SENIOR THESIS GUIDELINES FOR STUDENTS

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

The senior thesis is a year-long project and a very important learning experience, one that demands serious commitment on your part.  Doing a senior thesis is not an entitlement but a privilege.  Whether or not a faculty member will agree to work with you will depend on yourability, commitment, preparation, and appropriate match between advisor/advisee.  The thesis is necessarily a unique process for each student and her/his advisor, and it must be customized, often by trial-and-error during the process itself.   The following are for the most part only suggestions.   The most important checkpoints are marked with asterisks **in bold.

Spring, Junior Year —

 1. **Before April registration, all junior majors will receive from the Chair information about the senior thesis, specifying in particular the criteria for participation: GPA of 3.5 or higher and an A or A- on the paper, or in the independent study, leading to the senior thesis, or the permission of the faculty mentor.

2. **In April students talk with faculty and the department chair to identify a thesis advisor.

3. Students/advisors begin to focus topic.

4. **Students who have not already written a major A or A- paper in a 300 level seminar on the chosen topic for the senior thesis will need to register in April either for an appropriate 300 level seminar or for an independent study (PH371) to be taken in the Fall.

5. **Students will also need to register to take LI 371 in the Fall if they have not already taken LI 371 or 372.

6. May:  students will reconfirm with faculty, discuss any work to be done over the summer, and be advised  to order books that they will need at the start of the fall semester so time isn’t wasted in the fall.

Fall, Senior Year--

1. First week of classes: students reconfirm with faculty: during  the drop/add period, a student must reconfirm his or her commitment to a thesis and meet at the end of the first week to work out the schedule for meetings and readings (including a rough written schedule); any remaining books are ordered.

2.  **Meetings to explore the subject with the aim of focusing a topic by Thanksgiving.

3. **In early November students register for PH or RE 375 for spring (a student can drop this during drop/add week in January if later s/he decides against doing a thesis).

4. Literature search on thesis topic during October/November in the context of taking LI 371, if not previously taken.

5. End of October: students present brief descriptions of their topic to the department for feedback and guidance.

6. November 15: first draft of thesis proposal due to advisor. The proposal must sketch out the following:

            i) What the philosophical problem, issue, or theme is that the student will explore.

            ii) Why this problem, issue, or theme is important and what about the student’s work will add to our understanding of this problem, issue, or theme.

           iii) How the student will explore this problem, issue, or theme (introduction to methodology and research plan)

           iv) What the form of the final project will be.

7. Monday before Thanksgiving: revised proposal due to advisor; revision process continues.

8. **December 1: final thesis proposal (including bibliography) due to advisor and chair; chair distributes proposals to all faculty.

9. **December 1-10: department meeting to discuss, approve/reject, and provide feedback on thesis proposals; discuss if second readers will be employed and if so, arrange for them.

10. After approval of proposal, students will meet with their advisors to hear the faculty’s suggestions and to map out the work to be done during January break

 January--students work on theses and enjoy it immensely.

 
Spring, Senior Year--

 1. First week of classes: students meet with faculty to discuss work done in January and to plan the writing schedule; at his point the faculty member and/or student may decide ,before the end of the drop/add period, that the thesis should not be pursued.

2. Second week: develop a written schedule of due dates for drafts, revisions, and final drafts of chapters; perhaps a revised proposal topic or even a draft of the introduction to the thesis is due.

3. **By the third week, the chair confers informally with advisors about the progress and prospect of the thesis.

4.  **Weekly (perhaps bi-weekly) meetings to discuss drafts and revisions of chapters.

5.  Discussion of architectonic of the thesis, transitions between chapters, thesis statement, introduction, conclusion, and scholarly form.

6. Monday before spring vacation--draft of substantial chunk of the thesis, including introduction and thesis statement, is due to the advisor; faculty return draft to student before vacation and discuss the work that will be done during vacation.

7. **Second Monday after vacation: complete draft due to advisor; advisor gives progress report to the chair; if a complete draft has not been turned in at this time, the advisor and chair discuss how to proceed, such as sending an unsatisfactory work notice to the student, the chair talking with the student, etc.

8. **Second Friday after vacation: thesis students, advisors, and the chair (and any other interested faculty) meet for students to present a progress report to each other about their theses; each student distributes a description of the thesis and its thesis (two page maximum) to each student, advisor, and the chair; a good time is had by all.

9. Within a week after the progress reports, the chair confers informally with advisors about each student’s progress and prospect, including any possible Periclean nomination; chair reminds advisors of Periclean deadline; advisors alert possible nominees about the deadline and plan a realistic schedule for meeting it.

10. **Chair advertises and invites departmental faculty, majors, and minors to thesis presentations.

11. Advisors discuss with students how they will do their thesis presentations.

12. **First Monday in May is the absolute deadline for a final version of the thesis to be due to the advisor for final review (advisors may set an earlier deadline).

13. **First Week in May: in the context of Academic Festival, students will give an approximately 45 minute presentation on their thesis research to faculty and students. The presentation can take the form of either reading selected sections of the thesis or of presenting a synopsis of the main points and arguments. The presentation will be followed by discussion during which students will be expected to reply to questions and objections. Though not a defense in the strict sense that the grade of the thesis will depend on it, the presentation is considered an indispensable part of the senior thesis experience.

 **No changes (in form or content) may be made to the thesis after the presentation.

Draft approved 15 May 2000.

Substantially revised in December 2006 based on the departmental discussion on December 1 2006.