You're driving down the street, closing in on a car in front of you. You notice a bumper sticker on the car's rear bumper. At the next stoplight, you pull up close enough to read it. The bumper sticker declares:

"Why?" you ask. "Why should I stop eating beef and eat more seafood?"

The bumper sticker on this car is much like a thesis statement in your argumentative research paper. It concisely declares a position on an issue you feel strongly about. And it affects your readers in much the same way: it makes them ask "Why? Why is this so?"

In a research paper, a thesis statement alerts your readers to the answer to your Research Paper Question. Placed early in your paper, a thesis statement is a sentence (or several sentences) which clearly states your position.

It is essential to write your thesis statement BEFORE you begin drafting your paper. Even though your thesis will be "tentative" at this point and may change as your paper develops, writing it now will help you to structure your paper. That's because a thesis statement is the central idea in your paper. All other ideas in your paper will support it.

By formulating your thesis statement now, you are preparing to take a stand on the Question you identified in Phase 2. For example, consider the following Question identified by a student writer: "Should amateur mountain climbers be allowed to climb Mt. Everest?" After having skimmed a few sources relevant to this Question and giving the Question a great deal of thought, the writer is ready to answer the Question: "Amateur mountain climbers should be allowed to climb Mt. Everest."

Notice how the tentative thesis statement shows the writer committing to a position, just like the driver with a bumper sticker. "This is so!" declares the writer. And with that declaration, the writer will launch a paper that will explain why amateur mountain climbers should not be prohibited from climbing the world's tallest mountain.

Now, develop a list of potential thesis statements for your research paper.

Here are some other tentative thesis statements developed from the same issue. Notice how these tentative thesis statements have been greatly narrowed from the original subject.

Subject:	Crime in America
Topic:	Gang violence in American cities
Question:	Should families of gang members tolerate the violent acts of gangs in their communities?
Tentative Thesis Statements:	Families of gang members should not tolerate gang violence in their communities. Families of gang members should tolerate gang violence in their communities. Families of gang members should not tolerate gang violence in their communities unless they feel physically threatened by the violence. Families of gang members should tolerate gang violence in their communities only if they are helping to rehabilitate the gang members at the same time.