Before you can begin to draft your argumentative essay and even before you can start to arrange your ideas, you need to revise your tentative thesis statement so it says exactly what you want it to say. After you have gathered and evaluated evidence to support your position and considered the merits of opposing ideas, you are ready to refocus your thesis and state it in more definite terms. Although a tentative thesis statement such as “College campuses should go green” is a good start, the thesis that guides your essay’s structure should be more specific. In fact, it will be most useful as a guide if its phrasing actually acknowledges opposing arguments.