The Senior Thesis Handbook
Louisiana Scholars College at Northwestern State University.
This handbook contains information and advice on procedures and regulations governing the preparation, submission, and evaluation of senior theses in the Louisiana Scholars' College. Students should find it to be a helpful resource as they negotiate the exciting challenges of writing a senior thesis.
Overview
Beginning with work at the end of the junior year and continuing through the senior year, the thesis is the culmination of a students work in one of the Colleges interdisciplinary concentrations or one of the departmental majors at the University. Though theses vary in length and scope, each is a substantial work of scholarship, criticism, scientific research, or artistic creation. The thesis should demonstrate familiarity with existing work in the given field, together with the ability to define a significant topic or problem, carry out independent scholarly research, analyze evidence, and sustain a complex argument. The thesis will become part of the collection of the University library as well as the Colleges collection in Morrison Hall. More importantly, the thesis experience--the final copy and the process of creating it--will almost certainly count as the most memorable part of each students education. Finishing a thesis will demonstrate the students membership in the community of educated people.
Students will begin to define a topic, selecting a thesis supervisor from the College faculty before pre-registering for the spring semester of the junior year. The formal proposal will be due by midterm, and the revised proposal, if required, will be due by the end of the junior year. Reading and research should be completed during the fall semester of the senior year (481T, 3 credits). The student together with the advisor should select a second reader, subject to the approval of the Director, by mid September of the senior year. The writing of the thesis should begin in the fall, revisions continuing throughout the spring semester with input from both the advisor and second reader. A public presentation occurs in April, and the student will submit the final revision, or archival copy, at the end of that month. The College publishes a thesis calendar at the start of each academic year. It is the students responsibility, in consultation with the thesis advisor, to understand the process defined in this handbook and specifically to develop and adhere to an appropriate series of deadlines for completing research and submitting preliminary drafts to both readers, preparing an examination copy, and scheduling a presentation. Submitting the archival copy is the final obligation of the second semester of thesis work (482T, 3 credits).
Finding a topic, selecting an advisor and submitting a thesis proposal
It is important to select an area of study and a topic worthy of a senior thesis at the earliest possible date.
There are good reasons for considering topics encountered in junior level courses and especially for continuing work on a topic already studied and written about in a 3000-level researched essay or longer essay for an upper division major course.
For inspiration, students should look at theses from previous years, examining the Bulletin of excerpts and abstracts from the College's first one hundred theses, to see the diversity of topics
students have undertaken. Then as a student begins to narrow in on a topic, and a specific guiding purpose or thesis, the student should take a careful look at all the theses in the area of interest. (The Bulletin also indexes the early theses by Concentration.) The College's copy of each thesis is displayed, in alphabetical order, by author, in the Faculty Lounge. Watson Library also holds archival and microfilm copies in the Cammie Henry Research Center.
Finding an advisor
Theses may be co-directed by faculty in other University departments, but primary responsibility for supervising and evaluating the thesis must rest with a member of the College faculty.
Many University majors will also require a thesis advisor from their departments. In such cases, the student should approach a potential advisor having given serious thought to possible topics or research questions. The senior thesis experience demands self-discipline, so the student must demonstrate motivation and the ability to work independently. In general, thesis advisors in the College work with no more than three students, so students should contact their desired advisor as early as possible.
Students should consider the interests of faculty members in choosing an advisor. Although the College will make every attempt to accommodate students with unusual interests, there is no guarantee that a faculty member with the appropriate expertise will be available to direct a thesis outside the disciplines represented at NSU.
It is important to note again, however, that the thesis is the creation and realization of the student, not the advisor, and both the process of writing it and the final archival product represent the students education and discipline.
Filing forms for administrative approval
1. A Thesis Declaration form, signed by the thesis advisor, must be filed with the College prior to pre-registration for the spring semester of the junior year. The thesis project formally begins with a preliminary statement of topic approved by a member of the Scholars' College faculty, who agrees to serve as advisor.
2. Two copies of a Formal Thesis Proposal, of 3-5 pages plus a bibliography, are to be submitted to the thesis advisor and the Concentration faculty by mid-term of the spring semester of the junior year. Acting as a committee of the whole, the Concentration faculty approves or rejects each thesis proposal, recommending modifications and promptly communicating its decision to the thesis supervisor and the Director of the College.
3. If required, a revised proposal must be submitted to the thesis advisor by the end of the junior year, on a date to be announced by the Director of the College. A permanent record in the form of a video tape, an audio tape, slide portfolio, or other appropriate medium must be provided by students offering exhibitions and performances. This proposal should demonstrate an acquaintance with existing scholarship, while clearly defining the topic and addressing methodology.
These are the kinds of questions faculty members will ask when they review the proposal:
1. Is the proposal adequately presented in two or three pages?
Well written?
Sufficiently detailed?
Adequately documented?
2. Is the basic idea reasonable for an honors thesis in one of the College's Concentrations or departmental majors?
3. Is the topic narrowly defined? The problem, for most students, is trying to take on too much. In general, the essay component of a thesis should be between 35 and 60 pages.
4. Are there any design flaws that need to be corrected?
5. Is the project grounded in the writer's academic work in the Concentration or major--that is, has the writer taken courses or completed projects which would provide a foundation for the advanced work of an honors thesis?
6. Is the project well-grounded in current research? Does the proposal indicate that the writer knows about important local and distant resources (library materials, www sites, faculty and staff with relevant expertise)? Has the writer looked at primary sources or the most recent scholarly literature?
7. Does the student have a clear sense of what must be done to accomplish the project?
8. Have potential logistical problems (equipment, laboratory or performance space, interlibrary loan requests, travel to special collections or facilities off-campus, finances, timing, etc.) been addressed? Does the student have sufficient funding to support this project?
9. Have requirements specific to a discipline or method of research been considered? For instance, has a student proposing social science research based on surveying noted that the survey will have to meet Human Subjects Committee approval?
10. Is the project feasible for this student in the time allotted?
11. Does the formal proposal also include a preliminary bibliography of at least six to ten references?
Members of the Concentration or major committee will read the proposal and accept it as it stands, provisionally accept it but require revision, or find it unacceptable.
Special requirements
Students who propose to study human subjects, through surveys, interviews, or formal observation or experimentation, must submit a proposal to the University's Human Subjects Committee. Students should understand that this Committee will be rigorous in checking to see that the study of human subjects is carefully planned, informed by the latest scholarship, and sensitive to the privacy and well-being of those studied. For specific forms, please contact the Office of Institutional Research.
For those in the Fine and Performing Arts, the senior thesis may take the form of an artistic exhibition or performance. A 5 to 10 page commentary or analysis demonstrating the student's scholarly abilities must accompany such exhibitions or performances, and a permanent record in the form of a video tape, audio tape, slide portfolio, or other appropriate medium must be provided by the student.
Heart of the matter
Do not expect the advisor to do the research or writing.
Do not expect the advisor to be responsible for deadlines.
Do show up for scheduled meetings.
Do provide polished writing by agreed upon dates.
Do respond quickly to advice and comments from the advisor.
Do involve the second reader from the earliest possible moment.
Should the thesis topic require cooperation from a faculty member of the university at large, students should make an appointment and then forward a copy of the thesis proposal. In writing letters or e-mail to faculty at other institutions, offer an efficient presentation of the topic and thesis and note what research has already been done.
A sample pattern
Chapter 1. Introduction: The introduction should include a clear statement of the subject under investigation, questions to be answered by the thesis, definitions of important terms, a rationale for the study and the structure of the thesis, and a brief outline of the development of the thesis.
Chapter 2. Background: This should include a brief presentation of previous work on the topic and a review of the literature and the historical background of the topic.
Chapter 3. Materials and Methods: This should include a detailed description of materials and methods--theoretical approach, data collection and analysis, performance principles, etc.
Chapter 4. Presentation of Findings or Results: This section of the thesis must provide a careful analysis of results with convincing evidence to support the main questions or hypotheses established in Chapter 1. Charts, tables, figures or other graphic aids may be used in the presentation of results.
Chapter 5. Discussion and Conclusions.
The examination copy
Students must submit complete drafts for review and comments by the advisor and second reader by the examination deadline. The examination copy need not conform to all formatting regulations, but it should be complete. If, for some reason, an extension of the deadline is necessary, the student and advisors must submit a written request to the Director, explaining the reason for the delay and offering a firm revised schedule for the submission of the exam copy. Completed work must be submitted with the request for the extension.
The oral defense
In the defense, the student should summarize rather than read the work done for the thesis. During the course of the presentation, the student may be asked not only to defend the arguments of the thesis, but also to explore the relationship between the thesis and other aspects of his or her course of study. The defense is open to all members of the university community and must be scheduled to permit attendance by the advisor, the second reader and the Director of the College. In the Fine and Performing Arts a performance or exhibit may be part of the thesis project in addition to the formal defense. Such events should be scheduled so that the complete project can be evaluated by the entire committee prior to the submission of final grades.
The student should meet with the thesis advisor to plan the defense, which should be no more than 50 minutes long. The defense will begin with a concise presentation of the project (no more than 25 minutes), during which the student should explain how the project developed from the initial question through its completion. The presentation should include an explanation of the research methods used, an analysis of the results of the study, a discussion of the students work within the larger context of related scholarship, an assessment of the limitations of the present study, and a consideration of possible areas for future study. Questioning should begin with the thesis advisor and the second reader. Then, questions are taken from all others in attendance.
Setting a date and time.
Thesis presentations are usually scheduled for Morrison Hall at a time when the Director, the thesis advisor, and the second reader are available. To schedule the defense, the student should contact the College secretary in March for spring presentations or in early November for fall presentations and indicate if any special facilities are needed.
Publicity
Seniors have imaginatively publicized their presentations with posters in the College and across campus. Some presentations have even been publicized by the Universitys News Bureau. All presentations are open to the public.
Arranging for equipment
Students requiring audiovisual equipment for their presentations should make arrangements with the Director or with their advisors.
Format matters: the archival copies
The College has stringent guidelines about form and format for the archival copy. Observe these meticulously.
1. Theses must be printed on standard 8 1/2" x 11" white paper of high quality, i.e., at least 50% cotton content. Acid free paper is required. Punched or erasable paper is not acceptable.
2. Printing should be of "letter quality."
3. Students using a word processor compatible with the Colleges main computer lab, or with our administrative Macintoshes, may bring their own cotton-bond paper and print out three official copies (for the library, the College, and the advisor). Students must arrange additional copies through private photocopying firms--the Colleges photocopy machine may not be used for this purpose.
4. The Times New Roman (11 or 12 point) and Courier New (10 or 11 point) are acceptable; both are available in the Colleges computer lab.
5. Greek symbols and mathematical characters are available in most word processors. Although typesetting is preferable, characters unavailable on standard printers may be inserted neatly with black, permanent ink.
6. Margins must be as follows: left, one and one-half inches; right, top and bottom, one inch.
7. Students must not, under any circumstances, justify right margins.
8. Chapter titles (or other major internal divisions) should begin two inches from the top of the page. Minor divisions may be set off from the text in boldface type, or by centering, numbering or lettering. Such divisions should be parallel and consistent between sections and may be included in the Table of Contents.
9. Students should avoid auto-hyphenation programs. When it is necessary to hyphenate, students should check the conventions in the handbook to make certain that the reader will not be confused or inconvenienced.
10. "Block" or "extracted" quotations, notes, and references should be single-spaced. The rest of the thesis should be double-spaced.
11. Students must adhere strictly to the conventions of their discipline in all matters of spacing indention, quotation, punctuation, chapter headings, and so on. Those conventions are outlined in some detail in Frederick Crews, The Random House Handbook.
12. Figures (graphs, photographs, and illustrations) and tables (charts) must be clear, suitable for photocopying, and accompanied by an appropriate explanatory legend. The title should contain sufficient explanatory material that the figure or table may be interpreted without reference to the text. Figures and tables should always appear after the first reference in the text. They may be inserted in the text if they are oriented vertically and occupy less than one-half a page. Otherwise they should occupy the next page. Figures and tables should each be numbered sequentially, i.e., Fig. 1, Fig. 2, etc., Table 1, Table 2, etc. A list of Figures and a list of Tables should follow, and be included in, the Table of Contents.
13. Mathematical or chemical equations should be set off from the text in the same manner as a block quote. Equations that will be referred to again in the text should be numbered or lettered in a consistent style, and the label placed in parentheses or brackets and right justified. Equation editors and Greek alphabet fonts are available in most word processors; in extreme cases equations may be hand lettered in black ink.
14. Foreign language phrases, including genus and species names, should be italicized in the same font as the text. A species name should be spelled out completely, with the genus capitalized and the specific name in lower case, the first time it appears and anytime it begins a sentence. Subsequent occurrences should abbreviate the genus, e.g., E. coli.
15. The results of statistical tests should include: reference to the test, the test statistic itself, degrees of freedom, significance level and whether the result was or was not significant (i.e., c2 = 12.5 > c2a = 0.05 = 11.07, df = 5, p < 0.05).
16. Numerical results, whether from computer simulations, measurements, calculations from data , or statistical tests should be reported with no more digits than are justified by the precision of the measurements. Most students err by reporting too many digits.
17. Theses are to be assembled as follows (bracketed items may be optional):
Title Page
[copyright and notice of permission to use copyrighted material]
Abstract: no more than 200 words [some disciplines may dictate 100 words]
[Acknowledgments]
[Foreword or Preface]
[Table of Contents]
[List of Tables, Figures, and Illustrations]
Main Text of Thesis
[Appendices]
[Substantive and Bibliographic Notes]
List of Works Cited
18. The title page, though it should be regarded as the first page of the thesis, is unnumbered. Subsequent prefatory material (e.g., a foreword or list of illustrations) is numbered with lower-case Roman numerals, starting with "ii," centered one-half inch from the bottom of the page.
19. The main body of the text should be numbered with Arabic numerals, either in the upper right corner of each page and one inch from the right edge, or at bottom center, one-half inch from the end of the page. All pages except the first, including those containing appendices and notes, should be numbered consecutively. Each chapter should begin on a new page. A page break should be inserted when a page would otherwise end with the first line of a new paragraph. Similarly, if the next page would begin with the last line of the previous paragraph a page break should be inserted before the last line on the preceding page so that the new pages begin and end with at least two lines of text.
20. The abstract should begin with a definitive statement of the problem or project. Its purpose, scope, and limit should be clearly delineated. Then, as concisely as possible, describe the research methods and design, major findings, including the significance of the work, if appropriate, and conclusions. In general, the abstract should be no longer than one page.
A student whose thesis involves "creative" work (original, fine art, music, writing, theatre, or film production, dance, etc.) should describe process and production, indicating the forms of documentation on file as "thesis" material. All require a scholarly research component.
Review the abstract for organization, content, grammar, and spelling before submission.
21. The "Bibliography" or "References" section should be arranged following the format given in an approved style manual. Entries should be single-spaced with double-spacing between entries. All books, articles, and other material used in preparation of the summary should be listed. Footnote form in a bibliography is not acceptable. Such abbreviations as op. cit., loc. cit., and ibid. will not be approved in bibliographical entries.
If a specific annotative need is not addressed by the style guide in use, students may wish to consult one of the publications listed below, or to observe the practices of a particular scholarly journal in their field. In all such cases, the student should follow closely the advice of the thesis advisor.
22. It may be desirable to place certain material that does not actually form a part of the text, such as questionnaires, extensive tables of data, or detailed descriptions of apparatus and test forms, in appendices. Appendices should be numbered and assembled in the order in which they are referred to in the text. Appendices precede the bibliography, are paginated sequentially as part of the text, and must appear in the Table of Contents. If the thesis involves human subjects, the approval form from the Human Subjects Committee must be placed at the end of the thesis as an appendix.
23. The original copy, placed unbound in a manila folder, and two additional copies in Velo bindings with black vinyl covers are to be submitted to the College by the stipulated deadline. The unbound original will be delivered by the College to Watson Library for microfilming and cataloging in the Cammie Henry Archives. One of the bound copies becomes part of the Colleges collection, and the other is for the thesis advisor. It is considered common courtesy to provide at least an unbound copy for the second reader.
Please make arrangements to have the thesis copied and bound well before the deadline for archival copies. Local copy shops do not ordinarily stock sufficient quantities of cotton-bond paper and Velo bindings--check to see if special orders are necessary. One must also budget carefully for the expense of printing, photocopying, and binding copies of the thesis.
Style guides
General:
Chicago Editorial Staff. Chicago Manual of Style, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Strunk, William Jr. and E. B. White. The Elements of Style, New York: MacMillan Publishing Company, Inc.
Turabian, Kate, L. A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
For Individual Disciplines:
Biology
Style Manual Committee. Council of Biology Editors Style Manual: A Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers in the Biological Sciences, Bethesda.
McMillan, Victoria. Writing Papers in the Biological Sciences, New York: St. Martins Press.
Chemistry
Dodd, Janet S.,editor. The ACS Style Guide: A Manual for Authors and Editors, Washington D.C. American Chemical Society.
American Chemical Society. Handbook for Authors of Papers in American Chemical Society Publications. Washington: American Chemical Society.
Humanities
Gilbaldi, Joseph, and Walter S. Achtert. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, New York: Modern Language Association of America.
Mathematics
American Mathematical Society. A Manual for Authors of Mathematical Papers, Providence: American Mathematical Society.
Music
Helm, Eugene and Albert T. Luper. Words and Music: Form and Procedure in Theses, Dissertations, Research Papers, Book Reports, Programs, and Theses in Composition. Hackensack, N.J: Joseph Boonin.
Physics
American Institute of Physics, Publication Board. Style Manual for Guidance in the Preparation of Papers, New York: American Institute of Physics.
Copyright
Use the standard form for copyright notice:
c. 1999 by First name, last name. All rights reserved.
Officially registering a copyright is not necessary unless the work produced is original work that may be used without respect to authorship. In that case, one may wish to register the thesis with the federal Copyright Office, using appropriate forms providing "best" copies, and paying the required fees ($20 in 1998). Registration is not required to establish copyright, which exists from the moment the archival copy of the thesis is submitted to the College. For further detail on the intricacies of copyright law, consult the most recent edition of the Chicago Manual of Style.
Evaluation guidelines (grading for 481T and 482T, degree recommendations)
Though students are encouraged to consult with other appropriate members of the faculty throughout the writing of the thesis, the thesis supervisor, who alone assigns the student's grade, is principally responsible for guiding the project.
A grade of "IP" (Incomplete/Passing) or "F" is assigned for the first semester's work (481T) on the project. Following submission of the thesis in the spring semester, the "IP" grade is changed, and the grade for the second semester (482T) is assigned, to reflect the thesis supervisor's evaluation of the completed project.
Written evaluations of the thesis and thesis examination, together with a degree recommendation are submitted by the thesis supervisor and the second reader to the faculty of the College. Where the thesis committee cannot reach accord on a single degree recommendation, and where the dispute is plainly attributable to differing assessments of the thesis, the Director of the College appoints a third reader, who reports his or her judgment of the thesis to the faculty. Functioning as a committee of the whole, the faculty of the College reviews the record of each degree candidate and recommends to the Director of the College that certain students be awarded degrees "with distinction" or "with high distinction." Such recommendations take into consideration the student's entire undergraduate career, with the thesis understood to be one significant element of that experience.