the history of EVs, Macs are better than PCs.

If you think about the above as a kind of recipe, then the first two “ingredients” — your goal and your audience — should be simple. Words describing the target audience should be as specific as possible. Instead of “my peers,” you could say, for example, “students in their senior year at my university.”

The third ingredient in this recipe is content, or what we call the topic of your speech. This is where things get a bit difficult. You want your content to be specific and something that you can express succinctly in a sentence. Here are some common problems that speakers make in defining the content, and the fix:


too broad	“I’m going to talk about climate change.”	Narrow down a specific topic appropriate to the general purpose. “To talk about” isn’t clear. A better topic here might be: “To persuade my audience to make five simple changes in their lifestyle that support the fight against climate change.”
combined topics	“My speech is about recycling and the increased frequency of hurricanes due to climate change.”	The word “and” in a description of content is a sure signal of a combined topic. Combined topics are too complex, and they muddy your focus. Choose one OR the other.
content doesn’t match the purpose	“To inform my classmates about why they should support LGBTQ+ safe spaces on campus.””	Match the content to the general purpose. Do you see the word “should” here? That is a sure sign that the topic is persuasive, not informative. An informative speech on this topic would be “To inform my classmates about the LGBTQ+ safe spaces available on campus.”

Now you know the “recipe” for a specific purpose statement. It’s made up of T o, plus an active W ord, a specific A udience, and clearly stated C ontent. Remember this formula: T + W + A + C.

A: for a group of new students

C: the term “plagiarism”

Here are some further examples a good specific purpose statement:

To explain to a group of first-year students how to join a school organization.
To persuade the members of the Greek society to take a spring break trip in Daytona Beach.
To motivate my classmates in English 101 to participate in a study abroad program.
To convince first-year students that they need at least seven hours of sleep per night to do well in their studies.
To inspire my Church community about the accomplishments of our pastor.

The General and Specific Purpose Statements are writing tools in the sense that they help you, as a speechwriter, clarify your ideas.

Creating a Thesis Statement

Once you are clear about your general purpose and specific purpose, you can turn your attention to crafting a thesis statement. A thesis is the central idea in an essay or a speech. In speechwriting, the thesis or central idea explains the message of the content. It’s the speech’s “takeaway.” A good thesis statement will also reveal and clarify the ideas or assertions you’ll be addressing in your speech (your main points). Consider this example:

General Purpose: To persuade. Specific Purpose: To motivate my classmates in English 101 to participate in a study abroad program. Thesis: A semester-long study abroad experience produces lifelong benefits by teaching you about another culture, developing your language skills, and enhancing your future career prospects.

The difference between a specific purpose statement and a thesis statement is clear in this example. The thesis provides the takeaway (the lifelong benefits of study abroad). It also points to the assertions that will be addressed in the speech. Like the specific purpose statement, the thesis statement is a writing tool. You’ll incorporate it into your speech, usually as part of the introduction and conclusion.

All good expository, rhetorical, and even narrative writing contains a thesis. Many students and even experienced writers struggle with formulating a thesis. We struggle when we attempt to “come up with something” before doing the necessary research and reflection. A thesis only becomes clear through the thinking and writing process. As you develop your speech content, keep asking yourself: What is important here? If the audience can remember only one thing about this topic, what do I want them to remember?

Example #2: General Purpose: To inform Specific Purpose: To demonstrate to my audience the correct method for cleaning a computer keyboard. Central Idea: Your computer keyboard needs regular cleaning to function well, and you can achieve that in four easy steps.

Example # 3 General Purpose: To Inform Specific Purpose: To describe how makeup is done for the TV show The Walking Dead . Central Idea: The wildly popular zombie show The Walking Dead achieves incredibly scary and believable makeup effects, and in the next few minutes I will tell you who does it, what they use, and how they do it.

Notice in the examples above that neither the specific purpose nor the central idea ever exceeds one sentence. If your central idea consists of more than one sentence, then you are probably including too much information.

Problems to Avoid

The first problem many students have in writing their specific purpose statement has already been mentioned: specific purpose statements sometimes try to cover far too much and are too broad. For example:

“To explain to my classmates the history of ballet.”

Aside from the fact that this subject may be difficult for everyone in your audience to relate to, it’s enough for a three-hour lecture, maybe even a whole course. You’ll probably find that your first attempt at a specific purpose statement will need refining. These examples are much more specific and much more manageable given the limited amount of time you’ll have.

To explain to my classmates how ballet came to be performed and studied in the U.S.
To explain to my classmates the difference between Russian and French ballet.
To explain to my classmates how ballet originated as an art form in the Renaissance.
To explain to my classmates the origin of the ballet dancers’ clothing.

The second problem happens when the “communication verb” in the specific purpose does not match the content; for example, persuasive content is paired with “to inform” or “to explain.” Can you find the errors in the following purpose statements?

To inform my audience why capital punishment is unconstitutional. (This is persuasive. It can’t be informative since it’s taking a side)
To persuade my audience about the three types of individual retirement accounts. (Even though the purpose statement says “persuade,” it isn’t persuading the audience of anything. It is informative.)
To inform my classmates that Universal Studios is a better theme park than Six Flags over Georgia. (This is clearly an opinion; hence it is a persuasive speech and not merely informative)

The third problem exists when the content part of the specific purpose statement has two parts. One specific purpose is enough. These examples cover two different topics.

To explain to my audience how to swing a golf club and choose the best golf shoes.
To persuade my classmates to be involved in the Special Olympics and vote to fund better classes for the intellectually disabled.

To fix this problem of combined or hybrid purposes, you’ll need to select one of the topics in these examples and speak on that one alone.

The fourth problem with both specific purpose and central idea statements is related to formatting. There are some general guidelines that need to be followed in terms of how you write out these elements of your speech:

Don’t write either statement as a question.
Always use complete sentences for central idea statements and infinitive phrases (beginning with “to”) for the specific purpose statement.
Use concrete language (“I admire Beyoncé for being a talented performer and businesswoman”) and avoid subjective or slang terms (“My speech is about why I think Beyoncé is the bomb”) or jargon and acronyms (“PLA is better than CBE for adult learners.”)

There are also problems to avoid in writing the central idea statement. As mentioned above, remember that:

The specific purpose and central idea statements are not the same thing, although they are related.
The central idea statement should be clear and not complicated or wordy; it should “stand out” to the audience. As you practice delivery, you should emphasize it with your voice.
The central idea statement should not be the first thing you say but should follow the steps of a good introduction as outlined in the next chapters.

You should be aware that all aspects of your speech are constantly going to change as you move toward the moment of giving your speech. The exact wording of your central idea may change, and you can experiment with different versions for effectiveness. However, your specific purpose statement should not change unless there is a good reason to do so. There are many aspects to consider in the seemingly simple task of writing a specific purpose statement and its companion, the central idea statement. Writing good ones at the beginning will save you some trouble later in the speech preparation process.

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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 .

7.2 The Topic, General Purpose, Specific Purpose, and Thesis

Click below to play an audio file of this section of the chapter sponsored by the Women for OSU Partnering to Impact grant.

Before any work can be done on crafting the body of your speech or presentation, you must first do some prep work—selecting a topic, formulating a general purpose, a specific purpose statement, and crafting a central idea, or thesis statement. In doing so, you lay the foundation for your speech by making important decisions about what you will speak about and for what purpose you will speak. These decisions will influence and guide the entire speechwriting process, so it is wise to think carefully and critically during these beginning stages.

Selecting a Topic

But you need not run for president or student government in order to give a meaningful speech. On the contrary, opportunities abound for those interested in engaging speech as a tool for change. Perhaps the simplest way to find a topic is to ask yourself a few questions, including:

• What important events are occurring locally, nationally and internationally? • What do I care about most? • Is there someone or something I can advocate for? • What makes me angry/happy? • What beliefs/attitudes do I want to share? • Is there some information the audience needs to know?

Once you have answered these questions and narrowed your responses, you are still not done selecting your topic. For instance, you might have decided that you really care about breeds of dogs. This is a very broad topic and could easily lead to a dozen different speeches. To resolve this problem, speakers must also consider the audience to whom they will speak, the scope of their presentation, and the outcome they wish to achieve.

Formulating the Purpose Statements

By honing in on a very specific topic, you begin the work of formulating your purpose statement . In short, a purpose statement clearly states what it is you would like to achieve. Purpose statements are especially helpful for guiding you as you prepare your speech. When deciding which main points, facts, and examples to include, you should simply ask yourself whether they are relevant not only to the topic you have selected, but also whether they support the goal you outlined in your purpose statement. The general purpose statement of a speech may be to inform, to persuade, to celebrate, or to entertain. Thus, it is common to frame a specific purpose statement around one of these goals. According to O’Hair, Stewart, and Rubenstein, a specific purpose statement “expresses both the topic and the general speech purpose in action form and in terms of the specific objectives you hope to achieve” (2004). For instance, the home design enthusiast might write the following specific purpose statement: At the end of my speech, the audience will learn the pro’s and con’s of flipping houses. In short, the general purpose statement lays out the broader goal of the speech while the specific purpose statement describes precisely what the speech is intended to do. Some of your professors may ask that you include the general purpose and add the specific purpose.

Writing the Thesis Statement

Depending on your instructor’s approach, a thesis statement may be written two different ways. A thesis statement may encapsulate the main points of a speech in just a sentence or two, and be designed to give audiences a quick preview of what the entire speech will be about. The thesis statement for a speech, like the thesis of a research-based essay, should be easily identifiable and ought to very succinctly sum up the main points you will present. Some instructors prefer that your thesis, or central idea, be a single, declarative statement providing the audience with an overall statement that provides the essence of the speech, followed by a separate preview statement.

If you are a Harry Potter enthusiast, you may write a thesis statement (central idea) the following way using the above approach: J.K. Rowling is a renowned author of the Harry Potter series with a Cinderella like story having gone from relatively humble beginnings, through personal struggles, and finally success and fame.

Writing the Preview Statement

However, some instructors prefer that you separate your thesis from your preview statement . A preview statement (or series of statements) is a guide to your speech. This is the part of the speech that literally tells the audience exactly what main points you will cover. If you were to open your Waze app, it would tell you exactly how to get there. Best of all, you would know what to look for! So, if we take our J.K Rowling example, let’s rewrite that using this approach separating out the thesis and preview:

J.K. Rowling is a renowned author of the Harry Potter series with a Cinderella like rags to riches story. First, I will tell you about J.K. Rowling’s humble beginnings. Then, I will describe her personal struggles as a single mom. Finally, I will explain how she overcame adversity and became one of the richest women in the United Kingdom.

There is no best way to approach this. This is up to your instructor.

Writing the Body of Your Speech

Once you have finished the important work of deciding what your speech will be about, as well as formulating the purpose statement and crafting the thesis, you should turn your attention to writing the body of your speech. All of your main points are contained in the body, and normally this section is prepared well before you ever write the introduction or conclusion. The body of your speech will consume the largest amount of time to present; and it is the opportunity for you to elaborate on facts, evidence, examples, and opinions that support your thesis statement and do the work you have outlined in the specific purpose statement. Combining these various elements into a cohesive and compelling speech, however, is not without its difficulties, the first of which is deciding which elements to include and how they ought to be organized to best suit your purpose.

This resource is available at no cost at https://open.library.okstate.edu/speech2713/

clearly states what it is you would like to achieve

“expresses both the topic and the general speech purpose in action form and in terms of the specific objectives you hope to achieve" (O'Hair, Stewart, & Rubenstein, 2004)

single, declarative sentence that captures the essence or main point of your entire presentation

the part of the speech that literally tells the audience exactly what main points you will cover

Introduction to Speech Communication Copyright © 2021 by Individual authors retain copyright of their work. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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What Is a Thesis? | Ultimate Guide & Examples

What Is a Thesis? | Ultimate Guide & Examples

Published on September 14, 2022 by Tegan George . Revised on April 16, 2024.

A thesis is a type of research paper based on your original research. It is usually submitted as the final step of a master’s program or a capstone to a bachelor’s degree.

Writing a thesis can be a daunting experience. Other than a dissertation , it is one of the longest pieces of writing students typically complete. It relies on your ability to conduct research from start to finish: choosing a relevant topic , crafting a proposal , designing your research , collecting data , developing a robust analysis, drawing strong conclusions , and writing concisely .

Thesis template

You can also download our full thesis template in the format of your choice below. Our template includes a ready-made table of contents , as well as guidance for what each chapter should include. It’s easy to make it your own, and can help you get started.

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Thesis vs. thesis statement, how to structure a thesis, acknowledgements or preface, list of figures and tables, list of abbreviations, introduction, literature review, methodology, reference list, proofreading and editing, defending your thesis, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about theses.

You may have heard the word thesis as a standalone term or as a component of academic writing called a thesis statement . Keep in mind that these are two very different things.

A thesis statement is a very common component of an essay, particularly in the humanities. It usually comprises 1 or 2 sentences in the introduction of your essay , and should clearly and concisely summarize the central points of your academic essay .
A thesis is a long-form piece of academic writing, often taking more than a full semester to complete. It is generally a degree requirement for Master’s programs, and is also sometimes required to complete a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts colleges.
In the US, a dissertation is generally written as a final step toward obtaining a PhD.
In other countries (particularly the UK), a dissertation is generally written at the bachelor’s or master’s level.

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The final structure of your thesis depends on a variety of components, such as:

Your discipline
Your theoretical approach

Humanities theses are often structured more like a longer-form essay . Just like in an essay, you build an argument to support a central thesis.

In both hard and social sciences, theses typically include an introduction , literature review , methodology section , results section , discussion section , and conclusion section . These are each presented in their own dedicated section or chapter. In some cases, you might want to add an appendix .

Thesis examples

We’ve compiled a short list of thesis examples to help you get started.

Example thesis #1: “Abolition, Africans, and Abstraction: the Influence of the ‘Noble Savage’ on British and French Antislavery Thought, 1787-1807” by Suchait Kahlon.
Example thesis #2: “’A Starving Man Helping Another Starving Man’: UNRRA, India, and the Genesis of Global Relief, 1943-1947″ by Julian Saint Reiman.

The very first page of your thesis contains all necessary identifying information, including:

Your full title
Your full name
Your department
Your institution and degree program
Your submission date.

Sometimes the title page also includes your student ID, the name of your supervisor, or the university’s logo. Check out your university’s guidelines if you’re not sure.

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An abstract is a short summary of your thesis. Usually a maximum of 300 words long, it’s should include brief descriptions of your research objectives , methods, results, and conclusions. Though it may seem short, it introduces your work to your audience, serving as a first impression of your thesis.

Theoretical framework

Your literature review can often form the basis for your theoretical framework, but these are not the same thing. A theoretical framework defines and analyzes the concepts and theories that your research hinges on.

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8.2 The Topic, General Purpose, Specific Purpose, and Thesis

Understanding the General Purpose

Before any work on a speech can be done, the speaker needs to understand the general purpose of the speech. The general purpose is what the speaker hopes to accomplish and will help guide in the selection of a topic. The instructor generally provides the general purpose for a speech, which falls into one of three categories. A general purpose to inform would mean that the speaker is teaching the audience about a topic, increasing their understanding and awareness, or providing new information about a topic the audience might already know. Informative speeches are designed to present the facts, but not give the speaker’s opinion or any call to action. A general purpose to persuade would mean that the speaker is choosing the side of a topic and advocating for their side or belief. The speaker is asking the audience to believe in their stance, or to take an action in support of their topic. A general purpose to entertain often entails short speeches of ceremony, where the speaker is connecting the audience to the celebration. You can see how these general purposes are very different. An informative speech is just facts, the speaker would not be able to provide an opinion or direction on what to do with the information, whereas a persuasive speech includes the speaker’s opinions and direction on what to do with the information. Before a speaker chooses a topic, they must first understand the general purpose.

Selecting a Topic

What important events are occurring locally, nationally, and internationally?
What do I care about most?
Is there someone or something I can advocate for?
What makes me angry/happy?
What beliefs/attitudes do I want to share?
Is there some information the audience needs to know?

Students speak about what is interesting to them and their audiences. What topics do you think are relevant today? There are other questions you might ask yourself, too, but these should lead you to at least a few topical choices. The most important work that these questions do is to locate topics within your pre-existing sphere of knowledge and interest. Topics should be ideas that interest the speaker or are part of their daily lives. In order for a topic to be effective, the speaker needs to have some credibility or connection to the topic; it would be unfair to ask the audience to donate to a cause that the speaker has never donated to. There must be a connection to the topic for the speaker to be seen as credible. David Zarefsky (2010) also identifies brainstorming as a way to develop speech topics, a strategy that can be helpful if the questions listed above did not yield an appropriate or interesting topic. Brainstorming involves looking at your daily activities to determine what you could share with an audience. Perhaps if you work out regularly or eat healthy, you could explain that to an audience, or demonstrate how to dribble a basketball. If you regularly play video games, you may advocate for us to take up video games or explain the history of video games. Anything that you find interesting or important might turn into a topic. Starting with a topic you are already interested in will make writing and presenting your speech a more enjoyable and meaningful experience. It means that your entire speechwriting process will focus on something you find important and that you can present this information to people who stand to benefit from your speech. At this point, it is also important to consider the audience before choosing a topic. While we might really enjoy a lot of different things that could be topics, if the audience has no connection to that topic, then it wouldn’t be meaningful for the speaker or audience. Since we always have a diverse audience, we want to make sure that everyone in the audience can gain some new information from the speech. Sometimes, a topic might be too complicated to cover in the amount of time we have to present, or involve too much information then that topic might not work for the assignment, and finally if the audience can not gain anything from a topic then it won’t work. Ultimately, when we choose a topic we want to pick something that we are familiar with and enjoy, we have credibility and that the audience could gain something from. Once you have answered these questions and narrowed your responses, you are still not done selecting your topic. For instance, you might have decided that you really care about breeds of dogs. This is a very broad topic and could easily lead to a dozen different speeches. To resolve this problem, speakers must also consider the audience to whom they will speak, the scope of their presentation, and the outcome they wish to achieve.

Formulating the Purpose Statements

By honing in on a very specific topic, you begin the work of formulating your purpose statement. In short, a purpose statement clearly states what it is you would like to achieve. Purpose statements are especially helpful for guiding you as you prepare your speech. When deciding which main points, facts, and examples to include, you should simply ask yourself whether they are relevant not only to the topic you have selected, but also whether they support the goal you outlined in your purpose statement. The general purpose statement of a speech may be to inform, to persuade, to celebrate, or to entertain. Thus, it is common to frame a specific purpose statement around one of these goals. According to O’Hair, Stewart, and Rubenstein, a specific purpose statement “expresses both the topic and the general speech purpose in action form and in terms of the specific objectives you hope to achieve” (2004). The specific purpose is a single sentence that states what the audience will gain from this speech, or what will happen at the end of the speech. The specific purpose is a combination of the general purpose and the topic and helps the speaker to focus in on what can be achieved in a short speech.

To go back to the topic of a dog breed, the general purpose might be to inform, a specific purpose might be: To inform the audience about how corgis became household pets. If the general purpose is to persuade the specific purpose might be: to persuade the audience that dog breeds deemed “dangerous” should not be excluded from living in the cities. In short, the general purpose statement lays out the broader goal of the speech while the specific purpose statement describes precisely what the speech is intended to do. The specific purpose should focus on the audience and be measurable, if I were to ask the audience before I began the speech how many people know how corgis became household pets, they could raise their hand, and if I ask at the end of my speech how many people know how corgis became household pets, I should see a lot more hands. The specific purpose is the “so what” of the speech, it helps the speaker focus on the audience and take a bigger idea of a topic and narrow it down to what can be accomplished in a short amount of time.

Writing the Thesis Statement

The specific purpose statement is a tool that you will use as you write your speech, but it is unlikely that it will appear verbatim in your speech. Instead, you will want to convert the specific purpose statement into a central idea, or thesis statement that you will share with your audience. Just like in a written paper, where the thesis comes in the first part of the paper, in a speech, the thesis comes within the first few sentences of the speech. The thesis must be stated and tells the audience what to expect in this speech. A thesis statement may encapsulate the main idea of a speech in just a sentence or two and be designed to give audiences a quick preview of what the entire speech will be about. The thesis statement should be a single, declarative statement followed by a separate preview statement. If you are a Harry Potter enthusiast, you may write a thesis statement (central idea) the following way using the above approach: J.K. Rowling is a renowned author of the Harry Potter series with a Cinderella-like story of a rise to fame.

Writing the Preview Statement

A preview statement (or series of statements) is a guide to your speech. This is the part of the speech that literally tells the audience exactly what main points you will cover. If you were to get on any freeway, there would be a green sign on the side of the road that tells you what cities are coming up—this is what your preview statement does; it tells the audience what points will be covered in the speech. Best of all, you would know what to look for! So, if we take our J.K Rowling example, the thesis and preview would look like this: J.K. Rowling is a renowned author of the Harry Potter series with a Cinderella-like rags-to-riches story. First, I will tell you about J.K. Rowling’s humble beginnings. Then, I will describe her personal struggles as a single mom. Finally, I will explain how she overcame adversity and became one of the richest women in the United Kingdom.

Writing the Body of Your Speech

Once you have finished the important work of deciding what your speech will be about, as well as formulating the purpose statement and crafting the thesis, you should turn your attention to writing the body of your speech. The body of your speech consists of 3–4 main points that support your thesis and help the audience to achieve the specific purpose. Creating main points helps to chunk the information you are sharing with your audience into an easy-to-understand organization. Choosing your main points will help you focus in on what information you want to share with the audience in order to prove your thesis. Since we can’t tell the audience everything about our topic, we need to choose our main points to make sure we can share the most important information with our audience. All of your main points are contained in the body, and normally this section is prepared well before you ever write the introduction or conclusion. The body of your speech will consume the largest amount of time to present, and it is the opportunity for you to elaborate on your supporting evidence, such as facts, statistics, examples, and opinions that support your thesis statement and do the work you have outlined in the specific purpose statement. Combining these various elements into a cohesive and compelling speech, however, is not without its difficulties, the first of which is deciding which elements to include and how they ought to be organized to best suit your purpose.

clearly states what it is you would like to achieve

“expresses both the topic and the general speech purpose in action form and in terms of the specific objectives you hope to achieve” (O'Hair, Stewart, & Rubenstein, 2004)

single, declarative sentence that captures the essence or main point of your entire presentation

It’s About Them: Public Speaking in the 21st Century Copyright © 2022 by LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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

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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.

Module 4: Organizing and Outlining

The topic, purpose, and thesis.

Before any work can be done on crafting the body of your speech or presentation, you must first do some prep work—selecting a topic, formulating a purpose statement, and crafting a thesis statement. In doing so, you lay the foundation for your speech by making important decisions about what you will speak about and for what purpose you will speak. These decisions will influence and guide the entire speechwriting process, so it is wise to think carefully and critically during these beginning stages.

I think reading is important in any form. I think a person who’s trying to learn to like reading should start off reading about a topic they are interested in, or a person they are interested in. – Ice Cube

Questions for Selecting a Topic

What important events are occurring locally, nationally and internationally?
What do I care about most?
Is there someone or something I can advocate for?
What makes me angry/happy?
What beliefs/attitudes do I want to share?
Is there some information the audience needs to know?

Selecting a Topic

“The Reader” by Shakespearesmonkey. CC-BY-NC .

Generally, speakers focus on one or more interrelated topics—relatively broad concepts, ideas, or problems that are relevant for particular audiences. The most common way that speakers discover topics is by simply observing what is happening around them—at their school, in their local government, or around the world. This is because all speeches are brought into existence as a result of circumstances, the multiplicity of activities going on at any one given moment in a particular place. For instance, presidential candidates craft short policy speeches that can be employed during debates, interviews, or town hall meetings during campaign seasons. When one of the candidates realizes he or she will not be successful, the particular circumstances change and the person must craft different kinds of speeches—a concession speech, for example. In other words, their campaign for presidency, and its many related events, necessitates the creation of various speeches. Rhetorical theorist Lloyd Bitzer [1] describes this as the rhetorical situation. Put simply, the rhetorical situation is the combination of factors that make speeches and other discourse meaningful and a useful way to change the way something is. Student government leaders, for example, speak or write to other students when their campus is facing tuition or fee increases, or when students have achieved something spectacular, like lobbying campus administrators for lower student fees and succeeding. In either case, it is the situation that makes their speeches appropriate and useful for their audience of students and university employees. More importantly, they speak when there is an opportunity to change a university policy or to alter the way students think or behave in relation to a particular event on campus.

There are other questions you might ask yourself, too, but these should lead you to at least a few topical choices. The most important work that these questions do is to locate topics within your pre-existing sphere of knowledge and interest. David Zarefsky [2] also identifies brainstorming as a way to develop speech topics, a strategy that can be helpful if the questions listed in the textbox did not yield an appropriate or interesting topic.

Starting with a topic you are already interested in will likely make writing and presenting your speech a more enjoyable and meaningful experience. It means that your entire speechwriting process will focus on something you find important and that you can present this information to people who stand to benefit from your speech.

Once you have answered these questions and narrowed your responses, you are still not done selecting your topic. For instance, you might have decided that you really care about conserving habitat for bog turtles. This is a very broad topic and could easily lead to a dozen different speeches. To resolve this problem, speakers must also consider the audience to whom they will speak, the scope of their presentation, and the outcome they wish to achieve. If the bog turtle enthusiast knows that she will be talking to a local zoning board and that she hopes to stop them from allowing businesses to locate on important bog turtle habitat, her topic can easily morph into something more specific. Now, her speech topic is two-pronged: bog turtle habitat and zoning rules.

Formulating the Purpose Statements

“Bog turtle sunning” by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Public domain.

By honing in on a very specific topic, you begin the work of formulating your purpose statement . In short, a purpose statement clearly states what it is you would like to achieve. Purpose statements are especially helpful for guiding you as you prepare your speech. When deciding which main points, facts, and examples to include, you should simply ask yourself whether they are relevant not only to the topic you have selected, but also whether they support the goal you outlined in your purpose statement. The general purpose statement of a speech may be to inform, to persuade, to inspire, to celebrate, to mourn, or to entertain. Thus, it is common to frame a specific purpose statement around one of these goals. According to O’Hair, Stewart, and Rubenstein, a specific purpose statement “expresses both the topic and the general speech purpose in action form and in terms of the specific objectives you hope to achieve.” [3] For instance, the bog turtle habitat activist might write the following specific purpose statement: At the end of my speech, the Clarke County Zoning Commission will understand that locating businesses in bog turtle habitat is a poor choice with a range of negative consequences. In short, the general purpose statement lays out the broader goal of the speech while the specific purpose statement describes precisely what the speech is intended to do.

Success demands singleness of purpose. – Vince Lombardi

Writing the Thesis Statement

The specific purpose statement is a tool that you will use as you write your talk, but it is unlikely that it will appear verbatim in your speech. Instead, you will want to convert the specific purpose statement into a thesis statement that you will share with your audience. A thesis statement encapsulates the main points of a speech in just a sentence or two, and it is designed to give audiences a quick preview of what the entire speech will be about. The thesis statement for a speech, like the thesis of a research- based essay, should be easily identifiable and ought to very succinctly sum up the main points you will present. Moreover, the thesis statement should reflect the general purpose of your speech; if your purpose is to persuade or educate, for instance, the thesis should alert audience members to this goal. The bog turtle enthusiast might prepare the following thesis statement based on her specific purpose statement: Bog turtle habitats are sensitive to a variety of activities, but land development is particularly harmful to unstable habitats. The Clarke County Zoning Commission should protect bog turtle habitats by choosing to prohibit business from locating in these habitats. In this example, the thesis statement outlines the main points and implies that the speaker will be arguing for certain zoning practices.

Bitzer, L. (1968). The rhetorical situation. Philosophy & Rhetoric , 1 (1), 1 – 14. ↵
Zarefsky, D. (2010). Public speaking: Strategies for success (6th edition). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. ↵
O’Hair, D., Stewart, R., Rubenstein, H. (2004). A speaker’s guidebook: Text and reference (2nd edition). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s. ↵
Chapter 8 The Topic, Purpose, and Thesis. Authored by : Joshua Trey Barnett. Provided by : University of Indiana, Bloomington, IN. Located at : http://publicspeakingproject.org/psvirtualtext.html . Project : The Public Speaking Project. License : CC BY-NC-ND: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
The Reader. Authored by : Shakespearesmonkey. Located at : https://www.flickr.com/photos/shakespearesmonkey/4939289974/ . License : CC BY-NC: Attribution-NonCommercial
Image of a bog turtle . Authored by : R. G. Tucker, Jr.. Provided by : United States Fish and Wildlife Service. Located at : http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bog_turtle_sunning.jpg . License : Public Domain: No Known Copyright

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9.1 Developing a Strong, Clear Thesis Statement

Learning objectives.

Develop a strong, clear thesis statement with the proper elements.
Revise your thesis statement.

Have you ever known a person who was not very good at telling stories? You probably had trouble following his train of thought as he jumped around from point to point, either being too brief in places that needed further explanation or providing too many details on a meaningless element. Maybe he told the end of the story first, then moved to the beginning and later added details to the middle. His ideas were probably scattered, and the story did not flow very well. When the story was over, you probably had many questions.

Just as a personal anecdote can be a disorganized mess, an essay can fall into the same trap of being out of order and confusing. That is why writers need a thesis statement to provide a specific focus for their essay and to organize what they are about to discuss in the body.

Just like a topic sentence summarizes a single paragraph, the thesis statement summarizes an entire essay. It tells the reader the point you want to make in your essay, while the essay itself supports that point. It is like a signpost that signals the essay’s destination. You should form your thesis before you begin to organize an essay, but you may find that it needs revision as the essay develops.

Elements of a Thesis Statement

For every essay you write, you must focus on a central idea. This idea stems from a topic you have chosen or been assigned or from a question your teacher has asked. It is not enough merely to discuss a general topic or simply answer a question with a yes or no. You have to form a specific opinion, and then articulate that into a controlling idea —the main idea upon which you build your thesis.

Remember that a thesis is not the topic itself, but rather your interpretation of the question or subject. For whatever topic your professor gives you, you must ask yourself, “What do I want to say about it?” Asking and then answering this question is vital to forming a thesis that is precise, forceful and confident.

A thesis is one sentence long and appears toward the end of your introduction. It is specific and focuses on one to three points of a single idea—points that are able to be demonstrated in the body. It forecasts the content of the essay and suggests how you will organize your information. Remember that a thesis statement does not summarize an issue but rather dissects it.

A Strong Thesis Statement

A strong thesis statement contains the following qualities.

Specificity. A thesis statement must concentrate on a specific area of a general topic. As you may recall, the creation of a thesis statement begins when you choose a broad subject and then narrow down its parts until you pinpoint a specific aspect of that topic. For example, health care is a broad topic, but a proper thesis statement would focus on a specific area of that topic, such as options for individuals without health care coverage.

Precision. A strong thesis statement must be precise enough to allow for a coherent argument and to remain focused on the topic. If the specific topic is options for individuals without health care coverage, then your precise thesis statement must make an exact claim about it, such as that limited options exist for those who are uninsured by their employers. You must further pinpoint what you are going to discuss regarding these limited effects, such as whom they affect and what the cause is.

Ability to be argued. A thesis statement must present a relevant and specific argument. A factual statement often is not considered arguable. Be sure your thesis statement contains a point of view that can be supported with evidence.

Ability to be demonstrated. For any claim you make in your thesis, you must be able to provide reasons and examples for your opinion. You can rely on personal observations in order to do this, or you can consult outside sources to demonstrate that what you assert is valid. A worthy argument is backed by examples and details.

Forcefulness. A thesis statement that is forceful shows readers that you are, in fact, making an argument. The tone is assertive and takes a stance that others might oppose.

Confidence. In addition to using force in your thesis statement, you must also use confidence in your claim. Phrases such as I feel or I believe actually weaken the readers’ sense of your confidence because these phrases imply that you are the only person who feels the way you do. In other words, your stance has insufficient backing. Taking an authoritative stance on the matter persuades your readers to have faith in your argument and open their minds to what you have to say.

Even in a personal essay that allows the use of first person, your thesis should not contain phrases such as in my opinion or I believe . These statements reduce your credibility and weaken your argument. Your opinion is more convincing when you use a firm attitude.

On a separate sheet of paper, write a thesis statement for each of the following topics. Remember to make each statement specific, precise, demonstrable, forceful and confident.

Texting while driving
The legal drinking age in the United States
Steroid use among professional athletes

Examples of Appropriate Thesis Statements

Each of the following thesis statements meets several of the following requirements:

Specificity
Ability to be argued
Ability to be demonstrated
Forcefulness
The societal and personal struggles of Troy Maxon in the play Fences symbolize the challenge of black males who lived through segregation and integration in the United States.
Closing all American borders for a period of five years is one solution that will tackle illegal immigration.
Shakespeare’s use of dramatic irony in Romeo and Juliet spoils the outcome for the audience and weakens the plot.
J. D. Salinger’s character in Catcher in the Rye , Holden Caulfield, is a confused rebel who voices his disgust with phonies, yet in an effort to protect himself, he acts like a phony on many occasions.
Compared to an absolute divorce, no-fault divorce is less expensive, promotes fairer settlements, and reflects a more realistic view of the causes for marital breakdown.
Exposing children from an early age to the dangers of drug abuse is a sure method of preventing future drug addicts.
In today’s crumbling job market, a high school diploma is not significant enough education to land a stable, lucrative job.

You can find thesis statements in many places, such as in the news; in the opinions of friends, coworkers or teachers; and even in songs you hear on the radio. Become aware of thesis statements in everyday life by paying attention to people’s opinions and their reasons for those opinions. Pay attention to your own everyday thesis statements as well, as these can become material for future essays.

Now that you have read about the contents of a good thesis statement and have seen examples, take a look at the pitfalls to avoid when composing your own thesis:

A thesis is weak when it is simply a declaration of your subject or a description of what you will discuss in your essay.

Weak thesis statement: My paper will explain why imagination is more important than knowledge.

A thesis is weak when it makes an unreasonable or outrageous claim or insults the opposing side.

Weak thesis statement: Religious radicals across America are trying to legislate their Puritanical beliefs by banning required high school books.

A thesis is weak when it contains an obvious fact or something that no one can disagree with or provides a dead end.

Weak thesis statement: Advertising companies use sex to sell their products.

A thesis is weak when the statement is too broad.

Weak thesis statement: The life of Abraham Lincoln was long and challenging.

Read the following thesis statements. On a separate piece of paper, identify each as weak or strong. For those that are weak, list the reasons why. Then revise the weak statements so that they conform to the requirements of a strong thesis.

The subject of this paper is my experience with ferrets as pets.
The government must expand its funding for research on renewable energy resources in order to prepare for the impending end of oil.
Edgar Allan Poe was a poet who lived in Baltimore during the nineteenth century.
In this essay, I will give you lots of reasons why slot machines should not be legalized in Baltimore.
Despite his promises during his campaign, President Kennedy took few executive measures to support civil rights legislation.
Because many children’s toys have potential safety hazards that could lead to injury, it is clear that not all children’s toys are safe.
My experience with young children has taught me that I want to be a disciplinary parent because I believe that a child without discipline can be a parent’s worst nightmare.

Writing at Work

Often in your career, you will need to ask your boss for something through an e-mail. Just as a thesis statement organizes an essay, it can also organize your e-mail request. While your e-mail will be shorter than an essay, using a thesis statement in your first paragraph quickly lets your boss know what you are asking for, why it is necessary, and what the benefits are. In short body paragraphs, you can provide the essential information needed to expand upon your request.

Thesis Statement Revision

Your thesis will probably change as you write, so you will need to modify it to reflect exactly what you have discussed in your essay. Remember from Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?” that your thesis statement begins as a working thesis statement , an indefinite statement that you make about your topic early in the writing process for the purpose of planning and guiding your writing.

Working thesis statements often become stronger as you gather information and form new opinions and reasons for those opinions. Revision helps you strengthen your thesis so that it matches what you have expressed in the body of the paper.

The best way to revise your thesis statement is to ask questions about it and then examine the answers to those questions. By challenging your own ideas and forming definite reasons for those ideas, you grow closer to a more precise point of view, which you can then incorporate into your thesis statement.

Ways to Revise Your Thesis

You can cut down on irrelevant aspects and revise your thesis by taking the following steps:

1. Pinpoint and replace all nonspecific words, such as people , everything , society , or life , with more precise words in order to reduce any vagueness.

Working thesis: Young people have to work hard to succeed in life.

Revised thesis: Recent college graduates must have discipline and persistence in order to find and maintain a stable job in which they can use and be appreciated for their talents.

The revised thesis makes a more specific statement about success and what it means to work hard. The original includes too broad a range of people and does not define exactly what success entails. By replacing those general words like people and work hard , the writer can better focus his or her research and gain more direction in his or her writing.

2. Clarify ideas that need explanation by asking yourself questions that narrow your thesis.

Working thesis: The welfare system is a joke.

Revised thesis: The welfare system keeps a socioeconomic class from gaining employment by alluring members of that class with unearned income, instead of programs to improve their education and skill sets.

A joke means many things to many people. Readers bring all sorts of backgrounds and perspectives to the reading process and would need clarification for a word so vague. This expression may also be too informal for the selected audience. By asking questions, the writer can devise a more precise and appropriate explanation for joke . The writer should ask himself or herself questions similar to the 5WH questions. (See Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?” for more information on the 5WH questions.) By incorporating the answers to these questions into a thesis statement, the writer more accurately defines his or her stance, which will better guide the writing of the essay.

3. Replace any linking verbs with action verbs. Linking verbs are forms of the verb to be , a verb that simply states that a situation exists.

Working thesis: Kansas City schoolteachers are not paid enough.

Revised thesis: The Kansas City legislature cannot afford to pay its educators, resulting in job cuts and resignations in a district that sorely needs highly qualified and dedicated teachers.

The linking verb in this working thesis statement is the word are . Linking verbs often make thesis statements weak because they do not express action. Rather, they connect words and phrases to the second half of the sentence. Readers might wonder, “Why are they not paid enough?” But this statement does not compel them to ask many more questions. The writer should ask himself or herself questions in order to replace the linking verb with an action verb, thus forming a stronger thesis statement, one that takes a more definitive stance on the issue:

Who is not paying the teachers enough?
What is considered “enough”?
What is the problem?
What are the results

4. Omit any general claims that are hard to support.

Working thesis: Today’s teenage girls are too sexualized.

Revised thesis: Teenage girls who are captivated by the sexual images on MTV are conditioned to believe that a woman’s worth depends on her sensuality, a feeling that harms their self-esteem and behavior.

It is true that some young women in today’s society are more sexualized than in the past, but that is not true for all girls. Many girls have strict parents, dress appropriately, and do not engage in sexual activity while in middle school and high school. The writer of this thesis should ask the following questions:

Which teenage girls?
What constitutes “too” sexualized?
Why are they behaving that way?
Where does this behavior show up?
What are the repercussions?

In the first section of Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?” , you determined your purpose for writing and your audience. You then completed a freewriting exercise about an event you recently experienced and chose a general topic to write about. Using that general topic, you then narrowed it down by answering the 5WH questions. After you answered these questions, you chose one of the three methods of prewriting and gathered possible supporting points for your working thesis statement.

Now, on a separate sheet of paper, write down your working thesis statement. Identify any weaknesses in this sentence and revise the statement to reflect the elements of a strong thesis statement. Make sure it is specific, precise, arguable, demonstrable, forceful, and confident.

Collaboration

Please share with a classmate and compare your answers.

In your career you may have to write a project proposal that focuses on a particular problem in your company, such as reinforcing the tardiness policy. The proposal would aim to fix the problem; using a thesis statement would clearly state the boundaries of the problem and tell the goals of the project. After writing the proposal, you may find that the thesis needs revision to reflect exactly what is expressed in the body. Using the techniques from this chapter would apply to revising that thesis.

Key Takeaways

Proper essays require a thesis statement to provide a specific focus and suggest how the essay will be organized.
A thesis statement is your interpretation of the subject, not the topic itself.
A strong thesis is specific, precise, forceful, confident, and is able to be demonstrated.
A strong thesis challenges readers with a point of view that can be debated and can be supported with evidence.
A weak thesis is simply a declaration of your topic or contains an obvious fact that cannot be argued.
Depending on your topic, it may or may not be appropriate to use first person point of view.
Revise your thesis by ensuring all words are specific, all ideas are exact, and all verbs express action.

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Thesis/Purpose Statement

Probably the most daunting task for any writer is to generate an effective thesis statement. In college, academic writing follows a specific pattern— after a brief opening, you state your position in one clear sentence. Whether your essay is explanatory or argumentative, a strong thesis statement will provide the map, guiding the entire essay. Confusion arises, however, over the difference between a purpose statement and a thesis.

What is the function of a purpose statement?

It gives the paper a focus: scope and direction.
It foreshadows the development of the argument

Used in many of the sciences for research proposals, in some disciplines, a purpose statement is too blunt or direct, so check with your instructor about using a purpose statement.

Sample purpose statement This paper will examine the ecological damage caused by Katrina on the Gulf Coast. The focus will be on the economic, political and social relationships effected by the environmental problems.

What is the function of a thesis statement? A thesis statement:

Gives the writer’s declaration of the purpose of the paper.
Makes an assertion directly answering the question the paper asks.
Offers a provable claim that reasonable people could argue.
Provides a map of the arrangement of ideas presented in the essay.

(Note that the thesis statement is more complex than the purpose statement)

Sample thesis statement The ecological damage produced by Katrina on the Gulf Coast was caused by the political and social environment of the region.

What are the characteristics of a good thesis statement?

It answers a specific question.
It is narrow or broad enough to be covered within the assignment parameters.
It focuses on one main idea.
It is controversial enough that a reasonable person could disagree.

How do I generate a good thesis statement? After you have completed your research for evidence, you will need to analyze the material to find the possible connections— both similarities and contrasts. Once you have analyzed your evidence, you will have a main idea or a working thesis. Think of the process of creating a thesis like a funnel, beginning with a general subject, narrowed by the purpose, and ending with a specific assertion, claim, or thesis.

How do I generate a thesis if the topic is assigned? Any assignment can be narrowed down to a single question. Your first task is to select the focal question that your essay will answer. If the assignment is a request for information, such as “Write a report on the benefits of expanding the Marina District in Downtown Toledo,” turn the request into a question— “What are the benefits of building the Marina District in Downtown Toledo?” After you have established the focal question, compose a one- to- two-sentence response based on your educated opinion.

Q: What are the benefits of the Marina District in Toledo?

A: The potential benefits of the development of the Marina District are….

How do I generate a thesis if the topic is not assigned?

Even if your instructor has not posed a specific question, you will need to create a question about the issue you plan to investigate. It is best if you first establish your subject; next consider the purpose of the essay. From this point you should be able to ask a question about the topic to then state a position or thesis.

Brainstorm the topic What are your concerns? What concerns are facing your field of study? For example, you are in construction and you are concerned with the slow recovery in New Orleans after Katrina. You begin the thought process like this:

Construction reform.

This is not a thesis; it is a fragment. This is a general subject from which you could take your paper in many directions. Perhaps from your research you have found that there were oversights in the codes for homes constructed in hurricane and flood zones. While everyone will agree that rebuilding flimsy homes is a bad idea, narrowing your topic to who should make the reform and what specific types are needed will assert your position.

Because a majority of the damage caused by Katrina was due to inadequate construction, the federal government needs to establish more stringent building codes before financing reconstruction.

Test your thesis

Does it take a stand and capture the subject?
Does it invite a discussion or can a simple statement respond it to?
Is it specific to your paper?
Is your claim significant?
Are the words and phrases a unified by a single idea?

Test the sample thesis Because a majority of the damage caused by Katrina was due to inadequate construction, the federal government needs to establish more stringent building codes before financing reconstruction.

Does it take a stand? Yes, the damage was due to inadequate construction and the federal government needs to step in.
Does it invite discussion? Yes, some reasonable people may feel that it is not the government’s responsibility to enforce codes and that no building could withstand the force of Katrina.
Is the thesis specific? Yes, it focuses on the aftermath of one storm and the steps to be taken before more federal funds should be used.
Is the claim significant? Yes, rebuilding still needs to take place.
Are the words focused on a single idea? Yes, not all issues are being addressed, just one aspect of a condition for rebuilding. Yet the thesis is still broad enough to allow the paper to explore examples of the types of destruction, building codes, and financial needs facing those devastated by Katrina.

For any further questions or more a detailed explanation refer to your instructor, The Little Brown Compact Handbook, or the Writing Center.

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Q. What is the difference between a thesis statement and a hypothesis statement?

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Answered By: APUS Librarians Last Updated: Apr 15, 2022 Views: 128517

Both the hypothesis statement and the thesis statement answer a research question.

A hypothesis is a statement that can be proved or disproved. It is typically used in quantitative research and predicts the relationship between variables.
A thesis statement is a short, direct sentence that summarizes the main point or claim of an essay or research paper. It is seen in quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research. A thesis statement is developed, supported, and explained in the body of the essay or research report by means of examples and evidence.

Every research study should contain a concise and well-written thesis statement. If the intent of the study is to prove/disprove something, that research report will also contain a hypothesis statement.

NOTE: In some disciplines, the hypothesis is referred to as a thesis statement! This is not accurate but within those disciplines it is understood that "a short, direct sentence that summarizes the main point" will be included.

For more information, see The Research Question and Hypothesis (PDF file from the English Language Support, Department of Student Services, Ryerson University).

How do I write a good thesis statement?

How do I write a good hypothesis statement?

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Specific purpose statement and thesis are two different terms for the same thing. True or False

The statement is false because a specific purpose statement and a thesis are not the same thing.

A specific purpose statement is a concise sentence that describes the primary goal or objective of a speech, outlining what the speaker intends to achieve. On the other hand, a thesis is a clear, concise statement that presents the main argument or point of an essay or research paper .

While both are important components in delivering a coherent message, the specific purpose statement focuses on the desired outcome of a speech, whereas the thesis statement emphasizes the central idea being conveyed in a written work.

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2024 Investment Climate Statements: Chile

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

With the third highest GDP per capita in Latin America, Chile has historically enjoyed significant economic stability and prosperity. After a wave of civil unrest in 2019, Chile’s political leadership launched a constitutional rewrite process to address social concerns. Although Chileans rejected the proposals of two constitutional referendums, the government’s use of peaceful and democratic tools was largely credited for diffusing social tension. Chile’s solid macroeconomic policy framework gives the country one of the strongest sovereign bond ratings in Latin America and provided fiscal and monetary space to reactivate the economy after the COVID-19 pandemic. According to its Central Bank, Chile’s economic growth was 0.2 percent in 2023 and is projected between 2 and 3 percent in 2024.

Despite its relatively small domestic market, Chile has successfully attracted Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), with an FDI to GDP ratio of nearly 85 percent. The country’s market-oriented policies create significant opportunities for foreign investors to participate in the country’s economic growth. Chile has a sound legal framework and there is general respect for private property rights. Sectors that attract the most FDI are mining, financial services (including pensions and health insurance), and utilities (including electricity, energy, water, and telecommunications). Mineral, hydrocarbon, and fossil fuel deposits within Chilean territory are restricted from foreign ownership, but companies may sign resource extraction contracts with the government. According to Transparency International’s 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index, Chile ranked 29 out of 180 countries worldwide and second in Latin America – behind Uruguay which ranked 16th.

Although Chile is an attractive destination for foreign investment, challenges remain. Some government reform proposals caused concern about potential impacts on investments in the healthcare, insurance, and pension sectors. Despite a general respect for intellectual property (IP) rights, Chile has not fully complied with its IP obligations set forth in the U.S.-Chile Free Trade Agreement. Environmental permitting processes, indigenous consultation requirements, and cumbersome court proceedings have made large project approvals increasingly time consuming and unpredictable, especially in cases with political sensitivities. The current administration prioritizes attracting foreign investment, especially into technological sectors and natural resource extraction associated with the green transition (lithium, copper, and green hydrogen), and continues to implement measures to streamline the investment process.



2023	29 of 180
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2022	US$ 29.2
2022	US$ 15,360	http://data.wrldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNP.PCAP.CD

1. Openness To, and Restrictions Upon, Foreign Investment

Policies Towards Foreign Direct Investment

For more than four decades, promoting FDI has been an essential part of the Chilean government’s national development strategy. The country’s market-oriented economic policies create significant opportunities for foreign investors to participate. Laws and business practices do not discriminate against foreign investors, who receive treatment no less favorable than Chilean nationals and domestic companies. Chile’s business climate is generally straightforward and transparent, and its policy framework has remained consistent despite administrations of different political leanings, episodes of social unrest, and two unsuccessful attempts to rewrite the Chilean Constitution. However, permitting processes for infrastructure, mining, and energy projects are lengthy and outcomes are less predictable in cases involving politically sensitive environmental impact assessments, water rights issues, and indigenous consultations. InvestChile is the government agency responsible for promoting the entry and retention of FDI into Chile. InvestChile carries out programs and services to attract investment, provide legal and sectorial information, facilitate the establishment of new businesses, and provide export and reinvestment assistance.

Limits on Foreign Control and Right to Private Ownership and Establishment

Foreign investors have access to all industries, except for the domestic maritime freight sector, where companies are subject to a 49 percent foreign ownership limit. Since 2019, transit between domestic ports was allowed for foreign cruise vessels with over 400 passengers. Some international reciprocity restrictions exist for fishing.

With few exceptions, enterprises in Chile may be 100 percent owned by foreigners. Chile only restricts the right to private ownership or establishment in what it defines as certain “strategic” sectors, such as nuclear energy and mining. The current Constitution establishes the “absolute, exclusive, inalienable and permanent domain” of the Chilean state over all mineral, hydrocarbon, and fossil fuel deposits within Chilean territory. However, Chilean law allows the government to grant concession rights and enter into lease agreements with individuals and companies for exploration and exploitation activities, and to assign contracts to private investors, without discrimination against foreign investors.

Chile does not have an investment screening mechanism. FDI formal approval procedures are expeditious, and investments are usually approved. Some transactions require an anti-trust review by the office of the national economic prosecutor (Fiscalía Nacional Económica) and possibly by sector-specific regulators.

Other Investment Policy Reviews

The World Trade Organization (WTO) conducted its sixth Trade Policy Review for Chile in December 2023. The full report is available here: https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/tpr_e/tp551_e.htm . The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) latest Investment Policy Review for Chile is from 1997, available here: http://www.oecd.org/daf/inv/investment-policy/34384328.pdf . On March 27, 2023, the OECD published a new report named “FDI Qualities Review of Chile: Boosting sustainable development and diversification,” which contains an updated assessment of Chile’s FDI policy framework as well as policy recommendations. Chile is not part of the countries covered to date by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s (UNCTAD) Investment Policy Reviews.

Business Facilitation

The Chilean government has taken significant steps towards facilitating business transactions over the past decade. Starting in 2018, the government introduced an updated electronic and online systems for providing tax information, submitting complaints related to contract enforcement, and completing online registration of closed corporations (i.e., non-public corporations). In June 2019, the Ministry of Economy launched the Unified System for Permits (SUPER), an online single-window platform that brings together 182 license and permit procedures, simplifying the process of obtaining permits for investment projects. However, as noted previously, the private sector still considers the permitting process lengthy and overly cumbersome. Chile participates in the WTO Joint Initiative on Investment Facilitation for Development, which is coordinated by the country’s Permanent Representative to the WTO.

According to the World Bank, Chile has one of the shortest and most user-friendly processes among Latin American and Caribbean countries – 11 procedures and 29 days – to establish a foreign-owned limited liability company (LLC). Drafting statutes of a company and obtaining an authorization number can be done online at https://www.registrodeempresasysociedades.cl/ . Electronic signature and invoicing allow foreign investors to register a company, obtain a taxpayer identification number and get legal receipts, invoices, credit and debit notes, and accountant registries. A company typically needs to register with Chile’s Internal Revenue Service, obtain a business license from a municipality, and register either with the Institute of Occupational Safety (public) or with one of three private nonprofit entities that provide work-related accident insurance, which is mandatory for employers. In addition to the steps required of a domestic company, a foreign company establishing a subsidiary in Chile must authenticate the parent company’s documents abroad and register the incoming capital with the Central Bank. This procedure, established under Chapter XIV of the Foreign Exchange Regulations, requires a notice of conversion of foreign currency into Chilean pesos when the investment exceeds $10,000. The registration process at the Registry of Commerce of Santiago is available online.

Outward Investment

The Government of Chile does not have active policies to promote or incentivize outward investment, nor does it impose restrictions on FDI.

2. Bilateral Investment and Taxation Treaties

Chile has signed 55 bilateral investment treaties (BITs), 34 of which are in force to date. Currently Chile has agreements in force with Austria, Belgium and Luxembourg, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Czechia, Denmark, El Salvador, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hong Kong SAR, Iceland, Italy, Malaysia, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

Chile has 32 free trade agreements (FTAs) with 66 countries. On January 1, 2004, the United States and Chile brought into force the investment chapter in their bilateral FTA. Chile has additional investment chapters in force under FTAs, or supplementary investment agreements to the FTAs with Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Republic of Korea, Peru, the Pacific Alliance (composed of four countries: Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru), and the Comprehensive and Progressive Transpacific Partnership (CPTPP). Chile is currently negotiating investment dispute resolution chapters that are part of FTA negotiations between the Pacific Alliance and Associated States (Australia, Canada, and New Zealand), and signed on January 26, 2022, the FTA between the Pacific Alliance and Singapore. Chile signed the Advanced Framework Agreement with the European Union on December 13, 2023. As of April 4, 2024, it has not yet entered into force.

The U.S.-Chile Bilateral Tax Treaty, signed in 2010, entered into force December 19, 2023. Chile has 36 other double taxation treaties in force with Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Ecuador, France, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and Uruguay. Chile also signed a double taxation agreement with the Pacific Alliance countries (Colombia, Mexico, and Peru), that has not yet entered into force.

Since the 2014 Tax Reform, the total income tax rate on dividends or profits earned by Chilean firms’ shareholders who are residents in other countries at 44.45 percent (a result of adding the 35 percent “retention tax” on dividends and profits to a 9.45 percent corporate income tax). Residents in countries, such as the United States, with a tax treaty in force with Chile are subject to a 35 percent retention tax rate, and no corporate income tax. Chile’s 2020 Tax Modernization bill reformed real estate and income taxes and applied Chile’s 19 percent value-added tax to foreign digital services.

3. Legal Regime

Transparency of the Regulatory System

Chile’s legal, regulatory, and accounting systems are transparent, generally provide clear rules for competition and a level playing field for foreigners and are consistent with international norms. However, environmental regulations, which include mandatory indigenous consultation required by the International Labor Organization’s Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (ILO 169), and other permitting processes have become lengthy and unpredictable, especially in politically sensitive cases.

Chile does not have a regulatory oversight body. Four institutions play key roles in the rule-making process: the General-Secretariat of the Presidency (SEGPRES), the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economy, and the General Comptroller of the Republic. Most regulations come from the national government; however, some, particularly those related to land use, are decided at the local level. Both national and local governments are involved in the issuance of environmental permits. Regulatory processes are managed by governmental entities. NGOs and private sector associations may participate in public hearings or comment periods.

In Chile, non-listed companies follow norms issued by the Accountants Professional Association, while publicly listed companies use the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Since January 2018, IFRS 9 entered into force for companies in all sectors except for banking, in which IFRS 15 will be applied. IFRS 16 entered into force in January 2019. On January 1, 2022, Chile’s Financial Market Commission (CMF) began implementation of the IFRS 17 accounting standards in the Chilean insurance market.

The legislation process in Chile allows for public hearings during discussion of draft bills in both chambers of Congress. Draft bills submitted by the Executive Branch to the Congress are readily available for public comment. Ministries and regulatory agencies are required by law to give notice of proposed regulations, but there is no formal requirement in Chile for consultation with the public, conducting regulatory impact assessments of proposed regulations, requesting comments, or reporting results of consultations. For lower-level regulations or norms that do not need congressional approval, there are no formal provisions for public hearing or comment. As a result, Chilean regulators and rulemaking bodies normally consult with stakeholders, but in a less formal manner.

All decrees and laws are published in the Diario Oficial (similar to the Federal Register in the United States), but other types of regulations are not always found there. There are no other centralized online locations where regulations in Chile are published.

According to the OECD, regulatory compliance rates in Chile are generally high. The approach to enforcement remains punitive rather than preventive, and regulators still prefer to inspect rather than collaborate with regulated entities on fostering compliance. Each institution with regulation enforcement responsibilities has its own sanction procedures. Law 19.880 from 2003 establishes the principles for reversal and hierarchical recourse against decisions by the administration. An administrative act can be challenged by lodging an action in the ordinary courts of justice, or by administrative means with a petition to the Comptroller General of the Republic. Affected parties may also make a formal appeal to the Constitutional Court against a specific regulation.

Chile still lacks a comprehensive, “whole of government” regulatory reform program. The OECD’s April 2016 “Regulatory Policy in Chile” report asserts that Chile took steps to improve its rule-making process, but still lags the OECD average in assessing the impact of regulations, consulting with outside parties on their design and evaluating them over time. According to the World Bank´s Global Indicators of Regulatory Governance, Chile has made limited progress on transparency, impact assessment and ways to appeal and challenge regulations. In a recent positive step, the government submitted to Congress on January 10, 2024, a bill that aims to reduce timeframes for obtaining permits, by imposing deadlines on permit procedures, with default decisions in case of no reply by authorities.

Chile’s level of fiscal transparency is excellent. Information on the budget and debt obligations, including explicit and contingent liabilities, is easily accessible online.

International Regulatory Considerations

Chile does not share regulatory sovereignty with any regional economic bloc. However, several international norms or standards from multilateral organizations (UN, WIPO, ILO, among others) are referenced or incorporated into the country’s regulatory system. As a member of the WTO, the Chile notifies draft technical regulations to the WTO Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT).

Legal System and Judicial Independence

Chile’s legal system is based on civil law. Chile’s legal and regulatory framework provides for effective means for enforcing property and contractual rights.

Laws governing issues of interest to foreign investors are found in several statutes, including the Commercial Code of 1868, the Civil Code, the Labor Code, and the General Banking Act. Chile has specialized courts for dealing with tax and labor issues.

The judicial system in Chile is generally transparent and independent. The likelihood of government intervention in court cases is low and state-owned enterprises or other government institutions are not given favorable treatment. If a state-owned firm is involved in the dispute, the Government of Chile may become directly involved through the State Defense Council, which represents the government interests in litigation cases related to expropriations. Regulations can be challenged before the court system, the National Comptroller, or the Constitutional Court, depending on the nature of the claim.

Laws and Regulations on Foreign Direct Investment

Chile’s framework for foreign investment is set by Law 20848 of 2015, which created InvestChile and the Agency for the Promotion of Foreign Investment (APIE), the successor to the former Foreign Investment Committee. The InvestChile website ( https://investchile.gob.cl/ ) provides relevant laws, rules, procedures, and reporting requirements for investors. For more on FDI regulations and services for foreign investors, see the section on Policies Towards Foreign Direct Investment.

Competition and Antitrust Laws

Chile’s anti-trust law prohibits mergers or acquisitions that would prevent free competition in the respective industry. An investor may voluntarily request a ruling by an anti-trust court that would state a planned investment would not have competition implications. The national economic prosecutor (FNE) is an active institution in conducting investigations for competition-related cases and filing complaints before the Free Competition Tribunal (TDLC), which has jurisdiction over those cases.

In February 2023, the FNE approved the sale of Soprole –a Chilean dairy products firm – by New Zealand-based Fonterra to Gloria – a Peruvian holding. The FNE found that, even though the overlap between Gloria’s and Soprole’s operations in some dairy products would increase market concentration, the presence of other competitors and potential entry of imported products meant there were no significant risks to competition in the sale.

In April 2023, the FNE ordered the TDLC to fine TWDC Enterprises 18 Corp. – owned by Disney Group – US$ 3.6 million for submitting false information when it notified FNE about a merger with 21st Century Fox in the cable television services market in 2018.

In July 2023, the FNE approved Germany-based holding Hapag Lloyd’s acquisition of SAAM Ports y SAAM Logistics, integrating shipping services with port operations and extra-port services. The FNE estimated that current regulations in the ports sector reduce risks of anti-competitive behavior such as blocking supplies, blocking clients or conglomerate risks.

In December 2023, the FNE approved, OnNet Fibra’s (partially owned by U.S.-based investment fund KKR) acquisition of Chile-based Entel’s fiber optic infrastructure assets subject to mitigation measures. The measures include eliminating exclusivity and non-competition clauses in the services contract between both companies, and Entel selling part of its fiber optic assets to a third company.

Expropriation and Compensation

Chilean law grants the government authority to expropriate property, including property of foreign investors, only on public interest or national interest grounds, on a non-discriminatory basis and in accordance with due process. The government has not nationalized a private firm since 1973. Expropriations of private land take place in a transparent manner, and typically only when the purpose is to build roads or other types of infrastructure. The law requires the payment of immediate compensation at fair market value, in addition to any applicable interest.

Dispute Settlement

ICSID Convention and New York Convention

Since 1991, Chile has been a member state to the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID Convention). In 1975, Chile became a signatory to the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (1958 New York Convention).

National arbitration law in Chile includes the Civil Procedure Code (Law Num. 1552, modified by Law Num. 20.217 of 2007), and Law Num. 19.971 on International Commercial Arbitration.

Investor-State Dispute Settlement

Apart from the New York Convention, Chile is also a party to the Pan-American Convention on Private International Law (Bustamante Code) since 1934, the Inter-American Convention on International Commercial Arbitration (Panama Convention) since 1976, and the Washington Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States since 1992.

The U.S.-Chile FTA, in force since 2004, includes an investment chapter that provides the right for investors to submit claims under the ICSID Convention, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) arbitration rules, or any other mutually agreed upon arbitral institution. Under the U.S.-Chile FTA, companies have the option to initiate a claim if they do not achieve a resolution in a previous consultations process with the Chilean government. One U.S. investor filed an arbitration claim against the State of Chile on January 31, 2024, under ICSID, invoking the U.S.-Chile FTA after ending a consultations process in 2023 with no agreement. According to the investor’s claim, the Chilean government breached the terms of a school food program’s public procurement contract by imposing arbitrary discounts in the price set for their services between 2019 and 2021. Another case involves three U.S.-based insurance companies that alleged financial losses because of the pension withdrawal bills of 2021 (Law 21.330), which allowed some retirees to seek an “advance payment” against their annuity accounts. In the case of these insurance companies, the consultations stage expired and there was no agreement with the government of Chile. The companies may still decide to initiate a case before ICSID.

Over the past 10 years, there were only four investment dispute cases brought by foreign investors against the state of Chile before the World Bank’s International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) tribunal. In the first case, a Spanish-Chilean citizen demanded US$ 338.3 million in compensation for the alleged expropriation of Chilean newspaper El Clarín in 1975 by Chile’s military regime. ICSID issued a final ruling on January 7, 2020, in favor of the Chilean state and rejecting the claimant’s case. The second case was brought in 2017 by a Colombian firm, which held concession contracts as operators of the public transportation system in Santiago de Chile. The firm claimed US$ 347 million for Chilean government actions that allegedly created unfavorable operating conditions for the claimants’ subsidiaries and resulted in bankruptcy proceedings. On January 7, 2021, ICSID ruled in favor of the Chilean state, rejecting the claims. Two more cases pending resolution were brought by foreign investors in 2021. On April 13, 2021, a Chilean subsidiary of a Colombian power company filed an arbitration request against Chile related to an electrical transmission project. The authorities fined US$ 72.8 million for construction delays that the firm argues were due to unforeseeable circumstances. Hearings took place during 2023, and the ruling is expected in the first half of 2024. On August 13, 2021, two French firms operating the Santiago International Airport filed an arbitration request against the Chilean state for allegedly not taking measures to alleviate the temporary drop in their revenues from the decrease in air traffic and commercial airport activity due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the sanitary measures taken by the State, such as border closures and imposition of quarantines. In this case, the arbitration tribunal was constituted in 2022 and the Chilean state filed a request to address the objections to jurisdiction as a preliminary question.

Local courts respect and enforce foreign arbitration awards, and there is no history of extrajudicial action against foreign investors.

International Commercial Arbitration and Foreign Courts

Mediation and binding arbitration exist in Chile as alternative dispute resolution mechanisms. A suit may also be brought in court under expedited procedures involving the abrogation of constitutional rights. The U.S.-Chile FTA investment chapter encourages consultations or negotiations before recourse to dispute settlement mechanisms. If the parties fail to resolve the matter, the investor may submit a claim for arbitration. Provisions in Section C of the FTA ensure that the proceedings are transparent by requiring that all documents submitted to or issued by the tribunal be available to the public, and by stipulating those proceedings be public. The FTA investment chapter establishes clear and specific terms for making proceedings more efficient and avoiding frivolous claims. Chilean law is generally to be applied to all contracts. However, arbitral tribunals decide disputes in accordance with FTA obligations and applicable international law. The tribunal must also accept amicus curiae submissions.

The Chilean Judiciary Code and the Code of Civil Procedure govern domestic arbitration. Local courts respect and enforce foreign arbitral awards and judgments of foreign courts. Chile has a dual arbitration system in terms of regulation, meaning that different bodies of law govern domestic and international arbitration. International commercial arbitration is governed by the International Commercial Arbitration Act that is modeled on the 1985 UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration. In addition to this statute, there is also Decree Law Number 2349 that regulates International Contracts for the Public Sector and sets forth a specific legal framework for the State and its entities to submit their disputes to international arbitration.

No Chilean state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have been involved in investment disputes in recent decades. A Chilean government agency filed an arbitration case in February 2021 against a U.S. firm at the International Chamber of Commerce International Court of Arbitration which remains pending.

Bankruptcy Regulations

Chile’s 1982 Insolvency Law was updated in October 2014. The current law aims to clarify and simplify liquidation and reorganization procedures for businesses to prevent criminalizing bankruptcy. It also established the new Superintendence of Insolvency and created specialized insolvency courts. Creditors’ approval is required to select the insolvency representative and to sell debtors’ substantial assets. The creditor also has the right to object to decisions accepting or rejecting creditors’ claims. However, the creditor cannot request information from the insolvency representative. The creditor may file for insolvency of the debtor, but for liquidation purposes only. The creditors are divided into classes for the purposes of voting on the reorganization plan; each class votes separately, and creditors in the same class are treated equally.

4. Industrial Policies

Investment Incentives

The Chilean government generally does not subsidize foreign investment, nor does it issue guarantees or joint financing for FDI projects. There are, however, some incentives directed toward isolated geographical zones and to the information technology sector. These benefits relate to co-financing of feasibility studies as well as to incentives for the purchase of land in industrial zones, the hiring of local labor, and the facilitation of project financing. Other important incentives include accelerated depreciation accounting for tax purposes and legal guarantees for remitting profits and capital. The 2020 Tax Reform, contained in Law 21.210 from 2020 established a Value Added Tax (VAT) exemption on capital goods (machines, vehicles, equipment, and accessories) for investments of at least US$5 million. Additionally, the Start-Up Chile program provides selected entrepreneurs with grants of up to US$80,000, along with a Chilean work visa to develop a “startup” business in Chile over a period of four to seven months. Chile has other special incentive programs aimed at promoting investment and employment in remote regions, as well as other areas that suffer development lags. All these opportunities are available in the same terms for both domestic and foreign investors.

Foreign Trade Zones/Free Ports/Trade Facilitation

Chile has two free trade zones: one in the northern port city of Iquique (Tarapaca Region) and the other in the far south port city of Punta Arenas (Magallanes Region). Merchants and manufacturers in these zones are exempt from corporate income tax, value added taxes (VAT) – on operations and services that take place inside the free trade zone – and customs duties. The same exemptions also apply to manufacturers in the Chacalluta and Las Americas Industrial Park in Arica (Arica and Parinacota Region). Mining, fishing, and financial services are not eligible for free trade zone concessions. Foreign-owned firms have the same investment opportunities in these zones as Chilean firms. The process for setting up a subsidiary is the same inside as outside the zones, regardless of whether the company is domestic or foreign owned.

Performance and Data Localization Requirements

Chile does not follow “forced localization.” A draft bill that is pending in Chile’s Congress could result in additional requirements (owner’s consent) for international data transfers in cases involving jurisdictions with data protection regimes below Chile’s standards. The bill, modeled after the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) also proposes the creation of an independent Chilean Data Protection Agency that would be responsible for enforcing data protection standards.

Neither Chile’s Foreign Investment Promotion Agency nor the Central Bank applies performance requirements in their reviews of proposed investment projects. The investment chapter in the U.S.–Chile FTA establishes rules prohibiting performance requirements that apply to all investments, whether by a third party or domestic investors. The FTA investment chapter also regulates the use of mandatory performance requirements as a condition for receiving incentives and spells out certain exceptions. These include government procurement, qualifications for export and foreign aid programs, and non-discriminatory health, safety, and environmental requirements.

Chile does not apply requirements for foreign IT providers to turn over source code and/or provide access to encryption, nor are there restrictions for the free transmission of customer or business-related data outside the country. As a rule, there are no local data storage requirements. Chile’s Intellectual Property Law protects computer programs “whatever the mode or form of expression, as source program or object program, and the preparatory documentation, its technical description and user manuals.”

5. Protection of Property Rights

Real Property

Property rights and interests are recognized and generally enforced in Chile. There is a recognized and generally reliable system for recording mortgages and other forms of liens.

There are no restrictions on foreign ownership of buildings and land, and no time limit on the property rights acquired by them. The only exception, based on national security grounds, is for land located in border territories, which may not be owned by nationals or firms from border countries, without prior authorization of the President of Chile. There are no restrictions to foreign and/or non-resident investors regarding land leases or acquisitions. Unoccupied properties can always be claimed by their legal owners and, as usurpation is a criminal offense, several kinds of eviction procedures are allowed by the law, though they can sometimes be onerous and lengthy.

Intellectual Property Rights

According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s International IP Index, Chile’s legal framework provides for fair and transparent use of compulsory licensing; extends necessary exclusive rights to copyright holders and maintains a voluntary notification system; and provides for civil and procedural remedies. However, IP protection challenges remain. Chile’s framework for trade secret protection has been deemed insufficient by private stakeholders. Pharmaceutical products suffer from relatively weak patenting procedures, the absence of an effective patent enforcement and resolution mechanism, and some gaps in regulation governing data protection.

The Government submitted to Congress in 2018 a bill to reform to Chile’s pharmaceutical drugs law called “Ley de Fármacos II”. A mixed committee tasked to reconcile conflicting amendments made by the Senate and the Lower Chamber indefinitely postponed its final review due to deadlock in Congress. While the pharmaceutical industry reports that the reconciliation process addressed some of their concerns regarding the new regulations, it identified the lack of coverage being offered in price regulations as an outstanding issue of concern.

In addition to Law 21.335 that modernizes certain aspects of Chile’s patent and IP regime, Law 21.426 against trade in illicit and counterfeit goods entered into force in 2022. Chile enacted two laws in 2023 that may strengthen IPR enforcement: Law 21.577 against organized crime established special investigative techniques and bolstered the confiscation of illicit profits, and Law 21.595 created new categories of “economic crimes,” new penalties, such as the confiscation of profits, and new criminal liability for legal entities. Chile also issued Decree 7/2023 on Information Security and Cybersecurity Policy compliance for government agencies. Right holders understand that this Decree will prevent government computer systems from having unlicensed software.

The Intellectual Property Brigade (BRIDEPI) of the Chilean Investigative Police (PDI) reported that it seized 51,312 counterfeit products in 2023, worth a total of US$ 13.6 million, and arrested 194 individuals on charges related to IPR infringement. Additionally, the National Customs Service reported that it seized more than 4.2 million counterfeit products in 2023.

Chile’s IPR enforcement remains relatively lax, particularly in relation to piracy, copyright, and patent protection, while prosecution of IP infringement is hindered by gaps in the legal framework and a lack of expertise in IP law among judges. Rights holders indicate a need for greater resources devoted to customs operations and a better-defined procedure for dealing with small packages containing infringing goods. The legal basis for detaining and seizing suspected transshipments is also insufficiently clear.

Since 2007, Chile has been on the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) Special 301 Priority Watch List (PWL). In October 2018, Chile’s Congress successfully passed a law that criminalizes satellite piracy. In December 2021, the Government of Chile submitted legislation to implement a legal framework to penalize the circumvention of technology protection measures (TPM) by amending Chile’s existing IPR law. This legislation remains pending in Congress. However, other challenges remain related to longstanding IPR issues under the U.S.-Chile FTA: the pending implementation of UPOV 91; the implementation of an effective patent linkage in connection with applications to market pharmaceutical products; adequate protection for undisclosed data generated to obtain marketing approval for pharmaceutical products; and amendments to Chile’s Internet Service Provider liability regime to permit effective action against Internet piracy.

On December 13, 2023, Chile signed the updated Association Agreement with the European Union, accepting the protection of 222 product terms as Geographic Indicators (GI), including mostly cheeses and processed meats. The EU and Chile also agreed to give GI protection for some common product names such as parmesan, feta, and gruyere, which are also produced in many countries globally, including the United States and Chile. Chile’s broad acceptance of EU GIs and the inclusion of common names affects market access for U.S. dairy exports to Chile as provided for in the U.S.-Chile FTA. There is an ongoing engagement between the United States and Chile to preserve market access for U.S. products marketed in Chile using common names.

Chile is not listed in the USTR’s Notorious Markets List. For additional information about national laws and points of contact at local IP offices, please see WIPO’s country profiles at http://www.wipo.int/directory/en/ .

6. Financial Sector

Capital Markets and Portfolio Investment

Chile developed capital markets and keeps them open to foreign portfolio investors. Foreign firms offer services in Chile in areas such as financial information, data processing, financial advisory services, portfolio management, voluntary saving plans and pension funds. Under the U.S.-Chile FTA, Chile significantly opened its insurance sector, with very limited exceptions. The Santiago Stock Exchange is Chile’s dominant stock exchange, and the third largest in Latin America. However, when compared to other OECD countries, it has lower market liquidity.

The free flow of financial resources into Chile’s real economy allows its commodity export-dependent economy to adjust to external shocks. Chile accepted the obligations of the International Monetary Fund’s Article VIII (sections 2, 3 and 4) and maintains a free-floating exchange rate system, free of restrictions on payments and transfers for current international transactions. Credit is allocated on market terms and its various instruments are available to foreigners. The Central Bank of Chile (CBC) reserves the right to restrict foreign investors’ access to internal credit in case of a credit shortage but has not exerted this authority to date.

Money and Banking System

Chile has the highest banking services penetration rate in Latin America: 92 percent of residents older than 18 have a bank account. There are 13.5 million credit cards and 27.3 million debit cards in the Chilean banking system, along with 10.8 million current accounts and 20.7 million savings accounts. State-owned Banco Estado supports financial inclusion through CuentaRut, a commission-free card with an electronic account available for all Chilean residents (national and foreigners) with a RUT (national ID number). As of December 2023, nearly 14.6 million people (82 percent of Chilean residents) had a CuentaRut account.

The Chilean banking system is healthy and competitive. The 2019 General Law of Banks (LGB) provides general guidelines for establishing a capital adequacy system in line with Basel III standards and gave the Financial Market Commission (CMF), the regulator for banks, insurance companies and the stock market, the authority to establish its framework. All Chilean banks meet Basel III requirements, even though its implementation process ends on December 1, 2025. The system’s liquidity position (Liquidity Coverage Ratio) is on average above 200 percent, more than twice the regulatory limit (100%). Capital adequacy ratio of the system was 16.16 percent as of December 2023 and remains robust even when including discounts due to market and/or operational risks. As of December 2023, non-performing loans (i.e., loans 90 days past due) were 2.13 percent compared to 1.68 percent in December 2022. This result was influenced by the end of the expansive fiscal and monetary policies implemented in 2021 in response to the economic shock from the COVID-19 pandemic, and currently higher interest rates.

As of December 2023, the total assets of the Chilean banking system amounted to US$ 458.9 billion, according to the CMF. The largest six banks (Banco de Crédito e Inversiones, Banco Santander-Chile, Banco Estado, Banco de Chile, Scotiabank Chile, and Itaú Chile) accounted for 87.4 percent of the system’s assets. Chile’s Central Bank conducts the country’s monetary policy, is constitutionally autonomous from the government, and is not subject to regulation by the CMF.

Foreign banks have an important presence in Chile, comprising three out of the six largest banks of the system. Out of 17 banks currently in Chile, five are foreign owned but legally established banks in Chile and three are branches of foreign banks. Both categories are subject to the requirements of the Chilean banking law and to supervision by the CMF. There are also 25 representative offices of foreign banks in Chile, six of them from the United States. There are no reports of correspondent banking relationships withdrawal in Chile.

To open a bank account in Chile, a foreigner must present his/her Chilean ID Card or passport, Chilean tax ID number, proof of address, proof of income/solvency, photo, and fingerprints.

Foreign Exchange and Remittances

Foreign Exchange

Law 20.848, which regulates FDI (described in section 1), prohibits arbitrary discrimination against foreign investors and guarantees access to the formal foreign exchange market, as well as the free remittance of capital and profits generated by investments. There are no other restrictions or limitations placed on foreign investors for the conversion, transfer or remittance of funds associated with an investment.

Investors, importers, and others have access to foreign exchange in the official inter-bank currency market without restriction. The Central Bank of Chile (CBC) reserves the right to deny access to the inter-bank currency market for royalty payments more than five percent of sales. The same restriction applies to payments for the use of patents that exceed five percent of sales. In such cases, firms would have access to the informal market. The Chilean tax service reserves the right to prevent royalties of over five percent of sales from being counted as expenses for domestic tax purposes.

Chile has a free floating (flexible) exchange rate system since 1999. Exchange rates of foreign currencies are fully determined by the market. The CBC reserves the right to intervene under exceptional circumstances to correct significant deviations of the currency from its fundamentals. These interventions are not designed to maintain a determined exchange rate level, which results from the currency market supply and demand, but instead aim to preserve financial stability when there is an excessive volatility in the foreign exchange market. This authority has been used seven times since 1999, the latest being an announcement in July 2022 when the CBC injected US$ 25 billion into the foreign exchange market following an unusual depreciation of the Chilean peso (CLP) due to external shocks.

Remittance Policies

Remittances of profits generated by investments are allowed at any time after tax obligations are fulfilled; remittances of capital can be made after one year following the date of entry into the country. In practice, this permanency requirement does not constitute a restriction for productive investment, because projects normally need more than one year to mature. Under the investment chapter of the U.S.–Chile FTA, the parties must allow free transfer and without delay of covered investments into and out of its territory. These include transfers of profits, royalties, sales proceeds, and other remittances related to the investment. However, for certain types of short-term capital flows, this chapter allows Chile to impose transfer restrictions for up to 12 months, as long as those restrictions do not substantially impede transfers. If restrictions are found to impede transfers substantially, damages accrue from the date of the initiation of the measure. In practice, these restrictions have not been applied in the last two decades.

Sovereign Wealth Funds

The Government of Chile maintains two sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) built with savings from years with fiscal surpluses. The Economic and Social Stabilization Fund (FEES) was established in 2007 and was valued at US$5.1 billion as of February 2024. The purpose of the FEES is to fund public debt payments and temporary deficit spending to keep a countercyclical fiscal policy. The Pensions Reserve Fund (FRP) was built up in 2006 and amounted to US$8.6 billion as of February 2024. The purpose of the FRP is to anticipate future needs of payments to those eligible to receive pensions, but whose contributions to the private pension system fall below a minimum threshold.

Chile is a member of the International Working Group of Sovereign Wealth Funds (IWG) and adheres to the Santiago Principles.

Chile’s government policy is to invest SWFs entirely abroad into instruments denominated in foreign currencies, including sovereign bonds and related instruments, corporate and high-yield bonds, mortgage-backed securities from U.S. agencies, and stocks. Approximately 65.5 percent of the FEES (US$2.7 billion), as well as 50.3 percent of the FRP (US$4.3 billion), were invested in assets based in the United States as of January 2024.

7. State-Owned Enterprises

Chile had 28 state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in operation as of 2022. Twenty-seven SOEs are commercial companies and the newest one (FOINSA) is an infrastructure fund that was created to facilitate public-private partnership projects. At the same time, 25 SOEs are not listed and are fully owned by the government, while the remaining three are majority government owned. Ten Chilean SOEs operate in the port management sector, six in the services sector, three in the defense sector, three in the mining sector (including CODELCO, the world’s largest copper producer, and ENAP, an oil and gas company), two in transportation, one in the water sector, one is a TV station, and one is a state-owned bank (Banco Estado). The state holds a minority stake in four water companies after a privatization process. In 2022, total assets of Chilean SOEs amounted to US$ 81.8 billion, while their total net income was US$ 3.0 billion. Chilean SOEs employed 47,669 people in 2022.

Twenty SOEs in Chile fall under the supervision of the Public Enterprises System (SEP), a public agency that oversees SOE governance. The rest – including the largest SOEs such as CODELCO, ENAP and Banco Estado – have their own governance and report to the Executive Branch. Allocation of seats on the boards of Chilean SOEs is determined by the SEP or outlined by the laws that regulate them. In CODELCO’s corporate governance, there is a mix between seats appointed by recommendation from an independent high-level civil service committee, and seats allocated by political authorities in the government.

The Budget Directorate published an updated list of SOEs, including their financial management information, available in the following link: http://www.dipres.gob.cl/599/w3-propertyvalue-20890.html .

In general, Chilean SOEs work under strict budget constraints and compete under the same regulatory and tax frameworks as private firms. The exception is ENAP, which is the only company allowed to refine oil in Chile. The main Chilean SOEs compete in the domestic market according to commercial terms. TVN (national TV broadcaster) and Banco Estado (Chile’s third biggest bank) operate in very competitive markets. Several other SOEs operate in sectors with characteristics of natural monopoly such as water, infrastructure, ports, and transportation, in some cases in public-private partnerships or join ventures with private firms. In general, Chilean SOEs operating in the domestic market provide non-discriminatory treatment in their purchases. CODELCO competes internationally as one of the world’s biggest copper producers, and it is developing a lithium division to operate Chile’s largest deposits in partnership with private companies. ENAP has oil and gas investments abroad with branches in Argentina, Ecuador, and Egypt. There are no significant investments from Chilean SOEs in the United States. As an OECD member, Chile adheres to the OECD Guidelines on Corporate Governance for SOEs.

Privatization Program

Chile does not have a privatization program.

8. Responsible Business Conduct

Awareness of the need to ensure corporate social responsibility has grown over the last two decades in Chile. However, NGOs and academics who monitor this issue believe that risk mapping and management practices still do not sufficiently reflect its importance.

On November 12, 2021, the CMF published new annual reporting requirements for publicly traded companies on policies, practices, and metrics adopted to meet environmental, social, and governance goals. The new regulation will require companies to restructure their annual reports to integrate sustainability issues throughout the report. The new annual report structure includes sections on company profile, corporate governance (including sustainability risks, particularly climate change), strategic objectives, personnel (include diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, workplace and sexual harassment, training, and benefits), business model, supplier management, regulatory compliance (related to customers, workers, environment, and free competition), and sustainability indicators (in line with international standards). The requirements went into effect for large businesses (of consolidated total assets of approximately $850 million or higher) for reporting year 2022, published in March 2023. For companies with less than $45 million consolidated assets, the requirements go into effect for reporting year 2023.

The government of Chile encourages foreign and local enterprises to follow generally accepted Responsible Business Conduct (RBC) principles and uses the United Nations’ Rio+20 Conference statements as its principal reference. Chile adheres since 1997 to the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. It also recognizes the ILO Tripartite Declaration of Principles Concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy; the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights; the UN Global Compact’s Ten Principles, and the ISO 26000 Guidance on Social Responsibility. The government established a National Contact Point (NCP) for OECD MNE guidelines located within the Undersecretariat for International Economic Relations, and has a Responsible Business Conduct Division, whose chief is also the NCP. In August 2017, Chile released its National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights based on the UN Guiding Principles. Separately, the Council on Social Responsibility for Sustainable Development, coordinated by Chile’s Ministry of Economy, is currently developing a National Policy on Social Responsibility.

Regarding procurement decisions, ChileCompra, the agency in charge of centralizing Chile’s public procurement, incorporates the existence of a Clean Production Certificate and an ISO 14001-2004 certificate on environmental management as part of its criteria to assign public purchases.

No high profile or controversial instances of corporate impact on human rights have occurred in Chile in recent years.

The Chilean government effectively and fairly enforces domestic labor, employment, consumer, and environmental protection laws. There are no dispute settlement cases against Chile related to the Labor and Environment Chapters of the Free Trade Agreements signed by Chile.

Regarding the protection of shareholders, the Superintendence of Securities and Insurance (SVS) has the responsibility of regulating and supervising all listed companies in Chile. Companies are generally required to have an audit committee, a directors committee, an anti-money laundering committee and an anti-terrorism finance committee. Laws do not require companies to have a nominating/corporate governance committee or a compensation committee. Compensation programs are typically established by the board of directors and/or the directors committee.

Independent NGOs in Chile promote and freely monitor RBC. Examples include NGO Acción Empresas Inicio – Acción Empresas (accionempresas.cl) , Chilean chapter of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD); the Catholic University of Valparaiso’s Center for Social Responsibility and Sustainable Development VINCULAR: http://www.vincular.cl/; ProHumana Foundation; and the Andres Bello University’s Center Vitrina Ambiental.

Chile is an OECD member but is not participating actively in the implementation of the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Afflicted and High-Risk Areas.

Chile is not part of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). Chile joined The Montreux Document on Private Military and Security Companies in 2009. However, there are no private security companies based in Chile participating in the International Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers’ Association (ICoCA).

Additional Resources

Department of State

Country Reports on Human Rights Practices ( https://www.state.gov/reports-bureau-of-democracy-human-rights-and-labor/country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/ )
Trafficking in Persons Report ( https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/ )
Guidance on Implementing the “UN Guiding Principles” for Transactions Linked to Foreign Government End-Users for Products or Services with Surveillance Capabilities ( https://www.state.gov/key-topics-bureau-of-democracy-human-rights-and-labor/due-diligence-guidance/ )
U.S. National Contact Point for the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises ( https://www.state.gov/u-s-national-contact-point-for-the-oecd-guidelines-for-multinational-enterprises/ )
Xinjiang Supply Chain Business Advisory ( https://www.state.gov/xinjiang-supply-chain-business-advisory/ )

Department of the Treasury

OFAC Recent Actions ( https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/recent-actions )

Department of Labor

Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor Report ( https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/resources/reports/child-labor/findings )
List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor ( https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/reports/child-labor/list-of-goods )
Sweat & Toil: Child Labor, Forced Labor, and Human Trafficking Around the World ( https://www.dol.gov/general/apps/ilab )
Comply Chain ( https://www.dol.gov/ilab/complychain/ )
Climate Issues

Chile is one of the signatories of the Paris Agreement. The Environment Ministry published its 2050 Long-Term Climate Strategy (ECLP), a roadmap that details how Chile will fulfill its commitments, considering a 30-year timeframe. It was incorporated into Law 21.455, known as the Framework Law of Climate Change, enacted on June 13, 2022. The law also includes the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), which contains Chile’s commitments to the international community in mitigation and adaptation to climate change, which will be updated every five years. In 2022, Chile joined the Regional Escazu Agreement, which aims to guarantee full and effective access to environmental information, public participation in environmental decision-making process, and access to environmental justice.

The main climate-related policy measures introduced by the government belong to six categories: sustainable industry and mining; green hydrogen production; sustainable construction of housing and public/commercial buildings; electromobility in the public transport system; phasing out coal-fired power generation plants; and other energy efficiency measures.

Under the Framework Law of Climate Change, the Environment Ministry is responsible for drawing up an emissions mitigation plan with limits for each productive sector. There will be specific strategies and goals for the main sectors contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, some of them already in place. These will include: in the energy sector, phasing out coal-based power generation plants, with an aim to have closed 18 plants by 2025 and all of them by 2040; in the mining sector, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to a minimum level by 2050 under the ECLP (both for emissions generated from the extraction and production processes, and indirectly, such as from electric power consumption); in the agricultural sector, Chile adhered to the COP26 goal to reduce methane (CH4) emissions by 30% by 2030, and joined the U.S. sponsor Global Methane Pledge.

In 2023, Chile passed the Nature Law that creates the Service for Biodiversity and Protected Areas (SBAP) complying with international protection and conservation commitments. Through SBAP, Chile standardizes the classification of protected areas based on the six categories defined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Three of the categories – strict nature reserve (Ia) and wilderness area (Ib), national park (II), natural monument or feature (III) – prohibit all commercial exploitation of natural resources and industrial infrastructure.

Chile introduced in 2020 an emissions compensation mechanism for companies that pay green taxes, which are currently applied to emissions of particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and carbon dioxide. This mechanism created a regulated carbon market, which allows industries to reduce their tax burden by financing emission reduction or emission absorption projects carried out by NGOs, foundations, or other institutions. Some examples of projects that can use this mechanism include energy efficiency initiatives, heater replacement, clean transportation, and reforestation.

There is increasing incorporation of environmental considerations into public procurement. In 2012, the government published the Socially Responsible Purchasing Policy, containing strategic sustainability guidelines, which are non-binding recommendations. In 2016, the Ministry of the Environment launched a public procurement policy with environmental criteria, both for the bidder’s operations and the characteristics of the products purchased.

9. Corruption

Chile implements various laws to combat public corruption, including the 2009 Transparency Law that mandates disclosure of public information related to all areas of government and created an autonomous Transparency Council in charge of overseeing its implementation. Subsequent amendments expanded the number of public trust positions required to release financial disclosure, mandated disclosure in greater details, and allowed for stronger penalties for noncompliance.

In March 2020, the government proposed new legislation aimed at combatting corruption, as well as economic and electoral crimes. Four new pieces of legislation seek to strengthen enforcement and increase penalties for collusion among firms; increase penalties for insider trading; provide protections for whistleblowers seeking to expose state corruption; and expand the statute of limitations for electoral crimes. This legislation remains under discussion in the Chilean Congress.

Anti-corruption laws, in particular mandatory asset disclosure, do extend to family members of officials. Political parties are subject to laws that limit campaign financing and require transparency in party governance and contributions to parties and campaigns.

Regarding government procurement, the ChileCompra (central public procurement agency) website allows users to anonymously report irregularities in procurement. An executive decree defines sanctions for public officials who do not adequately justify direct contracts. The Corporate Criminal Liability Law provides that corporate entities can have their compliance programs reviewed by domestic firms authorized by Chile’s Financial Market Commission (CMF) to certify them as sufficient. The General Comptroller’s office oversees the control of the legal aspects, management, pre-audit and post-audit functions of all civil service activities. Private companies have increasingly incorporated internal control measures, as well as ethics committees as part of their corporate governance, and compliance management sections. Additionally, Chile Transparente (Chilean branch of Transparency International) developed a Corruption Prevention System to facilitate private firms’ compliance with the Corporate Criminal Liability Law.

Chile signed and ratified the Organization of American States (OAS) Convention against Corruption. The country also ratified the UN Anticorruption Convention on September 13, 2006. Chile is also an active member of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) and, as an OECD member, adopted the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention.

NGOs that investigate corruption operate in a free and adequately protected manner. U.S. firms have not identified corruption as an obstacle to FDI.

Resources to Report Corruption

Dorothy Perez Gutierrez General Comptroller Comptroller General’s Office Teatinos 56, Santiago de Chile +56 2 32401100

David Ibaceta Medina Director General Consejo para la Transparencia Morande 360 piso 7 (+56)-(2)-2495-2000 [email protected]

Michel Figueroa Executive Director Chile Transparente (Chile branch of Transparency International) Perez Valenzuela 1687, piso 1, Providencia, Santiago, Chile (+56)-(2)-2236 4507 [email protected]

Octavio Del Favero Executive Director Ciudadania Inteligente Holanda 895, Providencia, Santiago, Chile (+56)-(2)-2419-2770 https://ciudadaniai.org/contact

Benjamín García Executive Director Espacio Publico Orrego Luco 087, Piso 3. Providencia, Santiago, Chile T: (+56) (9) 6258 3871 [email protected]

Observatorio Anticorrupción (Run by Espacio Publico and Ciudadania Inteligente) https://observatorioanticorrupcion.cl/

Ma nuel Henriquez Executive Director Observatorio Fiscal (focused on public spending) Don Carlos 2983, Oficina 3, Las Condes, Santiago, Chile (+562) (2) 4572 975 [email protected]

10. Political and Security Environment

Pursuant to a political accord in response to the 2019 civil unrest, Chile held a plebiscite in October 2020 in which citizens voted to draft a new constitution. In September 2022, Chileans rejected by a nearly 62 to 38 percent margin a draft constitution that reflected the vision of the political left. In December 2022, lawmakers established a second constitutional process. Voters also rejected, in December 2023, the second constitutional draft, penned by the political right, by a nearly 55 to 44 percent margin. In January, President Boric closed discussions on constitutional reform during his administration, leaving the current constitution unaltered.

Prior to 2019, there were generally few incidents of politically motivated attacks on investment projects or installations except for the southern areas of Araucania region and Arauco province in neighboring Bio Bio region. This area, home to nearly half a million indigenous inhabitants, has seen an ongoing trend of politically motivated violence and organized criminal activity. Land claims and conflicts with forestry companies are the main grievances underneath the radicalization of a relatively small number of indigenous Mapuche communities, which has led to the rise of organized groups that pursue their demands by violent means. Incidents include arson attacks on churches, farms, forestry plantations, forestry contractors’ machinery and vehicles, and private vehicles, as well as occupation of private lands, resulting in over a half-dozen deaths (including some by police forces), injuries, and damage to property. Since October 2021, the Chilean Congress has extended the State of Emergency in the Araucanía Region every 15 days. The State of Emergency permits the Chilean army to support Carabinero police actions, specifically to secure important transportation corridors. Government data suggests the State of Emergency’s success – pointing to a 30 percent reduction in rural violence. President Boric announced the creation of a Presidential Commission for Peace and Understanding on June 21, 2023, to find a solution to Mapuche land claims.

Since 2007, Chile has experienced several small-scale attacks with explosive and incendiary devices, targeting mostly banks, police stations, and public spaces throughout Santiago, including metro stations, universities, and churches. ATMs have been blown up in the late evenings or early mornings. Attacks generally occur during times of minimal civilian foot traffic and have generally avoided causing civilian casualties. Eleven incidents of bombs that either exploded, were defused by authorities, or failed to detonate have occurred since May 2019. Anarchist groups often claim responsibility for these acts, as well as violent incidents during student and labor protests. According to analysts and media reports, these anarchist groups do not have a unified manifesto, but their motives revolve around general anti-government sentiment, including environmental degradation; restitution of public lands to indigenous groups; imprisoned acquaintances; protest of public transportation costs; and denunciation of “corporate greed.” Half a dozen activists are currently convicted and imprisoned for attacks that claimed about 15 injuries among civilians and police officers.

While the security environment is generally safe, street crime, carjackings, telephone scams, and residential break-ins are common, especially in larger cities. Law enforcement agencies have observed an increase in transnational criminal activity and attempts by narcotics organizations to gain footholds in Chile. Vehicle thefts are a serious problem in Valparaiso and northern Chile (from Iquique to Arica), with most of those vehicles allegedly smuggled into neighboring Bolivia. On occasion, illegal activity by striking workers resulted in damage to corporate property or a disruption of operations. Some firms have publicly expressed concern that during a contentious strike, law enforcement has appeared reluctant to protect private property.

Chilean authorities have attributed an increase in violent crime in Chile, in part, to an increase in Chile of migrants connected to transnational criminal organizations. President Boric and the Interior Ministry view border control as one of the primary methods to reduce crime in Chile. In July 2023, President Boric introduced a new National Policy on Migration and Foreigners. In June 2023, President Boric announced that he would fast-track a bill to create a new Ministry of Public Security, and Chile’s Congress continues to debate numerous security-related bills.

Chilean civil society is active, and demonstrations occur frequently. Although most demonstrations are peaceful, criminal elements have taken advantage of civil society protests to loot stores along protest routes and clash with the police. Annual demonstrations to mark March 29, the Day of the Young Combatant; September 11, the anniversary of the 1973 coup against the government of President Salvador Allende; and October 18, the anniversary of the outbreak of the 2019 civil unrest, have resulted in damage to property, looting, and scuffles between police and protestors.

11. Labor Policies and Practices

Unemployment in Chile averaged 8.6 percent of the labor force during 2023, while the labor participation rate was 62.1 percent of the working age population, estimated as 16.3 million people in December 2023. The labor participation of migrants was 75.8 percent of the working age foreign population in Chile, estimated at 1.0 million people in December 2023. Chilean workers are adequately skilled and some sectors such as mining, agriculture, and fishing employ highly skilled workers. In general, there is an adequate availability of technicians and professionals. The National Institute of Statistics (INE) estimates informal employment in Chile in 27.6 percent of the workforce as of December 2023.

Article 19 of the Labor Code stipulates that employers must hire Chileans for at least 85 percent of their staff, except in the case of firms with less than 25 employees. However, Article 20 of the Labor Code includes several provisions under which foreign employees can exceed 25 percent, independent of the size of the company.

In general, employees who have been working for at least one year are entitled to statutory severance pay, upon dismissal without cause, equivalent to 30 days of the last monthly remuneration earned, for each year of service. The upper limit is 330 days (11 years of service) for workers with a contract in force for one year or more. The same amount is payable to a worker whose contract is terminated for economic reasons. Upon termination, regardless of the reason, domestic workers are entitled to an unemployment insurance benefit funded by the employee and employer contributions to an individual unemployment fund equivalent to three percent of the monthly remuneration. The employer’s contributions shall be paid for a maximum of 11 years by the same employer. Another fund made up of employer and government contributions is used for complementary unemployment payments when needed.

Labor and environmental laws are not waived to attract or retain investments.

During 2022 (latest data available), Labor Directorate data showed that 11,256 unions and 2,493 workers federations were active. In the same period, 411,390 workers were covered by collective bargaining agreements. Unions can form nationwide labor associations and can affiliate with international labor federations. Contracts are normally negotiated at the company level. Workers in public institutions do not have collective bargaining rights, but national public workers’ associations undertake annual negotiations with the government.

The Labor Directorate under the Ministry of Labor is responsible for enforcing labor laws and regulations. Both employers and workers may request labor mediation from the Labor Directorate, which is an alternate dispute resolution model aimed at facilitating communication and agreement between both parties.

Labor Directorate data shows that 661 legal strikes occurred in 2022 (latest data available), involving 106,821 workers during the same period. As legal strikes in Chile have a restricted scope and duration, in general they do not present a risk for foreign investment.

Chile has and generally enforces laws and regulations in accordance with internationally recognized labor rights of freedom of association and collective bargaining, the elimination of forced labor, child labor, including the minimum age for work, discrimination with respect to employment and occupation, and acceptable conditions of work related to minimum wage, occupational safety and health, and hours of work. On January 1, 2023, Chile raised its monthly minimum wage to CLP 410,000 – US$ 496– for all occupations, including household domestic staff, more than twice the official poverty line. Workers older than 64 or younger than 19 years old or younger are eligible for a special minimum wage of CLP 305,851 (US$ 370) a month. Information on potential gaps in law or practice with international labor standards by the International Labor Organization is pending.

Collective bargaining is not allowed in companies or organizations dependent upon the Defense Ministry or whose employees are prohibited from striking, such as in health care, law enforcement, and public utilities. Labor courts can require workers to resume work upon a determination that a strike causes serious risk to health, national security, the supply of goods or services to the population, or to the national economy.

The U.S.-Chile FTA, in force since January 1, 2004, requires the United States and Chile to maintain effective labor and environmental enforcement.

In April 2023, congress passed a law to enact a 40-hour work week by May 2028 by gradually decreasing the 45-hour work week. The lowering of the maximum number of labor hours is implemented gradually from 44 hours since its promulgation, 42 hours the second year, and 40 hours starting the third year of its promulgation. Provisions on premium compensation for overtime work are not affected by the new law. The law provided exemptions from restrictions on hours of work for some categories of workers such as managers; administrators; employees of fishing boats; restaurant, club, and hotel workers; drivers; airplane crews; telecommuters or employees who worked outside of the office; and professional athletes.

12. U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), and Other Investment Insurance or Development Finance Programs

Since 2013, Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) partnered with U.S. solar energy developers to finance five large-scale power facilities throughout the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, one of which remains operational. Other OPIC-financed projects in the country include the run-of-river hydropower project Alto Maipo, and the toll road Vespucio Norte Express. There are no investment incentive agreements between Chile and the United States that support them. Since the World Bank categorized it as a high-income country, Chile is ineligible for U.S. International Development Finance Corporation financing.

13. Foreign Direct Investment Statistics




Host Country Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (USD billion)	2022	302.5	2022	301.7

U.S. FDI in host country (USD billion, stock positions)	2022	25.2	2022	29.2	BEA data available at
Host country’s FDI in the United States (USD billion, stock positions)	2022	14.4	2022	5.1	BEA data available at
Total inbound stock of FDI as % host GDP	2022	88.7	2022	84.9%	UNCTAD data available at

* Source for Host Country Data: Central Bank of Chile, 2022 year-end data released in March 2023.





Total Inward	256,517	100%	Total Outward	136,011	100%
Canada	35,537	13.9%	Brazil	15,067	11.1%
United States	22,758	8.9%	United States	11,980	8.8%
The Netherlands	21,221	8.3%	Peru	9,768	7.2%
United Kingdom	19,675	7.7%	Germany	9,754	7.2%
Spain	18,268	7.1%	Colombia	7,053	5.2%
“0” reflects amounts rounded to +/- USD 500,000.

According to the IMF’s Coordinated Direct Investment Survey (CDIS), total stock of FDI in Chile in 2022 amounted to US$ 256.5 billion, compared to US$ 237.0 billion in 2021. Canada, the United States, and the Netherlands are the main sources of FDI to Chile (same rank order as in 2021) with US$ 35.5 billion, US$ 22.8 billion and US$ 21.2 billion, respectively, concentrating 31.1 percent of the total.

Chile’s outward direct investment stock in 2022 amounted to US$ 136.0 billion, compared to US$ 132.5 billion in 2021. It is less concentrated in South America than in previous years, with Brazil, Peru, and Colombia combined representing nearly 23.5 percent of total Chilean outward FDI. The United States and Germany are the second and fourth destination, respectively, of Chilean FDI with 16 percent of the total, combined.

The data below is consistent with host country statistics. Although less prominent than in previous years, some tax havens are relevant sources of inward FDI to Chile, with Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, and Luxembourg ranking eleventh, twelfth, and sixteenth, respectively, according to the Central Bank of Chile. However, the category “Not Specified (including Confidential)” totals US$ 93.9 billion, more than any other country source of inward FDI into Chile.

14. Contact for More Information

Alexis Gutiérrez Economic Specialist Avenida Andrés Bello 2800, Las Condes, Santiago, Chile (56-9) 4268 9005 [email protected]

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Group Registration of Updates to a News Website

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Supplementary information:, i. background, ii. final rule, a. eligibility requirements, 1. works that may be included in the group, i. constitutional challenge, ii. news website limitation, iii. website limitation, 2. scope of collective work, 3. one-month limitation, 4. authorship, ownership, and work made for hire requirements, 5. subjects of inquiry, i. permitted additional title information, ii. permitted archived urls, b. filing fee, c. deposit requirements, 1. “home page” requirement, i. timing of deposit capture, ii. “complete copy”, 2. site maps, 3. additional deposit suggestions, 4. other comments, e. application requirements, f. conclusion, list of subjects, 37 cfr part 201, 37 cfr part 202, final regulations, part 201—general provisions, part 202—preregistration and registration of claims to copyright, enhanced content - submit public comment.

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U.S. Copyright Office, Library of Congress.

Final rule.

The U.S. Copyright Office is creating a new group registration for frequently updated news websites. This option will enable online news publishers to register a group of updates to a news website as a collective work with a deposit composed of identifying material representing sufficient portions of the work, rather than the complete contents of the website. The final rule is nearly identical to the provisions set forth in the January 2024 notice of proposed rulemaking, with one modification in response to public comments and one to reflect a technical change in the process for submitting these claims.

Effective July 22, 2024.

Rhea Efthimiadis, Assistant to the General Counsel, by email at [email protected] or by telephone at 202-707-8350.

The Copyright Act authorizes the Register of Copyrights to specify by regulation the administrative classes of works for the purpose of registration and the deposit required for each class. [ 1 ] In addition, Congress gave the Register the discretion to allow registration of groups of related works with one application and one filing fee. [ 2 ] This procedure is known as “group registration.” [ 3 ] Pursuant to this authority, the Register has issued several regulations permitting group registrations for certain types of works, including newspapers, newsletters and serials, unpublished works, unpublished and published photographs, contributions to periodicals, secure test items, works on an album of music, short online literary works, and database updates. [ 4 ]

This rulemaking expands the available group registration options because of several factors specifically impacting news websites. Along with receiving requests from online publishers, the Office observed the increase in news content offered online and the dynamic nature of such material. [ 5 ] It also reviewed stakeholder comments in prior proceedings that discussed the challenges associated with registering online news content, including those submitted in response to its 2022 Copyright Protections for Press Publishers report. [ 6 ] Finally, the Office acknowledged the deposit challenges associated with websites, particularly news websites, in its 2011 publication titled Priorities and Special Projects of the United States Copyright Office (October 2011-October 2013) . [ 7 ]

On January 3, 2024, the Office published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) to establish a new group registration option for frequently updated news websites. [ 8 ] The proposed rule would allow an applicant to register a news website as a collective work (including any individual component works it fully owns, such as literary works, photographs, and/or graphics) [ 9 ] with a deposit composed of identifying material, rather than the complete contents of the website. The proposed rule would also allow registration of the news website and any updates published within one calendar month, if the deposit evidences a sufficiently creative selection, coordination, or arrangement within each collective work to constitute a copyrightable compilation. [ 10 ] Each Start Printed Page 58992 collective work must have been created as a work made for hire, with the same person or entity named as both the author and copyright claimant. The proposed rule stated that applicants would be required to submit their claims through the online copyright registration system, using the application currently in use for a group of newspaper issues. [ 11 ]

The Office received twenty comments in response to the NPRM. [ 12 ] All but one [ 13 ] supported the Office's proposal to create the new group registration option, though the majority requested various modifications. Two commenters, however, expressly conditioned their support on substantive changes to the rule, which would substantially change its scope. [ 14 ] In general, commenters were interested in expanding eligibility for this option to a greater number of works and changing the deposit requirement. Proposals included revising the definition of “news website,” removing the work made for hire and author/claimant requirements, increasing the time limitation for updates to the news website, clarifying the “home page” deposit requirement, and asking the Office to confirm the scope of remedies for copyright infringement of a collective work. [ 15 ] Finally, one commenter encouraged the Office to “identify opportunities for improvement” and to remain “adaptive to technological changes.” [ 16 ]

Having reviewed and carefully considered each of the comments, the Office now issues a final rule that is nearly identical to the proposed rule, with one modification reflecting concerns raised by some commenters regarding the “home page” deposit requirement and one modification concerning the application form for this option. These modifications are discussed in more detail below. With respect to requests that we received to expand the scope of the rule, the Office will closely monitor how the new group option performs, including the number and complexity of the claims submitted, the amount of time needed to examine these claims, and the modest filing fee for this option. The Office remains open to revisiting these issues in the future based on this rule's performance.

In the NPRM, the Office proposed to limit this group registration option to updates to a “news website,” defined as “a website that is designed to be a primary source of written information on current events, either local, national, or international in scope, that contains a broad range of news on all subjects and activities and is not limited to any specific subject matter.” As described in the NPRM, the proposed rule stems from the rapid development and predominance of news websites over print newspapers, [ 17 ] and requests from news publishers for a feasible way to register “newspaper websites” that are “updated frequently.” [ 18 ] Thus, the proposed rule is an extension of the existing group newspaper option that has been available for decades. [ 19 ] Consistent with the Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices, the proposed rule defines a “website” as “a web page or set of interconnected web pages that are accessed using a uniform resource locator (“URL”) organized under a particular domain name.” A number of commenters encouraged the Office to expand the type of works eligible under the rule and recommended revisions to both definitions.

Before turning to the requests to expand the rule, the Office addresses the argument made by a small number of commenters that the proposed group registration option would violate the First Amendment by limiting the option to a particular type of work. In a joint comment, NWU, NPPA, and NASW stated that restricting the option to “news” websites constitutes “[c]ontent-based discrimination,” which they considered “[c]onstitutionally suspect and subject to strict scrutiny” that the rule “cannot meet.” [ 20 ] In support of this argument, they cited Arkansas Writers Project v. Ragland, 481 U.S. 221 (1987), which reviewed a state sales tax scheme that taxed general interest magazines, but exempted newspapers and religious, professional trade, and sports journals. Because Arkansas “advanced no compelling justification for selective, content-based taxation of certain magazines,” the Supreme Court held the tax scheme invalid under the First Amendment. [ 21 ] Analogizing the tax scheme in Arkansas Writers Project to the proposed registration option, NWU, NPPA, and NASW argued that the exclusion of any web content that does not meet the “news website” definition is unconstitutional. [ 22 ]

Aligned with NWU, NPPA, and NASW, another commenter, Gordon Firemark, contended that, by limiting the group option to updates to news websites, the proposed rule “excludes other types of content from [its] benefits” and denies content creators “relief from the burdens of the current system.” [ 23 ] He argued that recent Supreme Court precedent concerning trademark registration requires a content-neutral approach. [ 24 ]

The Office disagrees with these arguments. It is correct that the Supreme Court has held that content-based laws—laws restricting or compelling Start Printed Page 58993 speech based on its communicative content—are presumptively unconstitutional, [ 25 ] and subject to strict scrutiny, under which the government must show that the law is the “least restrictive means” of advancing a “compelling” governmental interest. [ 26 ] A regulation can be content-based “on its face,” if its text applies to speech based on the subject matter, topic, or viewpoint of that speech. It can also be content-based if it has a discriminatory purpose that “cannot be justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech” or was “adopted by the government because of disagreement with the message” conveyed. [ 27 ] However, a regulation that places “a differential burden on speakers is insufficient by itself to raise First Amendment concerns.” [ 28 ] The tax scheme in Arkansas Writers Project was found to violate these principles by being directed at particular subjects, thus targeting a small group within the press. [ 29 ] That is not the case here.

The Office's proposed group registration option is not analogous to the unconstitutional tax statute in Arkansas Writers Project for multiple reasons. First, the option does not restrict or compel speech based on its communicative content. Nor does it favor or disfavor particular topics or subjects, or exclude a small group of the press. [ 30 ] Instead the option is available for updates to news websites that contain a broad range of topics regardless of the content of the speech involved.

Second, the registration option is viewpoint neutral and operates not as a restriction on speech, but as a condition for qualifying for one of many options available to register copyrights, including online websites and other publications. The Standard Application is available to any type of author for any type of work within the statutory categories. [ 31 ] Group registration options are discretionary accommodations offered by the Office in a number of areas. Currently, the Office administers ten group options covering unpublished works, short online literary works, works on an album of music, serials, newspapers, newsletters, contributions to periodicals, published and unpublished photographs, automated databases, and secure test items. [ 32 ] For online publications, group serials and group newsletters are other registration options for publications that fall outside of the “newspaper” or “news website” definitions.

The Supreme Court's recent ruling in a case involving trademark regulations supports the Office's view. There the Court reviewed a rule of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) barring the registration of trademarks that use the names of particular living individuals without their written consent. [ 33 ] The Court held that this bar, though content-based, is viewpoint neutral and does not violate the First Amendment. [ 34 ] The Court noted that while its precedents “distinguish between content-based and content-neutral regulations of speech,” [ 35 ] they further distinguish “a particularly `egregious form of content discrimination'—viewpoint discrimination,” which targets not merely a subject matter, “but particular views taken by speakers on a subject.” [ 36 ] The Court identified “[s]everal features of trademark [law]” that “counsel against a per se rule of applying heightened scrutiny to viewpoint-neutral, but content-based trademark regulations.” Most notably, it found that “trademark rights have always coexisted with the First Amendment, despite the fact that trademark protection necessarily requires content-based distinctions.” [ 37 ] Accordingly, the Court held that USPTO's “content-based, but viewpoint-neutral, trademark restriction [ ] is compatible with the First Amendment.” [ 38 ]

Similarly, copyright registration, and the broad administrative classification authority Congress granted to the Register, necessarily requires content-based distinctions. Indeed, since its passage in 1976, the Copyright Act has authorized the Register “to specify by regulation the administrative classes into which works are to be placed for purposes of deposit and registration” and to permit “ for particular classes, the deposit of identifying material instead of copies or phonorecords, the deposit of only one copy or phonorecord where two would normally be required, or a single registration for a group of related works.” [ 39 ] Like the USPTO's name bar, these administrative distinctions are not based on the particular views taken by authors and have always coexisted with the First Amendment. The addition of an administrative classification for this new group registration option, which adopts near-identical criteria for determining “news” content to that of the existing group option for newspapers, is “a matter of policy and discretion” [ 40 ] fully compatible with the First Amendment.

Further, unlike the viewpoint-based trademark provisions held unconstitutional for barring registration of scandalous or disparaging marks, [ 41 ] the Office's viewpoint-neutral administrative classification does not bar registration for non-news content or websites. Quite the opposite: to increase participation in the registration system, the Office has created several group options for the registration of works that are published online. [ 42 ] The Standard Application also remains available to any type of author for any type of work within the statutory categories. This rule does not prevent anyone's ability to register non-news works.

Multiple commenters urged the Office to expand the rule's definition of “news website” by removing the condition that the website must contain news on all subjects and activities. [ 43 ] In encouraging Start Printed Page 58994 the Office “not to exclude . . . specialized websites,” the ABA-IPL noted that the “proposed rule may provide especially meaningful benefit to smaller news websites—including those that focus on certain `specific subject matter.' ” [ 44 ] HBP argued that “websites, like HBR.org, that focus on a particular area of news . . . still face the same registration problems afflicting all news websites.” [ 45 ] The Authors Guild also expressed concern that the rule would exclude more specialized news publications, such as those that focus on political news. It argued that “these publications clearly qualify as news websites under any ordinary understanding of that term.” [ 46 ] Relatedly, commenters claimed that content restrictions “put[ ] examiners in an untenable position of deciding what is or is not `news.' ” [ 47 ] Finally, four commenters asked the Office to abandon the “news website” definition and extend the group option “to any periodically-produced content distributed through the internet.” [ 48 ]

After considering this request and in the interest of implementing this final rule as quickly as possible, the Office declines to revise the definition at this time. As an extension of the newspaper group option, the “news website” definition is modeled on the Office's longstanding regulation defining a “newspaper” as a publication that is “mainly designed to be a primary source of written information on current events, either local, national, or international in scope,” that “contains a broad range of news on all subjects and activities and is not limited to any specific subject matter.” [ 49 ] This definition is very broad and it is intended to “make any newspaper eligible for a group registration.” [ 50 ] It is also intended to distinguish a “newspaper” from a “newsletter,” which is defined elsewhere in the regulations as a publication that contains “news or information that is chiefly of interest to a special group, such as trade and professional associations, colleges, schools, or churches.” [ 51 ]

Under this definition, newspapers are aimed at any member of the general public who may be interested in newsworthy information or events that are reported on a given day. [ 52 ] By applying a similar definition to websites, the final rule recognizes that “news websites” are also intended to have universal appeal.

This definition would encompass news websites that cover current events and provide information on diverse topics, including some political websites like those identified in the Authors Guild's comment. [ 53 ] Although these sites focus primarily on issues involving politics and events with political implications, they do not limit their coverage to a particular subject matter nor are they directed at narrow or discrete groups of readers. [ 54 ]

The Office also disagrees with commenters that the “news website” eligibility requirement places a burden on examiners. Indeed, the definitions for “news website” and “newspaper” are similar, in part, to enable consistent application of both rules. Examiners are accustomed to assessing eligibility based on this definition.

However, if the definition proves too rigid or unworkable, the Office is willing to revisit this issue based on its experience in administering this rule. Importantly, however, this new group option is not intended to extend to the websites of all serials or newsletters, which in print or ePrint form have the benefit of separate group registration options. [ 55 ]

The Office received requests to expand the rule beyond websites. Commenters recommended that the proposed rule be amended to include mobile applications (“apps”) in the definition of “website.” [ 56 ] They argued that “[m]any news publishers encourage users to access content on an app rather than a website.” [ 57 ]

The Office declines to amend the definition. It considers an app to be “a computer program that is used directly or indirectly in a computer or handheld electronic device.” [ 58 ] The Office has a procedure for registering the underlying code that operates the app. [ 59 ] To the extent that news publishers seek to register the works published on the app, a registration for a newspaper or a news website would protect those works if they contain the same content.

AIPLA encouraged the Office to revise the definition of “website” to clarify that a website is not limited to content accessed using a single domain name. [ 60 ] It explained that “web pages are composed of various elements, like text, images, and videos” that “might be hosted on a different server than the one hosting the main web page for reasons such as efficiency, speed, and cost.” [ 61 ] The Office appreciates this distinction but declines to revise the definition. To qualify for this option, each collective work in the group must be published under one particular domain name. For registration purposes, the Office does not assess eligibility based on where component digital works may be stored. The Office believes the “particular web page” requirement is necessary to prevent applicants from using the option to register collective works published under different domain names on the same application, which would make it difficult to identify the website that is covered by the registration. Therefore, the final rule retains the definition proposed in the NPRM.

The proposed rule provides that claims registered under this option will be limited to the collective work authorship based on the selection, coordination, and/or arrangement of the individual component works, and that all parts of the collective work will constitute one work for purposes of 17 U.S.C. 504(c)(1) . [ 62 ] Additionally, the Start Printed Page 58995 Office made clear that the registration will also cover the individual contributions contained within the collective work if they are fully owned by the copyright claimant and were first published in that work.

NPR asked the Office to confirm that “the scope of the collective work will explicitly include all copyrightable contributions made by the claimant, not just textual works.” [ 63 ] As noted above, a “news website” is defined as “a website that is designed to be a primary source of written information.” [ 64 ] If the collective work contains individual contributions that are fully owned by the copyright claimant and were first published in the work, then the registration will cover those contributions, so long as they are copyrightable subject matter. However, a component work “that is perceptible to the user only by downloading or separately purchasing that particular work is not considered part of the website for registration purposes and must be registered separately.” [ 65 ] Additionally, any “externally linked content [ i.e., content residing on another website] is not considered part of the website's content for registration purposes.” [ 66 ]

HBP recommended that the Office permit applicants to disclaim content that is licensed and not owned by the applicant. As with group newspapers, the Office does not see the need for a limitation of claim for news websites, because the proposed rule expressly states that “[e]ach update to the website must be [an original] collective work.” A registration issued by the Office pursuant to this rule will only cover the new contributions owned by the copyright claimant. Consistent with any collective work registration, any articles, photos, or other contributions included in the collective work that were previously published, previously registered, owned by another party, or in the public domain are automatically excluded from the claim. As a practical matter, therefore, a disclaimer to expressly exclude material in the application is unnecessary.

Port. Prerogative Club asked the Office to “[c]larify whether updates to numerical information, such as prices, volumes, retweets, or other metrics, qualify as registrable under the rule, and whether the Office has changed its policy on the registrability of short phrases and headlines.” The Office states that its longstanding regulation denying protection for words and short phrases has not changed. [ 67 ] Regarding “prices, volumes, retweets, or other metrics,” it is unclear whether the commenter is referring to individual works of authorship, or whether these items appear in a compilation. Individual numbers and short phrases are not copyrightable. However, a copyrightable compilation of these items may be registrable.

The proposed rule permits an applicant to include updates published on the same website within the same calendar month. Three commenters urged the Office to remove the limitation, arguing that it is too “onerous.” [ 68 ] NPR recommended that the Office allow for the option to cover “three months, or six months, or a calendar year” to “reduce registration costs.” [ 69 ] Noting that “attorneys' fees and statutory damages can be awarded as long as copyright is registered within three months of first publication,” NWU, NPPA, and NASW requested that the rule be amended to allow registration of updates published “during any specified three-month period.” [ 70 ]

At this time, given administrative capabilities, the Office cannot expand the option to cover more than one month of updates. As the NPRM explained, to deliver the option promptly, and to minimize development time, the Office is adapting the existing group application for newspapers, which is used to register up to one month of newspaper issues and contains technical validations that prevent applicants from entering publication dates that are more than one month apart. Changing the limit would require additional modifications to the application and delay implementation of the final rule. Further, the Office seeks an appropriate balance between the interests of copyright owners and the administrative burden to the Office. Based on the modest fee set for this option, some limit on the number of works included in each claim is necessary. The Office will reassess whether the limit can be increased after it has gained sufficient experience administering the rule.

Under the proposed rule, to be eligible for the option, each collective work in the group must have been created as a work made for hire, with the same person or entity named as the author and copyright claimant. Multiple commenters questioned this requirement. [ 71 ] The Authors Guild argued that the work made for hire requirement “arbitrarily and unfairly confines the benefit of the rule to corporate entities even where other creators are producing substantially the same type of content.” [ 72 ] While they recognized that this requirement reflects practical and technical limitations, NMA and AIPLA noted that “there does not seem to be a fundamental reason for such a limitation in principle, and in many business cases, the work may be fully owned by the publisher, or obtained via assignment or operation of law.” [ 73 ]

The Office acknowledges that the work made for hire requirement may not reflect every business case of ownership. However, this requirement streamlines the registration procedures, which, as noted above, will adapt the existing group application option for newspapers. Under that option, the same person or entity must be named as the author and copyright claimant, and each issue must be a work made for hire. The Office retains the same requirements for the news websites option to minimize the need for additional development time that would otherwise be required. Start Printed Page 58996

Additionally, under general Copyright Office practice, if the author and claimant are not the same person, the applicant is statutorily required to provide a transfer statement explaining how the claimant acquired all of the rights initially belonging to the author. [ 74 ] If an applicant names a third party as the copyright claimant, but fails to provide a transfer statement, then the Office must correspond to determine whether the claimant actually owns all of the exclusive rights in the works, which delays the registration decision. The corresponding additional time and costs that the Office would incur are inconsistent with the reduced fee for examination of multiple collective works.

Moreover, imposing a work made for hire limitation is consistent with the goal of this rulemaking, which is to address obstacles to registering online news content produced by news publishers, who often also publish newspapers. Based on its experience with the existing group newspaper registrations, the Office expects that this requirement will produce an optimal public record, while reducing the administrative burden that these claims impose. The final rule accordingly retains the work made for hire requirement. Applicants who do not qualify for the option may still register their works individually using the Standard Application.

The Office invited public comments on whether it should give applicants the opportunity to provide additional information, such as individual article or photograph titles, as part of this group registration option. Commenters expressed support for the implementation of an opportunity to include granular information concerning individual component works at the applicant's discretion. [ 75 ] The Authors Guild noted that “in the event an individual article is the subject of a later infringement action, the applicant may need to rely on its own recordkeeping to establish that the article was on the website during the period covered by the registration.” [ 76 ] It concluded, “[t]he listing of individual titles or other information on the application may provide additional evidence relevant to that showing.” [ 77 ] The Office agrees and will provide instructions on its website explaining how applicants may submit additional information regarding component works on an optional basis. [ 78 ]

The Office also invited public comments on the availability and effectiveness of technological solutions for saving or archiving websites that could assist or supplement news websites' recordkeeping efforts while also informing the public of the contents of the website and/or any updates registered. The Office suggested that applicants may provide in the “Note to Office” field additional information regarding the contents of the work, such as archived URLs that capture the complete content of each collective work submitted for registration. The Copyright Alliance expressed support for this suggestion, provided that doing so is voluntary. [ 79 ] Therefore the Office encourages applicants to submit archived URLs in the “Note to Office” field on a voluntary basis.

The NPRM provided that the filing fee for this option will be $95, the same fee that currently applies to a claim in a group of newspapers. It noted that the Office believes it is reasonable to charge the same fee as for the group newspaper option, given the similarities in expected workflow associated with examining these claims. The NMA expressed support for this modest fee, describing it as “reasonable and unarbitrary.” [ 80 ] The final rule establishes this fee.

The NPRM proposed that for each collective work submitted under this group registration option, applicants must “submit a deposit that is sufficient to identify some of the updates that were made to the website.” [ 81 ] The Office specified that “applicants will need to submit separate PDF files that each contain a complete copy of the home page for the site. Each PDF must show how the home page appeared at a specific point during each day of the calendar month when new updates were published on the site.” [ 82 ] Additionally, the NPRM required that each deposit demonstrate “that the home page contains a sufficient degree of selection, coordination, and/or arrangement to be registered as a collective work.” [ 83 ] Several commenters requested that the Office consider different deposit requirements, though commenters varied on the specific changes they requested or discussed deposits generally. The Office addresses each suggested change below.

After considering NMA's request to resolve a purported ambiguity in the proposed rule regarding the time of day for daily deposits of home pages, the Office is clarifying the time period for capturing deposits. [ 84 ] The language within section (m)(6)(i) requiring “[e]ach PDF [to] show how the home page appeared at a specific point during each day of the calendar month” does not require applicants to capture PDFs of home pages at the same exact time every day. [ 85 ] Instead, PDFs of home pages must show how the home page appeared at some point during each day, in addition to satisfying other applicable deposit requirements.

Three commenters specifically requested that the Office expand the identifying material it will accept to encompass more than “a complete copy of the home page for the site.” [ 86 ] The NAB stated that “the Office should amend the deposit requirements proposed in § 202.4(m)(6)(i) to allow for the submission of a copy of identifying material in lieu of a complete copy of the home page.” [ 87 ] It explained that “many news websites utilize an `infinite scroll' feature that automatically and continuously loads more content as users scroll down the web page” making Start Printed Page 58997 it “technologically impossible for an applicant to satisfy the deposit requirement of providing a PDF of the home page in its entirety.” [ 88 ] Copyright Alliance echoed this sentiment stating “a user is able to continuously reveal additional content on the web page without having to leave the page to view the content on a separate web page. For such web pages, it is not possible to capture an `entire copy' of the page since the user can endlessly reveal the contents of the page.” [ 89 ] Similarly, NMA noted that, due to the difficulties posed by “extensive or close-to-infinite scroll,” the Office should clarify that an applicant could meet the deposit requirement “as long as [the PDF] captures the masthead, URL identifier, and a defined minimum amount of the homepage (which in most cases will encompass all of it), including representative updates from the previous deposit copy.” [ 90 ]

After considering these comments, the Office concludes that the requested modification to the proposed rule is reasonable and supports the overall goal of this group registration option. Accordingly, the final rule includes an alternative to the “complete copy of the home page” requirement where submitting a complete copy is not feasible due to the size or continuous nature of the home page. In such circumstances, applicants may “submit the first 25 pages of the home page that demonstrates updates from the previous deposit copy.” This portion of the rule is designed to decrease the burden on applicants that wish to utilize this group registration option, but are unable to satisfy the “complete copy” deposit requirement. The Office believes that this modification will facilitate registration, while also ensuring that the deposit provided is sufficient to identify the work and the copyrightable authorship covered by the registration. Applicants utilizing this provision are advised that any deposit should only include updates within the time period covered by the application. In the event that an applicant includes updates outside the time period, they would be considered previously published material, and would not be covered by the registration. Additionally, as stated in the NPRM, if a copyright owner is required to prove to a court or an alleged infringer “the specific contents of a website at any particular point in time, it will need to preserve and maintain its own copy of the site and rely on its own recordkeeping to provide such proof.” [ 91 ]

NWU, NPPA, and NASW disagreed that a home page would constitute sufficient identifying material for registration. [ 92 ] They asserted that “requiring deposit of PDFs of images of the home page is disconnected from the reality that updates aren't necessarily visible on the `home page' of a website.” [ 93 ] While “[u]pdates appear on the home pages of some—but far from all—newspaper publishers' websites,” the home pages of other websites, such as self-published or references websites, are “mostly or entirely static,” with updates occurring on other “inside” pages that are not indexed or referenced on the home page. [ 94 ] Instead, NWU, NPPA, and NASW suggested that the Office accept a “sitemap page or set of sitemap pages,” “as the way to indicate which pages of a site have most recently been added or modified, and when.” [ 95 ] Sitemaps, they alleged, “are structured, standardized, machine-readable, and human-readable” and “all updates in a given period can be identified by a single sitemap or set of sitemaps,” which the Office could “use[ ] immediately.” [ 96 ]

The Office declines to permit applicants to submit a sitemap page or a set of sitemap pages as identifying material for several reasons. First, it is not clear that sitemaps themselves provide information that would allow an examiner to determine whether each collective work within the group application contains sufficient creative selection, coordination, or arrangement. [ 97 ] Second, sitemaps do not satisfy the public notice function that deposits serve, as they do not display the work requested for registration and are not sufficient to identify the updates made to the websites. [ 98 ] As explained in the NPRM, any deposit requirement must “satisfy the public notice function of capturing, and making available for public inspection, a deposit that should be sufficient to identify” the work covered by the application. [ 99 ] Lastly, accepting sitemap deposits would likely not aid in efficiency as suggested. [ 100 ] If an examiner receives a sitemap, they would likely need to correspond with the applicant to determine what exactly the application covers. For these reasons, the Office declines to modify the final rule to include sitemaps.

Commenters also suggested that the Office accept deposits comprised of annotated Portable Document Formats (“PDFs”) [ 101 ] or PDF deposits of apps. [ 102 ] Specifically, one commenter encouraged the Office to consider accepting annotated PDFs of a single web page, where “[a]nnotations could circle content that is not included in registration, such as licensed content as compared to original news organization content” or “content already registered.” [ 103 ] Other commenters, including Copyright Alliance, NMA, and the Authors Guild, proposed that the Office should accept PDFs that “contain a complete copy of the home page of . . . mobile application[s]. ” [ 104 ] Start Printed Page 58998 They discussed the ease with which applicants could submit app PDFs [ 105 ] and how PDFs address record-keeping concerns and “concerns over whether the collective works stem from the same source.” [ 106 ] Copyright Alliance and NMA also suggested that the absence of a uniform resource locator (“URL”) from app PDFs, a requirement of the proposed rule, is immaterial because apps “generally prominently feature the logo or other visible identifier of the publication in question” and news content on an app is “organized and contained,” similar to a website. [ 107 ] NMA further recommended that because the USPTO has “long accepted” app screenshots for trademark specimens, subject to certain requirements, the Office should adopt similar standards. [ 108 ]

The Office declines to permit parties to submit annotated PDFs of a single web page. As discussed above, each update will be registered as a collective work. For that reason, there is no need to identify component works that are not owned by the claimant or component works that have been previously registered, because as a general rule, a registration for a collective work does not cover this type of preexisting material.

The Office also declines to accept PDF deposits of apps to represent a news website. Initially, it is unclear whether the selection, coordination, and/or arrangement of material encompassed within the PDFs would be identical to the selection, coordination, and/or arrangement of a website's home page, regardless of whether the same content is present on both. [ 109 ] Further, the Office continues to believe that the rule's deposit regulations offer flexibility, while still satisfying the public notice function of deposits. The regulation will permit applicants to submit a complete copy of the website's home page, and when that is not feasible due to the size or continuous nature of the home page, applicants may submit the first 25 pages of the home page demonstrating updates from the previous deposit copy.

Commenters made additional suggestions and remarks on the proposed rule's deposit requirements and the Office's deposit requirements generally. With respect to the Office's modernization efforts, ABA-IPL suggested that the Office consider generally expanding the “format of deposit copies accepted” and regularly reviewing and updating registration regulations. [ 110 ] ABA-IPL stated that the Office should accept deposits in .xml format for regularly updated news content, such as content covered under the proposed rule, “as [.xml] and similar formats are widely used in digital content creation and management.” [ 111 ] The University of Michigan Library (“UM-Library”) expressed concerns with the proposed regulations regarding fixation and preservation. [ 112 ] They asserted that the proposed deposit requirements are not “sufficiently fixed for copyright purposes” and that if deposit “materials are not collected and preserved—even as facsimiles or through emulation—then as a practical matter there will be a huge gap in the possibilities for research, scholarship, and understanding.”

The Office is sympathetic to commenters' desires to expand the file formats accepted for deposit purposes generally, including regularly updated news content. As stated above and in the NPRM, the current registration system only accepts certain file types. [ 113 ] The Office anticipates revisiting its acceptable file formats in connection with ongoing improvements to its technology systems. Until then, the Office continues to actively engage in research about the suitability of other file formats. [ 114 ]

The Office appreciates the fixation and preservation concerns about the proposed deposit requirements, codified in the final rule. It continues to believe, however, that the deposit requirements are sufficient. As stated above and in the NPRM, the Copyright Act imbues the Register with broad authority to accept identifying material in lieu of complete copies or phonorecords [ 115 ] where such copies or phonorecords are “bulky, unwieldly, easily broken, or otherwise impractical to [serve] . . . as records identifying the work[s] registered.” [ 116 ] This provision, and its legislative history, give the Register flexibility in determining the deposit requirements when identifying material is involved, and the Office has used this authority in the past. Within this rulemaking, the Office believes the proposed deposit requirements are appropriate, and less burdensome than general deposit requirements for websites. [ 117 ] As the Office discussed in the NPRM, the proposed deposit requirements satisfy the public notice function and still require that deposits sufficiently “identify some of the updates” made to the website. [ 118 ] Any fixation concerns may be alleviated by the fact that the proposed regulations are merely registration deposit requirements. They do not relieve a registrant from complying with other legal obligations, such as the obligation to maintain and preserve copies of a website, including its content, in the context of an infringement claim. [ 119 ]

The NPRM explained that the Office planned to use one of its existing group registration application forms to process these claims. Specifically, it said applicants would be required to submit their claims through the current electronic registration system using the application designated for a group of newspaper issues. None of the commenters objected to this proposal.

After consulting with the Library of Congress's Office of the Chief Information Officer, the Office determined that it would be feasible to create a separate application for news website claims that will be cloned from the corresponding application that is used for group newspaper claims. This should simplify the registration process for both applicants and Office staff by preventing potential confusion between claims involving newspaper issues and claims involving updates to a news website. The cloned application will include the same technical specifications and system validations that appear in the group newspaper Start Printed Page 58999 form. The final rule has been modified to reflect this change. Information and instructions on how to submit these claims will be provided in the application itself and on a dedicated page on the Office's website.

Based on requests from affected parties for the expeditious implementation of the rule [ 120 ] and the absence of arguments supporting a delay, the Office finds that good cause exists to issue these regulations as a final rule with an immediate effective date. Commenters have presented a record supporting “the demonstrable urgency of the conditions [the rule is] designed to correct.” [ 121 ] Finally, the registration option authorized by the final rule will be available to registrants at or near the rule's publication date.

General provisions
Copyright claims, preregistration and registration

For the reasons set forth in the preamble, the Copyright Office amends 37 CFR parts 201 and 202 as follows:

1. The authority citation for part 201 continues to read as follows:

Authority: 17 U.S.C. 702 .

Section 201.10 also issued under 17 U.S.C. 304 .

2. In § 201.3, amend table 1 to paragraph (c) by redesignating paragraphs (c)(12) through (c)(29) as (c)(13) through (c)(30), respectively, and adding a new paragraph (c)(12) to read as follows:

Table 1 to Paragraph ( c )

Registration, recordation, and related servicesFees ($) * * * * * * *(12) Registration of a group of updates to a news website95 * * * * * * *

3. The authority citation for part 202 continues to read as follows:

Authority: 17 U.S.C. 408(f) , 702 .

4. Amend § 202.4 by adding paragraph (m) and revising paragraph (r) to read as follows:

(m) Group registration of updates to a news website. Pursuant to the authority granted by 17 U.S.C. 408(c)(1) , the Register of Copyrights has determined that a group of updates to a news website may be registered with one application, the required deposit, and the filing fee required by § 201.3 of this chapter, with each update being registered as a collective work, if the following conditions are met:

(1) Definitions. For the purposes of this paragraph (m):

(i) News website means a website that is designed to be a primary source of written information on current events, either local, national, or international in scope, that contains a broad range of news on all subjects and activities and is not limited to any specific subject matter.

(ii) Website means a web page or set of interconnected web pages that are accessed using a uniform resource locator (“URL”) organized under a particular domain name.

(2) Requirements for collective works. Each update to the website must be a collective work, and the claim must be limited to the collective work.

(3) Author and claimant. Each collective work in the group must be a work made for hire, and the author and claimant for each collective work must be the same person or organization.

(4) Updates must be from one news website; time period covered. Each collective work in the group must be published on the same news website under the same URL, and they must be published within the same calendar month. The applicant must identify the earliest and latest date that the collective works were published.

(5) Application. The applicant must complete and submit the online application designated for a group of updates to a news website. The application may be submitted by any of the parties listed in § 202.3(c)(1).

(6) Deposit. (i) For each collective work within the group, the applicant must submit identifying material from the news website. For these purposes “ identifying material ” shall mean separate Portable Document Format (PDF) files that each contain a complete copy of the home page of the website. In case a complete copy is technically unfeasible due to the size or continuous nature of the home page, the applicant may submit the first 25 pages of the home page that demonstrates updates from the previous deposit copy. Each PDF must show how the home page appeared at a specific point during each day of the calendar month when new updates were published on the website.

(ii) The identifying material must demonstrate that the home page contains sufficient selection, coordination, and arrangement authorship to be registered as a collective work If the home page does not demonstrate sufficient compilation authorship, the deposit should include as many additional pages as necessary to demonstrate that the updates to the news website can be registered as a collective work.

(iii) The identifying material must be submitted through the electronic registration system, and all of the Start Printed Page 59000 identifying material that was published on a particular date must be contained in the same electronic file. The files must be submitted in PDF format, they must be assembled in an orderly form, and each file must be uploaded to the electronic registration system as an individual electronic file ( i.e., not .zip files). The file size for each uploaded file must not exceed 500 megabytes, but files may be compressed to comply with this requirement.

(7) Special relief. In an exceptional case, the Copyright Office may waive the online filing requirement set forth in paragraph (m)(5) of this section or may grant special relief from the deposit requirement under § 202.20(d) of this chapter, subject to such conditions as the Associate Register of Copyrights and Director of the Office of Registration Policy and Practice may impose on the applicant.

(r) The scope of a group registration. When the Office issues a group registration under paragraph (d), (e), or (f) of this section, the registration covers each issue in the group and each issue is registered as a separate work or a separate collective work (as the case may be). When the Office issues a group registration under paragraphs (c), (g), (h), (i), (j), (k), or (o) of this section, the registration covers each work in the group and each work is registered as a separate work. When the Office issues a group registration under paragraph (m) of this section, the registration covers each update in the group, and each update is registered as a separate collective work. For purposes of registration, the group as a whole is not considered a compilation, a collective work, or a derivative work under section 101, 103(b), or 504(c)(1) of title 17 of the United States Code.

Shira Perlmutter,

Approved by:

Carla D. Hayden,

Librarian of Congress.

1. 17 U.S.C. 408(c)(1) .

2. Id.

3. See generally 37 CFR 202.3(b)(5) , 202.4 .

4. Id. at 202.3(b)(5), 202.4(c)-(k), (o).

5. See 89 FR 311 , 311-12 (Jan. 3, 2024).

6. U.S. Copyright Office, Copyright Protection for Press Publishers (June 2022), https://copyright.gov/policy/publishersprotections/202206-Publishers-Protections-Study.pdf .

7. See 89 FR 311 , 312 .

8. Id. at 311. The final rule defines a “news website” as “a website that is designed to be a primary source of written information on current events, either local, national, or international in scope, that contains a broad range of news on all subjects and activities and is not limited to any specific subject matter.” 37 CFR 202.4(m)(1)(i) .

9. Because the Office will not examine each component work within the collective work, the copyright claimant bears the burden of proving that it owns the individual component works claimed in the submission.

10. A “collective work” is a type of compilation. See 17 U.S.C. 101 . A “compilation” is “a work formed by the collection and assembling of preexisting materials or of data that are selected, coordinated, or arranged in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship.” Id.

11. As noted in the NPRM, “in appropriate circumstances, the Office may waive the online filing requirement, subject to the conditions the Associate Register of Copyrights and Director of the Office of Registration Policy and Practice may impose.” 89 FR 311 , 316 n.55.

12. The Office also received a letter from several organizations reflecting their collective support for finalizing the rulemaking in a timely manner and in-line edits to the Office's proposed regulatory language. Letter from Ass'n of Am. Publishers et al. to Suzanne Wilson, Gen. Counsel and Assoc. Register of Copyrights (Apr. 4, 2024), https://www.copyright.gov/rulemaking/newswebsite/Association-of-American-Publishers-et-al%E2%80%93Letter-to-Copyright-Office.pdf .

13. See Am. Ass'n of Independent Music, Ass'n of Am. Publishers, Inc, and Recording Industry Ass'n of Am., Inc. (“A2IM, AAP, & RIAA”) Comment at 2 (“Commenters express no position on the primary focus of the NPRM—whether the Office should create a new group registration option for frequently updated news websites—or on the details of how such an option should be implemented.”).

14. See generally Nat'l Writers Union, Nat'l Press Photographers Ass'n, Nat'l Ass'n of Sci. Writers (“NWU, NPPA, & NASW”) Comment; Gordon Firemark 2 Comment.

15. A handful of commenters also proposed that the Office should adopt the NPRM immediately, as an interim rule. See, e.g., Copyright All. Comment at 11; Nat'l Pub. Radio (“NPR”) Comment at 3-5; News Media All. (“NMA”) Comment at 2.

16. Am. Bar Ass'n Section of Intell. Prop. L. (“ABA-IPL”) Comment at 4.

17. 89 FR at 311-12 (noting that “[m]ore than eight in ten Americans get news from digital devices, and, as of 2021, more than half prefer digital platforms to access news”).

18. Id. (citing Newspaper Association of America Comments at 12-18, Submitted in Response to July 15, 2009 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Mandatory Deposit of Published Electronic Works Available Only Online, U.S. Copyright Office Dkt. No. 2009-3 (Aug. 31, 2009) (emphasis omitted), https://www.copyright.gov/rulemaking/online-only/comments/naa.pdf ).

19. 37 CFR 202.4(e) . The Office's definition of newspapers is based on the Library of Congress's collection policy definition. Library of Congress, Collections Policy Statements: Newspapers—United States 1 (Sept. 2023), https://www.loc.gov/acq/devpol/neu.pdf .

20. NWU, NPPA, & NASW Comment at 12-13; Gordon Firemark 2 Comment (asserting that “the proposed regulation is not Content Neutral, as required under the First Amendment”).

21. Arkansas Writers Project, 481 U.S. at 234.

22. NWU, NPPA, & NASW Comment at 12-13.

23. Gordon Firemark 2 Comment.

24. Id. (citing Iancu v. Brunetti, 139 S. Ct. 2294 (2019), and Matal v. Tam, 582 U.S. 218 (2017)).

25. Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 576 U.S. 155, 163 (2015).

26. Sable Commc'ns of Cal. v. FCC, 492 U.S. 115, 126 (1989).

27. Reed, 576 U.S. at 164 (internal quotes omitted).

28. Leathers v. Medlock, 499 U.S. 439, 452-53 (1991) (citing Mabee v. White Plains Publ'g Co., 327 U.S. 178 (1946), and Oklahoma Press Publ'g Co. v. Walling, 327 U.S. 186 (1946)).

29. Arkansas Writers Project, 481 U.S. at 229 (finding the tax scheme impermissibly targets a small group of the press because “the magazine exemption means that only a few Arkansas magazines pay any sales tax”).

30. Arkansas Writers Project, 481 U.S. at 229-30.

31. 37 CFR 202.3(b)(2)(i)(A) .

32. See generally id. at 202.4.

33. Vidal v. Elster, No. 22-704, slip op. at 1 (2024).

34. Id.

35. Id. at 4 (2024) (quoting National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra, 585 U.S. 755, 766 (2018)).

36. Id. (2024) (quoting Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819, 829 (1995)).

37. Id. at 6.

38. Id. at 12.

39. 17 U.S.C. 408(c)(1) (emphasis added).

40. Leathers, 499 U.S. at 452 (quoting Regan v. Taxation with Representation, 461 U.S. 540, 549 (1983)).

41. See Gordon Firemark 2 Comment (citing Iancu v. Brunetti, 139 S. Ct. 2294 (2019), and Matal v. Tam, 582 U.S. 218 (2017)).

42. See, e.g., 85 FR 37341 , 37345 (June 22, 2020) (final rule for group registration of short online literary works); 83 FR 61546 , 61546-48 (Nov. 30, 2018) (final rule for group registration of newsletters and serials); 82 FR 29410 , 29410-11 (June 29, 2017) (final rule for group registration of contributions to periodicals).

43. See ABA-IPL Comment at 2; Am. Intell. Prop. L. Ass'n (“AIPLA”) Comment at 1 (“We encourage the Office to reconsider [the definition of `news website'] and clarify the final clause—`not limited to any specific subject matter'—which could be construed as excluding news websites with an industry-specific focus ( e.g., wired.com), and thus unnecessarily limiting access to this group registration option.”); Copyright All. Comment at 4 (“We urge deletion of the phrase `. . . on all subjects and activities and is not limited to any specific subject matter' in the proposed rule . . . .”); Harvard Bus. Publ'g (“HBP”) Comment; Nat'l Ass'n of Broad. (“NAB”) Comment at 3; NWU, NPPA, & NASW Comment at 12-13; NMA Comment at 8; The Authors Guild Comment at 2; see also Letter from Ass'n of Am. Publishers et al. to Suzanne Wilson, Gen. Counsel and Assoc. Register of Copyrights (Apr. 4, 2024).

44. ABA-IPL Comment at 2.

45. HBP Comment.

46. The Authors Guild Comment at 1-2.

47. John Murphy Comment; The Authors Guild Comment at 2 (arguing that “making eligibility determinations based on the substantive content of the materials submitted for registration . . . goes well beyond the Office's ordinary examination process”).

48. Gordon Firemark 1 Comment; see NWU, NPPA, & NASW at 12-13; Brenda Ulrich Comment; John Murphy Comment.

49. 37 CFR 202.4(e)(1) .

50. 82 FR 51369 , 51371 (Nov. 6, 2017).

51. 37 CFR 202.4(f)(1)(i) .

52. Id. at 202.4(e)(1) (“Newspapers are intended either for the general public or for a particular ethnic, cultural, or national group”).

53. The Authors Guild Comment at 1-2.

54. Cf. 37 CFR 202.4(f)(1)(i) (designed for newsletters that “contain news or information that is chiefly of interest to a special group”).

55. Group registration of serials provides a registration option for serial issues within a three-month period that meet the eligibility requirements for that option. Id. at 202.4(d)(1). Group registration of newsletters provides an option for registering a group of newsletters published within a one-month period. Id. at 202.4(f)(1).

56. Copyright All. Comment at 6; NAB Comment at 4; NMA Comment at 10.

57. The Authors Guild Comment at 2; Copyright All. Comment at 6; NAB Comment at 4.

58. U.S. Copyright Office, Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices sec. 722 (3d ed. 2021) (“ Compendium (Third) ”).

59. Id.

60. AIPLA Comment at 1-2.

61. Id.

62. In the NPRM, the Office also noted that when a website is registered as a compilation, the statute provides that the copyright owner may seek only one award of statutory damages for infringement of the compilation as a whole—rather than a separate award for each individual work that appears on the website—even if the defendant infringed all of the works covered by the registration. 17 U.S.C. 504(c)(1) (“For the purposes of this subsection, all the parts of a compilation or derivative work constitute one work.”). Some commenters urged the Office to acknowledge and adopt the “ `independent economic value' test to determine when copyrighted material constitutes a separate `work' for the purpose of determining eligibility for statutory damages.” A2IM, AAP, & RIAA Comment at 2-3; Copyright All. Comment at 8; NAB Comment at 6-8. Acknowledging that the NPRM correctly states “that the group registration option will extend to individual works that make up the collective work if they are fully owned by the applicant,” NMA asked the Office to confirm that its statement “do[es] not reflect a substantive opinion on eligibility for statutory damages.” NMA Comment at 11-12. The Office stands by its restatement of section 504(c)(1) and declines to address the matter further in this rulemaking. See H.R. Rep. No. 94-1476, at 162 (1976), reprinted in 1976 U.S.C.C.A.N. 5659, 5770 (“Subsection (c)(1) makes clear, however, that, although they are regarded as independent works for other purposes, `all the parts of a compilation or derivative work constitute one work' for this purpose.”).

63. NPR Comment at 7.

64. 37 CFR 202.4(m)(1)(i) (emphasis added).

65. Compendium (Third) sec. 1002.2.

66. Id.

67. See 37 CFR 202.1(a) .

68. John Murphy Comment; see NPR Comment at 5 (“[T]he office should further relax the frequency”); NWU, NPPA, & NASW Comment at 16-17.

69. NPR Comment at 5.

70. NWU, NPPA, & NASW Comment at 16.

71. The Authors Guild Comment at 3; NWU, NPPA, & NASW Comment at 11; NMA Comment at 11; AIPLA Comment at 2; Letter from Ass'n of Am. Publishers et al. to Suzanne Wilson, Gen. Counsel and Assoc. Register of Copyrights (Apr. 4, 2024).

72. The Authors Guild Comment at 3; NWU, NPPA, & NASW Comment at 11.

73. NMA Comment at 11; AIPLA Comment at 2 (“[W]e see no clear policy reason to disfavor registration of copyrights acquired through other means ( e.g., by assignment).”).

74. Compendium (Third) sec. 620.4.

75. ABA-IPL Comment at 3; AIPLA Comment at 2; Copyright All. Comment at 6-7; NAB Comment at 5; NMA Comment at 7; The Authors Guild Comment at 4.

76. The Authors Guild Comment at 4.

77. Id.

78. Note, however, the Office will not certify the accuracy of such additional information based on the identifying material deposited.

79. Copyright All. Comment at 7.

80. NMA Comment at 7.

81. 89 FR at 316.

82. Id.

83. Id.

84. NMA Comment at 11.

85. 37 CFR 202.4(m)(6)(i) (emphasis added); see also 89 FR at 316 (“Each PDF must show how the home page appeared at a specific point during each day of the calendar month when new updates were published on the site.”).

86. Copyright Alliance Comment at 10-11; NAB Comment at 4-5; NMA Comment at 11. See also Letter from Ass'n of Am. Publishers et al. to Suzanne Wilson, Gen. Counsel and Assoc. Register of Copyrights at App. at 2 (Apr. 4, 2024) (proposing regulatory language altering the deposit requirement when “a complete copy is technically unfeasible or unreadable due to the size or continuous nature of the home page”); Nexstar Media Group Inc. Comment (stating that Nexstar “would like to see even more modification of the requirements for article submission, so that each local television station or other news site would not be required to have dedicated staff purely for depositing copyrighted materials, which may be updated several times per day”).

87. NAB Comment at 5.

88. Id.

89. Copyright All. Comment at 10-11.

90. NMA Comment at 11.

91. 89 FR at 316.

92. NWU, NPPA, & NASW Comment at 17-20.

93. Id.

94. Id.

95. Id.; see also id. at 20 (proposing “submission of `a file or set of files linked from a master file listing in structured form the text files on the site added or modified during the time period covered by the application, including the URL and the date each file was added to the site or most recently modified' ”).

96. Id. at 17, 20. NWU, NPPA, and NASW asserted that “the `sitemap.xml' standard has been widely accepted and adopted by website publishers, web publishing platforms, and developers of content management systems (CMSs).” Id. at 17-18.

97. See 17 U.S.C. 410(a) ; Compendium (Third) sec. 204.3 (“[D]eposit copy(ies) should be clear and should contain all the authorship that the applicant intends to register.”). This finding is bolstered by the examples cited in NWU, NPPA, and NASW's comment, which do not provide any information that would allow the examiner to determine any copyrightability of the collective work. See NWU, NPPA, & NASW Comment at 18 nn.19-22; id. at 19 nn.23-26.

98. See H.R. Rep. No. 94-1476, at 153 (1976), reprinted in 1976 U.S.C.C.A.N. 5659, 5769 (“As a general rule the deposit of more than a tear sheet or similar fraction of a collective work is needed to identify the contribution properly and to show the form in which it was published.”).

99. 89 FR at 316.

100. See NWU, NPPA, & NASW Comment at 20 (suggesting that sitemaps “could be used immediately in manual Copyright Office work flow but would also lend themselves to efficiencies through automated parsing”).

101. Erik Gottlieb Comment.

102. Copyright All. Comment at 6; NMA Comment at 10; The Authors Guild Comment at 2. See also Letter from Ass'n of Am. Publishers et al. to Suzanne Wilson, Gen. Counsel and Assoc. Register of Copyrights at 1 & App. at 2 (Apr. 4, 2024) (proposing the Office “include[e] mobile app content in the scope of the rule”). The Office also received a comment from Port. Prerogative Club, suggesting that the Office “evaluate whether native [version control systems (“VCS”)] files would satisfy [the Office's] internal requirements for deposit copies.” Port. Prerogative Club Comment at 2. The Office currently does not accept this file format, but will revisit file formats as part of its ongoing work in developing the Enterprise Copyright System.

103. Erik Gottlieb Comment.

104. NMA Comment at App. at 16 (proposing regulatory language). See Copyright All. Comment at 6; NMA Comment at 10; The Authors Guild Comment at 2. See also Letter from Ass'n of Am. Publishers et al. to Suzanne Wilson, Gen. Counsel and Assoc. Register of Copyrights at 1 & App. at 2 (Apr. 4, 2024) (proposing the Office “includ[e] mobile app content in the scope of the rule”).

105. Copyright All. Comment at 6; The Authors Guild Comment at 2.

106. Copyright All. Comment at 6.

107. Id. (noting that “news content on an app is already organized and contained in an interconnected and uniform ecosystem, much like a website”); NMA Comment at 10 (stating that app screenshots serve the same “identifying function as URLs”).

108. NMA Comment at 10.

109. See 89 FR at 313 (“[T]he organization and arrangement show in a PDF package may vary depending on whether it depicts the website as it would appear on a desktop computer, a mobile phone or other electronic device.”). But cf. ABA-IPL Comment at 4 (“The Section is aware of no substantive difference between what is published at a URL and what is published on an app.”).

110. ABA-IPL Comment at 4-5.

111. Id. at 4.

112. UM-Library Comment at 1-2.

113. 89 FR at 313; see also eCO Acceptable File Types, U.S. Copyright Office, https://www.copyright.gov/eco/help-file-types.html (last visited July 5, 2024) (listing acceptable file formats).

114. For example, the Office is researching the web archive file format (“WARC”) that is utilized by the Library of Congress' Web Archiving Team. Research has shown that there are many publicly available options for adapting websites in the WARC format, including through internet browser extensions.

115. 17 U.S.C. 408(c)(1) ; see also 89 FR at 311 (discussing identifying material).

116. H.R. Rep. No. 94-1496, at 154 (1976), reprinted in 1976 U.S.C.C.A.N. 5659, 5770.

117. See 89 FR at 313, 316 (discussing how depositing complete copies of websites poses difficulties for applicants and the Office).

118. Id. at 316.

119. Id.

120. See Letter from Ass'n of Am. Publishers et al. to Suzanne Wilson, Gen. Counsel and Assoc. Register of Copyrights (Apr. 4, 2024); Copyright All. Comment at 11.

121. H.R. Rep. No. 79-1980, at 260 (1946). See 5 U.S.C. 553(d) (30-day notice not required where agency finds good cause).

[ FR Doc. 2024-15880 Filed 7-19-24; 8:45 am]

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Thesis and Purpose Statements
A thesis statement makes a promise to the reader about the scope, purpose, and direction of the paper. It summarizes the conclusions that the writer has reached about the topic. A thesis statement is generally located near the end of the introduction. Sometimes in a long paper, the thesis will be expressed in several sentences or an entire ...
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.
Developing a Thesis Statement
A thesis statement . . . Makes an argumentative assertion about a topic; it states the conclusions that you have reached about your topic. Makes a promise to the reader about the scope, purpose, and direction of your paper. Is focused and specific enough to be "proven" within the boundaries of your paper. Is generally located near the end ...
PDF Thesis and Purpose Statements
A thesis statement or purpose statement will emerge as you think and write about a topic. The statement can be restricted or clarified and eventually worked into an introduction. As you revise your paper, try to phrase your thesis or purpose statement in a precise way so that it matches the content and organization of your paper. Thesis statements
How to Write a Thesis Statement
Step 2: Write your initial answer. 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. The internet has had more of a positive than a negative effect on education.
Academic Guides: Writing a Paper: Thesis Statements
The thesis statement is the brief articulation of your paper's central argument and purpose. You might hear it referred to as simply a "thesis." Every scholarly paper should have a thesis statement, and strong thesis statements are concise, specific, and arguable. Concise means the thesis is short: perhaps one or two sentences for a shorter paper.
Purpose and Thesis
The difference between a specific purpose statement and a thesis statement is clear in this example. The thesis provides the takeaway (the lifelong benefits of study abroad). It also points to the assertions that will be addressed in the speech. ... The specific purpose and central idea statements are not the same thing, although they are related.
The Writing Center
In the same way the thesis helps you organize your paper, the thesis helps organize the reader's thinking. ... (or type of essay), and also by discipline. Here are a few notes on the thesis statements and the purpose of writing in a few different disciplines. 2. ... you will usually write for a specific audience. Your goal will be to ...
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 ...
Difference Between Thesis and Purpose Statements
Purpose statements are used to let the reader know what the paper is about and what to expect from it. You can tell a purpose statement by the way it's written. A purpose statement, unlike a thesis statement, doesn't discuss any conclusions. It must also be concise and specific.
6.4 Specific Purposes
To form a clear and succinct statement of the specific purpose of your speech, start by naming your general purpose (to inform, to persuade, or to entertain). Follow this by a capsule description of your audience (my peers in class, a group of kindergarten teachers, etc.). Then complete your statement of purpose with a prepositional phrase (a ...
7.2 The Topic, General Purpose, Specific Purpose, and Thesis
The general purpose statement of a speech may be to inform, to persuade, to celebrate, or to entertain. Thus, it is common to frame a specific purpose statement around one of these goals. According to O'Hair, Stewart, and Rubenstein, a specific purpose statement "expresses both the topic and the general speech purpose in action form and in ...
8.2: The Topic, Purpose and Thesis
The general purpose statement of a speech may be to inform, to persuade, to inspire, to celebrate, to mourn, or to entertain. Thus, it is common to frame a specific purpose statement around one of these goals. According to O'Hair, Stewart, and Rubenstein (2004), a specific purpose statement "expresses both the topic and the general speech ...
What Is a Thesis?
Revised on April 16, 2024. A thesis is a type of research paper based on your original research. It is usually submitted as the final step of a master's program or a capstone to a bachelor's degree. Writing a thesis can be a daunting experience. Other than a dissertation, it is one of the longest pieces of writing students typically complete.
8.2 The Topic, General Purpose, Specific Purpose, and Thesis
The specific purpose statement is a tool that you will use as you write your speech, but it is unlikely that it will appear verbatim in your speech. Instead, you will want to convert the specific purpose statement into a central idea, or thesis statement that you will share with your audience. Just like in a written paper, where the thesis ...
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 Topic, Purpose, and Thesis
The general purpose statement of a speech may be to inform, to persuade, to inspire, to celebrate, to mourn, or to entertain. Thus, it is common to frame a specific purpose statement around one of these goals. According to O'Hair, Stewart, and Rubenstein, a specific purpose statement "expresses both the topic and the general speech purpose ...
9.1 Developing a Strong, Clear Thesis Statement
A strong thesis is specific, precise, forceful, confident, and is able to be demonstrated. A strong thesis challenges readers with a point of view that can be debated and can be supported with evidence. A weak thesis is simply a declaration of your topic or contains an obvious fact that cannot be argued.
The Writing Center
In college, academic writing follows a specific pattern— after a brief opening, you state your position in one clear sentence. Whether your essay is explanatory or argumentative, a strong thesis statement will provide the map, guiding the entire essay. Confusion arises, however, over the difference between a purpose statement and a thesis.
What is the difference between a thesis statement and a research
A thesis statement is a short, concise sentence or paragraph that summarizes the main point of an essay or research paper. In a thesis statement, the author is making a specific claim or assertion about a topic that can be debated or challenged. This claim will be developed, supported, and explained in the body of the paper by means of examples ...
What is the difference between a thesis statement and a hypothesis
A hypothesis is a statement that can be proved or disproved. It is typically used in quantitative research and predicts the relationship between variables. A thesis statement is a short, direct sentence that summarizes the main point or claim of an essay or research paper. It is seen in quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research.
Specific purpose statement and thesis are two different terms for the
The statement is false because a specific purpose statement and a thesis are not the same thing.. A specific purpose statement is a concise sentence that describes the primary goal or objective of a speech, outlining what the speaker intends to achieve. On the other hand, a thesis is a clear, concise statement that presents the main argument or point of an essay or research paper.
PDF Thesis Dissertation Handbook
Margins must be the same on every page with no exceptions for wide tables and figures in landscape format. • Margins may be either left- or full-justified. Left justification is more flexible. Pagination • Center all page numbers at the bottom of the page within the bottom one-inch margin, i.e., one- half inch from the bottom of the page. •
Chile
The same restriction applies to payments for the use of patents that exceed five percent of sales. In such cases, firms would have access to the informal market. The Chilean tax service reserves the right to prevent royalties of over five percent of sales from being counted as expenses for domestic tax purposes.
Group Registration of Updates to a News Website
The NPRM provided that the filing fee for this option will be $95, the same fee that currently applies to a claim in a group of newspapers. It noted that the Office believes it is reasonable to charge the same fee as for the group newspaper option, given the similarities in expected workflow associated with examining these claims.

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

What is a thesis statement?

Identify a topic

Consider what your assignment asks you to do

Sample assignment 1

Sample assignment 2

Developing a Thesis Statement–Additional information

Derive a main point from topic

Look for patterns in your evidence

Purpose statement

Derive purpose statement from topic

Compose a draft thesis statement

Question-to-Assertion

What to keep in mind as you draft an initial thesis statement

Refine and polish the thesis statement

Sample Assignment

Complete the final thesis statement

Writing Process and Structure

Getting Started with Your Paper

Creating an Argument

Working with Sources

Drafting Your Paper

Revising Your Paper

Finishing Your Paper

Writing Collaboratively

Writing a Paper: Thesis Statements

Being Specific

Making a Unique Argument

Creating a Debate

Choosing the Right Words

Leaving Room for Discussion

Thesis Mad Libs

Words to Avoid and to Embrace

Related Resources

Walden Resources

Centers and Offices

Student Resources

8 Purpose and Thesis

Recognizing the General Purpose

Articulating Specific Purpose

Creating a Thesis Statement

Problems to Avoid

How to write a thesis statement + examples

What is a thesis statement?

7.2 The Topic, General Purpose, Specific Purpose, and Thesis

Selecting a Topic

Formulating the Purpose Statements

Writing the Thesis Statement

Writing the Preview Statement

Writing the Body of Your Speech

This resource is available at no cost at https://open.library.okstate.edu/speech2713/

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8.2 The Topic, General Purpose, Specific Purpose, and Thesis

Understanding the General Purpose

Selecting a Topic

Formulating the Purpose Statements

Writing the Thesis Statement

Writing the Preview Statement

Writing the Body of Your Speech

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