What is your broad idea?

What are some possible topics that you care about or have experience with or want to learn more about?

Write/Remember the prompt and course/assignment learning goals:

Start Small, Listen to the Conversation: Find Key Terms, Seek Out Issues/Controversies (write them down, have fun exploring!)

• Do a Google search on the Web (30 mins). What do you find?

• Do a search on Ladd Library’s LibSearch (30 mins). What do you find?

• Do a search in one of the recommended journals or popular sources (magazines, newspapers, blogs) for the course or field (30 mins). Ask a librarian or the course professor for some recommendations; or search a Ladd Research LibGuide for the field in which you’re writing! What do you find?

Go Inward, What Might You Try to Say/Add to the Conversation? Be You!

What topic are you going to write about?

What position might you take on this topic? What might you advocate for, or seek to defend about the topic? (Remember the prompt and learning goals!)

How will you defend this position? What support will you offer?

Why should your audience care about your position and this topic?

Now put all that into 1-2 sentences and you've got a draft, or “Working Thesis”! Remember it’s temporary and be open to changing it as you go through the writing process! An effective thesis will (adapted from Steven D. Krause):

• Tell the reader your interpretation of the topic and issue at hand.
• Give the reader a sense of what you're going to talk about (a “road map” of sorts - sometimes it’s a broad, expansive topographical map, sometimes it’s the quickest route to the destination).
• Make others care and see what’s at stake.
• Directly respond to the prompt given and attempts to show progress towards and attentiveness to the learning goals for the course/assignment.
• Be disputable, arguable.

First Try: Just the topic and a broad (bad, lame) claim!

Second Try: Extend the claim a bit, write what “this essay” will do/say.

Third Try: Make an arguable, specific claim. Be sure to nod to the goals of the writing assignment and/or class. Give the reader a sense of what you’ll argue and make them care.

How Do I Know if My Thesis is Strong? (from UNC Chapel Hill’s Writing Center)

• Do I answer the question?
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose?
• Is my thesis statement specific enough?
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test?
• Does my essay support my thesis specifically and without wandering?
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test?.