Creating your working thesis:

  • Your thesis statement will be the main idea of your entire project. It can also be thought of as the angle or point of view from which you present your material.
  • Clearly express the paper’s main idea in one declarative sentence.
  • A thesis statement is a strong statement that you can prove with evidence.
  • It is not a simple statement of fact.
  • A strong thesis statement usually answers two questions: How? Why?
  • A thesis statement should be the product of your own critical thinking after you have done some research.

For Example:

Working Thesis:

Your thesis should not change, meaning your topic and structural plan should not change; however, your thesis may become more specific as you begin writing.

Food access has been a problem in urban areas in the United States for many decades; the issue has persisted, although efforts are underway to improve access to healthy food.

Final Thesis:

Areas of low food access emerged through economic disparities and persist due to government policies; while areas of low food access still exist, efforts have been initiated to improve access to healthy food in the future.

How To Create your Outline:

Review source notes

Organize quotations and information by main point

Review groupings

Ask yourself: Does this accurately explain a point?

Should I gather more information?

Is any of this information unrelated to my topic and thesis?

Begin to organize your outline

TOPIC

THESIS: Areas of low food access emerged through economic disparities and persist due to government policies; while areas of low food access still exist, efforts have been initiated to improve access to healthy food in the future.

  1. The Problem of food deserts
  2. Definition of Food Desert
  3. Definition of Urban Areas
  4. Definition of the problem
  5. THE PAST OF FOOD DESERTS
  6. Demographic changes (paragraph 1 of main point 1)
  7. 1970s Flight
  8. Economic effect
  9. Big Box Supermarkets emerge (paragraph 2 of main point 1)
  10. Lack of transportation
  11. Lack of healthy food
  12. THE PRESENT STATE OF FOOD DESERTS
  13. Subtopic (paragraph 1 of main point 2)
  14. More specific information
  15. More specific information
  16. Subtopic (paragraph 2 of main point 2)
  17. More specific information
  18. More specific information
  19. THE FUTURE OF FOOD DES
  20. Subtopic (paragraph 1 of main point 3)
  21. More specific information
  22. More specific information
  23. Subtopic (paragraph 2 of main point 3)
  24. More specific information
  25. More specific information
  26. CONCLUSION

Things to remember:

Headings are in all capital letters

-Parallelism:

-If one heading begins with a verb, all headings must begin with a verb in the same tense

-If one heading begins with a noun, all headings must begin with a noun

Headings:

-All info in heading I should have equal significance to heading 2

-Subheadings are less significant than headings, but they have equal significance to each other

-Headings are more general

-Subheadings are more specific

-Each heading should be divided into 2 or more parts