What is stance in academic writing?

From this example thesis statement, the reader can clearly determine that the writer intends to evaluate the effectiveness of foreign AID on the African continent. Even though the writer provides some concession in the counter argument that ‘significant sums of money have been poorly invested’, overall the writer’s stance in this example is clearly positive, offering the opinion that foreign AID has had a mostly beneficial impact in Africa. Ultimately then, stance is the indication of a writer’s judgement, evaluations and opinions of a piece of evidence or information.

When should stance be included?

Stance isn’t a requirement for all essay types such as descriptive essays, but it is usually necessary to include the stance of the writer when arguing persuasively about a topic – such as in an evaluative essay. Generally, any time that a writer is required to provide a judgement about an aspect of an academic assignment (whether it’s an evaluation of the overall topic, a particular argument or a piece of evidence), that writer should make their stance very clear to the reader.

As will be discussed in more depth in Chapter 3, stance may be most easily demonstrated across thesis statements, topic sentences, evaluations of evidence, summary sentences and thesis restatements. In fact, to include stance most effectively, a writer will be required to remind the reader of their opinions and judgements at various points throughout an essay. To do this, there are particular language structures available to a writer, as is outlined in Chapter 2.