Composing a focused tentative argument thesis sentence will prepare you to conduct your research through a focused lens.  Getting feedback on a tentative thesis will help guide and prepare you for the research you will conduct on your research topic. 

Directions

After reading and thinking about your research project topic, write a tentative thesis sentence reflecting the tentative argument you will use as you conduct your research for your project.  Include in your tentative argument thesis sentence the following:

Your topic, your claim about that topic, and a list of 2-4 potential main ideas you might use to prove your argument. (NOTE: This is a tentative argument for your project.

You may find you need to tweak or even alter your argument as you research, but the ideas from this tentative thesis should provide you with direction as you research; ultimately, you need to allow your research to help guide you as you refine your final thesis later.)

For example:

Thesis Ideas:

Topic: Children in the 1800s had to often read what adults read 

Claim: Children were impacted by issues of the time based on what they were exposed to through reading and oral storytelling

Possible Main Ideas: Issues relating to cultural biases, social biases, religious biases

Tentative Thesis: Children in the 1800s developed biases for cultural, social and religious differences as they read or were exposed to literature adults read that had been written during that era.