What is a thesis statement?

Both types of research paper, persuasive and informative, require a clear introduction that tells the reader what to expect from the paper. The persuasive or argumentative paper, however, also explicitly states the thesis—what you’re going to prove to your reader—in the introduction. The thesis statement is one or two sentences at most, and usually appears at the end of the introduction. Because the statement must be both compact and clear, writing it can be quite difficult