how to make a senior thesis

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The senior thesis is typically the most challenging writing project undertaken by undergraduate students. The writing guides below aim to introduce students both to the specific methods and conventions of writing original research in their area of concentration and to effective writing process.

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A Sophomore or Junior’s Guide to the Senior Thesis

Written by Christine Rose

A senior thesis can offer an amazing opportunity to dive deeply into a subject that intrigues you. It can also be an incredible, perhaps daunting, amount of work. So below, to add some clarity and hopefully make this seem less daunting, we’ll explore 

what exactly a senior thesis is

how to decide whether to write one

how to choose your subject matter

how to find an effective advisor

a time management checklist

an example to illustrate how you can work toward your research question

a sample timeline

Sound good? Good. So …

What is a Senior Thesis?

A senior thesis is a chance to investigate a topic, author, literary or artistic style, historical event, policy problem, philosophical or theoretical question, or psychological-sociological issue. It is a substantial piece of original research and writing that you’ll need to start contemplating during the first semester of your junior year (or earlier). Want to see a sample timeline? Click here.

The truth is, when it comes right down to it, senior theses don’t have a lot in common. Once you factor in what discipline you are writing in, such as the humanities (e.g., philosophy, literature, art history, classics), social sciences (e.g., anthropology, sociology, psychology, politics, economics, history, geography, linguistics), or natural sciences (e.g., physics, math, chemistry, biology), they don’t tend to look alike. A senior thesis in psychology, for example, is often a year-long research project—perhaps in conjunction with one of your faculty advisor’s labs—where you might design and conduct your own study utilizing human subjects. Or maybe monkeys. 

A senior thesis in literature, on the other hand, will likely involve studying a movement, trope, author, or theme, and your sources will involve a combination of fiction, historical context, literary criticism, and literary theory. At many schools, a thesis ranges from 80 to 125 pages. At other universities, as few as 25 pages might fill the requirement. Regardless of department, topic, and length, the senior thesis is: 

Likely the most daunting academic project you’ve taken on thus far

A major commitment of time, brainpower, and energy

A stepping stone to graduate-level research

A marathon, not a sprint

A precious opportunity to work closely with a professor

A rewarding endeavor for those with a genuine interest in research and analysis 

A living nightmare for procrastinators and people who don’t enjoy wrestling with the same concept for an extended period of time

When Should I Start Thinking About It?

Now! If you are reading this your first or second year of college, outstanding! If it’s your junior year, great! If you’re already a senior, it’s never too early to begin thinking about graduate school! 

If you haven’t already, here is some invaluable advice:

Get to Know Your Professors!!!

This advice holds for all students, whether or not they write a senior thesis. How?

Take a seminar that limits the number of students so you have more time with them in intimate, discussion-based scenarios.

Go to office hours. Professors love it when students show up to ask questions or talk further about a topic that came up in class. It’s also a good opportunity to realize that they are human.

Investigate the possibility of a research assistantship (RAship).

Attend campus lectures sponsored by your department on topics pertinent to your major. Professors will be there, and there is often a chance afterward to socialize informally (if you’re lucky, with free snacks). 

Good Reasons to Write A Senior Thesis

Deciding to write a senior thesis is a personal choice (unless you attend one of the few schools that require it of all graduates, such as Bates, Haverford, Princeton, Reed, and Scripps). It’s also a significant time commitment! If you are trying to determine if this experience is right for you, read through the following descriptions to see if they resonate. If so, you might enjoy writing a senior thesis.

You love digging deep! The thought of knowing everything that has been published about whether woodpeckers get headaches, mosquitoes like cheese, or if “Netflix and chill” qualifies as a modern courtship ritual excites you.

You like the idea of engaging in detailed scholarly conversations by analyzing, dissecting, and critiquing really, really, shockingly specific topics, such as William Randolph Hearst and the power of the press (history); the Latinx vote, immigration, and identity in political campaigns (politics); cisnormativity in patient-provider interactions (gender studies); the effects of low-dose radiation on zebrafish (biology); iterations of critical race theory in the 21st-century American popular imagination (African-American studies); random matrix theory over finite fields (mathematics); conversion narratives in the wake of 9/11 (religion); or Zulu traditions in pregnancy and birth (anthropology). 

You’ve written a short paper about something and in doing so realized how much more complicated and fascinating it is than you initially thought. 

You are pretty sure some kind of graduate school is in your future and want an opportunity to test the waters to see if this kind of endeavor is right for you.

You like thinking about research designs, methodologies, conceptual frameworks, and theoretical concepts.

You feel well prepared to tackle the challenge, and you have identified a faculty member you trust to guide you through the process.

Your college requires one.*

*If you read through this list and landed on this one, reread the list and reinvent yourself! There is always something—some angle, some topic, some approach, no matter how weird, nerdy, alternative, or conventional—that can get you genuinely engaged.

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Tip: Talk to current seniors in your major and ask them the pros and cons. Then, take that information and create your own personalized pros and cons list. Once you have your lists, read through them and ask yourself how you feel about the possibility now. And don’t simply go by the number of items you have on one side. It might be that you have a bunch of cons and only two pros, but the way you feel about the two pros outweigh the negatives on the con side. 

Good Reasons NOT to Write One  

There are a lot of myths surrounding the senior thesis, as well as very good reasons to decide that this is not the best way to spend your senior year (and likely the summer before it):

You think you need to write one to get into law school.

Your parents think you need one to get into law school.

You tend to put things off or struggle with time management. 

You get bored easily or you don’t want to sacrifice all the cool classes you could be taking your senior year to focus on one topic in depth.

Wikipedia is still your go-to resource when you have a research assignment, and you aren’t excited to discover that there are far better (and more reliable) resources out there written by experts in the field.

You want your senior year of college to be heavy on the social and cultural opportunities college provides and light on the academic challenges.

We all find writing to be sometimes scary, frustrating, intimidating, tedious, or even painful (you are definitely not alone), but you are someone who never feels the reward after the struggle is over.

Preliminary Work

If you're still here, that probably means you're leaning toward writing a senior thesis. Congratulations! Let's talk through the important pre-planning considerations that can make all the difference between a positive and negative experience. 

Tip: Before you begin, it’s good to understand what kind of document you are expected to produce. Ask where your department keeps copies of past senior theses and glance at a few. Pay attention to their style, language, organization, length, use of secondary sources, and number of citations. Ask yourself, Does this look like the type of thing I’d like to produce?

Identify Research Interests and Potential Topics

Not sure how to decide what to focus on because the commitment feels like marital “till death do us part” and you see lots of fishies in the sea? Try the following brainstorming exercise:

Get a piece of paper and jot down all the possible topics you can think of. Nothing is off-limits here—nothing is too trivial or grandiose. For the moment, don’t even limit yourself to traditional topics in your major, since there is tons of room for cool interdisciplinary projects. The only rule for this exercise is that you must be genuinely excited about the topic. Explore questions like these:

What do you want to know more about? 

What fascinates you? 

What ideas do you find yourself mulling over? 

What bothers you? 

What surprises you? 

What compels you? 

Spend 20-30 minutes on this list. Sleep on it, then revisit the next day. Spend another 10 minutes adding anything new that has come to your mind and crossing off anything you’re not still keen on. Then …

Narrow Your Options

A few possibilities here for narrowing your options if one doesn’t leap out at you as the clear winner:

Try clustering them to see if there is rhyme and reason behind the mad brainstorm

Ask yourself what resources you’d need access to in order to do the topic justice, and find out if those will be available to you (online, on campus, or during the summer)

When in doubt, make a pros and cons list for each topic

Rank your list in order of how likely you think it is that you will still be deeply invested in this topic after 6 months of exploring it

Look at the faculty interests in your major, and make sure it would be possible to match up with a professor for every topic still on your list (NOTE: it doesn’t have to be an exact match! It’s enough that a professor has a research interest in the same general area)

Ask yourself how difficult it will be to produce an original body of research on the topic

Narrow the Scope

Once you’ve landed on a topic and done a little digging, you’re likely to find out that it needs to be narrowed. Lots of students make the mistake of deliberately picking something too broad because they are afraid they won’t have enough to fill 80 pages if they narrow it, or are afraid that by focusing too closely on a specific aspect of their original topic, their work won’t have as wide of an appeal or will seem too insignificant or random. Au contraire! 

Overly ambitious (read: too wide) topics are a perfect setup for disaster. If you try to tackle too much in one thesis, you wind up doing many different topics a disservice. Far better to do justice to one clearly delineated topic, as that will set you up to do the in-depth type of scholarship expected of one such as you, embarking on a senior thesis! 

To illustrate this process, here’s an example from a student in anthropology:

Topics of Interest = Indigenous Populations; Colonialism; Healthcare; Globalization (Wayyyyyyyyyy too broad!)

Topic Idea   = How We Can See Colonial Legacies in the Healthcare Struggles of Indigenous Populations (Still wayyyyyyy too broad)

First Attempt to Narrow = Dietary and Lifestyle Changes of Indigenous Populations in Peru (Starting to get the idea, but a wayyyyyys to go)

Second Attempt to Narrow = How the Indigenous Quechua of Peru Navigated Local Healing Practices with Westernized Biomedicine (Even closer! Still… all Quechua? All Local Healing Practices? All Westernized Biomedicine? For all Medical/Health Issues?)

Third Attempt to Narrow = Current Experiences of Indigenous Quechua of Peru with Type II Diabetes Navigating the Choice Between Herbal Remedies, Dietary and Lifestyle Changes, and Insulin (Bingo!)

Note: This student already knew, from taking previous anthro courses, that there would be one or two faculty in the department qualified in these areas. Once you have your topic in hand, your next step is to choose an advisor. Speaking of …

Choosing an Advisor

Your advisor’s role, in a nutshell, is to guide and inspire you to reach your scholarly potential. They will work with you closely as you determine your interests, topic, thesis, and research questions. They will help you design your study (when applicable) and choose the most appropriate methodologies. They will provide feedback about your ideas, drafts, writing, and research. They will also encourage and motivate you to persevere through frustrations and setbacks. 

Whereas this is the first time you’ve ever taken on such a significant academic challenge, they have done this kind of thing for years, so they are in a unique position to help you avoid pitfalls and steer you in fruitful directions. If you are considering a senior thesis, it’s never too soon to start weighing your options for which faculty member would be a good fit, both academically and personally.

Before You Pop the Question …

Ideally, you will already have taken several classes with them and have established a good rapport. Before you pop the question, do your research! Once you identify one or more potential advisors to interview, find out their specific research interests by looking at departmental information and reading their faculty website page, their CV, and some of their recent publications. There is no better way to start off on the right foot than to let them know you have read their work and take a genuine interest in one or more of their areas of specialization.

Qualities to Look For

A good advisor has a genuine interest in your topic and your intellectual development

They believe in you and your commitment to accomplishing this feat

They reply to your emails in a reasonable amount of time

They can be understanding and supportive when necessary, but they are also capable of pushing you if that’s what you need

Your conversations with them are intellectually stimulating

When you leave their office, you have more clarity than when you entered

They are someone you feel comfortable exploring ideas with

You aren’t embarrassed to let them know if you don’t understand something

You admire them but are not afraid of them

They communicate their expectations clearly

Tip: Beware of falling for the tendency to pick the “nicest” person. Niceness is not going to help you create a stellar piece of scholarship. Look for someone who can be supportive, intense, and rigorous simultaneously.

Search Within Yourself

Like friends and lovers, professors come in all shapes, sizes, and personality strengths and weaknesses. Some veer toward laissez-faire, while others battle the urge to micro-manage. Some are known for being impossible to please, while others are more lenient. The same principle holds for students: some are Type A, fastidious go-getters who turn assignments in early. This kind of student might work well with a hands-off advisor who relies on students to keep their own deadlines. Other students are Type B, contemplative philosophers who tend to mull things over, possibly long enough to need an extension. These students might need someone a little more demanding to direct their project. What makes one advisor compatible with one student might not be a dynamic that suits you. Before you approach professors, ask yourself what you bring to the table and what kind of personality will complement your work style. 

Tip : Talk to current seniors being advised by the professor you have in mind! They can offer valuable insight into the professor’s approach to directing a senior thesis. Also, ask your department where you can find past theses that your potential advisor directed.

Questions to Ask During Your First Meeting with a Potential Advisor 

1. How promising do they find your research topic? Are there particular directions they think you should explore in developing a research question? 

2. Do they consider themselves hands-on or hands-off?

3. How many drafts are they willing to read? How many days do they typically need to turn around a draft with commentary and revisions? 

4. How available will they be during your senior year? During the summer before your senior year?

5. Do they have any books or journal articles they think you should read before your next meeting?

6. Are they currently researching a project or running a lab that intersects with your interests?

Best Practices for Managing Your Relationship

In relationships, communication is critical. This holds just as much for your relationship with your thesis advisor. 

Establish frequency of meetings early on (Every week? Twice a week? Every other week?)

If you aren’t clear about what is expected of you, ASK!

Working backward from the final deadline, create a timeline of mini-deadlines guaranteed to ensure no last-minute disasters

Ask for feedback

If you get behind, explain your situation to your advisor. Don’t leave them out of the loop

“Google can bring you back 100,000 answers; a librarian can bring you back the right one."    –Neil Gaiman

Tip : Before Day One of research, schedule a meeting with a campus librarian to learn about your library’s resources! They can show you how to customize Advanced Searches and sort through the overwhelming amount of information that will likely appear in your first basic searches. They can give you examples of primary, secondary, and tertiary resources in your major and point you to scholarly databases (e.g., JSTOR, Web of Science, psychINFO, Pub Med) and peer-reviewed journals likely to be useful for your topic. For more details check out these guides on evaluating resources and avoiding plagiarism.

Time Management Checklist

You've got an advisor, and you're ready to begin! Before you start digging through databases, it can be helpful to develop a plan of attack for managing your time and getting your work done. Here are some tips for managing your time:

☐ Work backward to create deadlines. If you know that a certain kind of deadline is in October of your senior year, create deadlines throughout your summer. Design doable mini-tasks (e.g., reading 15 abstracts, conducting fieldwork, reading 1-3 articles, researching several keywords in one database; developing the first half of your outline for your methods chapter, drafting a section of your introduction; learning to fix the kinks in your citation program).

☐ Block out reasonable and specific chunks of time rather than having a generic commitment to “work on my thesis” today. Ask your advisor how many hours per week they recommend on average.

☐ Be realistic! Track how long it takes you to settle down to work and do typical tasks like complete a search, read an abstract, read a short article, read a systematic review, take notes, summarize arguments, and understand different methodologies or theories. Plot your goals and plan your schedule accordingly.

☐ Don’t fall for the myth of busy! In our hectic, multi-tasking world, it’s easy to confuse the appearance of being busy with actual progress. Make sure you are actually checking things off your To Do/To Read/To Write/To Summarize list. 

☐ Before you finish for the day, jot down a note to yourself about where you should begin tomorrow.

An Example, From Topic to Research Question: Lessons from Cats

It can be confusing to understand the difference between your research interests, your topic, and your research question. So let’s climb out on a limb and take a look at these distinctions by using cats as our subject matter. 

Nothing immediately leaps out at you as an obvious thesis topic. In the meantime, you are obsessed with cats, so let’s pretend you have a single-minded, perhaps ill-advised, dogged (pun semi-intended) determination that cats will meow their way into your thesis, regardless of your major.

Side note: Of course, this is a terrible way to approach your actual topic! If you aren’t interested in an actual topic in your major, you probably shouldn’t be writing a senior thesis. We’re just using this example so that all of our readers, regardless of major, can learn about the process of narrowing a topic and formulating a research question. 

A recent library search yielded 806,541 results on “cats” from studies in biology, literature, history, psychology, animal science, statistics, art history, economics, public health, gender studies, and—alas—theater/performance studies. You need to narrow your topic! 

First, by discipline. Literature students might quickly rule out Margaret Atwood and Kurt Vonnegut (neither The Cat’s Eye nor Cat’s Cradle is actually about cats, to your chagrin). Search engines might steer you toward Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, Edgar Allen Poe, Ursula Le Guin, T.S. Eliot, or Colette. 

Physics majors might already be investigating Schrödinger’s cat, and medieval studies majors might tackle why depictions of medieval cats look like furry humanoid devils. 

But let’s pretend you are a psych major. Using your library resources, you try “cats” and “psychology” and comb through every title, saving each one that piques your interest. It dawns on you that there aren’t any articles addressing how to interpret cat’s dreams, or how bullying affects cats’ cognitive development. You get excited because you think you’ve identified a gap in the literature, but then you remember: they are cats, and Freud didn’t tell us how to interpret cat’s dreams. So you try “cats” and “humans.” You see what the results yield, and then try other combinations: cats, felines, kittens, pets, animals, animal studies, psychology, people. 

It’s best to be open-minded and discover the full range of options (given your refusal to write about something typical in psychology, like mindfulness and smartphones, or the effects of cocaine on rats). After glancing at 100 titles and reading abstracts about owner personality and cat’s well-being, owner scent, pheromones, and feline anxiety, lo and behold! You come across the article, “Not the Cat’s Meow? The Impact of Posing with Cats on Female Perceptions of Male Dateability.” You read the abstract and are eager to read the whole article. Bingo! You’ve discovered a specific passion for the relationship between gender, desire, and cats. 

At this point, you go back and try new combinations of all things cat with words like “women,” “females,” “men,” “males,” and “relationships” to see what else is out there. With each article you find, you mine its bibliography and add new articles to your “To Read” list. You also pay attention to the language in the abstracts and refine your search terms. This will be critical for your literature review, so make certain to keep track of your search terms and author/titles.

Tip : Prepare an elevator speech! As in, get the topic down to three sentences that you could explain to a stranger on an elevator. If you find yourself going on and on and the stranger would have already arrived at their floor, practice more.

In this phase, you are skimming titles and abstracts to understand what’s already been said. You are also noticing how to write about cats in a scholarly way. Finally, you are discovering what hasn’t been said. In the meantime, you have figured out that you want to find out if there is a difference in the way that women relate to cats versus how men relate to cats. Later, you might refine this to factor in gender identity and sexual identification. You will keep honing your language and clarifying your terms, but for now, you’ve landed on your topic, you’ve conducted some background research , and are ready to write your research question!

So what’s a research question?

A research question is an answerable question that will guide your inquiry and help you navigate the flood of information that you are going to encounter. Here’s one possible one for cats. 

Is there a difference between the way that females relate to their household cats and the way that males relate to their household cats? If a difference is identified, do gender identity and sexual identity account for some of those differences? What other variables might influence the outcomes? (Note: this question likely sets you up for a qualitative project where you conduct semi-structured interviews or an observational study conducted in households).  

Locating Your Primary Sources  

Your sources are who or what will provide answers to your research question/s or thematic focus. Know where to find them!

Do answers to your question reside with a population, a key informant, panel of experts, or a first-person account of an event?

Archival materials, government documents, maps, or a museum exhibition?

A healthcare system? A lab? Pharmaceutical companies? 

A social issue like poverty, immigration, racism, or homophobia?

An advertising campaign or political cartoons?

Tangible objects, extreme weather, or the neocortical circuit?

A leadership style or political system?

A mathematical or computational model?

A novel, play, or poem, films, paintings, photographs, or sound recordings?

Cryptocurrency? Human rights discourse?

Manifestos, treatises, religious, or philosophical texts?

Locating Your Secondary Sources

The majority of your academic resources should come from peer-reviewed (also called refereed) journals, the most respected source of academic information. Peer-reviewed means that an expert has written the article and that several experts in the field have reviewed it before it is published. Secondary sources can also come from academic books. How do you know when a book is academic? Look at the publisher information. If the publisher is a university press, it is likely an academic book or anthology written by a professor. With a few exceptions, the word “university” will be part of the publisher’s information. Non-university presses that are still considered academic include Routledge, Sage, and Wiley. Not sure? Ask a librarian!

Tip: Learn a Citation Program From the Get-Go! This is something you can do the summer after junior year. Stay on top of your citations. Find out which citation management programs your university supports (e.g., Mendeley, Zotero, Endnote). There are pros and cons to all of them, but the basic idea is the same: you import the details for each reference (author’s name, date of publication, title of article and journal, volume number, page number). Once you are ready to write, insert your citations for your paper using the citation program instead of typing them in manually. This will automatically format your citations and generate your bibliography in whatever citation style (MLA, APA, Chicago) you need.

Tip: Use your sources, don’t let your sources use you! Tackle them actively, always asking yourself how they relate to your own project. Try not to absorb information passively, as if their results and conclusions are just Truth or Facts to regurgitate. Want to know more about evaluating sources? Click *HERE.*

Sample Timeline:

Junior year.

First Semester Junior Year:

Decide on a thesis topic or approach and start to narrow your focus.

Start identifying potential advisors and ask about their availability … and make sure they aren’t on sabbatical your senior year.

Try to take at least one class with each potential advisor.

Draft a description of your potential topic and a statement of your preliminary ideas about how to go about researching it.

Talk to seniors currently writing their thesis.

Read past theses in your department.

Take a statistics class if you are in the social or natural sciences.

Second Semester Junior Year:

Decide on your advisor and discuss plans.

Conduct enough background research to determine the viability of your topic and make changes if necessary.

Draft a thesis proposal and write a prospectus (unless your university doesn’t want this until senior year).

If you plan on working with human subjects (psychology, sociology, anthropology), submit an IRB protocol. Even if you just plan on interviewing people, you’ll need approval first. You may need to attend a training workshop. Find out sooner rather than later.

Seek funding for your research.

Make a one-on-one appointment with a reference librarian in your area of focus and ask for help conducting advanced research through electronic databases.

Take a research methods class.

Plan your summer with your advisor. Ask them what they recommend, and establish deadlines. Find out how often they want you to give them updates, and ask about their availability for check-ins.

Summer Between Junior and Senior Year:

Read! Read more! Nope, even more!

Conduct research! Conduct fieldwork!

Take notes! (Note on notes: Develop a note-taking system that works for you.)

Learn your citation program!

If you are in the humanities (actually, even if you aren’t), order and devour Umberto Eco’s How to Write a Thesis . Check out Powell’s Books, Alibris, ThriftBooks, and AbeBooks for second-hand options.

Senior Year

Confirm your primary thesis advisor and the rest of your committee.

Establish healthy and reliable communication patterns! Fix a regular meeting time with your primary advisor and provide regular progress reports or written drafts to advisor/s.

Imagine your finished thesis. Consider chapter breakdowns or other forms of presenting the finished product. How long will it be? How many chapters? What might the breakdown of chapters look like? Sections within chapters?

Attend all informational meetings your department offers and understand all requirements and expectations for both the process and the finished product.

Create your own project timeline and goals. 

Conduct research. Conduct more research.

Meet with librarians for guidance on conducting advanced electronic database research.

Categorize information as you find it. Keep accurate bibliographic notes and organized files.

Establish a place to keep notes on your ideas, questions, confusions, and research discoveries.

Consider drafting some introductory sections of your thesis, as well as your literature review, methodology, and definitions of terms.

November/December:

Begin to outline and draft a chapter (does not necessarily need to be the first chapter).

Plan a detailed research and writing agenda for winter break. 

January/February:

Submit a draft of a chapter or section of your thesis to your advisor. Remember to include a bibliography with any draft you submit to your committee members.

Schedule a meeting with your thesis advisor to discuss your work over winter break.

Plan a new timeline for spring. Plan to have the thesis substantially written BEFORE spring break.

Continue to send regular progress reports to your committee.

February/March:

Tackle your thesis one section at a time. When you have a section or two completed, ask your advisor if they can tell you if you are heading in the right direction.

Along the way, be scrupulous about citing your sources correctly! You don’t want to have to go back and check your sources at the end because you got sloppy! Accidental plagiarism is still plagiarism .

Set a date and time for your defense. 

Rewrite, revise, rewrite, revise: think about tackling any organizational and structural revisions to make your logic as sound as possible.

Pay careful attention so that you address all of your advisor’s comments. If anything doesn’t make sense to you, ask them!

Keep in frequent and positive contact with the rest of your committee so that you aren’t in for any surprises during your defense! You can even ask them what you should be prepared for.

Double-check your citations and references.

Submit completed thesis to your committee. Protocol typically offers them the thesis at least two weeks before your defense. Check with each member individually to see if they have an alternative timeframe.

Complete any revisions your committee requires.

Prepare the final document for archives according to your university’s instructions.

Sound good? Good.

Special thanks to Christine Rose for writing this post and contributing to other College Writing Center resources

Born to parents from Tennessee and Mississippi, Christine was the first in the family to cross the Mason-Dixon line for college. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Smith (to her parents' delight) with a major in Literature (to her parents' chagrin). She completed her PhD in the History of Consciousness Board (UC/Santa Cruz), specializing in the History of Medicine, Biopolitics, Postcolonialism, and Gender & Sexuality with a dissertation involving 19th-century vampires, spermatorrheaics, wet nurses, menstrual madwomen, onanistic schoolboys, and syphilitic prostitutes. Before leaving academia to pursue the good life in Miami Beach and Berlin, she was a professor at Macalester College and UC-Davis. 

Top values: Knowledge | Curiosity | Integrity | Cats

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The Senior Thesis

From the outset of their time at Princeton, students are encouraged and challenged to develop their scholarly interests and to evolve as independent thinkers.

The culmination of this process is the senior thesis, which provides a unique opportunity for students to pursue original research and scholarship in a field of their choosing. At Princeton, every senior writes a thesis or, in the case of some engineering departments, undertakes a substantial independent project.

Integral to the senior thesis process is the opportunity to work one-on-one with a faculty member who guides the development of the project. Thesis writers and advisers agree that the most valuable outcome of the senior thesis is the chance for students to enhance skills that are the foundation of future success, including creativity, intellectual engagement, mental discipline and the ability to meet new challenges.

Many students develop projects from ideas sparked in the classes they’ve taken; others fashion their topics on the basis of long-standing personal passions. Most thesis writers encounter the intellectual twists and turns of any good research project, where the questions emerge as they proceed, often taking them in unexpected directions.

Planning for the senior thesis starts in earnest in the junior year, when students complete a significant research project known as the junior paper. Students who plan ahead can make good use of the University's considerable resources, such as receiving University funds to do research in the United States or abroad. Other students use summer internships as a launching pad for their thesis. For some science and engineering projects, students stay on campus the summer before their senior year to get a head start on lab work.

Writing a thesis encourages the self-confidence and high ambitions that come from mastering a difficult challenge. It fosters the development of specific skills and habits of mind that augur well for future success. No wonder generations of graduates look back on the senior thesis as the most valuable academic component of their Princeton experience.

Navigating Colombia’s Magdalena River, One Story At A Time

For his senior thesis, Jordan Salama, a Spanish and Portuguese major, produced a nonfiction book of travel writing about the people and places along Colombia’s main river, the Magdalena.

Embracing the Classics to Inform Policymaking for Public Education

For her senior thesis, Emma Treadwayconsiders how the basic tenets of Stoicism — a school of philosophy that dates from 300 BCE — can teach students to engage empathetically with the world and address inequities in the classroom.

Creating A Faster, Cheaper and Greener Chemical Reaction

One way to make drugs more affordable is to make them cheaper to produce. For her senior thesis research, Cassidy Humphreys, a chemistry major with a passion for medicine, took on the challenge of taking a century-old formula at the core of many modern medications — and improving it.

The Humanity of Improvisational Dance

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Doing a senior thesis is an exciting enterprise. It’s often the first time students are engaging in truly original research and trying to develop a significant contribution to a field of inquiry. But as joyful as an independent research process can be, you don’t have to go it alone. It’s important to have support as you navigate such a large endeavor, and the ARC is here to offer one of those layers of support. 

Whether or not to write a senior thesis is just the first in a long line of questions thesis writers need to consider. In addition to questions about the topic and scope of your thesis, there are questions about timing, schedule, and support. For example, if you are collecting data, when should data collection start and when should it be completed? What kind of schedule will you write on? How will you work with your adviser? Do you want to meet with your adviser about your progress once a month? Once a week? What other resources can you turn to for information, feedback, and support? 

Even though there is a lot to think about and a lot to do, doing a thesis really can be an enjoyable experience! Keep reminding yourself why you chose this topic and why you care about it. 

Tips for Tackling Big Projects:  

• When you’re approaching a big project, it can seem overwhelming to look at the whole thing at once, so it’s essential to identify the smaller steps that will move you towards the completed project. 
• Your advisor is best suited to help you break down the thesis process with field-specific advice. 
• If you need to refine the breakdown further so it makes sense for you, schedule an appointment with an Academic Coach . An academic coach can help you think through the steps in a way that works for you. 
• Pre-determine the time, place, and duration. 
• Keep it short (15 to 60 minutes). 
• Have a clear and reasonable goal for each writing session. 
• Make it a regular event (every day, every other day, MWF). 
• time is not wasted deciding to write if it’s already in your calendar; 
• keeping sessions short reduces the competition from other tasks that are not getting done; 
• having an achievable goal for each session provides a sense of accomplishment (a reward for your work); 
• writing regularly can turn into a productive habit. 
• In addition to having a clear goal for each writing session, it’s important to have clear goals for each week and to find someone to communicate these goals to, such as your adviser, a “thesis buddy,” your roommate, etc. Communicating your goals and progress to someone else creates a useful sense of accountability. 
• If your adviser is not the person you are communicating your progress to on a weekly basis, then request to set up a structure with your adviser that requires you to check in at less frequent but regular intervals. 
• Commit to attending Accountability Hours at the ARC on the same day every week. Making that commitment will add both social support and structure to your week. Use the ARC Scheduler to register for Accountability Hours. 
• Set up an accountability group in your department or with thesis writers from different departments. 
• It’s important to have a means for getting consistent feedback on your work and to get that feedback early. Work on large projects often lacks the feeling of completeness, so don’t wait for a whole section (and certainly not the whole thesis) to feel “done” before you get feedback on it! 
• Your thesis adviser is typically the person best positioned to give you feedback on your research and writing, so communicate with your adviser about how and how often you would like to get feedback. 
• If your adviser isn’t able to give you feedback with the frequency you’d like, then fill in the gaps by creating a thesis writing group or exploring if there is already a writing group in your department or lab. 
• The Harvard College Writing Center is a great resource for thesis feedback. Writing Center Senior Thesis Tutors can provide feedback on the structure, argument, and clarity of your writing and help with mapping out your writing plan. Visit the Writing Center website to schedule an appointment with a thesis tutor . 
• Working on a big project can be anxiety provoking because it’s hard to keep all the pieces in your head and you might feel like you are losing track of your argument. 
• To reduce this source of anxiety, try keeping a separate document where you jot down ideas on how your research questions or central argument might be clarifying or changing as you research and write. Doing this will enable you to stay focused on the section you are working on and to stop worrying about forgetting the new ideas that are emerging. 
• You might feel anxious when you realize that you need to update your argument in response to the evidence you have gathered or the new thinking your writing has unleashed. Know that that is OK. Research and writing are iterative processes – new ideas and new ways of thinking are what makes progress possible. 
• It’s also anxiety provoking to feel like you can’t “see” from the beginning to the end of your project in the way that you are used to with smaller projects. 
• Breaking down big projects into manageable chunks and mapping out a schedule for working through each chunk is one way to reduce this source of anxiety. It’s reassuring to know you are working towards the end even if you cannot quite see how it will turn out. 
• It may be that your thesis or dissertation never truly feels “done” to you, but that’s okay. Academic inquiry is an ongoing endeavor. 
• Thesis work is not a time for social comparison; each project is different and, as a result, each thesis writer is going to work differently. 
• Just because your roommate wrote 10 pages in a day doesn’t mean that’s the right pace or strategy for you. 
• If you are having trouble figuring out what works for you, use the ARC Scheduler to make an appointment with an Academic Coach , who can help you come up with daily, weekly, and semester-long plans. 
• If you’re having trouble finding a source, email your question or set up a research consult via Ask a Librarian . 
• If you’re looking for additional feedback or help with any aspect of writing, contact the Harvard College Writing Center . The Writing Center has Senior Thesis Tutors who will read drafts of your thesis (more typically, parts of your thesis) in advance and meet with you individually to talk about structure, argument, clear writing, and mapping out your writing plan. 
• If you need help with breaking down your project or setting up a schedule for the week, the semester, or until the deadline, use the ARC Scheduler to make an appointment with an Academic Coach . 
• If you would like an accountability structure for social support and to keep yourself on track, come to Accountability Hours at the ARC. 

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Writing a senior thesis: is it worth it.

Before coming to Yale, I thought a thesis was the main argument of a paper. I quickly learned that an undergraduate thesis is about fifty times harder and fifty pages longer than any thesis arguments I wrote in high school. At Yale, every senior has some sort of senior requirement, but thesis projects vary by department. Some departments require students to do a semester-long project, where you write a longer paper (25-35 pages) or expand, through writing, the research you’ve been working on (mostly applies to STEM majors). In some departments you can take two senior seminars and complete a longer project at the end of the semester. And other departments have an option to complete a year-long thesis: you spend your senior year (and in some cases your junior year), intensely researching and writing about a topic you choose or create yourself.

Both my departments––English and Ethnicity, Race, and Migration––offer all three of these options, and each student decides what they think is best for them. As a double major, I had the additional option to write an even longer thesis combining both my majors, but that seemed like way too much work––especially since I would have to take two senior thesis classes at the same time. Instead, I chose a year-long thesis for ER&M that combined my literary interests with various theoretical frameworks and the two senior seminars for English. This spring I’m taking my second seminar. Really, I chose the option to torture myself for a whole year, the end result being a minimum of 50 pages of innovative thinking and writing. I wanted to rise to the challenge, proving to myself I could do it. But there also seemed to be the pressure of “this is what everyone in the major does,” and a “thesis is proof that you actually learned.” Although these sentiments influenced my decision to complete a thesis, I know a long research paper does not validate my education or work as a scholar the last four years. It is not the end all be all.

My senior thesis focuses on Caribbean literature - specifically, two novels written by Caribbean women that really look at what it means to come from an immigrant family, to move, and to find yourself in completely new spaces. These experiences are all too relatable to my own life as a second-generation woman of color with immigrant parents enrolled at Yale. In my writing, I focus on how these women make sense of “home” (a very broad and complicated topic, I know), and what their stories tell us about the diasporic experience in general. The project is very personal to me, and I chose it because I wanted to understand my family’s history and their task in making “home” in the U.S., whatever that means. But because it’s so personal, it’s also been really difficult. I’ve experienced a lot of writer’s block or often felt unmotivated and judgmental towards my work. I’ve realized how difficult it is to devote your time and energy to such a long process––not only is it research heavy, but you have to write and rewrite drafts, constantly adjusting to make sure you’re being as clear as possible. Really, writing a thesis is like writing a portion of a book. And that’s crazy! You’re writing two or three whole chapters of academic work as an undergraduate student.

The process is definitely not for everyone, and I’ve certainly thought “Why did I want to do this again?” But what’s really kept me going is the support from my advisors and friends. The ER&M department faculty does an amazing job of providing us mentorship, revisions, and support throughout the process; my advisor has served as my editor but also the person who reminds me most that this work is important, as I often forget that. It also helps to have many friends and people in the major also writing their theses. I’ve found different spaces to just have a thesis study hall or working time, with other people also struggling through. Recently, I submitted my first full draft (note: it was kind of unfinished but it’s okay because it’s a draft!), and it was crazy to think that I wrote 50+ pages, most of which are just my own original thoughts and analysis on two books that have almost no scholarship written about them. It was a relief for sure. This week I will be taking a full break from it, but it reminded me of why I began this journey. It reminded me of all the people who’ve supported me along the way, and how I really couldn’t have done it without them. And now, I’m really looking forward to how good it will feel to turn in my fully written thesis mid-April. I’ve realized that this project shouldn’t be about making it good for Yale’s standard, but for myself, for my family, and for the people who believe in this work as much as I do.

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How to write a PhD thesis: a step-by-step guide

A draft isn’t a perfect, finished product; it is your opportunity to start getting words down on paper, writes Kelly Louise Preece

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Congratulations; you’ve finished your research! Time to write your PhD thesis. This resource will take you through an eight-step plan for drafting your chapters and your thesis as a whole. 

Organise your material

Before you start, it’s important to get organised. Take a step back and look at the data you have, then reorganise your research. Which parts of it are central to your thesis and which bits need putting to one side? Label and organise everything using logical folders – make it easy for yourself! Academic and blogger Pat Thomson calls this  “Clean up to get clearer” . Thomson suggests these questions to ask yourself before you start writing:

• What data do you have? You might find it useful to write out a list of types of data (your supervisor will find this list useful too.) This list is also an audit document that can go in your thesis. Do you have any for the “cutting room floor”? Take a deep breath and put it in a separate non-thesis file. You can easily retrieve it if it turns out you need it.
• What do you have already written? What chunks of material have you written so far that could form the basis of pieces of the thesis text? They will most likely need to be revised but they are useful starting points. Do you have any holding text? That is material you already know has to be rewritten but contains information that will be the basis of a new piece of text.
• What have you read and what do you still need to read? Are there new texts that you need to consult now after your analysis? What readings can you now put to one side, knowing that they aren’t useful for this thesis – although they might be useful at another time?
• What goes with what? Can you create chunks or themes of materials that are going to form the basis of some chunks of your text, perhaps even chapters?

Once you have assessed and sorted what you have collected and generated you will be in much better shape to approach the big task of composing the dissertation. 

Decide on a key message

A key message is a summary of new information communicated in your thesis. You should have started to map this out already in the section on argument and contribution – an overarching argument with building blocks that you will flesh out in individual chapters.

You have already mapped your argument visually, now you need to begin writing it in prose. Following another of Pat Thomson’s exercises, write a “tiny text” thesis abstract. This doesn’t have to be elegant, or indeed the finished product, but it will help you articulate the argument you want your thesis to make. You create a tiny text using a five-paragraph structure:

• The first sentence addresses the broad context. This locates the study in a policy, practice or research field.
• The second sentence establishes a problem related to the broad context you have set out. It often starts with “But”, “Yet” or “However”.
• The third sentence says what specific research has been done. This often starts with “This research” or “I report…”
• The fourth sentence reports the results. Don’t try to be too tricky here, just start with something like: “This study shows,” or “Analysis of the data suggests that…”
• The fifth and final sentence addresses the “So What?” question and makes clear the claim to contribution.

Here’s an example that Thomson provides:

Secondary school arts are in trouble, as the fall in enrolments in arts subjects dramatically attests. However, there is patchy evidence about the benefits of studying arts subjects at school and this makes it hard to argue why the drop in arts enrolments matters. This thesis reports on research which attempts to provide some answers to this problem – a longitudinal study which followed two groups of senior secondary students, one group enrolled in arts subjects and the other not, for three years. The results of the study demonstrate the benefits of young people’s engagement in arts activities, both in and out of school, as well as the connections between the two. The study not only adds to what is known about the benefits of both formal and informal arts education but also provides robust evidence for policymakers and practitioners arguing for the benefits of the arts. You can  find out more about tiny texts and thesis abstracts on Thomson’s blog.

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Write a plan

You might not be a planner when it comes to writing. You might prefer to sit, type and think through ideas as you go. That’s OK. Everybody works differently. But one of the benefits of planning your writing is that your plan can help you when you get stuck. It can help with writer’s block (more on this shortly!) but also maintain clarity of intention and purpose in your writing.

You can do this by creating a  thesis skeleton or storyboard , planning the order of your chapters, thinking of potential titles (which may change at a later stage), noting down what each chapter/section will cover and considering how many words you will dedicate to each chapter (make sure the total doesn’t exceed the maximum word limit allowed).

Use your plan to help prompt your writing when you get stuck and to develop clarity in your writing.

Some starting points include:

• This chapter will argue that…
• This section illustrates that…
• This paragraph provides evidence that…

Of course, we wish it werethat easy. But you need to approach your first draft as exactly that: a draft. It isn’t a perfect, finished product; it is your opportunity to start getting words down on paper. Start with whichever chapter you feel you want to write first; you don’t necessarily have to write the introduction first. Depending on your research, you may find it easier to begin with your empirical/data chapters.

Vitae advocates for the “three draft approach” to help with this and to stop you from focusing on finding exactly the right word or transition as part of your first draft.

This resource originally appeared on Researcher Development .

Kelly Louse Preece is head of educator development at the University of Exeter.

If you would like advice and insight from academics and university staff delivered direct to your inbox each week, sign up for the Campus newsletter .

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• How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples

How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples

Published on January 11, 2019 by Shona McCombes . Revised on August 15, 2023 by Eoghan Ryan.

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . It usually comes near the end of your introduction .

Your thesis will look a bit different depending on the type of essay you’re writing. But the thesis statement should always clearly state the main idea you want to get across. Everything else in your essay should relate back to this idea.

You can write your thesis statement by following four simple steps:

• Start with a question
• Write your initial answer
• Develop your answer
• Refine your thesis statement

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Table of contents

What is a thesis statement, placement of the thesis statement, step 1: start with a question, step 2: write your initial answer, step 3: develop your answer, step 4: refine your thesis statement, types of thesis statements, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about thesis statements.

A thesis statement summarizes the central points of your essay. It is a signpost telling the reader what the essay will argue and why.

The best thesis statements are:

• Concise: A good thesis statement is short and sweet—don’t use more words than necessary. State your point clearly and directly in one or two sentences.
• Contentious: Your thesis shouldn’t be a simple statement of fact that everyone already knows. A good thesis statement is a claim that requires further evidence or analysis to back it up.
• Coherent: Everything mentioned in your thesis statement must be supported and explained in the rest of your paper.

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The thesis statement generally appears at the end of your essay introduction or research paper introduction .

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts and among young people more generally is hotly debated. For many who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its many benefits for education: the internet facilitates easier access to information, exposure to different perspectives, and a flexible learning environment for both students and teachers.

You should come up with an initial thesis, sometimes called a working thesis , early in the writing process . As soon as you’ve decided on your essay topic , you need to work out what you want to say about it—a clear thesis will give your essay direction and structure.

You might already have a question in your assignment, but if not, try to come up with your own. What would you like to find out or decide about your topic?

For example, you might ask:

After some initial research, you can formulate a tentative answer to this question. At this stage it can be simple, and it should guide the research process and writing process .

Now you need to consider why this is your answer and how you will convince your reader to agree with you. As you read more about your topic and begin writing, your answer should get more detailed.

In your essay about the internet and education, the thesis states your position and sketches out the key arguments you’ll use to support it.

The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its many benefits for education because it facilitates easier access to information.

In your essay about braille, the thesis statement summarizes the key historical development that you’ll explain.

The invention of braille in the 19th century transformed the lives of blind people, allowing them to participate more actively in public life.

A strong thesis statement should tell the reader:

• Why you hold this position
• What they’ll learn from your essay
• The key points of your argument or narrative

The final thesis statement doesn’t just state your position, but summarizes your overall argument or the entire topic you’re going to explain. To strengthen a weak thesis statement, it can help to consider the broader context of your topic.

These examples are more specific and show that you’ll explore your topic in depth.

Your thesis statement should match the goals of your essay, which vary depending on the type of essay you’re writing:

• In an argumentative essay , your thesis statement should take a strong position. Your aim in the essay is to convince your reader of this thesis based on evidence and logical reasoning.
• In an expository essay , you’ll aim to explain the facts of a topic or process. Your thesis statement doesn’t have to include a strong opinion in this case, but it should clearly state the central point you want to make, and mention the key elements you’ll explain.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

The thesis statement is essential in any academic essay or research paper for two main reasons:

• It gives your writing direction and focus.
• It gives the reader a concise summary of your main point.

Without a clear thesis statement, an essay can end up rambling and unfocused, leaving your reader unsure of exactly what you want to say.

Follow these four steps to come up with a thesis statement :

• Ask a question about your topic .
• Write your initial answer.
• Develop your answer by including reasons.
• Refine your answer, adding more detail and nuance.

The thesis statement should be placed at the end of your essay introduction .

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What Is a Senior Thesis?

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A senior thesis is a large, independent research project that students take on during their senior year of high school or college to fulfill their graduation requirement. It is the culminating work of their studies at a particular institution, and it represents their ability to conduct research and write effectively. For some students, a senior thesis is a requirement for graduating with honors.

Students typically work closely with an advisor and choose a question or topic to explore before carrying out an extensive research plan.

Style Manuals and the Paper's Organization

The structure of your research paper will depend, in part, on the style manual that is required by your instructor. Different disciplines, such as history, science, or education, have different rules to abide by when it comes to research paper construction, organization, and modes of citation. The styles for different types of assignment include:

Modern Language Association (MLA): The disciplines that tend to prefer the MLA style guide include literature, arts, and the humanities, such as linguistics, religion, and philosophy. To follow this style, you will use parenthetical citations to indicate your sources and a works cited page to show the list of books and articles you consulted.

American Psychological Association (APA): The APA style manual tends to be used in psychology, education, and some of the social sciences. This type of report may require the following:

• Introduction

Chicago style: "The Chicago Manual of Style" is used in most college-level history courses as well as professional publications that contain scholarly articles. Chicago style may call for endnotes or footnotes corresponding to a bibliography page at the back or the author-date style of in-text citation, which uses parenthetical citations and a references page at the end.

Turabian style: Turabian is a student version of Chicago style. It requires some of the same formatting techniques as Chicago, but it includes special rules for writing college-level papers, such as book reports. A Turabian research paper may call for endnotes or footnotes and a bibliography.

Science style: Science instructors may require students to use a format that is similar to the structure used in publishing papers in scientific journals. The elements you would include in this sort of paper include:

• List of materials and methods used
• Results of your methods and experiments
• Acknowledgments

American Medical Association (AMA): The AMA style book might be required for students in medical or premedical degree programs in college. Parts of an AMA research paper might include:

• Proper headings and lists
• Tables and figures
• In-text citations
• Reference list

Choose Your Topic Carefully

Starting off with a bad, difficult, or narrow topic likely won't lead to a positive result. Don't choose a question or statement that's so broad that it's overwhelming and could comprise a lifetime of research or a topic that's so narrow you'll struggle to compose 10 pages. Consider a topic that has a lot of recent research so you won't struggle to put your hands on current or adequate sources.

Select a topic that interests you. Putting in long hours on a subject that bores you will be arduous—and ripe for procrastination. If a professor recommends an area of interest, make sure it excites you.

Also, consider expanding a paper you've already written; you'll hit the ground running because you've already done some research and know the topic. Last, consult with your advisor before finalizing your topic. You don't want to put in a lot of hours on a subject that is rejected by your instructor.

Organize Your Time

Plan to spend half of your time researching and the other half writing. Often, students spend too much time researching and then find themselves in a crunch, madly writing in the final hours. Give yourself goals to reach along certain "signposts," such as the number of hours you want to have invested each week or by a certain date or how much you want to have completed in those same timeframes.

Organize Your Research

Compose your works cited or bibliography entries as you work on your paper. This is especially important if your style manual requires you to use access dates for any online sources that you review or requires page numbers be included in the citations. You don't want to end up at the very end of the project and not know what day you looked at a particular website or have to search through a hard-copy book looking for a quote that you included in the paper. Save PDFs of online sites, too, as you wouldn't want to need to look back at something and not be able to get online or find that the article has been removed since you read it.

Choose an Advisor You Trust

This may be your first opportunity to work with direct supervision. Choose an advisor who's familiar with the field, and ideally select someone you like and whose classes you've already taken. That way you'll have a rapport from the start. 

Consult Your Instructor

Remember that your instructor is the final authority on the details and requirements of your paper. Read through all instructions, and have a conversation with your instructor at the start of the project to determine his or her preferences and requirements. Have a cheat sheet or checklist of this information; don't expect yourself to remember all year every question you asked or instruction you were given. 

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What Is A Senior Thesis And How To Write It?

First, what is senior thesis? A senior thesis is a written project where you use different hypotheses, theory, argument, or creative thinking. It is usual practice for most students to take this project work in the senior year of college or high school.

A senior thesis tends to be more demanding than a research paper in terms of the amount of work and the length of the write-up. However, it is less than the work required for any Master’s thesis.

Is a Senior Thesis Required?

It is understandable to want to know if a senior thesis is required. I mean, anyone would want to know just how important it is before choosing to dedicate much time to it.

Well, a senior thesis is not compulsory in every college/university, and neither is it compulsory for every course of study.

In general, you can write a senior thesis if you have an overall GPA of 3.2, are ending your junior year, and meet your departmental requirements. If a senior thesis is not a requirement for completing your degree, you may decide to write one for several reasons. Some benefits are:

• It will look good on your resume
• It will give you an opportunity for some independent research
• You get some experience managing your project, etc.

If you cannot commit to finishing a senior thesis, then you shouldn’t start it. But if you would like to write one, then we’ve got lots of senior thesis topics and ideas for you! You will also get to learn how to write a senior thesis in this article!

How To Write a Senior Thesis

Writing a senior thesis can be a lot easier if you know what to do. First, you need to choose the right adviser, select a topic you would like to work on, write a proposal, and get approved. Here are some things you need to know about writing your senior thesis.

A thesis proposal is a short overview of what your senior thesis papers will look like. This document carries detailed descriptions of your senior thesis topic. Your thesis proposal can be between 1 to 5 pages long and should carry any relevant information. The proposal will also carry a list of books you’ve used or that you intend to use during the writing of your senior thesis.

The length of a senior thesis may vary depending on several reasons. The senior thesis length can be dependent on strict specifications by the college. Your senior thesis may be between 10,000 to 20,000 words long.

The senior honors thesis is a 6-credit final thesis that you must present as a written formal document. The senior thesis title page, also known as the cover page, is the page that carries, at first glance, details of the project. The information on this page includes the thesis title, name of the student, name of college, name of supervisor, etc.

The senior thesis defense is an avenue created for faculty and examiners to ask you about your research work. You are to tell them the outcome of the research to the point when you’re asked. The questions center around what you have in your senior thesis paper, so ensure you have remarkable up-to-date information at every point.

Senior Thesis Topic

It is essential that you find excellent senior thesis topics. Finding these excellent topics is the pain point for many students. Well, we are here to help you with some senior thesis topics.

Checking out past senior thesis topics can also set you on the right path earlier in your research. For example, if you are a student writing a CMC senior thesis, senior thesis UF, senior thesis Princeton, or yale senior thesis, you can search for award-winning senior thesis topics. These topics can give you an idea of topics that may best suit your purposes. Never forget that you should always choose topics that you find interesting. Here are some history senior thesis topics that you can choose from:

• Yankees of the East: 20th Century America
• History of the German Ford Motor Company
• How women saw themselves in the Jazz Age
• The Emergence of Great Societies
• The roles of women post WWII

Get A Senior Thesis Example

Looking through some senior thesis examples can help you easily get the hang of what a senior thesis looks like. You can also request past projects from senior friends and colleagues, as this can significantly reduce the stress on you.

Senior Thesis Format

Now, I’ll give you a working senior thesis format. If you want an excellent and well-written thesis, you can follow the senior thesis outline given below. Here is an outline according to the guidelines for writing UF senior thesis or Princeton senior thesis.

In this chapter, you have to discuss the significance and purpose of the thesis. Also, you should state what you hope to achieve by the work.

Here, you will discuss the theory behind your research work. This chapter discusses past theoretical works that are related to your research.

This chapter explains how you intend to gather your data. Here, you state the method and experiments you followed to arrive at your results. It would help if you also described the analysis of your data. This must be done conscientiously.

This chapter addresses the findings from your experiments and data analysis only. You begin by listing out the types of tests taken and the outcome. You can use tables and charts to illustrate numeric results as the case may be.

Here you don’t just restate your findings, but you expatiate on the deductions you made from your findings. This chapter answers the “so what?” question. This is not a section to mince words when you explain what the results mean to the theory.

Include all references at the end of work.

Senior Thesis Ideas

There are many fields and sources to get senior thesis topic ideas from. These fields include health, technology, social media, education, religion, music, environment, etc. If you want to do a UF psychology senior thesis research, for example, these are some senior thesis psychology topics you can explore.

• The deep-seated reasons for discrimination and prejudice
• Personal perception and social cognition
• Marketing, propaganda, and persuasion
• Eating behaviors and outlook about life
• Phobias and antisocial behaviors
• Group therapy profile
• False memories and dreams.

Graphic Design Senior Thesis

When you become a senior in the Graphic Design Program at your institution, you can choose a social or personal problem to address through a design problem-solving technique or process. It may take you a semester or session to complete this work, so you have to start early enough. After completing the thesis, you can showcase your work and experience an exhibition. Don’t forget to put in your best effort.

High School Senior Thesis

The high school senior thesis is a document of at least 2,000 words written by high school seniors. This exercise usually strengthens research capabilities. Some high school senior thesis topics may include:

• A documentary on a place
• Learning about programming
• Research about the nature of colors and lots more.

In conclusion, when you’ve decided to write a senior thesis, the best thing to do is segment your work into small doable bits. Also, you need to schedule your time so that you can complete the thesis in due time or contact professional thesis writers . We wish you good luck!

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From ‘Rugrats’ to 50th Reunion, Norton Virgien ’74 traces his career as a Hollywood animator

By Bates News — Published on June 6, 2024

As an engineering major, Zain Erakky ’26 of New York City does not plan to pursue a career in animation or film. 

But as someone who grew up enchanted by the ingenious children on the animated series Rugrats , Erakky made sure to get a front-row seat after hearing that Norton Virgien ’74, well known for his many director and producer credits for the award-winning franchise, was giving a talk on campus as part of the Distinguished Alumni in Residence program.

“Norton was an inspiration for me growing up, with all those cool inventions the Rugrats made,” Erakky said, such as a super binky, coconut phone, and a hovercraft. Erakky remembers the wild adventure when Tommy Pickles climbed a plunger handle to explore a bathroom toilet, with hilarious results. “I always wanted to do that stuff in real life.”

The biggest takeaway for Erakky after hearing Virgien? How the veteran, Emmy Award–winning Hollywood producer and director went through dry spells in his career and still came out on top.

“That he faced rejection is inspiring. It was super powerful to see someone who helped to create something from my childhood, and to hear how he had sometimes failed — but he was fine with that,” Erakky said.

Virgien, who returns with Bates classmates for his 50th Bates Reunion this weekend, was on campus on March 27 as a guest of the College Key’s Distinguished Alumni program. During his visit, he met and talked with students about his 49-year (and counting) run in Hollywood.  

In an interview, Virgien spoke frankly about how creatives like painters, dancers, writers, or poets will face periods of financial insecurity if they decide to be independent artists. “Pretty much my career has alternated between projects that I’ve loved and time looking for the next project that I’m going to love,” he said. “There are often breaks, and that makes it an adventure financially, however well you did while you were busy.”

After graduating from Bates, Virgien headed to Hollywood, where he started as a draftsman back when animation was done by hand, and creating the movement of a single character required up to 24 slightly different drawings for just one second of animation. 

In Hollywood, he quickly picked up freelance work as a draftback, an illustrator who copies the initial image drawn by the lead artist. But largely he learned by listening and heeding advice — even if that meant giving up what he loved to do: bringing drawn characters to life by creating original illustrations. 

Virgien’s mentor in those early days was Fred Hellmich, an animator for Disney ( The Aristocats, The Jungle Book ) in the mid-1900s who later opened his own studio with Virgien as a partner. (Fun fact: They did the Disney-inspired animated sequence in the movie 9 to 5 with Lily Tomlin as Snow White).

Hellmich saw that his mentee had a keen sense for storytelling in his work, a talent that Virgien’s Bates mentor, the late Dana Professor of Art Don Lent, had seen as well. At the time, Virgien was helping Hellmich with a Disney project, and Hellmich paid him the compliment of telling him  “all he had to do was pretty up my drawings because I had already solved the storytelling problems.”

Virgien wasn’t the only Bates art major from the Class of 1974 who trekked to Hollywood to work in animation. By the late 1970s, Charles Grosvenor, who had been encouraged by Virgien to trade East for West, was forging his own career as an animator.

As the 1990s arrived, Grosvenor was hitting his stride with an equally popular series, but far different from his classmate’s, the heartfelt and vibrantly drawn The Land Before Time , for which Grosvenor was a producer and director of the television series and nine of the franchise’s movies.

“My friend Charlie went into animation alongside me, and he maintained his really fabulous, illustrative style of drawing and found a whole different kind of career than I did.”

Virgien credits the Bates art program and his former professor Don Lent, who died in 2020, for a distinctive level of flexibility. “Many art teachers have an approach that they like to instill in people; Bates encouraged me and Charlie, but allowed us to flourish in our own directions.

“If you look at people who want to work for Disney animation, their portfolios are all quite similar because there are things that one has to think about when learning to animate, [such as] the way the human structure changes when it’s in movement. And that goes back to the 1940s, that the animators then were learning the same tricks of the trade, drawing wise, as what they do now.”

Growing up, Virgien and other young creatives were also inspired by the animation of 1968’s Yellow Submarine . The film was “highly stylized and very trippy,” Virgien said. “It opened doors for people who wanted to do work in animation that wasn’t as akin to the traditional Disney product.”

The success of Yellow Submarine also meant that, for the first time, “adults started watching animated films. Before then, they were considered either for children or for families.” For a new generation of animators, the door was thrown open to be “more experimental, less predictable, and more designy — if that’s a word.”

The iconic trippiness of Yellow Submarine , with its Blue Meanies, Apple Bonkers, and Kinky Boot Beasts, gave young new animators license “to be funnier, or more exaggerated, which probably did something to lead to The Simpsons ,” said Virgien. 

And it influenced Rugrats , too, “whose cinematography mimicked the way babies might see the world with low angles and strange distortions, and all kinds of shows that no longer tried to look like life. They tried to look like quirky drawings come to life.”

Today’s animation is often done by computer; Disney’s last hand-drawn animated film was Winnie the Pooh , in 2011. “We used to be able to identify certain animators’ work just by the style of it. Now it gets homogenized by the computer process a bit,” Virgien said. “But as a director you have more control when you don’t have to ask someone to redraw a hundred drawings. You can do more tweaking and less reinventing.”

Along with technological advances, the times and places that children and babies can watch animation have expanded. Long gone are the days when cartoon watching meant Saturday morning in front of a television set. Now it’s a tablet or cell phone in a car seat, stroller, or grocery store cart. And the youngest viewers aren’t yet 1 year old.

“It’s a funny terminology to say, ‘zero-year-olds,’” said Virgien. “But coming up with material for the zero-year-old is challenging. For the very youngest, you want to simplify things so that they’re seeing colors and shapes and movement and simple storylines that are about what little kids care about: Who has my ball? There are some very nice shows being made for young kids.”

Today, Virgien remains proud that Rugrats had genuine appeal for adults. (Virgien was co-director for The Rugrats Movie in 1998, producer of Rugrats in Paris in 2000 and director of Rugrats Go Wild in 2003.)

Now in his 70s, Virgien is still having a ball as a storyteller. Most recently, he was co-creator of a series set in prehistoric times about a young girl who invents the first wheel as well as other useful tools. Eureka! , which earned a nomination for Outstanding Animated Series at the 2023 NAACP Image Awards, is now streaming on DisneyPlus. 

Virgien has a particular reason for reveling in this work: The girl’s ingenuity as an engineer defies past stereotypes, and encourages young girls to excel in the sciences. “You like to think you’re doing some good in the world as well as making a living,” Virgien said.

His audience in March included students such as Erakky and fellow alumni. Beverly Nash Esson ’73 of Wells, Maine, came to hear Virgien because her children had been Rugrats fans growing up. 

In fact, Esson wrote to Virgien in 1995 and asked him if he would send her, as a fellow Bates graduate, a Rugrats drawing, which he did. Esson brought it with her to Virgien’s talk to thank him, and hear the story of his remarkable film career. 

“My son was 6, and he was so thrilled to get this,” Esson said, holding up Virgien’s framed illustration. “My stock in my family really went up.”

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