Once you have read a variety of sources, considered your issue from different perspectives, and chosen an entry point in the research conversation, you are ready to form a working thesis: a one-sentence (or occasionally a two-sentence) statement of your central idea. Usually your thesis will appear at the end of the first paragraph, but if you need to provide readers with considerable background information, you may place it in the second paragraph.

Because it is a working, or tentative, thesis, it is flexible enough to change as your ideas develop.

In a research paper, your thesis will answer your central research question. Following is a research question posed by Ned Bishop, a student in a history course, followed by a working thesis that begins to answer the question.

RESEARCH QUESTION

To what extent was Confederate Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest responsible for the massacre of Union troops at Fort Pillow?

WORKING THESIS

By encouraging racism among his troops, Nathan Bedford Forrest was directly responsible for the massacre of Union troops at Fort Pillow.

Notice that the thesis expresses a view on a debatable issue—an issue about which intelligent, well-meaning people might disagree. The writer’s job is to convince such readers that this view is worth taking seriously.

Bishop, “The Massacre at Fort Pillow: Holding Nathan Bedford Forrest Accountable”