While you're in the research phase, think of your thesis less as something set in stone and more as something changeable. It is something you are both trying to prove and trying to disprove at the same time. You are only doing it wrong if you ignore evidence that counters your thesis and/or you refuse to alter your thesis when presented with contradictory evidence.

I think /u/mckinnon42 is right, and if you feel like you may be tempted to stick to you thesis even after evidence has disproven it, you can reformulate the question. Instead of "A was important in X process", you can think of "Was A important in X process as much as B, C, etc.?"

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I also think that you should consider why you have your thesis. Is this opinion something commonplace? Is it part of the line of thought of some important author? These questions may help in reframing the central question of your work, if you find necessary.

Ask yourself questions about whatever your topic is. The sign of good research is a thesis that changes 2, 3, 6 times before it’s done.

Obviously some things are going to be consistent. If you’re talking about the American Revolution, major events and characters will appear throughout. But your argument might change.

I wrote my thesis on an event I had never even heard of, the Siege of Leningrad. So I wanted to examine the different viewpoints, of the Germans, the Russians, and the Americans. Then I realized there weren’t many non-Russian accounts. Well, how could such a disastrous event have no western coverage? So it changed from looking at the event, to understanding different perspectives, to trying to figure out why others did not acknowledge these events. It was a long journey to get to that point, but my advisor said it was one of the best papers she received that semester.

If you have any question or want to talk further, PM me, I’d be more than happy to help :)

I think this is a wonderful question. When my students try to frame their research around a thesis they've already settled on, I encourage them to instead consider that thesis as a research question they can use to guide their pre-writing, research, and drafting, until their argument ultimately emerges. Briefly, I agree with the other responses to your question. You should start your research with questions and allow your argument to emerge from your sources and the connections you're making.

I did Germany history for my undergrad (not that that makes it any good) and I’m fascinated by the holocaust. That’s what I’d like to study more than anything. Unfortunately for me, there weren’t any European/German/Jewish/holocaust historians at my university.

My professor was one of the only European historians, but her speciality is Russia. I took a few classes with her and I really liked Soviet history. With her, I had written about Russian masculinity during WWI and she thought I should do something for WWII for my thesis. She gave me copies of The Legacy of the Siege of Leningrad by L. Kirschenbaum and The 900 Days by H. Salisbury. Admittedly, I didn’t read them over the winter break so I was kind of behind.

When I started getting into the research process, I wanted to do the Russian perspective (because they were directly effected), the German perspective (because they were the perpetrator), and American (because they were allied, but not directly effected by the Siege and I could read their sources since I don’t read German or Russian).

I asked my US professor and my professor from Germany for any sources they may know about the two different perspectives. They said no. In fact, one said “I have good news- no I don’t.” “How is that good news?” “Because you get to write it first.”

So it went from exploring different perspectives to thinking about how such an event can escape American historical memory.

I’m very proud of that paper and hope to expand on it as a dissertation or publish it in some fashion.