Writing an Honors Thesis

If you are considering writing an honors thesis that I will direct, there are some important details to keep in mind.  Not only must you follow all the requirements and specifications for the production of the manuscript as spelled out in the Honors in the Major Handbook (available online at http://www.honors.ucf.edu), but you must also keep in mind the process in which you will be involved.  There are deadlines, intense reading, committee member readers, editing, rewriting, and re-editing to be taken into account.  Writing an honors thesis requires a significant time commitment from you and from your committee.

Preliminary Proposal and Application to BHC

Generally speaking, here is what you need to do once you are sure that you meet the minimum requirements for acceptance into the HIM program.  Decide the topic on which you wish to write (at least generally – that is, do you want to write about ethics, cognitive sciences, political theory, epistemology, metaphysics, the history of philosophy, etc.?  I am willing to be on your committee or direct your thesis if you intend to write on the history of philosophy, American philosophy, ethics, social or political philosophy).  Second, determine which faculty member(s) are also interested in, teach, or do research (preferably at least two of these three) in the area in which you are interested.  Third, ask a faculty member whether he or she is interested in directing your thesis.  Remember, too, that the director of your thesis must be a tenured or tenure-earning member of the faculty.  Fourth, speak to the person who has agreed to be your director about forming the committee for your thesis.

The committee for your thesis must be composed of at least three faculty members (including the thesis director).  One of those members must be from OUTSIDE the major department.  So, for example, if you are writing an honors thesis on environmental ethics and you are a philosophy major, you need to have at least one committee member from a department outside the Department of Philosophy.  It is up to you and your thesis director whether that outside member will be from biology, anthropology, sociology, or whatever discipline is relevant.

The fifth element in the preliminary process for writing a thesis is to write a preliminary proposal.  This is done in consultation with your thesis director.  This proposal is essentially a statement of the research you intend to that will result in writing your thesis.  It is very short, very general, and very important.

Directed Readings

Once the preliminary proposal is written and BHC has approved you for acceptance into the program, you register for Honors Directed Reading (Step 6).  This is a 3 hour directed reading that you take (preferably) ONLY ONCE.  It is possible to take the directed reading twice (for example, when you have found yourself in a position in which it is impossible, due to the sheer volume of the research you are doing, to finish all the research in one term).  Even though it is possible to take it twice, your best bet (to stay on track for graduation) is to finish the directed reading in one term.

What do you do once you register for Honors Directed Reading?  For me and for the people who have written their honors theses under my direction, what you do is (generally) the following. (Remember that the goal of the directed reading is at least to write the proposal for the thesis (but it actually consists of much more than this).) The content of the final proposal is written in consultation with your thesis advisor and other members of your committee during the semester in which you take Honors Directed Reading.  Remember, it is your thesis, not your thesis advisor’s thesis.  So YOU need to write the proposal, and the thesis director/advisor will of course help you to edit the document for clarity and accuracy.  Also remember that it is not necessary that you have mapped out every possible detail of the thesis that you will ultimately write when you are writing the proposal.  What you will find is that over the course of doing research for the thesis, a variety of potential changes may take place – including a shift in emphasis or a case in which you change your mind about the conclusion you think you will reach.

At the beginning of the directed reading, you already have your topic (from your preliminary proposal that goes with the admissions documents to BHC), and what you have now to do is to expand on it.  How do you do that?

For the most part, what you do during the directed readings semester is produce rough draft chapters of your thesis.  These chapters may, in fact, be very rough, but they are indispensable for being able to finish in a timely manner in the second term, the one in which you actually write the thesis.  Ultimately, at the end of the directed readings term, you will have written a rough outline of the argument that will appear in your final thesis, drafts of one or more chapters, you will have read major primary and some secondary sources relevant to your thesis, you will write the proposal (usually 4-7 pages, plus works cited) that is approved by the members of your committee, and you will be ready to begin, in the next semester, to write the semi-final versions of the chapters of your thesis.

Honors Thesis (The schedule below assumes spring term completion; amendments to the schedule make it work just as well for fall or summer):

In the second semester, you are now in a position to begin to polish the work you did in the directed readings term.  This “polishing” is not something you do simply between yourself and your thesis director.  Now, the other members of the committee are very central to the process.

You and your thesis director will set a schedule for you to finish your chapters for the thesis.  Assume that you have already planned that your thesis will have three major chapters (plus the introduction, conclusion, and works cited).  A sample schedule appears below:

• Third week in January:  Submit chapter one to thesis director.  Continue work on chapter 2.
• Fourth week in January: Thesis director returns the chapter (1) to you with comments, corrections, and suggestions
• First week in February: Re-submit chapter one to thesis director, who will either a) return it to you for further work, or b) forward the chapter on to other members of the committee for their comments, suggestions, and corrections.
• Second week in February: Submit chapter two to thesis director.  Committee members return chapter one to you with their corrections, suggestions, and comments.
• Third week in February: Thesis director returns the chapter (2) to you with comments, corrections, and suggestions.
• Fourth week in February: Re-submit chapter two to thesis director, who will either a) return it to you for further work, or b) forward the chapter on to other members of the committee for their comments, suggestions, and corrections.
• First week in March: Re-edit chapter one. Submit chapter three to thesis director. Committee members return chapter two to you with their comments.
• Second week in March: Thesis director returns chapter three to you with comments, corrections, and suggestions.
• Third week in March: Re-submit chapter three and submit introduction, conclusion, and works cited.  Thesis director either a) returns it (chapter three) to you for further work, or b) forwards the chapter on to other members of the committee for their comments, suggestions, and corrections.  You and your thesis director will work with members of the committee to set up a thesis defense date and time and make a reservation for a room on campus in which the defense will take place.  See the HIM Handbook for thesis defense announcement requirements.
• Fourth week in March: Submit all three chapters as one document with as many of the corrections made as possible that you have received from the thesis director and members of the committee.  Submit this document to the thesis director, who will send this version to all the members of the committee.  Fourth week in March: Submit final versions of introduction and conclusion and works cited to thesis director, who will send it on to other members of the committee.
• First two weeks in April: Thesis Defense.*  Make sure that you create the approval pages and print them on the appropriate paper.  All copies of the approval pages MUST be signed in black ink.  Generally speaking, upon satisfactory oral defense of the thesis, members of the committee will sign the forms with the understanding that you will make all the necessary changes and corrections in the final version.  Your thesis director will work with you on this.
• Remainder of April:  Final corrections, formatting, and submission of the completed thesis. (See HIM Handbook for specific due dates and documentation.)

What this schedule and list of (some of) the processes involved in writing a thesis should do is give you some idea of the work involved and the time commitment that you and your thesis director make to the project.  Some people work faster than this and some a bit slower.  The point is that you have to have everything ready in a semi-final version at least two weeks before the thesis defense.  And reaching that “semi-final” version plateau involves writing, editing, re-writing, and re-editing.  And then the “final” version is the result of any additional writing, editing, and re-writing that you will do between the date of the defense and the day on which the final manuscript is submitted (see the HIM Handbook).

It is not the case that an honors thesis is like a paper that you write for most classes – in which you write the paper once, and what you “get” is what you “get” as far as a grade is concerned, and that’s it.  Think of an honors thesis as like writing a master’s thesis (because it is like that).  It requires that you demonstrate mastery of primary sources and major texts relevant to your topic, that you have adequate familiarity with secondary sources and texts relevant to the topic, that you have successfully defended a particular position and created good arguments in favor of that position, and that you have written with clarity and care. 

*Thesis Defense.  The format of the thesis defense is, generally, the following:

• First 10-20 minutes:  an overview of your thesis and a clear statement of the contents of your argument.  You may prepare some kind of visual handouts if you wish to do so to distribute to the committee and the audience members who attend your defense.  If you know in advance that you will create a visual presentation of some kind (e.g., PowerPoint), provisions can be made for the appropriate equipment to be available.
• Next 10-30 minutes: Committee members ask questions regarding any element(s) or part(s) of your honors thesis.  Questions range from asking you how you chose your topic to the implications and importance of your research, and from the reason you chose to use a particular reference rather than some other to a request that you summarize the argument of the writer of one of the secondary sources you used in writing your thesis. Comments may involve informing you of structural or content errors and suggestions on how to fix them.
• Next 5-10 minutes:  Committee members discuss the merits of your work and whether they will approve the thesis.  You will be informed of the results of the committee’s deliberations immediately after the committee has decided. 

A few days prior to your thesis defense, you and your thesis advisor/director may have a kind of “trial run” of the thesis defense process and engage in a sample series of questions relevant to your thesis.  This may also include attempting to pinpoint problematic elements of the contents of your thesis that you may be required to defend or explain during the actual defense.

.