1) Your preliminary research should include broad and general reading about your topic, e.g., articles from journals, newspapers, magazines, and book browsing (you may end up using only some of these resources in your actual project)
2) There must be a clear focal point to your research project—state what it is you want to investigate, discover, question, compare, argue, etc. You must present a well-defined idea or assertion capable of being supported by your research: this is your thesis statement.
3) Examples of thesis statements: OWL at Purdue University's Creating a Thesis Statement and LEO at St. Cloud State's Thesis Statement