thesis statement the road

The Road by Cormac McCarthy Essay

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Introduction

Summary of the novel, main characters of the novel, main themes of the novel, personal opinion, reference list.

The Road is a post-apocalyptic novel written by an outstanding American author Cormac McCarthy in 2006. It depicts the world destroyed by a global disaster, horrible activities of survived people, violence, and the unexpected love of the father and his son who travel across the country to the sea. This is the story of lost humanity and the offensive side of human nature, on the one hand, and self-sacrifice, compassion, and hope, on the other hand (Hillier, 2015). In this work, The Road will be reviewed with the provided summary, the description of the main characters and themes of the novel, and personal opinion.

An unexpected cataclysm, probably a nuclear war, destroys cities and causes the death of people, animals, and plants. The main characters, a father and son, try to cross the former territory of the United States on foot and reach the sea to survive the winter (Beathan, 2019). They are suffering from diseases and hunger, and they avoid other people as they can appear to be gangsters or marauders. The pair has a supermarket cart to carry their supplies and a revolver with only two bullets for defense. The father and son visit the town and the house of the father’s childhood. When the weather is turning colder, they meet a group of marauders. One of them threatens the boy, and the father has to shoot the marauder down; escaping from the gang, they abandon their cart.

In the ruins of the town, the main characters meet another boy who flees from them. Afterward, they enter the territory of a powerful gang, and they notice the army of equipped bandits with slaves and supplies. When the pair are searching for food, they discover crippled people locked in the cellar of an ancient manor. The father realizes that they are in the house of cannibals and quickly takes his son away. Later they discover an invaluable storage bunker with food and other supplies. After several days of regaining strength, they continue their route with a new cart and provisions. They encounter a ninety-year-old man who is very unfriendly, frightened, and suspicious of other survivors. The boy insists on sharing food and staying with him for a short time, and the older man unwillingly speaks about himself. Afterward, the father and son observe three passing men and a heavily pregnant woman. Soon, they find an abandoned camp with the remains of an eaten newborn child. The main characters begin to starve until they discover another hiding place containing supplies.

The father and son finally reach the sea, where the man investigates a boat driven ashore and discovers supplies and a signal flare pistol. The son catches a chill, and while the father is nursing him, somebody steals their cart. Later they find a man with the carriage, and the father forces him to give it back and deliver all his clothes and shoes as well. They continue their journey, understanding that the naked thief will freeze to death.

In a coastal town, the father gets injured by an arrow from a local man. The father shoots him with a signal pistol in return. Despite the man’s attempts to stitch up a wound from an arrow and move on, his condition is worsening. Finally, he apprehends he cannot continue their way and asks his son to leave him and proceed with his journey alone. The father dies in his sleep, and the son stays with him for several days. Afterward, the boy encounters a benevolent man with a wife and two siblings. The man manages to earn the boy’s trust, and the family takes him under protection.

The main characters of The Road are a father and his son, whose names are unknown. The father is a courageous and self-sacrificing man, but he is suffering from a severe disease and coughing with blood. Despite his condition, he dedicates his life to save his son after the apocalypse. He is continuously searching for supplies and nursing the boy. He instructs the son in how to use a weapon against marauders, assuring him they are good people who will die “Sometime. Not now” (McCarthy, 2010, p. 7). The boy spends his entire life with the father on a devastated land. His mother had been pregnant at the time of the calamity and committed suicide several years before the beginning of this storyline. She supposedly preferred to end her life not to accept the horrifying circumstances of the changing world. At the beginning of the novel, the boy is frightened and depressed, although, towards the end of it, he becomes more confident and strong. He does not forget his father after his death, “I’ll talk with you every day. And I won’t forget. No matter what,” he whispers, and keeps talking with him in prayers (McCarthy, 2010, p. 18). He continues his journey with his potential new family like his father wanted.

In his novel, the author colorfully describes all the horridness of the post-apocalyptic world where the lack of food and comfort, the endless winter, and numerous deaths turn few survivors into marauders, thieves, murders, and cannibals. This book invokes awareness concerning global environmental safety and international conflicts between states, which can lead to the same catastrophe (Johns-Putra, 2016). The absence of governance and law uncovers the worst sides of human nature. The survival, by all means, becomes the single purpose of every person. Though even in the cruel world, there is a place for love, and in opposition to inconceivable violence, Cormac McCarthy puts a story of the tender love between the father and son. The main characters care about each other with compassion and self-devotion. Isolation, inhumanity, and indifference around them make their love more precious. The author endeavors to show the development of a human character through the main protagonists. The son transforms from a frightened boy into a courageous young man through all experienced struggles.

The Road can be defined as a novel that does not allow anyone to stay indifferent, the suspenseful storyline of which makes it highly recommendable for reading. The images of hideous human activities in austere environments provoke reflections concerning human nature. The novel encourages the reconsideration of personal behavior, actions, and relationships with other people. The story frightens with the descriptions of possible future and evokes gratitude that the modern world is better. It warns the society that people’s inattention to global issues may lead to catastrophe. The novel shows that even in the worst times, goodness, compassion, and love can stay in people’s hearts.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy describes the traveling of the father and son across America destroyed by an unspecified, probably, nuclear calamity. Although the main characters suffer from diseases, cold and hunger, and encounter marauders, bandits, and cannibals, they love each other and show care and support. The Road is an outstanding story about love and death, despair and inner strength, unbelievable violence and self-sacrifice, isolation, and compassion. It teaches that in peaceful times, there is always a place for catastrophe, and amid cruelty, there is a place for love.

Beathan, A. (2019) Summary of The Road by Cormac McCarthy . Singapore: Abbey Beathan Publishing.

Hillier, R. M. (2015) ‘“Each the other’s world entire”: intertextuality and the worth of textual remembrance in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road ’, English Studies , 96(6), pp. 670-689.

Johns-Putra, A. (2016) ‘“My job is to take care of you”: climate change, humanity, and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road ’, MFS Modern Fiction Studies , 62(3), pp. 519-540.

McCarthy, C. (2010) The road . London: Picador.

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The Road Cormac McCarthy

The Road essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

The Road Material

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The Road Essays

Carrying the fire: effective literary devices in mccarthy's the road megan elizabeth farris.

Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road is a gripping tale of survival in a post-nuclear holocaust world full of marauders and cannibals. A man and his son travel the United States in search of food and shelter, all the while hiding from (and...

The Road: Hope for an Obliterated World? Emily Potts

The post-apocalyptical novel, The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, explores the perseverance of a man and his son to survive in an obliterated world. The novel is a modern quest demonstrating faith in man’s power to rejuvenate himself through trust and...

Dystopian Novels in a Cruel World Anonymous

Camus wrote that “the world is ugly and cruel, but it is only by adding to that ugliness and cruelty that we sin most gravely”.

Dystopian novels can be both a mirror and a magnifying glass, reflecting our world and exaggerating aspects of it to...

The Journey Motif in Works of American Literature Anonymous 10th Grade

The journey motif is one of the most widely used elements in American literature. The journey is a powerful symbol often used to represent a character’s adventure leading to an epiphany, or some sort of self-realization. This literary device can...

Imagery and Themes Establish McCarthy's Views in The Road Holly McVey 12th Grade

Cormac McCarthy uses a variety of literary techniques in “The Road” to establish his views on a wide range of themes.

First, the manner in which McCarthy describes the scenes throughout the novel distinctly conveys the bleak world he has created....

Climax and Anti-climax in The Road, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and The Great Gatsby Midhusa Mohan.K 11th Grade

Climaxes are moments of increased tension which signify a central turning point within a text. Anti-climaxes can be defined as moments which subvert expectations as they provide a plot twist which are marked by decreased intensity. This essay...

The Road to Adulthood Mallory Friedman College

The Road by Cormac McCarthy is a piece of literature that depicts the possible effects of a post-apocalyptic world on a man and his son. From a surface-level reading, the novel portrays the bond between parent and child and the struggle to survive...

Natural and Moral Decay in The Road: Fiction and Film L.E. DuBois (Lisa DuBois) College

Natural decay directly influences moral decay in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and John Hillcoat’s film adaptation by the same title. The end of the world in this narrative is so severe because of the loss of nature. When humans see the end of their...

The Challenge of Survival in The Road and I Am Legend Anonymous 11th Grade

When exploring the challenges and toils of survival, we can easily make a series of comparisons between the design of Francis Lawrence’s and Cormac McCarthy’s post apocalyptic worlds in I Am Legend and The Road , respectively. Both plots involve...

Lonesome Landscapes; Environment and Alienation in Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Road’ and Elizabeth Bowen’s ‘Mysterious Kor’ Jack Green College

Cormac McCarthy has created a tradition in American literature of violence and desolation, his work dismembering American myth and replacing it with a brutal, epic and often uncomfortable reality. In The Road McCarthy maintains the hallmarks of...

Cormac McCarthy and His Exposure of a Problematic Modern American Society Anonymous 12th Grade

The 1990s and early 2000s were full of revolutionary changes in society, and heralded some of the changes in technology usage and social norms that still define our lives today. Cormac McCarthy is an accomplished, acclaimed, and rather dark...

Breaking the Rules: The Unconventional Punctuation of The Road Margaret Grace Roper College

If a student tells his or her teacher that adhering to grammatical rules proves unnecessary to acceptable writing, the teacher would in all likelihood balk at the student’s claim and continue reinforcing the need for proper punctuation. If someone...

Father and Mother Figures as Two Opposites of the New World: Family in 'The Road' Akimova Tatiana College

In Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road , family becomes the central theme that shapes the world in the novel. A reader follows the story of the single-parent family: the father and his son travel across the post-apocalyptic land and fight for their...

Personal and Political consequences of the Cold War period Anonymous 12th Grade

Texts written in the After the Bomb period represent the personal and political consequences of an era. George Clooney’s Good Night And Good Luck, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Road, and Oliver Stone’s film,...

Spirituality and Suffering: Comparing and Contrasting The Road with Who Fears Death Arianna Perroots College

In Okorafor’s Who Fears Death and McCarthy’s The Road , both protagonists encounter a spiritual journey in their apocalyptic scenario, emphasizing the importance of religion in the post-apocalyptic world. In the novels, the characters experience...

The History Behind Humanity: Conjuring the Past in The Road Anonymous 10th Grade

Many people accept that individuals’ morals, beliefs, and ideas are with them from birth; that it is in each person’s nature to behave the way they do. However, an equally powerful source of one’s ideology stems from their surroundings, and those...

The Howling Void and The Fire: A Study of Darkness, Light, and the Presence of God in The Sunset Limited and The Road Jordan Willis College

American author Cormac McCarthy is well-known for unflinchingly examining the moral state of humanity within his writing. His works seldom offer any justification or redemption, leaving readers to equally ponder the sense and senselessness, the...

Humanity's Dream: Conflicted Approaches to Imagination in 'The Road' Anonymous 12th Grade

From the very beginning of The Road, Cormac McCarthy, in his post-apocalyptic world, makes it very clear to the reader that this is a place of no hope. He treats happiness and excitement as useless acts, which will lead to the characters’...

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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• How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples

How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples

Published on January 11, 2019 by Shona McCombes . Revised on August 15, 2023 by Eoghan Ryan.

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . It usually comes near the end of your introduction .

Your thesis will look a bit different depending on the type of essay you’re writing. But the thesis statement should always clearly state the main idea you want to get across. Everything else in your essay should relate back to this idea.

You can write your thesis statement by following four simple steps:

• Start with a question
• Write your initial answer
• Develop your answer
• Refine your thesis statement

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Table of contents

What is a thesis statement, placement of the thesis statement, step 1: start with a question, step 2: write your initial answer, step 3: develop your answer, step 4: refine your thesis statement, types of thesis statements, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about thesis statements.

A thesis statement summarizes the central points of your essay. It is a signpost telling the reader what the essay will argue and why.

The best thesis statements are:

• Concise: A good thesis statement is short and sweet—don’t use more words than necessary. State your point clearly and directly in one or two sentences.
• Contentious: Your thesis shouldn’t be a simple statement of fact that everyone already knows. A good thesis statement is a claim that requires further evidence or analysis to back it up.
• Coherent: Everything mentioned in your thesis statement must be supported and explained in the rest of your paper.

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The thesis statement generally appears at the end of your essay introduction or research paper introduction .

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts and among young people more generally is hotly debated. For many who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its many benefits for education: the internet facilitates easier access to information, exposure to different perspectives, and a flexible learning environment for both students and teachers.

You should come up with an initial thesis, sometimes called a working thesis , early in the writing process . As soon as you’ve decided on your essay topic , you need to work out what you want to say about it—a clear thesis will give your essay direction and structure.

You might already have a question in your assignment, but if not, try to come up with your own. What would you like to find out or decide about your topic?

For example, you might ask:

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 .

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Now you need to consider why this is your answer and how you will convince your reader to agree with you. As you read more about your topic and begin writing, your answer should get more detailed.

In your essay about the internet and education, the thesis states your position and sketches out the key arguments you’ll use to support it.

The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its many benefits for education because it facilitates easier access to information.

In your essay about braille, the thesis statement summarizes the key historical development that you’ll explain.

The invention of braille in the 19th century transformed the lives of blind people, allowing them to participate more actively in public life.

A strong thesis statement should tell the reader:

• Why you hold this position
• What they’ll learn from your essay
• The key points of your argument or narrative

The final thesis statement doesn’t just state your position, but summarizes your overall argument or the entire topic you’re going to explain. To strengthen a weak thesis statement, it can help to consider the broader context of your topic.

These examples are more specific and show that you’ll explore your topic in depth.

Your thesis statement should match the goals of your essay, which vary depending on the type of essay you’re writing:

• In an argumentative essay , your thesis statement should take a strong position. Your aim in the essay is to convince your reader of this thesis based on evidence and logical reasoning.
• In an expository essay , you’ll aim to explain the facts of a topic or process. Your thesis statement doesn’t have to include a strong opinion in this case, but it should clearly state the central point you want to make, and mention the key elements you’ll explain.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
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A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

The thesis statement is essential in any academic essay or research paper for two main reasons:

• It gives your writing direction and focus.
• It gives the reader a concise summary of your main point.

Without a clear thesis statement, an essay can end up rambling and unfocused, leaving your reader unsure of exactly what you want to say.

Follow these four steps to come up with a thesis statement :

• Ask a question about your topic .
• Write your initial answer.
• Develop your answer by including reasons.
• Refine your answer, adding more detail and nuance.

The thesis statement should be placed at the end of your essay introduction .

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The first paragraph or two of any paper should be constructed with care, creating a path for both the writer and reader to follow. However, it is very common to adjust the introduction more than once over the course of drafting and revising your document. In fact, it is normal (and often very useful, or even essential!) to heavily revise your introduction after you've finished composing the paper, since that is most likely when you have the best grasp on what you've been aiming to say.

The introduction is your opportunity to efficiently establish for your reader the topic and significance of your discussion, the focused argument or claim you’ll make contained in your thesis statement, and a sense of how your presentation of information will proceed.

There are a few things to avoid in crafting good introductions. Steer clear of unnecessary length: you should be able to effectively introduce the critical elements of any project a page or less. Another pitfall to watch out for is providing excessive history or context before clearly stating your own purpose. Finally, don’t lose time stalling because you can't think of a good first line. A funny or dramatic opener for your paper (also known as “a hook”) can be a nice touch, but it is by no means a required element in a good academic paper.

Introductions, Thesis Statements, and Roadmaps Links

• Short video (5:47): " Writing an Introduction to a Paper ," GWC
• Handout (printable):  " Introductions ," University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Writing Center
• Handout (printable): " Thesis Statements ," University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Writing Center
• NPS-specific one-page (printable)  S ample Thesis Chapter Introduction with Roadmap , from "Venezuela: A Revolution on Standby," Luis Calvo
• Short video (3:39):  " Writing Ninjas: How to Write a Strong Thesis Statement "
• Video (5:06): " Thesis Statements ," Purdue OWL

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• ‘The Road’ By Cormac McCarthy Plot and Analysis Pages: 5 (1358 words)
• Similar Literary Device As Used in Cormac Mccarthy's The Road And Shrek, The Film Pages: 11 (3206 words)
• Spiritual Exploration in Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road' Pages: 4 (1150 words)
• Future Of Earth in The Road By Cormac McCarthy Pages: 3 (770 words)
• Cormac McCarthy: A Pulitzer Prize Laureate's Journey Pages: 5 (1321 words)

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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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Romanian speaks out after losing medal to jordan chiles in olympics controversy.

Romanian Olympic gymnast Ana Barbosu is taking the high road after the whole world witnessed her sheer disappointment after losing out on a medal due to a scoring change.

Barbosu posted Monday to Instagram Stories a video of her competing in the women’s floor final, where she ultimately finished fourth when American Jordan Chiles’ score received a late bump , with the caption, “Thank you to everyone who encouraged me before, during, and after the competition,” according to E! Online .

The 18-year-old also reposted a Stories message from former Romanian Olympic gymnast Sandra Izbasa-Bianca that praised Romania and seemingly hinted at frustration with the judges’ decision.

“I hear more vividly than ever the words that the coaches repeated to us almost daily in the training room,” Izbasa-Bianca wrote in Romanian, according to E! Online. “‘You, as Romanians, must be more than perfect in order not to leave room for interpretations!’ And here, it proves itself once again! Girls, head up and back straight! Keep believing in your dreams! Go Romania!”

Barbosu received one of the worst blows of the Olympics when she went from believing she had earned a bronze medal to learning she had just missed the cut, with the cameras capturing it all.

She celebrated with the Romanian flag and smiled from ear to ear before officials awarded a score correction to Chiles’ performance following a USA inquiry.

Chiles’ score jumped from 13.666 to 13.766, pushing her past Barbosu’s 13.700 mark.

Cameras caught Barbosu crying while being consoled by an individual.

2024 PARIS OLYMPICS

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Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade won gold while Simone Biles finished in second . Fellow Romanian Sabrina Maneca-Voinea finished fifth with the same score as Barbosu.

“This is just a dream come true,” Chiles said Monday on the Peacock broadcast. “It’s my first time ever in an event final. Like we said, it was a redemption tour, and I just wanted to come out and do the best that I could. So this medal means everything.

“First event final, first event medal. Oh my gosh, I have no words, but I’m very proud of myself.”

Romania’s prime minister Marcel Ciolacu is skipping Sunday’s closing ceremony due to the controversy.

“I decided not to participate in the closing ceremony of the Paris Olympics, after the scandalous situation in gymnastics, where our athletes were treated in an absolutely dishonorable way,” Ciolacu posted on Facebook on Tuesday. “To withdraw a medal earned by honest work on the basis of an appeal, which neither the coaches nor the top technicians understand, is totally unacceptable!”

He added: “The fact that hundreds of millions of viewers from all over the world were, like us Romanians, effectively shocked by this terrible scene, shows that somewhere, in the system of organizing this competition, something is wrong. I don’t want to argue with anyone today, but I just choose to protest with my gesture against a blatant injustice towards some Romanian women who have fully proven their worth! Sabrina and Ana Maria, you have a whole nation by your side for whom your work and tears are more valuable than any medal, no matter what precious metal it is!”

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Britain’s Violent Riots: What We Know

Officials had braced for more unrest on Wednesday, but the night’s anti-immigration protests were smaller, with counterprotesters dominating the streets instead.

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By Lynsey Chutel

After days of violent rioting set off by disinformation around a deadly stabbing rampage, the authorities in Britain had been bracing for more unrest on Wednesday. But by nightfall, large-scale anti-immigration demonstrations had not materialized, and only a few arrests had been made nationwide.

Instead, streets in cities across the country were filled with thousands of antiracism protesters, including in Liverpool, where by late evening, the counterdemonstration had taken on an almost celebratory tone.

Over the weekend, the anti-immigration protests, organized by far-right groups, had devolved into violence in more than a dozen towns and cities. And with messages on social media calling for wider protests and counterprotests on Wednesday, the British authorities were on high alert.

With tensions running high, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s cabinet held emergency meetings to discuss what has become the first crisis of his recently elected government. Some 6,000 specialist public-order police officers were mobilized nationwide to respond to any disorder, and the authorities in several cities and towns stepped up patrols.

Wednesday was not trouble-free, however.

In Bristol, the police said there was one arrest after a brick was thrown at a police vehicle and a bottle was thrown. In the southern city of Portsmouth, police officers dispersed a small group of anti-immigration protesters who had blocked a roadway. And in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where there have been at least four nights of unrest, disorder continued, and the police service said it would bring in additional officers.

But overall, many expressed relief that the fears of wide-scale violence had not been realized.

Here’s what we know about the turmoil in Britain.

Where arrests have been reported

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Josh Shapiro quotes ancient rabbi in statement about not being Kamala Harris’ VP pick

When he was elected governor of Pennsylvania in 2022, Josh Shapiro declared victory by quoting a famous adage from Pirkei Avot , an ancient code of Jewish ethics.

Now, after losing the battle to be Kamala Harris’ running mate, Shapiro has turned to the same adage, attributed to Rabbi Tarfon, a sage who lived nearly 2,000 years ago.

“Since I first ran for State Representative 20 years ago, I’ve been called to serve because I want to leave our community, our Commonwealth, and our country better off for our children – and because my faith teaches me that no one is required to complete the task, but neither are we free to refrain from it,” Shapiro, who is Jewish, said in a statement Tuesday morning , following reports that Harris had chosen Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her vice presidential nominee.

The quotation — “It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it” — is generally taken as a reassurance to those facing monumental or seemingly unreachable goals. It has become a mainstay of Jewish activist circles across the political spectrum.

Shapiro’s statement came after a two-week period when he was thought to be one of the frontrunners in Harris’ veepstakes . By Monday, he and Walz were reportedly the final two contenders. The distinction between them had been framed as a choice between one swing-state governor — Shapiro — with a reputation for centrism and bipartisanship, and another — Walz — with a folksy demeanor and cachet with the party’s progressive wing.

Rumors that Shapiro was the leading candidate ignited a campaign by progressives to sink his bid, focused on his support for Israel, his criticism of pro-Palestinian college student protesters, and his positions that buck Democratic norms. Several of Shapiro’s Jewish allies, noting that Walz also has a pro-Israel record, suggested that the anti-Shapiro effort was antisemitic. No parallel anti-Walz campaign emerged in the public eye.

Shapiro, who went to Jewish day school and remains involved in his Philadelphia-area Jewish community , didn’t address those allegations in his statement, which said he had gone through Harris’ vetting process and “was grateful to have the opportunity to speak with the Vice President directly about her vision for the role and the campaign ahead.”

He added, “As I’ve said repeatedly over the past several weeks, the running mate decision was a deeply personal decision for the Vice President and it was also a deeply personal decision for me.”

He congratulated Walz and his wife, whom he referred to as “Tim and Gwen,” and whom he called “good friends of ours.” He wrote that Harris “has my enthusiastic support,” and he pledged to campaign for her in Pennsylvania, seen by many analysts as a must-win state. He said he would appear at a rally with Harris later on Tuesday in Philadelphia, where she will publicly appear with Walz as her running mate.

Shapiro took office at the beginning of last year, and recommitted in his statement to serving as Pennsylvania’s governor, referring back to the Rabbi Tarfon passage.

“Pennsylvanians elected me to a four-year term as their Governor, and my work here is far from finished there is a lot more stuff I want to get done for the good people of this Commonwealth,” he wrote. “In just 19 months, we’ve made a meaningful, positive impact in peoples’ lives, and I’m proud of how Americans all across the country have taken notice of what we’re accomplishing here in Pennsylvania.”

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Sept 2024 Entry

3 years (Full-time) 5 years (Part-time)

Candidates will be deregistered from the programme if they exceed the normal duration of the programme, unless approval is obtained from the relevant authority. 

This programme is co-hosted by the following academic departments:

Department of Biomedical Engineering;

Department of Computing;

Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering;

Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering; and

Department of Mechanical Engineering.

We have a quota for admissions.  Early applications are strongly encouraged . Shortlisted candidates will be invited for interviews. Offers will be made on a rolling-basis.

An incomplete application cannot be processed promptly and may reduce your chance of admission. Please complete all relevant fields on the application form and upload all necessary documents.

Programme Aims

This programme is targeted for those who are in or are aspiring to be in senior management or principal research and development positions in companies/organisations that are involved in science, technology and engineering. The curriculum is designed to improve the candidates' skills in management of innovation and technology, enhance professional competence and expertise in specific engineering fields and strengthen capabilities in research, innovation and technology transfer from a practical perspective.

Characteristics

The programme comprises two equally weighted components: coursework and thesis. The coursework aims at reinforcing and expanding candidates' breadth of knowledge in management of innovation and advanced technologies. The thesis, which is company/organisation related, should make a significant contribution and/or provide innovative insights into professional practice in an engineering discipline.

The award “Doctor of Engineering” will be granted on successful completion of all subjects (as listed in curriculum) and a thesis. Graduates can use the title “Dr”.

An EngD candidate, upon graduation, should be able:

To understand the ethics in research;

To formulate, implement, and evaluate global operations strategies for achieving competitive advantage in a technological context; and to manage successfully the 21st century technological enterprises;

To possess the knowledge of technological innovation and transformation as well as business sustainability and apply them in technological enterprises, and to provide managers with the concepts, framework, and managerial skills to analyse, plan and lead complex systems projects;

To understand the current issues and development in the planning and choice performance management systems for firms and organisations to achieve their missions and business goals, and to apply the knowledge learnt in the selection and implementation of appropriate performance management practices for various types of organisational settings;

To understand the importance of environmental management and the role of different parties on cleaner production and sustainable product development; and to acquire the knowledge of the updated environmental technologies in handling and controlling various types of pollution; and

To investigate or conduct a critical study of an engineering problem which demonstrates innovation and creativity and results in a significant contribution to engineering practice within an industrial/professional context.

Programme Structure

Candidates are required to pass 5 Compulsory Subjects and 3 Elective Subjects, with a minimum Award GPA (AGPA) of 3.0, and complete a thesis.

Compulsory Subjects: Research Methodology; Global Operations Strategy; Systems Transformation & Analysis; Performance Management Systems & Design; Economy,  Energy & Environment: Strategies for Sustainable Development.

Elective Subjects: Technological Innovation & Strategy (recommended study trip), Strategic Lean Management (recommended study trip), a pool of guided study subjects/ special topics from the five co-hosting departments.

The thesis should be innovative and applicable in a professional context. The research results should also reach a standard worthy of publication in a peer-reviewed archival journal.

The normal duration for completing the thesis is six semesters.

Candidates are encouraged to follow a recommended study pattern.

Core Areas of Study

This is a brief summary of the core areas for the topic of thesis. Candidates are provided with detailed information on these topics for selection upon registration.

Biomedical Engineering ​ Medical Imaging, Instrumentation and Sensing, Molecular , Cellular and Tissue Engineering, Neuromusculoskeletal Science & Engineering, Prosthetics & Orthotics and Rehabilitation Engineering.

Computing ​ Networking & Mobile Computing, Smart Enterprise Information Systems & Big Data Analytics, Knowledge Engineering & Human Centered Computing, Smart Computing & Systems for Smart City, Healthcare & Green Energy, Security & Privacy and Fintech, Computing Systems & Software Engineering.

• Electrical and Electronic Engineering Power and Energy Systems, Photonic, Smart Materials & Devices, Power Electronics & Electric Vehicles, Future Mobility System, Artificial Intelligence & Signal Processing, Communications & Information Security, Microelectronics & Quantum Technology.

Industrial and Systems Engineering ​ Knowledge & Technology Management, Engineering Management, Logistics and  Supply Chain Management, Materials Technology, Laser Materials Processing, Ultra-precision Machining and Precision Metrology, Cyber Physical System, Smart Manufacturing and Logistics, Internet of Things, Robotics, Automation, Control, Mechanism Design, Transport Modelling and Data Analysis; Aviation and Maritime Studies; Industrial Organisation analysis for the transport industry, Advanced Materials Processing and Nano-manufacturing, Sustainability, Sustainable Development, Energy and Environmental Management, Waste Management, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Smart Manufacturing; Smart Logistics, Transportation and Logistics System Modeling and Optimization.

Mechanical Engineering ​ Aerodynamics, hydrodynamics, heat and mass transfer, renewable energy, Robotics, Environmental Noise of Air/Land Transportation (Computational/Experimental); Industrial Acoustics and Noise Control (Computational/Experimental); Product Sound/Noise Design Engineering; Engineering Thermofluid System Design and Optimization (Computational/Experimental); Turbomachinery (Fans/Pumps/Wind Turbines) Flow and Noise Design; Scientific Computing for Engineering Design and Analysis, Robotic manipulation; Vision-based control and automation; Artificial Intelligence; Micro-system Design; Mechatronics, Advanced energy technologies; Fuel Cells; Flow batteries; Hydrogen production.

Programme Coordinator

Prof. Xiaowen Fu

A Master's degree in an engineering discipline that is relevant to biomedical engineering, computing, electrical and electronic engineering, industrial and systems engineering or mechanical engineering (under exceptional circumstances, admission may be granted to holders of good Bachelor's degrees with Honours in a relevant engineering discipline); AND

All applicants are expected to have substantial and relevant work experience.

Applicants are also expected to demonstrate maturity, motivation, commitment and skill in communicating in English.

Applicants who obtain a degree from a university of which the language of instruction is not English are expected to fulfil the following minimum English proficiency requirement:

A score of 80 or above (on the Internet-based test), or 550 or above (on the paper-based test) in the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL)*; or

An overall Band Score of at least 6 in the International English Language Testing System (IELTS)*; or

Other equivalent qualifications to be considered by the Faculty.

* All English language test scores are considered valid for two years after the date of the test.

Individual cases will be considered on their own merit by the department. Applicants may be required to attend interviews or tests to further demonstrate their language proficiency.

For further information on academic matters, please contact:

Programme Coordinator:  Prof. Xiaowen Fu (tel: (852) 2766 6329; email: [email protected] )

For further information on admission matters, please contact: Ms Stephanie Wong  (tel: (852) 3400 3813; email:  [email protected] )

Departmental Programme Leaders:

Biomedical Engineering   Dr Christina Zonghao Ma (tel: (852) 2766 7671; email:  [email protected] )

Computing Dr Henry Chan (tel: (852) 2766 7269; email:  [email protected] )

Electrical and Electronic Engineering Prof. A.P. Zhang (tel: (852) 3400 3336; email:  [email protected] )

Industrial and Systems Engineering Prof. CY Tang (tel: (852) 2766 6608; email:  [email protected] )

Mechanical Engineering Dr David Navarro-Alarcon (tel: (852) 2766 7816; email: [email protected] )

HK$93,600 per semester for full-time mode 3 credits for candidates of part-time mode

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HK$93,600 per semester for full-time mode HK$11,700 per credit for part-time mode

Remarks: Full-time candidates will be charged HK$93,600 per semester for 6 semesters (which is the normal duration for completing the programme on a full-time basis) whereas part-time candidates will be charged HK$11,700 per credit for 48 credits.

The total tuition fee of the 48-credit programme is HK$561,600 for both full-time and part-time candidates.

Full-time candidates having taken all the 48 credits earlier than the normal registration period (i.e. 6 semesters) will be required to pay the remaining fee when they submit their thesis for oral examination.

The normal duration for the completion of thesis is consecutive six semesters. Approval has to be sought for extending the completion of thesis beyond six semesters and an extension fee of HK$35,100 per semester will be charged.

Candidates have to bear flight cost, hotel accommodation fees, make extra travel insurance arrangement according to individual needs (especially for those who wish to advance or extend their stay in the destination. Basic travel insurance will be provided by the University covering the designated period of the study trip), etc. if they select overseas study trips as their electives.

One of the values of this EngD programme is to challenge my ability and capability. It is a great vehicle that I had successfully verified my patented technology under scientific analysis to prove the innovativeness of the concept. Through the EngD studying process, I had built a solid knowledge research platform so that I could creatively process my ideas with full confidence. The research result has allowed me to transform the concept into a new practical tool that it can be easily adopted into my business to tackle the current field problems as well as benefit the industry as a whole.

Though rich experience can be acquired in engineering practices, innovation and breakthrough are difficult to be obtained. The EngD programme has opened up a new door to technological innovation for me, in which creativity, methodology and practices were united coherently and perfectly, after taking courses instructed by top scientists and professors. During this period, I received 10 invention patents authorised by the National Intellectual Property Administration, PRC. One of these patents was awarded 2017 China (small valley) "Internet + transportation" innovation and entrepreneurship contest winners Award.

My colleagues were surprised by my decision of taking up a further study after 30 years of graduation from my first degree. After a few semesters of hard work, I was able to explain to them and my customers with the latest engineering knowledge such as lean management, road-map, smart manufacturing, and optimisation. They were impressed by my in-depth understanding of these engineering topics. My office is now posted with the certificates that I obtained from the reputable conferences and journals at which I had presented/published my research findings during my Engineering Doctorate (EngD) study. Complementary to my experience in the industry, the EngD programme has helped me contribute to my work with a solid academic background.

This programme is a very special and unique offering. Although you will learn a tremendous amount of knowledge, of even greater value is how it changes the way you view the world. With lectures taught by leaders in the field from across the world, and immersive study trips abroad, you will gain insights that will help you realise that many problems are simply just new opportunities. This programme will evolve you. I cannot overstate how valuable and beneficial this experience has been, both for my career and personally in my daily life. I would highly recommend the programme to anyone who wants to take their skills to the next level.

• PolyU Main Site
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Chips, Glorious Chips!

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NASDAQ: AMD

Advanced micro devices.

Someone's gotta make 'em, and someone's gotta buy 'em.

In this podcast, Motley Fool analyst Asit Sharma and host Mary Long look at earnings reports from companies on either end of the AI spending spree.

They also discuss:

• Whether you should fall in love with companies.
• AMD 's data center business.
• Meta 's "special treatment."

Then, Motley Fool analyst Karl Thiel and host Ricky Mulvey look at Dexcom , a medical device manufacturer that's fallen out of favor with Wall Street.

To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center . To get started investing, check out our quick-start guide to investing in stocks . A full transcript follows the video.

This video was recorded on August 01, 2024.

Mary Long: Everybody wants chips, and you're listening to Motley Fool Money. I'm Mary Long, joined today by Asit Sharma. Asit, great to have you back on the show.

Asit Sharma: Mary, thanks for having me back.

Mary Long: I cannot believe that it is August 1st today. Do you want to explain to me how we got here how that happened, how the years flown by so quickly?

Asit Sharma: Well, in common parlance, Mary, we blinked, and here we are. That's all I can say. I am searching my consciousness to see what happened in the last seven months, and I'm getting nada.

Mary Long: Anything you're looking to do before the end of the year that you want Motley Fool Money listeners to hold you accountable for?

Asit Sharma: It's TMI, but floskighty, I have a dentist appointment later today, and I know we're going to come to a conclusion here. I'm pretty good about it, but, that last 5% after seven months. That last 5% is what gets me. How about yourself?

Mary Long: I should have known that you were to return this question..back on to me. Dart it. Asit you might know that I'm on an Improv team.

Asit Sharma: I do know.

Mary Long: We've got some shows, it's new to the team, so we've got some shows coming up. I guess I'll be there to do that.

Asit Sharma: Well, yours is a lot more exciting than mine.

Mary Long: Speaking of exciting, got to talk about earnings today, especially from AMD and Meta. AMD to be fair reported after the bell on Tuesday, but wanted to hit that with you because I know that you are an AMD fan boy. Results from that company were super strong and sent a bunch of semiconductor stocks up along with it so I wanted to touch on that. Before we get to those results, again, you've been an AMD fan boy for a while now. Let's rewind, maybe to last week before these results come out. Why do you love AMD?

Asit Sharma: Well, I guess we should say a couple of things up front here is I also love Nvidia . I'm putting this forward in case someone is already starting to type an angry email. I am a big fan of that company. No disclaimers, we shouldn't really fall in love with companies. Mary and I are saying this jokingly, but you can be a fan of a company as long as you retain your objectivity, or if something changes in the thesis, or the people running it, the strategy, you can fall a little bit out of love. Why I like AMD is, Mary it went through this amazing trajectory where it was a leader in chip fabrication. It had partnership with Intel , it competed with Intel, and then didn't compete so well with Intel and nearly went out of business. Dr. Lisa Su took over as CEO in 2014, and they have been on an upward path since then by focusing on innovation. Even if it takes longer, let's make the best products we can. They were caught a little flat footed at the beginning of this explosion and interest in generative AI and all this capital spending that we'll talk about today. But they're pretty quickly catching up in terms of having a competing product. I'm not talking about market share because we know that in the GPU market, Nvidia reigns supreme. But AMD just needs a little size of that. They're one of the few companies around that has the technical expertise, that innovation edge, the ambition, the capital to really compete and take a few pieces of market share from Nvidia. That's a lot harder than it looks.

Mary Long: Some highlights from this most recent quarter, overall revenue up about 9% year over year to $5.8 billion. But if you break that down into different segments, you get lots of different stories. The big winner here was the data center segment. Revenue for that up 115% year over year. Not so much winners were the gaming and embedded segments, which were down 59% and 41% respectively. Before we get into what's going on in each of these stories, Asit, for listeners who are unfamiliar with the details of the chip industry, can you help us understand what these different segments mean and what? Data center versus gaming versus client embedded is another one. What do those mean? What kinds of chips fall into those? Why do we have to have different chips for these processes at all?

Asit Sharma: Mary, are you ready for a string of acronyms?

Mary Long: Always.

Asit Sharma: I'll try to break it down a little bit. Data centers, as we all know, have become this really important part of artificial intelligence, inference, and training and also, it's the traditional place where stuff gets computed. When you and I reach into the Cloud via our keyboards, we're usually hitting a data center of some sort. Think about central processing units, CPUs, the chips that are already in computers, but now exist in servers in a datacenter, GPUs, we've all learned about if we haven't in the last few years. A bunch of other specialized chips like FPGAs, field programmable gate arrays, AI accelerators, which are combinations, typically of GPUs, adaptive system on chips. What I'm painting a picture here of is a bunch of specialized chips that work together on servers to make the magic happen when we talk to ChatGPT. Then AMD has what they call the client segment, and this is something that's easier to grasp. This is mostly the CPU's chip sets that we see in desktop computers, laptops, handheld devices. Then they have the gaming segment, and that's pretty easy to understand as well, when you're using a console gaming device, you may have some component inside that's made by AMD. These are discrete GPUs. They are also semi custom system on chip products, basically designed for companies like Sony and Microsoft to sit inside those devices. Then finally, we have the embedded segment, which sounds sinister to me, but we're not talking about embedding in anything, but other devices. These can be industrial devices. They can also be specialized servers in datacenters. This is a segment that AMD recently started competing in through its acquisition of a company called Cylinks. Just think of specialized chips that could be in any type of device, but often in industrial type machines.

Mary Long: So it's that data center segment that was really the winner this most recent quarter. That's in large part because that's where AMD gets to compete with Nvidia the most. AMD's data center segment directly competes with Nvidia's AI market. Still, and you mentioned this, that it's a big game to catch up to Nvidia. Nvidia's AI arm does $22.6 billion a quarter. AMD just made waves for making $2.8 billion a quarter. There's a lot of catch up to happen there. But so much of this language around AI is centered around an arms race. You're a literary guy, are we watching a chip version of the tortoise and the hair take place here?

Asit Sharma: Not really. I think to me, this is more slow motion running. If you think about two competitors who are in a foot race, and one is a lot nearer at the tape, just about to finish, and the other is a bit behind but catching up, obviously not going to win, but maybe passing like the third place finisher. That's more what this race is like. I don't think anyone expects and I don't expect that AMD is going to overtake Nvidia. But the numbers are fairly interesting. Now, remember, Nvidia is a native GPU company. They basically took this fledging technology and made it mainstream and then enhanced it. Every time we have some crazy innovation in tech, GPUs are front and center. This competitive GPU offering from AMD really isn't their core business. They have built their accelerators using a little bit of a different technology than Nvidia. They function really well in the space called Chiplet architecture, so they stitch different chips together. Their approach is interesting. They don't have as robust of software as Nvidia has. Nvidia developed this amazing software called Kuta, which makes their chips better, their GPUs better. But AMD has thrown open their software to the open source community. It's getting better and better. We see companies like Microsoft, we see companies that support Meta's large language model, which is Llama., s tarting to turn to AMD is a lower cost option. They've gone from $0 in this GPU accelerated market to about $4.5 billion on an annualized run rate in less than a year. That's pretty fast. If we're talking about shaving maybe 5-10 points of market share out of the next five years from Nvidia, this is where AMD starts to look really interesting to me.

Mary Long: I don't want to ignore those pretty steep declines in the gaming and embedded segments that we mentioned earlier, what's behind the downturns there?

Asit Sharma: Sure. Gaming itself is a bit of a mature industry. The whole console gaming industry has undergone a lot of consolidation. As of late, sales are slowing a bit. That naturally, especially in the post COVID world has slowed down some. Also the embedded segments tends to go in tandem with the larger economy. Where we've got a more skeptical outlook on purchasing for manufacturers, other companies that use these embedded chips. That hurts a little bit when AMD is trying to scale it up. It's a little cyclical. Now, this segment had just a tiny bit of a sequential gain, so one quarter after the next versus quarter over quarter year over year. Maybe that is troughing out. But there's something else going on here, Mary. AMD is actually not investing as much in these spaces as it was before generative AI exploded. They have trained their innovation canons on the GPU market, the accelerator market. That's part of why these two segments are falling off. There's a similar story going on actually over at Nvidia. If you have this technology, you're not going to waste too much of time and resources trying to make these slower growth segments front and center. You're going to focus on where that gravy is.

Mary Long: AMD's trading at a forward PE ratio of about 42, just a hair below Nvidia. What would you say to somebody who's looking at the stock right now and thinking, Oh, gosh, damn it, I missed out on Nvidia, but I won't miss out on this one.

Asit Sharma: It seems like the answer would be an easy like, hop on the bandwagon. But it never is in this industry. This whole industry is cyclical. It's hard to remember this, but Nvidia itself is cyclical. Going to come a time when that demand supply equation hits equilibrium, and Nvidia may sell off some. I personally think it's worth holding this company 10 years because there will be other waves that we don't yet foresee. But the same is true with AMD. The best strategy for highly specialized semiconductor companies, whether you're talking about AMD and Nvidia or a company like synopsis, which makes software to design chips or ASML, which makes the machines to build chips. I think dollar-cost averaging is a tremendous way to approach this because those PE ratios are going to move around. They're going to be overvalued. Mary, they're going to show extreme undervalue to the longer term investor, and these things, these trends can happen in a matter of weeks sometimes. Just keep buying steadily, if you like this company or others in the semiconductor industry, that's the best approach, in my opinion.

Mary Long: Revenue from these chipmakers come from AI hungry tech companies. Meta is one of those AI hungry tech companies. They reported earnings yesterday after the bell. A few highlights from that report, overall revenue up 22% to about 39 billion, advertising revenue, a huge chunk of that. Basically all of that. Family, daily active people, which is the their term for daily active users, came out to about nearly 3.3 billion, which is up 7% year over year. Seems impressive that that can keep growing. Capital expenditures spend up 33% largely to support these AI ambitions that we've mentioned. For the quarter, Meta spent around $8.5 billion, but they intend to spend up to 40 billion for the full year. What sticks out to you Asit? Anything else that I missed?

Asit Sharma: You hit on so many nice points here, Mary. The first thing that stands out to me is this family daily active people, nomenclature. It always reminds me of shiny happy people. Why can't they just say DAU like everyone else? More seriously, the advertising revenue. You said that's a huge chunk of their top line, and it is, but it also shows how different their model is than almost any other company of their size that they compete with. That's what sticks out to me is once again, they're able to grow that Pi by double digits, and it's extremely profitable. Their margins are almost the same. Their operating margins are almost the same as Microsoft's just a little bit below. But Microsoft has to do so many things to make that margin from software sales to the Cloud, to their gaming segment. Here we have Meta, which just offers this family of apps, and they make so much profit just from advertising. It's a good business, and I think this may have something to do with an answer to a question that you posed to me before we started taping.

Mary Long: That question was just like the story of the past few weeks, as tech earnings have been rolling in, has been about AI spend. The market reaction to a lot of AI spend from Alphabet from Microsoft has been to send their stocks lower. Well, Meta had the opposite response, and they're spending a ton of money on capital expenditures that are related to AI as well. My question for you, basically, was, why does Meta get the special treatment?

Asit Sharma: I think investors, Number 1, are used to seeing Mark Zuckerberg take some high end matches and just walk from pile to pile of money and just set it alight.

Mary Long: Cough cough reality labs.

Asit Sharma: Totally, we've seen this company burn so much cash on reality labs and the metaverse. But, what's the net result? I'm looking at the cash flow statement for this quarter, $19 billion in operating cash flow. With all that spend on AI and the infrastructure behind it for Meta, only $8.2 billion in spend on that. That left a lot of money to repurchase shares to pay a nice dividend to investors.

Asit Sharma: This business is just highly cash-generative, and investors, I think are starting to say; look, at some point, [inaudible] is going to get some yield out of all the money they've thrown at the metaverse and now AI. You can already see it in some of the uptakes on their expressions of large language models. There's a way that you can look at this investment as being slightly different than Microsoft, which is they have to grow their market share in the Cloud. Azure has to compete with Amazon web services. They need to get a yield on all of that that they're spending. Zuck hasn't had any kind of yield on tens of billions of dollars, and they're still making money, so I think that's the difference in the reactions this week.

Mary Long: I want to get your take on this because I've heard Zuck say this a few times recently, that Meta AI is on track to be the most used AI assistant in the world by the end of the year. Again, I've heard that a couple of times, and my first reaction is always, that can't be right. But tell me, please, am I living under a Chat GPT size rock?

Asit Sharma: I'm sort of under that rock with you, Mary, but I will give you the argument why he probably is correct. There are two things going on here, one is, Meta has its own AI assistant that it's now putting at the top of its family of apps. If you happen to use WhatsApp, which I do, because I've got family all over the world, you'll notice a little box at the top, Meta AI, basically, that's an AI chatbot that runs on Meta's Llama large language model. There are hundreds of millions of people who are using that. They called out India in the conference call for this quarter's earnings as people rapidly adopting that chatbot assistant because Indians are big users of WhatsApp. The other thing which isn't as visible is Llama, and Llama 3.1 now, I guess, is going to be the latest version. All the Llama models are open source; so basically, you're probably using Meta's chatbots in many different places and don't realize it because developers have taken that open-source model, they've built their own chatbot, offered you up a portal to AI, but you don't see the branding on it. I think probably if we looked more deeply into this, we could see that Zuckerberg may be correct in saying this; they're pretty competitive in this space, they may not have all the branding yet, but some of that infrastructure investment is paying off in their development of the open source model, Llama, and all the expressions that they're starting to derive from it.

Mary Long: Also, always a pleasure talking to you. Thanks so much for hanging out with me on this lovely Thursday morning.

Asit Sharma: I appreciate it, Mary, see soon.

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Mary Long: Up next, Motley Fool analyst Karl Thiel joins Ricky Mulvey, to take a look at Dexcom, a medical device manufacturer that fell about 40% on its latest earnings report. They discuss why Wall Street soured on the company, and if the stock is still worth investors attention.

Asit Sharma: Karl, Dexcom seems like a relatively straightforward company. It makes continuous glucose monitors, it's a device primarily used by people with type one diabetes to check their blood sugar without pricking their finger. But for investors right now, it is a story because the stock is down 40% after its latest earnings call. Before we get to what happened in this latest earnings call, what is/was the bull thesis for Dexcom?

Karl Thiel: The bull thesis is that Dexcom has been a pioneer in these continuous glucose monitors. They're certainly not the only player, but they were early to the market, they're dedicated to the market, and it's really about making a product that patients love that have had some advantages, and we can talk about that more, whether that still pertains, but has had some advantages over competitive products. Mostly just about the size of the market. You can argue that almost everybody with type one diabetes should be using one of these products, but nowhere near that number are, so there's a huge penetration story there. You can argue that a large number of people with Type 2 diabetes should be using these products, and some do, there is a market there, but penetration there is even lower, and that's a massive opportunity. This is a company that has executed well for most of the time that we've been following it. Has given us a lot of faith in this company and the management team, and has managed to do well in opening up a nascent market.

Asit Sharma: The growth story changed this quarter, and it has to do a lot with the revenue guidance, which last quarter for Dexcom was rosy; they're expecting a growth rate of about 20% for their top-line revenue. This quarter, they said, that's going to be cut about in half to about 11-13%. CEO Kevin Sayer, getting ahead of it, naming three headwinds for the analysts; one was that the company realigned its sales team, and they weren't performing as well as they expected. Number 2 was greater rebate eligibility for their device, which I have questions about. Then number 3 was that they had less sales to healthcare institutions, which is their durable medical equipment channel. What are these problems? It seems odd to just say, "Hey, we shifted our sales team, and now we're cutting our sales guidance in half."

Karl Thiel: Yeah. There's kind of a lot to impact there. I think first of all, the biggest problem is that it was just such a reversal. This is a company that raised the bottom end of its guidance in Q1 before turning around and doing this in Q2. This is a company that was raising its long-term sort of 2025 outlook significantly in the middle of last year, and again, now this is happening, it's just such a sudden shift that you have to wonder what's going on. They put it down to these three factors. The rebates one is, I think the easiest to deal with and kind of the least concerning one. To me, which is that, when you get new patients going to the G7 device instead of the older G6 device, they get a rebate. The company is quite sensitive to that on a revenue level, so more rebates means less revenue for them. They had expected it to be sort of a two X over what they had seen with the G6, it's more like a three X. There's maybe even a double whammy effect there that we can talk about just because a lot of this is happening through the pharmacy channel, they put that down. If you call what they did to their revenues guidance, you call it about $300 million reduction in revenue guidance for 2024, about 75 million of that they said was the rebates, and they expect that to abate in Q3 or Q4. That's kind of the least concerning one because it doesn't involve people getting onto the product. The second one was the sales force realignment, and that was the one that I think analysts were skeptical about on the call. I don't know what they did there that would be so difficult, but I think it sort of relates into the another factor that you mentioned, which is the sales channel. If you are a user of these products, you probably get your product one of two ways; you either get it through a durable medical equipment supplier, which is some sort of specialty supplier of diabetes products, and they probably send it straight to your house, or you get it through a pharmacy. What they're saying is, basically, it's usually cheaper for patients to get stuff through the pharmacy channel because there are kind of lower deductibles associated with that, usually. They're saying basically they're doing pretty well in the pharmacy channel, but they're really suffering in this DME channel, and as patients move to the pharmacy channel, they're kind of seeing some margin impact from that. The part that's confusing about it is they just kind of said, we've seen some breakdown in our relationships with the DME channel, the quote was, "We need to refocus on those relationships." I don't know what exactly they mean by that. How did that go so sour so quickly? This is what I suspect is the real problem because they mentioned the third factor they mentioned, it was just sort of like, the patient missed, like we just didn't start as many patients as we hoped to. The thing that worries me, and to me, the biggest factor in all of this is how much competitive factors are playing into this. How much are they finding that sales are hurting through the DME channels because other people are just taking up the slack, and that's something we can get into a little bit more because that's the thing that I think is going to have the longest impact on the company.

Asit Sharma: Let's get into it because I think some of those are dark Clouds that can be seen through, but if you're buying stock in Dexcom, it's a bet on their device, which is the G7. Are there real competitors to these products now that are hurting this company's growth story?

Karl Thiel: Yeah, there are.

Asit Sharma: Next question.

Karl Thiel: There's kind of three big players, there's some others, but there are three big players, and the other two are very large companies; so it's Medtronic and Abbott , and they're in very different positions. The real sort of main competitor to Dexcom is Abbott, which has a product line called the FreeStyle Libre, that is relatively similar in its specs, you could argue it's actually a little better. It's also often a little cheaper for patients, and probably part of that is because Abbott can afford to price it a little bit less because of their size. Then Medtronic is a huge player. There's kind of two factors going on here; one is that more and more, what you want to do with these continuous glucose monitors is you want to pair them with an insulin pump. You don't want to just get the information that the CGM provides, you want to use it in order to inform, as automatically as possible with as little input from the user as possible how to supply insulin. Up until the beginning of this year, Abbott's product didn't integrate with the most popular insulin pumps. Now it does integrate with a very popular one from Tandem , I think on track to bring integration with the Omnipod from Insulet pretty soon. My question is, how much of this is about people suddenly seeing, like, well, now I can finally use this Abbott product, the FreeStyle Libre the way I want to, and it's gaining market share that way? Medtronic has almost the opposite thing. Medtronic had a major product manufacturing problems in some of their diabetes lines back at the end of 2021, have seen sales tanked. I don't want to say that there's nowhere for them to go but up, but in a way, it's like they've invested massively in this, they are trying to improve this, so they might be making some inroads there, particularly internationally where they have done particularly well and where Dexcom was particularly weak in this past quarter.

Asit Sharma: On X, there's a user on there at Marcelo Lima, pointed out that Dexcom historically traded at an earnings multiple anywhere from the 60s to the 240s, this was a growth stock, now it's at about 40, that's the lowest that I've seen when I looked at the company on YCAharts. The stock has pretty much given up all of its gains from the pandemic. We've talked about the risks, we've talked about the competitors, but now for this company, Dexcom, is it worth putting on investors radar?

Karl Thiel: I think it's definitely worth putting on a watch list because, yeah, we've talked about a bunch of negatives. I would say, the larger story that they have a product with sort of leading mind share among users that has really good specs, and still there's no question that the market's growing, that's one of the disturbing things, I guess, was that Abbott just had a great quarter for their freestyle line, so the market's still growing. In that sense, they can sort of get control of all this, I still think they have a great opportunity. The question is, do they deserve to be priced at that kind of multiple that you were talking about? I don't think so unless we can see that that kind of growth is returning again.

Asit Sharma: Then as we close out, any other medical device companies catching your attention, maybe a stock or even a technology that you're finding interesting right now?

Karl Thiel: Boy, Intuitive Surgical sticks out, they're sort of the Dexcom. If Dexcom didn't have competitors and had never made a misstep, that's kind of where Intuitive Surgical is at right now, including the extremely high price. Intuitive Surgical is priced for perfection, it's just that they seem to continually deliver perfection. Then almost on the opposite end of the spectrum, I still continue to be interested in NovoCure , which is a company that is absolutely beaten to heck right now, but continues to put out interesting data, has a lot of interesting opportunities coming up in the relatively near future and is not priced terribly high.

Asit Sharma: Appreciate you putting some companies for us to check out. Carl Teal, thank you for your time here inside. Appreciate you being here.

Karl Thiel: Thank you.

Mary Long: As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about. The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against buyer sell stocks based solely on what you hear. I'm Mary Long, thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.

Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Asit Sharma has positions in Advanced Micro Devices, Amazon, Intuitive Surgical, Microsoft, and Nvidia. Karl Thiel has positions in Alphabet, Meta Platforms, NovoCure, and Nvidia. Mary Long has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Ricky Mulvey has positions in Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Abbott Laboratories, Advanced Micro Devices, Alphabet, Amazon, Intuitive Surgical, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, NovoCure, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends DexCom, Insulet, Intel, and Medtronic and recommends the following options: long January 2025 $45 calls on Intel, long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft, long January 2026 $75 calls on Medtronic, short August 2024 $35 calls on Intel, short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft, and short January 2026 $85 calls on Medtronic. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy .

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