After you narrow your list of questions to one or two prime contenders, you can state a preliminary thesis by offering a tentative answer to the question—your best hunch about what you will find out as you begin your search and do your research. This hypothesis or preliminary thesis will be open to change and improvement as you go, but it will guide you in the search and help you to know how the ideas of other writers compare to your own. Having a preliminary thesis also helps you to resist being unduly influenced by the professional critics you read. If you have a preliminary commitment to your own idea, it's easier not to be swayed to every new argument you read from others.

In the box below, write your research question and answer it as best you can with a single sentence—your preliminary thesis.