The Process for Developing Thesis Statements for History : Home

Developing a Thesis Statement for History 

More than most other academic disciplines, History is focused on clear, organized, and developed writing. And the key fundamental to writing in History is to focus on developing the proper thesis from start to finish.  

The Start:

You can be much more efficient in your searches for research by narrowing down a topic from the very beginning with a working thesis.

For example: Your history teacher assigns a Portfolio Project about how the US ended up fighting for the Allies in World War I. The teacher prompts you by writing that the US could have fought for either the Allies or the Central power in World War I, but they ended up fighting for just the one. Why not the other? Or how remaining neutral in the war would have affected the eventual outcome. Take a position and argue which one was the better choice and why. Defend a strong position.

So, if you develop a working thesis out of this prompt you can immediately focus in on your position. 

The essential elements of a proper History working thesis:

1. Asserts an historical argument - not a fact, but an ARGUMENT
2. Therefore, you are asserting a position that you have to defend.
3. Is historically focused and precise,
4. and ALWAYS answers the question, "so what?" Why should we care, TODAY?
5. Finally, your thesis should identify the main points that you are using to defend your position and will form the basis of every topic sentence in your body paragraphs. This part of the working thesis will take more time to develop. 

The thesis statement can be up to three to four sentences and is expected to be at the end or your introduction.

The Finish:

Your working thesis stays with the writing project until you revise it for the VERY last time - right before submitting your whole paper. You want to make sure that is closely reflects your conclusion, which was written after you developed the body of the paper. 

Remember: the very first thing that your reader will read is your introduction. First impressions are critically important. So, you will want to go back and update your thesis, which will be the end of your writing process. 

Using the prompt above, here is a successful thesis:

Although the US entered World War I on the Allied side against Germany and the Central Power on April 6, 1917, the war had already been raging in Europe for three years. The largest ethnic group in the US were German, equating to 10% of the population; yet while a majority of the nation favored England, France and the other Allies--both groups highly favored US neutrality as the best approach. Therefore, had Germany not continue responding to the Allied blockade by indiscriminately sinking all ships, regardless of citizenship and cargo, the US would have stayed neutral, and the eventual tide of the war would have gone the other way - for the Central Powers. 

These helpful tips were provided by James Meredith - Senior Faculty Associate