Reading and writing fill in the blanks
A good starting place is to writing as thinking. Experienced writers don’t figure out what they want to say and then write it. They write in order to figure out what they want to say. Experienced writers develop theses in dialog with the body of the essay. An initial characterization of the problem leads to a tentative thesis. Then, drafting the body of the paper reveals thorny contradictions or critical areas of ambiguity, the writer to revisit or expand the body of evidence and then refine the thesis based on that fresh look. The revised thesis may require that body paragraphs be reordered and to fit the emerging thesis. Throughout the process, the thesis serves as an point while the author wades through the morass of facts and ideas. The writer continues to read to learn more about his or her issue and refines his or her ideas in response to what is learned. The dialogue between thesis and body continues until the author is satisfied or the due date arrives, whatever comes first.