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Thesis Statement Draft and Source Evaluation

In Modules 1 and 2 you chose a course project topic and narrowed your focus through the process of brainstorming and finding preliminary

sources. Each week make sure you are reading your instructor's feedback and making improvements before submitting the next Milestone. For

example, if your instructor suggested replacing any of the sources you listed in Milestone 2, or refining your narrowed topic of focus, make sure

to take that into account before submitting Milestone 3.

Now, in Module 3, you will draft a thesis statement and evaluate your sources for relevance and credibility.

▾ Step 1: Thesis Statement Draft

Make sure you have completed pages 3.9 through 3.11 in Chapter 3 of the webtext on Drafting your Thesis Statement. There, you will learn more

about how to create a concise, specific, effective, and relevant thesis statement. You will also create a draft of your thesis in the webtext, so it is

essential that you complete the webtext work before submitting this assignment. Then, copy/paste the thesis statement you drafted in the webtext

into the Milestone 3 Template for submission.

Note: Your thesis statement is a working draft; it is ok (and expected!) that as part of the research process your thesis statement will adapt and change

over the next few weeks based on your source analysis and your instructor's feedback.

✓ Step 2: In-Depth Evaluation of 1 Source

Next, make sure you have completed pages 3.12 and 3.13 in Chapter 3 on Evaluating Sources. Pick 1 of your 5 sources and conduct an in-depth

evaluation that considers five categories: relevance, authority, currency, objectivity, and verifiability. See the example of how to put this together in

the Milestone 3 Template.

▾ Step 3: Narrowing Your List of Sources

An important part of the source evaluation process is to narrow and reconsider your chosen sources. Over the next few weeks, as you refine your

thesis statement and continue reading about your topic, you may want to replace some of your sources in order to have the most effective sources

when it comes time to write your final paper in Module 7.

This week, conduct an informal evaluation of all 5 of your sources for the criteria above (you do not need to submit your evaluation of your other

sources) and choose one source to omit or replace at this stage. Explain in a few sentences why you are choosing to get rid of this source. The source

you omit should not be the one you evaluated in depth in Step 2.

▾ Step 4: Reflection

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