A thesis statement is the essential statement used to design your essay/paper, therefore creating a provocative thesis is essential to creating a great paper. Your thesis statement will need to answer a question about the issue you're exploring.

• A thesis can only be generated after you have done some deep thinking about your subject. Do a bit of pre-research on your topic. Look for relationships between known facts and think about the significance of these relationships. Now try to come up with a question to stimulate thought. For example: What are the benefits of playing computer games?
• Using available evidence from your pre-research, turn your question into a statement. Playing computer games contributes to a student's academic success.
• The thesis statement will be introduced in the first paragraph of your paper, then you will use the rest of your paper to explain to the reader why your thesis statement is true. You will need at least 3 discussion areas for your paper.
• As you progress with your research, sometimes you may need to tweak your initial statement to fit with your findings.

Check your thesis statement:

1. Does it answer the question?
2. Is it specific and strong? Readers should be able to readily see that your paper has one main point or idea and shows exactly what your paper is about.
3. Is the thesis appropriate for the length of your paper? Make sure your topic is not too broad for a short paper or too specific for a longer analysis.
4. Will it catch the reader's interest? Will your topic create genuine interest or will the reader just say "so what?"
5. Can you write about the "how" and "why" of your question?
6. Ask your teacher or librarian for help.