How to Write a Thesis Statement

for a Historical Essay

David W. Swan

Dedication

saac Newton famously wrote that if I have seen

further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
This booklet on how to write a thesis statement is
merely my own synthesis of other authoritative works and
so my sentiments match NewtonsI too stand on the
shoulders of others who have led the way in the field for
which this booklet addresses. John Schmidt and Jeff
Treppa, History teachers at Homewood-Flossmoor High
School in Flossmoor Illinois, are founders of
HistoricalThinker.com. They have developed a systematic
approach to teaching students historical thinking skills
they describe as teaching sophisticated historical
reasoning one step at a time. It is their refined and
concise approach which inspires this booklet.
It is to my loving and supportive wife I owe the greatest
amount of gratitude for she has not only served as my
greatest source of inspiration but has also been the source
of an endless supply of support, encouragement, and
editing with her red pen. She has adopted my dreams as
her own and for our family and I cannot imagine being the
student I am without her.

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Contents
A Critical Skill for Critical Thinkers

What is a Thesis?

What a Thesis Statement is not

The Anatomy of a Thesis Statement

Constructing a Great Thesis Statement

Five Steps to Constructing a Great Thesis Statement

2: Gather your Evidence & Develop your Claims

12
13

3: Develop, write, and revise your argument

14

1: Develop your Research Question

4: Insert the word because after your argument

5: Revise your thesis statement

Glossary of Terms

Resources for Historical Thinking

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16
18
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A Critical Skill for Critical Thinkers

n the realm of historical thinking one of the most

crucial skills is the ability to identify a thesis when
reading a historical essay and formulate ones own
thesis when writing a historical essay. The ability to write
a thesis is at the heart of what historians do. Knowing how
to formulate a thesis for your history papers will take your
thinking far beyond mere summary and book reports
you will be an intellectually empowered person capable of
critically examining claims made by others and critically
examine your own thinking as well. Formulating a thesis
need not be an overwhelming pursuit. This small booklet
will break down how to formulate and write a thesis
statement with supporting arguments within several easy
steps. Before you begin formulating your thesis it is vital
you clearly understand what a thesis is.

Critical thinkers through history

Ida B. Wells (1862-1931)

What made Ida B. Wells a critical thinker

Wells was a pioneer in the civil rights and womens suffrage movements.
She brought her finely honed intellect to bear on her advocacy for
equal rights and is best known for her pamphlet and speaking tour
Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in all its Phases. According to scholar
Karlyn Cambell, Wells used evidence and argument in highly
sophisticated ways that prevented members of the audience from
dismissing her claims as biased or untrue. Wells used evidence from
irrefutable sources to support her claims.

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What is a Thesis?
For the purpose of a history paper, a thesis is an argument
supported by claims backed by evidence. Your thesis
should be clearly stated in a thesis statement. Before you
write your thesis statement you must first formulate a
research question. From your research you will develop
claims which answer your research question. The
conclusion you derive from your research is your thesis.
Your thesis statement is a concise written expression of
your position and your claims which support your
argument. A thesis statement can be as short as one
sentence but no longer than one paragraph. Figure 1
demonstrates how a thesis is organized within a history
paper.

History Research Question

Thesis Statement

Claim 1

Claim 2

Claim 3

figure 1

At the heart of your thesis is your thesis statement. A

concise and well-constructed thesis statement is central to
writing a great history paper. Before we jump into the
step-by-step process of constructing a thesis statement it
is vital you understand what a thesis statement is not.
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What a Thesis Statement is not

To begin with, a thesis statement is not a statement of fact
nor is it merely a summary or report of facts. Notice the
following statement:

This paper discusses the reasons behind the

Civil War.
This statement merely states what you are going to
discuss. The reader has no clue what argument you are
making and they will have a very difficult time figuring out
the position you are taking. Consider another poor
example of a thesis statement:

Slavery was the primary cause of the civil

war.
While this statement clearly identifies the authors
position it fails to state the authors claims. Without
clearly identified claims the author has stopped short of
making an argument and leaves the reader without a
roadmap to clearly understand the central thesis of the
paper.

What is a skeptic?
Skeptics have gotten a bad rap of late and are often confused with cynics. If
you are engaging in critical thinking then you are likely practicing skepticism.
According to the Skeptics Society, skepticism is the application of reason to
any and all ideas no sacred cows allowed. In other words, skepticism is a
method, not a position.

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Critical thinkers through history

Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948)

What made Mohandas Gandhi a critical thinker?

Philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo says that Gandhi tells us to
proceed with clear conceptual thinking and skepticism of the facts.
Therefore, according to him, we must never fail to seek knowledge
and enlightenment; never give up the virtues of common sense,
civility, justice and non-violence Gandhi was very conscious
about the fact that the cultivation of an enlarged pluralism
requires the creation of institutions and practices, where the voice
and perspective of everyone can be articulated, tested and
transformed.

Jovita Idr (1885-1946)

What made Jovita Idr a critical thinker?

Idr was instrumental in advocating for equal rights for Mexican
Americans in Texas during the first decades of the 20th century.
She worked as a journalist for the newspaper La Crnica.
According to the Texas Historical Society, Idr was vocal in
criticizing certain aspects of Hispanic-Anglo relations. [she wrote]
stories on educational and social discrimination against MexicanAmericans, deteriorating economic conditions, decreasing use of
the Spanish language, the loss of Mexican culture, and lynchings of
Hispanics.

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The Anatomy of a Thesis Statement

As stated above, your thesis statement is the roadmap to
your history paperit tells your readers where your
history paper is taking them. Your thesis statement is also
a guide for youit tells you which order to write your
claims in. Lets take a look at a well-constructed thesis
statement:

Slavery was the primary cause of the

Civil War because the Southern economy
depended on free labor to be profitable,
Southern political power depended on
slavery, and slavery was cited by the
Southern states as the reason for
seceding from the union.
My argument is that without slavery there would have
been no Civil War. My argument is followed by the word
because, which joins my argument to my claims. I follow
the word because with my three claims: (1) Southern
economy depended on slave labor, (2) Southern political
power depended on slavery, (3) Southern states cited
slavery as the chief reason for seceding from the union.
The essential sentence structure of a thesis statement then
is as follows in figure 2.
Argument
figure

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Because

Claim 1

Claim 2

Claim 3

Constructing a Great Thesis Statement

To reiterate, a thesis is an argument supported by claims
which are backed by evidence. Your thesis statement is the
roadmap to your paper. It should clearly state your
argument followed by clearly identified claims which are
backed by evidence. The sequence of the major steps to
developing and writing a great thesis statement is
different from the sequence you write a history paper in as
seen in figure 1.
A great thesis statement is the result of formulating a
focused research question then conducting research of
primary and secondary sources to answer the research
question. It is during your research where you discover
answers to your research question. From this research you
develop claims based on evidence that direct the
development of your thesis. Figure 3 below shows the
sequence of steps for developing a thesis statement.

History Research Question

History Research
Claim Development

Claim 1

Claim 2

Claim 3

Thesis Statement
figure 3

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Critical thinkers through history

Thomas Paine (1736-1809)

What made Thomas Paine a critical thinker?

Thomas Paine was one of the preeminent American thinkers
during whose writings are credited with inspiring public support in
the colonies for American independence from England. In
Common Sense, Paine laid his argument for American
independence. From the outset Paine stated, In the following
pages, I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain argument, and
common sense. Paine would use the same strategy in Age of
Reason, which challenged outdated assumptions about the
authority of the Christian church.

Marie Curie (1867-1934)

What made Marie Curie a critical thinker?

Marie Curie used the scientific methodcritical thinking
techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge,
and/or correcting and integrating previous knowledgeto make
new and profound discoveries in radioactivity. Curie went on to
win two Nobel prizes for her work. Curie observed that nothing
in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time
to understand more, so that we may fear less.

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Critical thinkers through history

Albert Einstein (1869-1948)

What made Albert Einstein a critical thinker?

The Foundation of Critical Thinkers observes that Einstein had
the basic critical thinking ability to cut problems down to size: one
of his greatest intellectual gifts, in small matters as well as great,
was to strip off the irrelevant frills from a problem. He showed no
signs of being a genius, and as an adult denied that his mind was
extraordinary: I have no particular talent. I am merely extremely
inquisitive.

Frederick Douglas (1885-1946)

Why Frederick Douglas was a critical thinker

Scholar James A. Colaiaco states that Douglas discovered the
liberal ideas of the Enlightenment that inspired the American
Revolution, ideas he later used to combat slavery reading and
critical thinking had enabled Douglas to see that slavery was not
natural, but the product of human corruption.

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Five Steps to Constructing a Great Thesis

Statement
1 Develop your research question
A good research question will focus your research and
ultimately your thesis. An easy way to lend focus to your
research question is to think in terms of narrowing the
scope of your inquiry in terms of a specific population, a
specific event, or specific geographic area.
Consider our thesis example on slavery and the civil war.
If I had not narrowed the scope of my research question it
might have looked like this:
Why did the Civil War happen?
This is a good research question if you want to write a
5,000 page book but much too broad a subject for a
history paper. Instead I narrowed the scope of my
research question which resulted in a focused research
question:
Was slavery the primary cause of the civil war?
By narrowing the focus of my research question to slavery
I brought focus to my research and claim development.

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2 Gather evidence & develop your claims

This can be the most challenging part of developing your

thesis. Good historical research and writing depends on
the author being sensitive to their own bias. To that end
you must follow the path of your research question. In
order for your research to carry weight and credibility you
need to use primary and secondary sources pertinent to
your inquiry.
Primary sources come from the time period, event, or
people which are the focus of your research. Primary
sources come in a wide variety of forms: documents,
personal diaries, photographs, audio recordings, film or
video of an event, works of art, autobiographies, and
interviews with participants in the history you are
researching are examples of primary sources
Secondary sources are journal essays or books typically
written by experts in the field your research is dealing
with. Surveying what other experts in the field have
written regarding your subject will give you greater
understanding of the competing claims made regarding
your subject.
In the case of my thesis, I found a treasure trove of
primary sources in the form of government documents
related to my research question. Chief among these
documents was the U.S. Constitution and the Declarations
of Secession of the various Southern states.

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3 Develop, write & revise your argument

It is your research and claim development which should
lead you to your argument. It could be said that through
good research practices your argument will find you
rather than you finding your argument.
In many cases your argument is a derivative of your
research question. Remember the research question I
used to lead me in my research?
Was slavery the primary cause of the civil war?
My research led me to discover that all the reasons the
Southern states seceded from the Union was directly
related to slavery. All I had to do was move the word was
from the beginning of the sentence to after the word
slavery and Voil I now have an argument.
Slavery was the primary cause of the civil war.

Socrates & the Origins of Critical Thinking

According to the Foundation for Critical Thinkers, it was 2,500 years
ago that Socrates developed the method of probing questioning that
people could not rationally justify their confident claims to
knowledge. Confused meanings, inadequate evidence, or selfcontradictory beliefs often lurked beneath smooth but largely empty
rhetoric. Socrates established the fact that one cannot depend upon
those in "authority" to have sound knowledge and insight.

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4 Insert the word because after your

argument
It can be argued that this step is one of the most crucial
steps in writing a concise and excellent thesis statement
for historical research and writing. My favorite approach
to bringing together my argument with my claims is
simply placing the word because right after my
argument:
Slavery was the primary cause of the civil war
because

By inserting because after my argument I can simply list

my claims:

Slavery was the primary cause of the Civil War

because the Southern economy depended on free
labor to be profitable, Southern political power
depended on slavery, and slavery was cited by the
Southern states as the reason for seceding from
the union.

Voil, I now have my thesis statement. My next and final

step is revision, revision, revision.

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Revise your thesis statement, and then

revise it again and again

Revision is the key to great writing and this is true of

writing a thesis statement. Once you have written your
thesis statement have other writers read your thesis
statementbeg if you have to. Having other sets of eyes
reading your thesis statement may very well result in
suggestions which will greatly improve your thesis
statement.
Keeping in mind that a thesis statement is an argument,
we need to ask ourselves if we can further refine our thesis
statement to take a firmer and clear position. Lets take a
look at my thesis statement once again:

Slavery was the primary cause of the Civil War

because the Southern economy depended on free
labor to be profitable, Southern political power
depended on slavery, and slavery was cited by the
Southern states as the reason for seceding from
the union.

That slavery was a primary cause of the Civil War

is of little disputenot many people would argue
against this statement; however, because of my
research and the resultant claims which support
my thesis, I believe there would never have been a
Civil War if there had never been slavery. So I have
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decided to revise my argument to add more punch

to my position:

Without slavery there would have been no Civil

War because the Southern economy depended on
free labor to be profitable, Southern political
power depended on slavery, and slavery was cited
by the Southern states as the reason for seceding
from the union.

By breaking down the steps which lead to a great thesis

statement you too can write a great history paper which
will not only make you look good, but more importantly,
help you develop the type of thinking skills that will
intellectually empower you to analyze the claims made by
others whether they be historians, politicians, or even
some someone peddling a questionable product on TV.

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Critical thinkers today

Sonia Sotomayor

What makes Sonia Sotomayor a critical thinker?

As an associate justice on the Supreme Court, Sotomayor has
demonstrated an ability to synthesize complex issues related to
Supreme Court rulings. In her descent of the Supreme Court
Ruling regarding Affirmative Action Sotomayor observed that
whether borne from experience or inherent psychological or
cultural differences, our gender and national origins may and will
make a difference in our judging.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

What makes Neil deGrasse Tyson a critical thinker

Like other critical thinkers such as Einstein and Newton,
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson sees curiosity as essential to being
a critical thinker: No one is dumb who is curious. The people who
don't ask questions remain clueless throughout their lives. Tyson
sees critical thinking as the antidote to ignorance: Ignorance is a
virus, once it starts spreading, it can only be cured by reason. For the
sake of humanity we must be that cure.

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Glossary of Terms
Thesis: (1) a proposition to be proved or one advanced without proof.
(2) a dissertation embodying results of original research and
especially substantiating a specific view.
Thesis Statement: The statement in an essay or position paper
which explains the authors argument or position and which informs
the reader of the order in which the author will make their argument.
Primary Source: a document or physical object which was written
or created during the time under study. These sources were present
during an experience or time period and offer an inside view of a
particular event.
Secondary Source: documents written after an event has occurred,
providing secondhand accounts of that event, person, or topic. Unlike
primary sources, which provide first-hand accounts, secondary
sources offer different perspectives, analysis, and conclusions of those
accounts.

Resources for Historical Thinking

Fischer, David Hackett. Historians Fallacies: Toward a Logic of
Historical Thought. 1st Harper torchbook ed. Harper Torchbooks. New
York: Harper & Row, 1970.

Furay, Conal. History, a Workbook of Skill Development. New York:

New Viewpoints, 1979.

Historical Thinker. Accessed May 17, 2014.

http://www.historicalthinker.com/.

Rampolla, Mary Lynn. A Pocket Guide to Writing in History. 7th ed.

Boston: Bedford/St.Martins, 2012.

The Research Paper: Developing Historical Questions |

Teachinghistory.org. Accessed May 17, 2014.
http://teachinghistory.org/teaching-materials/teaching-guides/25516.

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David W. Swan is an undergraduate and teacher

candidate at Eastern Michigan University. Through
his years of studying history, both for personal
enrichment and college studies, Swan has
developed a passion for teaching students historical
thinking skills and historical habits of mind.

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