The Writing Brain
University of Exeter

Finding A Thesis: Playing The Why? Game

Coming up with a thesis can be very difficult. Most of the modules you’ll take at university will give you essay assignments in which you must answer a question or “discuss” some textual aspect, which takes the weight off a little, but you still have to come up with a thesis that answers the question or considers the aspect in an interesting way, and trying to do this can be very frustrating indeed.

I have taught many facets of essay writing in my time, but the only thing I’ve taught that I know to be 100% foolproof is a particular method for finding a thesis.  I call this method “Playing the Why Game.” It works both for coming up with a thesis and for refining a thesis suggested by a question or guiding statement

The Why Game (or, if you prefer, The Why? Game) involves asking an initial question, “What do I find interesting in this text?” and then adding depth to that “interesting thing” by repeatedly asking why.  It looks like this:

Step 1: 

Pick a text (or, if it’s an assigned question, the text), and think of something that interested you about that text. It can be anything: an image, a character, an occurrence, even a word.

Step 2: 

Ask yourself, “Why might that interesting thing matter in the text?”

Step 3:

Keep asking why: “Why does/might that matter?”

If you prefer, you can visualize the procedure this way:

What do I find interesting about/in this text?

↓

{Optional Question: Why is that thing interesting?}

↓

Okay. Why might the interesting thing matter?

↓

And why does that matter?

↓

And why does that matter?

This seems like it must be too simple, but in fact it very swiftly leads to a strong thesis.

In real life it might look like this:

What one thing do I find interesting in The Great Gatsby?

I’m interested in the fact that Gatsby is from the Midwest.

↓

Why is that thing interesting?

He seems to belong in New York, to be very settled there.

↓

Why might that interesting thing matter?

The Midwest is such a different part of America than where he ends up (New York).

↓

Why might that thing matter in the text more largely?

Well, the novel is very concerned with America and its different locations and meanings.

↓

And why might that (the novel’s concern with location) matter?

America is a big country, and lots of places there have symbolic meaning – New York is associated with hustle and urban excitement; Los Angeles is associated with films and their illusions. If the Midwest is associated with something, it adds a layer of symbolic subtext.

Congratulations!  You have arrived at a thesis: “The symbolic meanings of the Midwest are important to understanding Jay Gatsby’s role in The Great Gatsby.”

Obviously this thesis is not a complete solution.  At this stage you will want to do some research to see if the Midwest has any symbolic associations in conceptions of America (hint: it does). But it is a strong and interesting thesis.

Sometimes it takes even less time to come up with a thesis using the Why Game. Below you will see an example that takes as its start one of those “Using two texts…” topics you so often get here at Exeter:

What do I find interesting about our readings in Genesis and The Epic of Gilgamesh?

You know what? Water and flood seem to play a big role in those books. What’s up with that?

↓

Why might that matter?

Well, these are two ancient civilisations that didn’t know anything about each other,

but they both imagine a flood as a natural disaster.

↓

And why might that matter?

It suggests that ancient civilisations recognised the power and terror of water.

Congratulations! You have arrived at a thesis: “The presence of water as a threat in these two texts from very separate ancient cultures suggests that ancient civilisations recognised the power and terror of water.”

You will often run into this difference between interesting and mattering when you decide to write about something you love.  People often respond to things emotionally that have no particular intellectual value.

If you wanted to keep going before you did that, however, you could push on from this step to try to come up with an even deeper and more interesting thesis:

“The presence of water as a threat in these two texts from very separate ancient

cultures suggests that ancient civilisations recognised the power and terror of water.”

↓

And why might that matter?

Well, it does seem to suggest that even though they were unaware of each other

they had very similar ideas about water.

Congratulations! You have arrived at an even more interesting thesis: “The presence of water as a threat in these two texts from very separate ancient cultures suggests that even very different ancient civilisations had more in common than one might suspect.

Again, this thesis doesn’t allow you just to go off and write your essay.  You will want to do some research on whether anyone has discussed this before and whether other ancient civilisations were fascinated by water,  and you will want to think about why they were fascinated by water.

Saying that the Why Game is foolproof doesn’t mean every repetition of it works. In fact, part of what makes it so useful is that it shows you very quickly what won’t make a good, or interesting, thesis.  For example, let’s take an aspect of The Great Gatsby

What one thing do I find interesting in The Great Gatsby?

I’m interested in the fact that Jordan Baker plays golf.

↓

Why is that interesting?

Well, you don’t get a lot of women golfers in fiction.

↓

Why might it matter in the text more largely?

I don’t know. I just thought it was interesting.

You can see that it very quickly becomes plain that although your thing is interesting, it doesn’t matter.   But you can also see that the Why Game has allowed you discover this before you began on your essay. You can now play the Why Game to find a new thesis.

Practical Solutions:

Not everything that is interesting also matters.

It may take you more than one try to find a strong thesis, but I have never known it to take more than four why?s in an individual game to arrive at a thesis.

In my experience the following do not make good theses:

  • An analysis in which the author points out how a text doesn’t measure up to contemporary political standards/beliefs/ideals/shibboleths. (I call this “tuttery.” There’s no point in telling off the past unless you’re doing it in the service of a larger point. The past isn’t not going to change its mind).
  • An analysis of something you love or think is cool, but which you haven’t tested to be sure it has any more significance than that.
  • Analyses that spend a lot of time talking about the sound of the words without paying much attention to their meaning (beware the essay that is heavy on a discussion of “fricatives” or other noises).
  • Analyses that do a political reading without making anything of that reading – i.e., an essay that effectively says something like “I will do a Libertarian reading of this text. [body of essay] I have done a Libertarian reading of this text”. (If you look closely, you will notice that this is an essay that has not asked itself why this reading matters.)

Be Aware of These:

You will often run into the difference between interesting and mattering when you decide to write about something you love. People often respond to things emotionally that have no particular intellectual value.  Before you decide to write about a text, author, or idea that you love, run the Why Game on your possible thesis.  It will save you a lot of time.

Sitemap