A thesis is one declarative sentence, written for the ear, that the audience actually hears — and it has to assert something. Take one of these weak openings and turn the four dials. The sentence rewrites itself on the right, and four tests run on whatever you have built: is it a statement, does it assert, could a smart opponent deny it, and can you say it in one breath?
The speech you are writing
Dial 1 · Grammar
Dial 2 · What the sentence commits to
Dial 3 · Whose problem this is
Dial 4 · How many ideas are inside it
For the ear0 words
Run the denial test on every persuasive thesis. Write the sentence a smart opponent would say back to you. If no such sentence exists, you have not taken a position — you have written a topic in a costume.