A topic can be thought of as a general area of inquiry; derived from the Greek for place (topos), "topic" designates the general subject of your essay.  For instance, your topic might be gender discrimination in educational institutions.  A thesis is more specific and delimited; it can be thought of as existing "within" your topic.

  Argumentative or persuasive writing is writing in which the writer takes a stance and offers reasons in support of it.  Crucial to any piece of argumentative writing is its thesis.  The thesis arises from the topic, or subject, on which the writing focuses, and may be defined as follows:

  A thesis is an idea, stated as an assertion, which represents a reasoned response to a question at issue and which will serve as the central idea of a unified composition.
 
When you compose a thesis statement, think about how it satisfies the following tests:

1.  Is it an idea?  Does it state, in a complete sentence, an assertion?
2.  Does it make a claim that is truly contestable and therefore engaging?
3.  Are the terms you use precise and clear?
4.  Has the thesis developed out of a process of reasoning?
5.  Is it sufficiently specific to provide a clear guiding principle for both writer and reader?

Once these questions have been satisfactorily answered, use the resulting thesis to organize your evidence and begin the actual writing.  As you do so, bear in mind the following questions:

 1.  What is my purpose in writing?  What do I want to prove?
 2.  What question(s) does my writing answer?  Is that question worth answering?
 3.  Why do I think this question is important?  Will other people think it equally important?
 4.  What are my specific reasons, my pieces of evidence?  Does each piece of evidence support the claim I make in my thesis?  Do I have a strong warrant linking each claim and its supporting data?
 5.  Where does my reasoning weaken or even stop?  Am I merely offering opinions without reasoned evidence?
 6.  How can I best persuade my reader?

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