From Inquiry to Academic Writing, Chapter 6, "From Formulating to Developing a Thesis"

definitive thesis

your revised and refined thesis at which you arrive later in the writing process

never do this

accept your working thesis as your final position

relevance

addressing this helps readers understand how or why your issue is (or should be) important to them

currency (not money)

addressing this helps readers understand how or why your issue is timely (i.e. it matters right now)

introductory section

an area in an essay that lays out the thesis and the context supporting the thesis (which can indeed be more than one paragraph long)

context

an important part of a thesis which established the necessary background information for the thesis along with exploring the situation that has generated the issue or problem that the thesis is addressing

length of thesis statements

can go beyond just one sentence

thesis statement

early on in the writing, this makes explicit the writer's logical stance on the issue that is the subject of the writing

thesis

encompasses all of the information writers use to support their position

modifying-what-others-have-said model

useful for building upon the claims of others to further refine or expand them

hypothesis-testing model

useful for exploring a set of evidence that may lead to a variety of possible answers

filling-the-gap model

useful for pointing out what other writers may have overlooked or ignored in discussing an issue

correcting-misinterpretations model

useful in identifying arguments that you believe have misconstrued one or more important aspects of an issue

working thesis

your first attempt at an assertion of your position