DEVELOPING
A THESIS
After you have accumulated a stack of articles and books that you must
examine for your topic, the next step is to commence doing the research.
Research is not simply a matter of seeing a fact, copying it on a note
card, and then typing it into the text of your paper.
Good research requires several skills and qualities that a student
should work to develop.
Every research paper must strive to make a point; it must have a thesis.
One can think of this as asking a
question and then trying to
answer it (or asking and answering several related questions).
Imagine that you are writing a paper on Adolf Hitler.
Tens of thousands of books and articles have been written about him,
and many primary sources have been printed and translated into English (e.g.,
letters, memoirs, and speeches of Hitler and those who knew him).
Before you can even start to do research and take notes, you have to
determine what it is about Hitler that you wish to examine.
Your paper will not simply be a chronology of his life or a list of
events in World War II.
You might need to start by reading
an encyclopedia article about him and also quickly perusing a biography
of him. Once you have a decent
grasp of the man’s life and career, you will need to select one particular
topic for your paper. Perhaps you
have two or three things that interest you.
If that is the case, read a bit more on each them and then narrow your
focus to one.
Your final topic might be the Holocaust, the German arms buildup in the
1930s, Germany’s recovery from the Depression, Hitler’s rise to power,
Hitler’s policies with regard to women, the Nazi youth movement, the
invasion of the Soviet Union in
1941, or any of numerous other topics.
Once you have selected the topic that interests you most, you can then
start to choose books and articles that relate especially to that topic.
Let’s say that your topic is the German invasion of the Soviet Union
in 1941. Your paper will not
simply be a listing of events. Instead,
you will establish some conjectures or ask some questions.
Thus the thesis of your paper might be: Hitler’s plans for the
invasion were deeply flawed from the very beginning.
What you will do in the course of your research is test this
hypothesis. In other words, you will assemble and weigh the evidence pro
and con. Keep an open mind.
It might be best to phrase your thesis as a question: Were Hitler’s
initial plans for the invasion feasible or were they deeply flawed?
In your paper you will then attempt to answer that question.
Here are some additional examples of thesis development.
Let’s say that your interest is the American Revolution.
You could write a research paper that attempted to answer any one of
the following questions: How important was the Battle of Saratoga?
Was George Washington a good military commander?
How important was French aid for the American cause?
Another example. Imagine
that your interest is women’s rights in the twentieth century in the U.S.
You could write a paper analyzing any of the following topics: Eleanor
Roosevelt’s role as a female role model; the portrayal of women in movies
(perhaps picking a time period rather than doing the entire century);
women’s importance in the work place during WWI or WWII.
For more discussion of thesis development and the writing of History
research papers, see the sites below