What is a research paper thesis
Whether your paper involves outside research or not, you need to have a thesis statement. Once you have an idea of what you want to say, and have some grasp of what others have said, you need to make your ideas more concrete by coming up with a thesis sentence(s). A thesis indicates the main argument of your academic paper. The point of any class paper is to persuade your reader that you have something to say that he or she should care about. A good thesis should be debatable, specific, and concise.
Think of yourself as a lawyer and think of defending a thesis as being like trying to convict a defendant, and think of the professor as the judge, not the jury.