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Senior Honors Thesis

Honors program guidelines.

Latin Honors involves a demonstration of acquired knowledge based on two components: an original research project and a cumulative GPA of 3.65 or above. Policies implemented in the 2014-2015 academic year by the College of Arts & Sciences changed the way in which students are awarded Latin Honors. Prior to graduation, the Anthropology department must certify that the honors candidate has obtained a minimum 8-semester GPA of 3.65, both overall and in Anthropology, and that the Honors thesis has been satisfactorily completed. Based on this initial certification, the student is subsequently awarded, by the College of Arts & Sciences, A.B. cum laude, magna cum laude, or summa cum laude according to the following proportions: the top 15 percent in overall grade point average of Latin Honors candidates in Arts & Sciences who complete the necessary requirements of their major departments graduate summa cum laude; the next 35 percent magna cum laude; the next 50 percent cum laude. The maximum level of honors is established by student’s GPA, however the quality of the thesis is important in determining the actual level of honors that will be awarded. Specific questions about eligibility or requirements should be addressed to the Departmental Honors Coordinator (Professor Bret Gustafson, [email protected] , McMillan 332) or to the teaching assistant assigned to the program for the year.

New graduate students often discover on reaching graduate school that there is a considerable gap between what they have learned about a subject from books, and actually formulating and carrying out original research in the field. Making this transition is one of the most important challenges they face as a graduate student. Doing an honors thesis gives you the chance to take this step as an undergraduate through participating in original research in an area in which you are especially interested. 

There are also several practical benefits to doing an honors thesis: you learn how to frame a research question, develop methods and analytical techniques with which to address it, and discuss your results in the context of relevant anthropological literature. In doing so, you are able to work closely with one or several faculty members. Why consider writing an honors thesis?

• This is one of the best opportunities for undergraduates to conduct and report independent research beyond the level possible for a one-semester course.
• If you are potentially interested in going on to graduate school, this experience helps you to evaluate whether or not you are really interested in research.
• This experience also enables faculty members to get to know you well, and to make any recommendations that they may write much more substantive.
• You receive university recognition for this work in the form of university Latin Honors.  This is one of the most impressive awards a student can receive, and it will distinguish you as an outstanding scholar for life. 
• Undergraduate honors research can be shared through Washington University’s Open Scholarship portal http://openscholarship.wustl.edu/undergrad_etd/ .  Outstanding thesis work may also be published, in various formats, in peer-reviewed journals, etc.

Disadvantages

Doing an honors thesis is very demanding academically and takes a great deal of time and effort. Students can find that the process, which involves multiple participants, significant planning and collaboration, and various institutional components (such as securing IRB approval, gaining access to labs and undertaking lab work, etc.) can be not only time consuming but can pose unforeseen challenges. Developing a sound research methodology, learning to craft an extended argument, and even the mechanics of referencing figures and tables, making proper citations, and putting together extensive bibliographies, can be more time consuming than students had ever imagined. Occasionally, honors students are unable to complete the thesis in time for the spring deadline. It is advisable to think well ahead and to begin conducting research or to prepare for that research, during the junior year prior to registering for the honors program in the senior year.

There are two other factors you should consider when weighing the advantages and disadvantages of honors research:

• Although faculty will help you as much as they can, you will have to work independently more than you may be used to.
• Since the final results of your work towards an honors thesis are not known until after applications for graduate school are due, the fact that you are doing an honors thesis may not help with those applications.

The Honors Process

Choosing an advisor and a topic.

If you are interested pursuing Latin Honors you need to select a professor in the anthropology department who is willing to sponsor your research project and serve as your primary honors advisor for the duration of the project. This may be as early as the sophomore year, but ideally will be during the junior year. The first semester of the senior year is late to begin planning an honors thesis. 

It is important to work in an area in which you are especially interested, and with which you have a solid academic groundwork, i.e., on which you have completed upper-level coursework, written a paper, or done some preliminary research in class. Before agreeing to supervise an honors thesis, your faculty advisor will generally expect you to have taken upper-level courses that relate to your topic. Past honors theses are on file and can be accessed through Kirsten Jacobsen, Academic Coordinator. It is useful to review these for ideas about topics, as well as for many aspects of working on a thesis, such as methods, length, and format. You will need to discuss potential thesis topics with faculty that agree to advise an honors thesis.

  Other important considerations

Securing IRB Approval:  Any student conducting research with human subjects must obtain Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval from the Human Research Protection Office (HRPO) before beginning research. Even studies in which students do not plan to conduct formal interviews, but only to observe public behavior and to speak informally with individuals (without collecting any personal identifiers from subjects), require IRB approval. The student must have a good sense, for the purposes of applying for this approval, of the kinds of research methodologies that will be utilized, the approximate number of research subjects, how the confidentiality of data will be maintained, and the risks to human subjects minimized. Guidelines for the IRB process are available online at http://hrpohome.wustl.edu/ . The majority of students who have conducted research abroad as part of an SIT program, and have received initial human subjects approval in their host countries, must still apply to transfer that SIT approval to the Washington University IRB when they return to campus. This approval must be obtained before the student shares any of the results of their research.  It is important to keep in mind that while, in some cases, IRB approval can be obtained quickly, it can also become cumbersome and take a substantial amount of time and energy to secure IRB approval. When possible, it is preferable to complete the IRB process before the fall semester of the senior year. More information on the IRB process, and specific information relevant to SIT students, is available at the end of this document.

Access to Laboratory Facilities: Students who are doing laboratory-based theses will need to obtain special permission for extra access hours to laboratory facilities. You will need to discuss this with your advisor and other professors ahead of time.

Research Methods: Methods will vary greatly with subject, and should be discussed in detail with your advisor. Methods classes in the relevant subdiscipline of anthropology will be helpful. 

Academic Integrity: All students should abide by Washington University’s policy academic integrity and certify that all of the work they submit is their own http://studentconduct.wustl.edu/academic-integrity/

  Honors Registration & Timeline

The first step in declaring your serious interest to complete a senior honors thesis is to submit the honors interest form during the spring of your junior year. The form can be found at the end of this booklet. 

Most thesis writers carry out preliminary research in the summer before the senior year, especially if the thesis involves fieldwork (see below for information on getting summer funding). Thesis projects based on lab analysis or use of other types of evidence may also require summer work. The point is that by the fall of your senior year, you should be well on your way to analyzing your material, not just getting started on collecting it.

In the fall semester of your senior year you will register for L48 4960 Senior Honors Research (and in the spring for L48 4961 Senior Honors Research). As part of the honors course, which will meet on Fridays at 9:00 a.m., you will have the opportunity to get to know the cohort of students writing honors theses, to participate in workshops, and to access educational resources available to undergraduate researchers.  During the fall semester, you are expected to meet with your advisor frequently and also to report on your progress to the honors coordinator and the students in the honors cohort during weekly meetings. Ideally, you will have written a substantial portion of the thesis by the end of the semester. At the end of the term, your progress will be evaluated by both your thesis advisor and the Departmental Honors Coordinator, Professor Bret Gustafson.

As a continuation of this research and coursework, honors students are also required to register for L48 4961 in the spring, although only one of the two honors courses can count for the Anthropology major. Adjustments to the registration requirement may be considered on a case-by-case basis. Class meetings incorporate workshops on how to prepare a research poster and thesis abstract, how to present a research poster, group writing sessions, and progress exercises. Your thesis advisor, in consultation with the Honors Coordinator, is responsible for assigning you letter grades for both courses. Students planning to graduate in December should contact Professor Bret Gustafson, as a different timeline applies.

Most advisors ask for a near-final draft of the thesis in mid-February in order to read it carefully, suggest revisions, and give the student time to make necessary changes before early March, when two other committee members must receive their copies. The honors thesis is evaluated by a three-member examining committee whose members are selected by the sponsoring advisor in consultation with the student and the Honors Coordinator. This three-member committee evaluates the quality of the thesis and suggests revisions. A full draft of the thesis must be received by all committee members by a set deadline, typically just before Spring Break. Shortly thereafter, the committee makes its recommendations to the College of Arts and Sciences on the highest level of honors to be awarded to the thesis. While the level of Honors is contingent on GPA, the quality of the thesis is also a substantial consideration. At least one member of the committee, other than the principal thesis advisor, must be an anthropology faculty member. The third member can be from another academic department. The final, spiral-bound copy of the thesis, with all changes required by the committee, is due by the last day of classes. For students graduating in December, please see the Honors Coordinator for time schedule.

  Thesis Format and Length

As a rough guide, honors theses typically consist of about 60 pages of text. In consultation with a thesis advisor, each student should choose a professional stylistic format and follow standard bibliographic and citation techniques appropriate for the relevant subdiscipline. The published style guide of a lead journal such as American Anthropologist (for cultural), American Antiquity (for archaeology), or American Journal of Physical Anthropology (for biological) can provide necessary details. Electronic versions of these style guides, and other anthropological resources relevant to thesis writers, can be found on Olin Library’s page for ‘Senior Thesis Writers in Anthropology’ The student is required to supply the department with a final copy of the thesis to be filed in the anthropology library. This copy must be spiral bound with a clear plastic cover. It is customary to provide the thesis advisor (and often committee members) with final copies.  

Undergraduate Research Support/Expenses 

You might consider applying for funds from the Office of Undergraduate Research to conduct summer research, or to travel to a conference and present your research results. See the following website for more information:   https://undergradresearch.wustl.edu/seek-funding-programs . Keep in mind that, when working with human subjects, you must obtain human subjects approval from the Washington University Institutional Review Board prior to beginning that research, as detailed at the end of these guidelines. There are also small grants available from Sigma Xi. Short proposals are required and you should discuss these with your advisor. The deadlines for proposals are in November each year. Forms are available in the Anthropology office. You should also bear in mind that you get academic credit for doing honors research, but do not have normal expenses such as the purchase of textbooks or laboratory fees. You should save this money toward research expenses such as printing and binding.

Canvas Website  

Students will have access to a Canvas website for the Senior Honors program. Important information about the program, accompanying forms, and descriptions of the tasks and activities to be undertaken at the various class meetings, scheduled below, will be posted on the website. Students will also have the opportunity to use Canvas’s collaborative tools to share their research projects, receive feedback from their peers, and similar functions.

Additional Resources

Past Honors Projects

see what past honors students have researched

Human Subjects Policy

learn about the department's policy for human subjects research

Forms & Links

Honors thesis interest form, sample protocol for exempt behavioral research, human research protection office, anthropology honors thesis information session april 15, 2021.

Click here to watch a recording of the session

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Undergraduate Honors & Senior Thesis

Students excelling in their major coursework and interested in pure math should consider Departmental Honors. Departmental Honors means you will graduate “With Distinction” as opposed to College Honors which is “With Honors”.  The most important component of graduating with Departmental Honors is researching and writing a Senior Thesis.

Requirements for Departmental Honors:

• Must complete a B.S. Mathematics Degree.
• Must satisfactorily complete at least one three-quarter sequence 402-3-4, 424-5-6, or 441-2-3; or two two-quarter sequences from this list. Exceptions must be approved by the chair of the Departmental Honors Committee.
• Must earn a GPA of 3.5 or better in Math coursework completed at the UW.
• Must write a senior thesis (earn a numerical grade for MATH 496).
• Must have a 3.3 minimum cumulative GPA at UW.

Please note: If you are not interested in the College Honors or Departmental Honors in Mathematics, you may still write a Senior Thesis. The process is the same as above, but it does not need to be approved by the Honors Committee.

Research credit (Math 498) may be available with faculty permission.

Beginning of your final year at the UW : think about a thesis topic and seek out a faculty supervisor.  Read below for more details about selecting a topic.

First week of classes the quarter before you expect to graduate: submit a thesis proposal form to the Dept. Honors Committee.  The form is online here: Math Dept. Honors Thesis Proposal Form

Last day of your final quarter: Once your advisor approves the thesis, email it to [email protected] and cc your faculty advisor.  You may also wish to upload it to the University Libraries archive .

Nature of the thesis

The senior thesis shall be an expository account of a topic in pure or applied mathematics related to the student’s area of interest. (Original results or proofs are welcome but are definitely not expected.) The thesis must contain some nontrivial mathematical arguments. (E.g., a non-technical essay on “fractals in nature” would not be acceptable.) The thesis should normally be about 20 to 30 pages in length (double spaced, Times New Roman 12pt font, 1” margins). These figures are guidelines, not rigid requirements. The topic should be something that cannot simply be read out of a standard textbook. Writing the thesis should involve:

• obtaining material from the periodical literature, or
• consulting several books and synthesizing material from them, or
• reading an account of a topic in a book that is substantially more advanced than the student’s regular coursework, digesting it, and putting it into readable form.

Choosing a topic

Finding a topic is the students’ responsibility, although consultation with faculty members is encouraged. The topic must be approved by a faculty member of the Mathematics Department who will supervise the work (the “supervisor”) and by the chair of the Departmental Honors Committee. A Senior Thesis Topic Proposal form can be found at the link above, and should be filled out by the student with the supervisor's support (the Dept. will check in with your supervisor). The topic proposal must be submitted to the chair of the Departmental Honors Committee no later than the end of the first week of classes the quarter preceding the quarter in which the student expects to graduate. Exceptions to this deadline may be granted only by the chair of the Departmental Honors Committee. Students contemplating writing a thesis are strongly encouraged to start thinking about a topic in the autumn quarter of their senior year.

Writing the thesis

The student must register for Math 496 (Honors Senior Thesis) during the last quarter of thesis work. The student may receive three credit hours of W-course credit for writing the thesis. Normally, the students will register for a reading course (Math 498) with the supervisor during the preceding quarter (s). The student will receive three hours of credit for each of these courses, but in exceptional cases, with the approval of the supervisor, the number or credit hours may be increased. The supervisor may allow the student to replace Math 498 with a suitable topics course; however, it is still expected that the student will meet periodically with the supervisor.

There is no specific required thesis template for an undergraduate thesis.  Some students may choose to use a modified version of the graduate thesis templates, but this is not required.

Approval of thesis

The student shall submit a draft of the thesis to the supervisor for comments and criticisms, and then shall submit a final version with appropriate revisions. The supervisor shall read the thesis and certify its acceptability with respect to both content and exposition. In order to ensure sufficient time for these things, the student must submit the first draft no later than three weeks before the last day classes of the quarter in which the student expects to graduate, and the final draft no later than the last day of classes. Exceptions to these deadlines may be granted only by the chair of the Departmental Honors Committee.

Once the thesis has been approved by your faculty supervisor, you will need to email the document to [email protected] (required) as well as submit it to the ResearchWorks archive , part of the University Libraries (optional but strongly recommended).  Submission to the archive will allow your thesis to be included in the dissemination and preservation of scholarly work.  Your thesis will be made publicly available.

Interdisciplinary theses

Theses which are concerned with the application of some part of mathematics to some others field are acceptable, as long as they contain some substantial mathematics. In exceptional cases the student may wish to work most closely with a faculty member in another department in preparing the thesis. However, in such cases the thesis topic and the thesis itself must still be approved by a member of the Mathematics Department.

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Latin Honors and Senior Honors Thesis

Students with >3.65 GPA are encouraged to write a formal senior honors thesis that will qualify them to receive a diploma with Latin Honors:

• summa cum laude (top 15% by GPA)
• magna cum laude (next 35%)
• cum laude (other 50%)

The thesis shows a deep understanding of the concepts acquired as a Physics major, and that you can use these concepts to do original research. It should describe research performed by you in the Physics Department or elsewhere. The writing should attest to your ability to write a scientific paper. The thesis should include an introduction giving the motivation for the research project and background information, describe the methods applied and the results of the research, include a discussion section, and include appropriate citations throughout the thesis. You will receive faculty feedback on your thesis which will help you to improve your scientific writing skills.

Each year the deadline for seniors to turn in their finished theses is in March by 5:00 PM on the Monday that is the first class day after the end of spring break. This is a firm deadline that cannot be extended. Submissions should be sent to the Director of Undergraduates Studies, [email protected] . The current deadline is March 18, 2024.

All students writing a senior thesis need to report their intent to do so to the Director of Undergraduate Studies with this form . If the research was done and supervised in another department, you must find a physics faculty member to be a thesis supervisor, read your thesis and certify that it is substantial and well written. In this case, please give the names of both advisors.

A successful thesis usually contains twelve to twenty pages of text (single-spaced) plus figures, tables, and references.  Writers should consult their advisors frequently to ensure high scientific and writing quality. The librarian, Alison Verbeck, has theses from recent years in the library, so you can look at examples there, or in the  electronic repository .

All students writing a senior thesis are encouraged to present a poster describing the research at one of the two  Undergraduate Research Symposia  held each year.

We ask that students post electronic copies of their theses at the Washington University Libraries  Open Scholarship repository . The repository is a service of the Libraries to provide free access to the scholarly output of the university. More information about the repository is available on the “About” page at  openscholarship.wustl.edu . Open Scholarship already contains several senior honors projects. You can find examples listed under Student Publications in two folders – Undergraduate Theses–Restricted and Undergraduate Theses–Unrestricted.

Students may perform the research work on which they will report as volunteers, for pay, or for academic credit. An hour of work may not earn both money and credit. Students should not be paid for time spent writing theses, but may count that time toward academic credit. Seniors may use Physics 499 and/or Physics 500 to sign up for credit. These courses require manual enrollment; your advisor will request that you be registered for the class with the appropriate number of credit hours. A University-wide guideline is one unit of credit for three hours per week of research work.

Senior Thesis Intent Form

Have a question?

For information about the Latin Honors and Senior Honors Thesis, contact the Director of Undergraduate Studies.

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Answered By: Services *Research & Liaison Last Updated: Apr 16, 2024     Views: 486

Honors papers/theses:.

Undergraduate students at Washington University in St. Louis are encouraged to participate in research. These opportunities are organized through the Office of Undergraduate Research or through department-specific honors courses. This collection contains senior research papers or honors theses from across disciplines at Washington University in St. Louis.

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

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Senior Honors Thesis Guide

This set of guidelines is presented for formatting senior honors theses for majors in the Linguistics Program in Washington University in St. Louis. The guidelines are compatible with those followed by the Office of Graduate Studies in Arts and Sciences for masters theses, but also take into account the special requirements of undergraduates. Some guidelines address formatting issues peculiar to linguistics, but most such issues are handled by referring the student to other style guidelines and handbooks, in particular the style guide of Linguistic Inquiry and the handbook of the International Phonetic Association. Even though these guidelines do not themselves constitute a thesis, they follow the formatting guidelines in order to illustrate the main points of the thesis format.

The Thesis Process

Applying to enter the program.

You may apply to the senior honors program after you get your grade reports at the end of your junior year. The application consists of a statement, approximately 250 to 500 words in length, of what you propose to do for your thesis. You also need the agreement of one faculty member to serve as your primary advisor for the thesis project.

Your statement should clearly describe the purpose of your thesis; the process by which you propose to study the topic; the type of product that will be produced; and your preparation to pursue the topic. The purpose is typically a research question: what do you hope to find out or produce that is not already readily available? The process covers such issues as whether you are basing your work on published materials or will be gathering your own information by interviewing native-language consultants, running experiments, searching corpora, or the like. It also covers your methodological theory and analytical processes: Will you, for example, be working within Optimality Theory, will you be doing statistical regression analyses? The type of product could be a dictionary, a grammar, a theoretical research paper, an experiment report, an instructional video, and so forth. Preparation should be an honest look at what sort of knowledge, training, or other resources are necessary for the project, and whether you have them or can reasonably expect to obtain them. For example, if you are planning to study a little-attested language, will you have access to sufficient materials? If you need to work with native consultants, have you already secured their permission? If you will be consulting interviews in a foreign language, do you speak that language adequately? If you need funding to travel to Australia, where will that money come from? If you will be working with human subjects, can you reasonably expect to gather all the requisite permissions in the available timeframe?

The faculty member you get to serve as your primary advisor should be a member of the core Linguistics faculty. He or she does not have to be the same person who serves as your Major advisor. Advisors do not need to be experts in your specific thesis topic. They do need to be able to take on a non-negligible amount of mentoring responsibility, as described below. One of their first tasks is to make sure that your topic is well described at the outset and has a good chance of success. You should expect your potential advisor to critique and help you refine your thesis project statement even before you submit it with your application. You should not expect your advisor to assign you a topic. It is up to you to find a primary advisor; impressing teachers with your scholarly skills and getting them intrigued with your thesis idea is part of the job of writing a thesis. 

The Linguistics Program will evaluate your application, adding its own evaluation of whether the thesis topic is of proper scope, topic, and ambition for a senior honors thesis. They will also conduct a frank appraisal of whether you are likely to do well on such a project. A minimum guideline is that at the end of your junior year both your overall GPA isand your Linguistics GPA are at least 3.65. You should also be making good progress toward fulfilling your course requirements, and have done especially well on coursework that is most relevant to your proposed thesis.

As soon as your thesis proposal is approved, you should register for 3 units of Ling 499 for the coming Fall. If your background and proposal do not qualify for a thesis, they may be sufficient for an Independent Study. Such courses are typically half as big in scope and expectation as a thesis, and there is no GPA prerequisite. A 3-unit Independent Study will typically qualify as a senior capstone experience.

Fall of Senior Year

After your thesis is approved, at least one other person will be selected to serve as your second advisor. The second advisor is usually another linguist who is available for consultation and can verify that you are writing a good thesis. Typically a second advisor will be assigned to you, in order to average out workload across the faculty, but you may also enlist one yourself. Occasionally it may be appropriate for you to recruit a member of some faculty other than Linguistics, especially if she or he brings expertise in a specific foreign language, culture, or a subject matter that is particularly relevant to your thesis. Interdisciplinary and applied work is welcome and encouraged. At the same time, bear in mind that the primary focus of a Linguistics thesis must be on the linguistics.

During the Fall, you should expect to meet with your primary advisor on a regular basis. A typical pattern is a meeting of 30 minutes to an hour once a week, but this can vary considerably. Your advisor will be available to offer advice, and you should not hesitate to ask questions; on the other hand, a good advisor will also ensure that you do your own work and show initiative. Most importantly, your advisor will make sure that you stay on track and show sufficient progress toward getting your thesis done on time.

The role of your second advisor during the Fall is generally more constrained. A typical pattern is for students to meet with their secondary advisors only a couple of times, and perhaps send them two or three emails a month to keep them in the loop about any developments. However, if your second advisor wishes to take a more active role, you should definitely take advantage of that opportunity. A bare minimum is to provide your second advisor with a snapshot of your work by the start of finals week of the Fall semester.

Although schedules vary depending on what form your thesis project takes, you should normally have by finals week a rough draft of the whole thesis, or a solid draft of half of your thesis, along with a written plan detailing your schedule for completing the thesis. Your advisors will make a frank assessment of whether you have a reasonable chance of producing a satisfactory thesis by the coming deadline (see below). It is crucial that you will have availed yourself of every opportunity of making satisfactory progress in the months leading up to that assessment. The most common mistake thesis writers make is to give priority to their other classes during the Fall, wasting four months of opportunity, then think they will make up the time during the interlude between semesters. This rarely works. In order to give yourself sufficient time, it is best if you can minimize the number of other classes during your senior year, especially in the Fall.

If your main advisor gives you a grade lower than B- in Ling 499 in the Fall, or if your GPAs drop below the minimum standards (3.65 overall and in Linguistics), you will not be permitted to continue your thesis work in the Spring. The Program Office will cancel any attempt to register for thesis credit in the Spring. More commonly, however, the agreement to discontinue thesis work is arrived at mutually, and you may be able to negotiate changing your Ling 499 registration to Ling 500, Independent Work.

Spring of Senior Year

If you continue on with your thesis, register again for 3 units of Ling 499 for Spring semester. In the Spring, you will be up against some very firm deadlines.

By February, your thesis should have advanced to the point where you are finalizing it. Most of your interactions with your advisors should consist of submitting drafts, getting feedback from them, and making the needed corrections.

By March 1, your advisors should have a candidate final draft that they agree is ready to defend. That is, everything should be written in full, readable sentences, and be substantially complete. It is permissible for the candidate final draft to have some deficiencies in style and formatting – e.g., wrong-sized margins or ugly trees – as long as it is clear that such deficiencies can reasonably be cleaned up within a few weeks. There should not be substantive deficiencies such as missing sections or bad argumentation.

If your advisors agree that the thesis is substantially ready to defend, they will ask you to schedule an oral defense: that is, find an hour when both you and your advisors can meet. Often it is helpful to reserve a meeting room for your defense, although some professors may prefer to meet in their offices. This defense should be held at least two full weeks before the end of March – or the first week after Spring Break.

At least a few days before the defense, you should give your advisor final drafts of your thesis, on paper, having corrected any remaining deficiencies. The thesis does not have to be bound yet, but otherwise it should be in the format called for in the thesis guidelines.

The oral defense lasts one hour. It begins with an oral presentation by you, lasting about ten minutes. The rest of the time, you answer questions posed by your committee. Some questions may narrowly focus on parts of your thesis, others may address its general topic more broadly.

Your committee then confers to assess your thesis, both its written form, the oral defense, and any ancillary material – for example, computer programs, poster presentations, spreadsheets, lexicons – that you may have produced. If there is sufficient time, committees will often ask you to wait outside the room while they confer. The committee should give you quick feedback on your thesis. They may decide not to approve the thesis; approve it; or approve it contingent on correcting small deficiencies by March 27.

If your thesis is approved, you should immediately send its abstract to the Office of Undergraduate Research via their Web page. You should also consider 7 presenting a poster at the local Undergraduate Research fair held in the spring (usually very early in April; see http://ur.wustl.edu ), or at other venues, but this is not mandatory.

After a successful thesis, the Linguistics Program will normally recommend to the College that you receive Latin honors. The level you receive -- cum laude, magna cum laude, or summa cum laude -- is made by the College based on your overall grade point average through the end of your senior year. If your thesis is not approved, you will not receive Latin honors, but you may receive College honors.

Format of the Thesis

General principles.

This sheet prescribes the broad outlines of how to format your thesis. It is based mostly on the Office of Graduate Studies in Arts and Sciences “Master’s Thesis Guide” 2011:3–7, with a few modifications required for our specific program.

To make this guide less redundant, it does not repeat information that can easily be found in other guides. On all points that do not conflict with this guide, the following sources should also be consulted, in descending order of priority:

• Linguistic Inquiry “Style Guide” 2010:sec. 5–70. This will be cited as LI below.
• International Phonetic Association Handbook 1999. 8
• Leipzig Glossing Rules, 2008.
• The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition, 2010.
• Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 2003.

In technical matters such as the formatting of trees, you should follow the conventions and styles used in the papers you have drawn from. Avoid inventing new notations unless you have a clear reason; otherwise, your readers will find it more difficult to read your paper and may conclude that you are insufficiently familiar with the literature.

The thesis should be submitted both on paper and as a computer file.

The paper version should be on single-sided, 8.5″ by 11″ (i.e. letter-size) sheets of acid-free white paper, 20 pound or heavier. Submit two copies spiral bound and one copy unbound, in a manila envelope.

The computer version should be a PDF file capable of producing the paper version when printed.

It is acceptable to fit an exceptionally wide illustration to an 8.5″ by 11″ page by printing it landscape (rotated 90 degrees to the left).

You may also submit supplementary materials along with your thesis. Such material may include very large data sets, spreadsheets, computer source code, and the like, which may be of interest to some readers but which are not essential for an appreciation of the argument of the thesis. Ideally, we encourage supplementary material to be printed out and submitted along with the thesis, but not bound with it. However, if the supplementary material is very large indeed or unlikely to be useful in printed form, it may be submitted only as computer files.

When submitting computer files, carefully consider how easily they can be read across a variety of computers. Whenever feasible, it is best to submit files that can be read or played without costly proprietary software, although Microsoft Office 2010 is also acceptable. Text files should be in Unicode.

Margins should be at least 1 inch on all sides, except that the left margin should be 1.5 inches, to facilitate binding.

Page numbers should appear centered at the bottom of the page. The 1-inch bottom margin is below the page number; an additional half inch of space should appear above the page number. Every sheet of paper in the manuscript should be numbered except for the first, the title page. Lowercase Roman numerals are used for the preliminary pages (front matter). Since the title page is counted though not numbered, “ii” is the first page number used. Arabic numerals are used for the text and any back matter such as the Referencs. The first page of text is page 1, and pagination continues in a single sequence through the rest of the thesis.

The main font of the text should be 12-point Charis SIL 1 or Times New Roman. 2 Another font may be substituted, as long as it is no smaller and is a formal book-style font; e.g. it should have serifs. Ideally your main font will contain any IPA symbols you use, so that there is no obvious clash in style between the main text and your phonetic transcriptions. If your main font lacks symbols that you need, it is permissible to use additional fonts. Use Unicode fonts unless no alternative is available.

In charts and other figures, it is permissible to use other styles of fonts, even sans serif ones.

1 Available free from http://sil.org . Curiously, this is not the same font as SIL Charis, which should not be used.

2 Version 5.01 or later. This version, which is supplied with Vista and Windows 7, is much more complete than the version that comes with Windows XP; it includes the IPA characters.

Running Heads

Headings at the top of pages, above the text area, are not necessary. They must not be used on the title page or copyright page, and it is best not to include them on the first page of a section that has to begin on a new page (e.g. Contents, Appendix).

If you do use them, we recommend that they contain some useful information, such as the number or the name, or both, of the current section. Running heads need to go below the 1″ top margin.

The thesis must be in English. United States spelling is preferred, but you may follow international spelling standards if U.S. spelling is difficult for you.

Text Sections

Your text (the part of the thesis that begins on page 1) should be divided into sections with headings. Follow the LI guidelines, 5–6. Contrary to LI guideline 7, section headings may be formatted for extra prominence, for example by use of boldface, small caps, italics, slightly larger font, skipping a line before the heading, or a combination of these methods. We do not recommend centering the heading, or using a different font family for it.

For very small sections of only a paragraph or two, it is also permissible to use paragraph section headings. The paragraph is formatted and indented as a normal paragraph would be, but a title is put at the beginning of a paragraph, followed by a period and two spaces. Then the text of the paragraph begins on the same line. The title is cased like a sentence rather than like a title, but does 11 not have to be a full sentence. Use boldface, small caps, or italics to make the heading stand out, but use the same font family and size as the rest of the paragraph.

Paragraphing

Do not leave blank lines between paragraphs. The first line of a paragraph that immediately follows another paragraph should be indented by about 1/2″.

Do not right-justify your paragraphs. That is, the left edge of the text should be lined up, but the right edge should be left ragged. Do not break words at the end of a line.

Line Spacing

In general, text should be double spaced. But you should single-space footnotes and blocks of text that are set off from the main text with extra indentation, such as linguistic examples and long quotations. We recommend single spacing for illustrations, such as tables and their captions and notes, but double spacing is also acceptable.

In the text, footnotes appear at the bottom of the same page as the text that references the footnote. Each note should begin on its own line, indented as for a new paragraph. Each footnote should be single-spaced, but leave a blank line between each footnote. The rules for footnotes in illustrations are a little different; see the section on illustrations below.

Indented Blocks

In order to set off some information to make it more visually salient, and to show that it is not part of the text proper, it can be set as an indented block. The two main types of indented blocks are block quotations and linguistic examples. All lines of indented blocks are indented one inch, in addition to the left margin. The first line of an indented block is not indented further, even if it is the beginning of a paragraph. The lines in such a block are single-spaced.

Illustrations

Tables and figures (pictures, diagrams, etc.) are collectively called “illustrations”. (Note that linguistic representations of words or phrases are considered examples, not illustrations, even though they may be quite big, such as trees, f-structures, and OT tableaux.) Illustrations should normally be placed in the main body of the text. Place an illustration on the same page on which it is first referred to in text, or as soon as possible thereafter. Make sure all illustrations are placed in the same order in which they are mentioned. Ideally, illustrations should be placed at the top or bottom of a page, and the text floated around it. If that cannot be done elegantly, it is also acceptable to place each illustration on its own page. The lines in an illustration should be single spaced.

Notes to illustrations should be placed immediately below the illustration, not at the bottom of the page. They should be marked with lowercase letters instead of with numbers. The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association 2010:chapter 5 has useful advice on making good illustrations and notes for them.

Siting Sources

A good thesis gives a solid review of the relevant linguistic literature. It also gives credit for all ideas. Both of these functions require citation and references. Citation is done by mentioning the author(s) and date of publication in the text at the place where you refer to the other person’s ideas ( LI 51–58); the References list at the end of your thesis gives fuller details about the works that were cited ( LI 59–64).

It is appropriate to cite even unpublished material, such as a class paper or something a professor or fellow student suggested to you personally. Failure to cite the source of an idea that is not common knowledge is known as plagiarism and can be a career-ender.

Copyright is a related concept: using too much of other people’s work without their permission, regardless of whether you cite it properly, may be illegal and result in a substantial fine. In practice, this mostly enters into consideration when students use somebody else’s illustrations in their thesis. If 14 you got an illustration from somewhere else, you need to either prove that it is not protected by copyright, or that you got permission from the copyright holder. If the latter, add a permissions note to the figure.

Mandatory Parts of the Manuscript

After the title page, all sections listed here begin on a new page, which has the name of the section (e.g. Abstract) centered at the top of the page. All pages after the title page should bear a sequential page number, starting with ii.

The following sections should be present in all theses, in the order given:

Mimic slavishly the format illustrated below. All lines are centered. Give some thought as to the form of your name, because you will want to maintain some consistency throughout your scholarly career. We strongly recommend you spell at least one forename in full, and give at least initials for other forenames—“Avram Noam Chomsky” or “Avram N. Chomsky”; this will minimize the possibility of your being confused some day with somebody else who uses the same name. The month should be the month your degree is to be formally conferred; usually May but occasionally December or August. There is no page number on the title page.

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

Linguistics Program

This Is the Title of the Thesis, Bolded, and Title-Cased

Your Full Name

A thesis presented to the

of Washington University in

partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the

degree of Bachelor of Arts

with honors  

Saint Louis, Missouri

The abstract should be between 250 and 300 words long, and formatted as a single unindented paragraph. It should comprise a précis of your entire thesis, including the conclusions: do not be afraid of revealing the ending.

Acknowledgments

You may wish to thank here people who helped you with your thesis. Be especially careful to thank people and agencies who provided financial support for your thesis work. If you wish to include a dedication, it may constitute the last paragraph of the acknowledgments page. But you may omit this section if you have no one to acknowledge.

Table of Contents

The table of contents should give the beginning page number of every section of your thesis from the Abstract on, including itself. It is rarely necessary to have a contents section that is more than a page long; use that consideration when deciding how much detail to go into. The locations of your main sections will probably suffice; the location of each subsubsection is almost certainly too much information.

List of Illustrations

Tables and figures are collectively known as illustrations. This section gives the location of all illustrations, usually as two lists, figures first. If you have a lot of illustrations, you might want to split this into two sections each starting on their own page: List of Figures and List of Tables. If you have no illustrations at all, this page is omitted.

Abbreviations

In this section, expand any abbreviations used in the thesis. You do not have to define universally known abbreviations such as U.S. or e.g. But err on the side of inclusion: Even abbreviations that you think are bleedingly obvious, such as nom. for ‘nominative’, may not be obvious to everybody. You should also expand abbreviations you use for language names. Arrange this section in alphabetical order, by the abbreviation.

You should also define any special symbols you use. However, you do not have to define symbols of the International Phonetic Association that are used as the IPA defines them. It is often useful to make the list of symbols separate from the list of abbreviations. If there are many abbreviations and symbols, you might even want to make Symbols a separate section following the Abbreviations section.

The text proper then begins. Its first page is numbered 1, and that numbering continues through the rest of the thesis. Do not put the heading Text at the top of the page. If you have an epigraph page, that counts as part of the text, so it will be page 1.

The text will itself contain several sections, but they cannot be prescribed here: it is up to you to decide what sections are needed. However, virtually all theses will start with an introduction and end with a conclusions section. See below for style guidelines for section headings.

Center this word at the top of the page. List here all (and only) the articles, books, etc. that you cite in the thesis.

Optional Parts of the Manuscript

The following sections may be used if you find them appropriate:

Copyright page

A copyright page is pointless according to universal copyright law, but if you want one, it goes right after the title page and has this format, centered and double-spaced:

copyright by

Do not put a page number or running head on the copyright page. A copyright page is totally ignored for the purposes of pagination: the Abstract still begins on p. ii.

Appendices are for material that would be distracting in the midst of your text but is still important to an understanding of your thesis. Each appendix should begin on a new page.

Use this for lengthy notes that cannot easily be accommodated in footnotes. A Notes section is fairly unusual in senior theses.

A glossary is an alphabetical listing of all technical terms used in the thesis. A glossary is rarely required in a senior thesis, and even if you have one, it does not relieve you of the obligation of explaining unusual terms as you introduce them. On the other hand, a glossary can sometimes relieve the text of the obligation of repeatedly reminding the user of the meaning of an unusual term.

If you wish to include one or more indexes, they may be added at the very end, after the References list. But, frankly, any time you spend on an index is better spent doing something else.

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• Arts & Sciences
• Graduate Studies in A&S

Honors Program

The senior honors thesis in history.

What Is a Senior Honors Thesis? The senior honors thesis is a major work of student research based on primary sources that makes an original contribution to the scholarly literature. An honors thesis typically takes the form of a multi-chapter paper about 75-125 pages in length, although other formats are possible. Each student works with a primary adviser – a faculty member in the history department who can provide expert guidance in the subject area of your thesis. All honors thesis writers also enroll in History 399 (the honors thesis seminar), in which students read examples of successful theses and drafts of each other’s work, discuss strategies and technical details for the thesis writing process, and, most importantly, get credit for writing the thesis. The honors thesis seminar is a two-semester sequence, with each semester receiving 4 credits.

Why Write a Senior Honors Thesis? First and foremost, writing an honors thesis a remarkable opportunity for students to work as historians.  Many thesis writers find it is the most challenging—but also the most satisfying—academic experience of their undergraduate careers.

A senior honors thesis is required to receive Latin Honors through the College of Arts and Sciences in history. The level of Latin Honors ( cum laude, magna cum laude, summa cum laude ) is then determined by the College of Arts & Sciences on the basis of cumulative GPA. Eligibility for Latin honors requires a minimum GPA of 3.65 through the end of six semesters; the awarding of Latin honors depends on maintaining that 3.65 GPA minimum through eight semesters.

More broadly, the senior honors thesis is an opportunity to engage in sustained, supported research and writing on a topic of your choice. It enables you to develop your skills working with primary sources, scholarly literature, and historical argument and exposition to the fullest. It is excellent preparation for graduate study in history or related fields, and an accomplishment that stands out on a resume.

That said, writing an honors thesis is not the right fit for everyone, depending on their other commitments, goals, and academic plans. Students may therefore choose to complete the capstone requirement for the history major through an advanced seminar or independent study, as laid out in the history major guidelines.

How Are Senior Honors Theses Evaluated? Completed honors theses are read by both the primary adviser and a second reader, another faculty member from history or a related field whose expertise connects with the thesis topic. The primary adviser and second reader confer on awarding each thesis a letter grade and a level of department distinction (distinction/high distinction/highest distinction). The level of distinction is separate from the Latin Honors process and appears separately on the transcript.

I Want to Write an Honors Thesis! What Now? First-year students considering an honors thesis are strongly encouraged to undertake (additional) language training, as the ability to read sources other than English is necessary for some thesis topics and an advantage for many more. Sophomores should begin thinking about possible topics and consulting with faculty members with whom they might be interested in working. Many thesis writers work with faculty from whom they have previously taken courses. While this is not a requirement, the department strongly recommends that students select an adviser with whom they have worked before and that the thesis topic emerge from a student’s prior coursework.  Students planning to study abroad in their junior year are especially encouraged to think about possible topics related to their study-abroad location and to speak with potential advisers before heading abroad. Students may need to revise their proposed honors thesis topics based on their preparation, available faculty advisers, and project feasibility.

In addition to a Historical Methods seminar, required of all history majors, students planning to write an honors thesis should also consider taking an Advanced Seminar in their junior year to receive in-depth training in conducting research and writing substantial essays. Students may incorporate a revised version of the final research paper written for an Advanced Seminar as part of their honors thesis.

In some cases, students may not meet the GPA requirements for Latin Honors eligibility, but have demonstrated the historical thinking skills and initiative necessary to complete an honors thesis. In such cases, with a letter of support from the proposed primary thesis adviser, a student may write an honors thesis and be eligible for departmental honors.

Is There an Application Process? All students planning to write an honors thesis in the following academic year should complete a short questionnaire by May 1 identifying their thesis topic, their thesis adviser, and their summer plans for making progress on the thesis.

For more information, contact: Professor Christine Johnson Director of the Honors Thesis Program in History [email protected]

Honors theses from the 2023-2024 academic year

Connor Brafford:

• “The Symbolism of the Third Dimension: A Spatial History of Agrarian Change and Popular Politics in Early Stuart Gloucestershire"

Adviser: Steve Hindle

Collin McGovern:

• “The Freetown Strike of 1955: Decolonization and Unionism in Colonial Sierra Leone”

Adviser: Timothy Parsons

Chloe Sachs:

Adviser: Christina Ramos

Patrick Boland:

Adviser: Anika Walke

Elise Ehrlich:

Adviser: Peter Kastor

Gabby Hyman:

• “Defending the Blind Law: Salvation, New Christians, and the Spanish Inquisition from 1484-1512”

Adviser: Mark Pegg

Deanna Adams:

• “No Prince Save a Percy: The Destruction of Feudal Power in the North of England”

Bonnie Segel:

• “The Poisonous Flood of Filthy Jewish Suggestion’: Antisemitism in Silent-Era Hollywood”

Adviser: Jonathan Judaken

The Department of History wishes to congratulate our 2018 Rhodes Scholar!

Camille Borders:

• "Moral Treason and Black Civil War Widows in the Post-Emancipation Era"
• Advisor: Iver Bernstein

Celebrating the spring 2022 honors theses

Each spring, a small subset of history majors complete honors theses. Requiring months of research under the supervision of a faculty member in the department, these projects represent a major undertaking. The students’ findings are often surprising.

Last spring, nine students completed honors theses in the department.  Click here for more information.

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• Arts & Sciences
• Graduate Studies in A&S

Honors Thesis

Eligibility, who is eligible to write a global studies senior honors thesis.

In order to write a Global Studies Senior Honors Thesis, you must be enrolled in Arts & Sciences as your prime major, you must have declared Global Studies as your major, and you must satisfy the minimum GPA requirement detailed below.

What is the minimum GPA requirement?

Per the College of Arts & Sciences, you must have a cumulative overall GPA of 3.65 by the end of your sixth semester, and this GPA must be maintained throughout your senior year, in order to write an honors thesis. You should not embark on a thesis unless you confidently expect to meet the minimum GPA requirements outlined above. If your cumulative GPA is below 3.65, we encourage you to consider an independent research project.

Do I have to find a thesis advisor?

You must write your thesis under the direction of an Arts & Sciences (Washington University) faculty advisor (not necessarily a member of the Global Studies faculty). It is advised that you begin meeting with potential faculty advisors in your sophomore year. This will give you plenty of time to develop a relationship with your advisor and, if you haven’t already, take a class with them before you begin your thesis. Your thesis advisor should be someone with whom you have worked, in a class or other setting, as the best theses investigate questions that interest both the student and the advisor and, therefore, arise out of conversations between them.

How do I find a thesis advisor?

You may find your major advisor or 4-year advisor can be helpful in suggesting possible thesis advisors, but it is ultimately up to you to identify your advisor. You should come up with a preliminary proposal on your own, and then go see your prospective advisor in person. If you are abroad during your sophomore or junior year, you may contact advisors and faculty by email, but ideally you will have raised the topic before you leave for study abroad (so you might conduct research for your thesis while you are abroad).

Thesis Requirements

How long is a thesis.

The written thesis length varies by discipline; your individual page requirement will be set by your advisor. The page count includes the title page, table of contents, main article, and bibliography. Maps, charts, and other non-text pages do not count toward the required page length.

Thesis deadlines are set by the Director of the Honors Program each year. Please consult the course syllabus for L97 GS 485. In general, a completed thesis draft is due in March of your senior year. You will also be expected to share your progress with your peers and the Director throughout the fall semester and present your final project at the Global Studies conference in the spring semester. Please see the thesis deadlines below.

Junior Year

Second Friday in April:   Deadline to declare your intent to write an honors thesis by completing the intent FORM and submitting it to Global Studies. You must have your thesis advisor secured at this time. [For those students graduating in December, the deadline for the intent form is the second Friday in November of their junior year.]

Intent Form

Senior year.

Mid March (typically the Monday following Spring Break):  Full and complete draft of thesis submitted to thesis advisor and the thesis committee. Faculty will make their certification for Latin Honors and their recommendation for the Global Studies Thesis prize based on this version; any thesis not turned in by this date will automatically be ineligible for Latin Honors.

Late March:  Thesis presentations to the Global Studies thesis committee, rather than a thesis defense. Global Studies will not certify a thesis for honors before the presentation, and certification must be made prior to the Arts & Sciences honors certification deadline (this deadline usually falls around April 1st).

Early April: Global Studies Honors Thesis conference

On the last day of spring semester classes:  Deadline to submit the final and revised version of your thesis. You should turn in two copies in electronic format: one directly to your thesis advisor and one to Mrs. Toni Loomis ( [email protected] ).

Course Credit

What courses do i register for in order to get credit for my thesis work, fall semester.

For fall of your senior year, enroll in Preparation for Global Studies Honors Thesis L97 485, sec. 01. Required for Global Studies senior thesis writers, this course addresses the methods and mechanics of research and writing in Global Studies, concurrently with independent work with the thesis adviser. The seminar provides structure, guidance, and response to your work. You will already have identified a thesis topic; in the seminar, you will identify a research question and develop a thesis proposal. In workshop format, you will examine one another's research questions, hypotheses, and methods of analysis. In additional sessions, you will learn the basics of several models of electronically assisted research, and you will develop and refine presentation skills through the presentations of their proposals and results at various stages of progress. Attendance is required.

Spring Semester

Enroll in Global Studies Senior Honors Thesis L97 486 sec. XX, where the section number is unique to your thesis advisor. While this course earns you 3 credits, those may not be counted toward the Global Studies major requirements. The course involves intensive research leading to the completion of your Global Studies honors thesis conducted under the supervision and guidance of a faculty sponsor. 

What are the prerequisites for these courses?

Prerequisites: 1) a GPA of 3.65 at the time of application to the thesis program; 2) the identification of a thesis adviser; and 3) the approval of the Global Studies Honors Program Director.

How is the level of Latin Honors decided?

Per the Arts & Sciences Bulletin, "Latin Honors: To be eligible for Latin Honors, students must have maintained a 3.65 GPA through the sixth semester and must be accepted for candidacy by their major department or program. Latin Honors candidates must enroll in such courses as their department or program may require, satisfactorily complete a significant project appropriate to the nature of the discipline, and pass such written and/or oral examinations as the department or program may set. To earn such honors, candidates must also have maintained the minimum 3.65 GPA through the final semester. Upon certification by the department that the Honors program has been satisfactorily completed, the student may be awarded the AB cum laude, magna cum laude, or summa cum laude according to the following proportions: The top 15% in overall GPA of the full cohort of Latin Honors candidates who complete the necessary requirements of their major departments will graduate summa cum laude; the next 35% magna cum laude; and the next 50% cum laude."

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• Arts & Sciences
• Graduate Studies in A&S

Publications

As part of its mission to present undergraduate research to a wider audience, the office of undergraduate research has long facilitated the publication of undergraduate research..

OUR publications included two journals: Washington University Undergraduate Research Digest  (WUURD)  and Washington University Senior Honors Thesis Abstracts  (WUSHTA) . The WUURD presented abstracts of student research projects from the most recent Undergraduate Research Symposium as well as peer-reviewed, full-length student articles. WUSHTA highlighted the work of graduating seniors receiving honors for their work. Each  is available online through the  WashU Library's Open Scholarship Repository  (accessible with WUSTL Key login).

Following its relaunch in Fall 2022 , the OUR is collaborating with campus partners to establish a new vision for supporting undergraduate research, including research dissemination strategies.

Washington university undergraduate research digest (wuurd).

From 2005 to 2021, the Office of Undergraduate Research published the Washington University Undergraduate Research Digest (WUURD). A scholarly journal with peer-reviewed feature articles as well as abstracts, the WUURD highlighted research by Washington University students in language that is accessible to a broad audience. The Office of Undergraduate Research held no copyright on the 3000-word articles published in the WUURD, meaning students were free to publish their work elsewhere. 

View past issues

Washington university senior honors thesis abstracts (wushta).

From 2009 to 2022, the Office of Undergraduate Research published Washington University Senior Honors Thesis Abstracts (WUSHTA) to coincide with the University’s Commencement. All seniors receiving academic honors in any school or department were encouraged to submit an abstract of their honors thesis or capstone research project for publication.

Other Publishing Opportunities

The gateway history journal.

At Washington University

Columbia Undergraduate Science Journal

Columbia University

Discussions

Case Western Reserve University

Ball State University

The International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities

Pacific University

Journal of Student Research

Journal of undergraduate chemistry research.

Virginia Military Institute

Journal of Young Investigators

Papers & publications.

North Georgia College & State University

Stanford Journal of Public Health

Stanford University

Undergraduate Journal of Service Learning and Community-Based Research

Penn State-Berks

Undergraduate Research Journal for the Human Sciences

Kappa Omicron Nu

The Valley Humanities Review

Lebanon Valley College

Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine

Yale School of Medicine

Young Scholars in Writing

University of Missouri-Kansas City

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• Arts & Sciences
• Graduate Studies in A&S

Honors Thesis

Eligibility requirements.

WGSS majors who have strong academic records may choose to participate in the Honors Program in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. All WGSS honors students must take Feminist and Queer Research Methodologies (preferably during the fall of their junior year) and write an honors thesis during their senior year.

Students who have maintained an overall cumulative 3.65 grade point average through 5 semesters and have at least a 3.65 in the WGSS major are eligible for Latin Honors. Students who do not meet the GPA requirements for Latin Honors can still earn Departmental Honors. To qualify for Departmental Honors, students must have maintained a cumulative 3.5 grade point average through 5 semesters and have at least a 3.65 in our major.

Selection of Primary Thesis Director

The student is responsible for finding a primary honors thesis director from among the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies faculty and associated faculty. In selecting the thesis director, the student should be attentive to the research interests and areas of expertise represented by the faculty and select the individual whose expertise most closely relates to the student’s proposed thesis topic. The student must obtain the consent of the faculty member. (Students should note that faculty members periodically take leaves of absence and may not be available during the semester when the student intends to complete the thesis). Students must also find two other faculty members to agree to be on their honors committee. These readers will serve in an advisory role during the thesis-writing process and evaluate the thesis. At least two of the three members of the thesis committee must be WGSS-core or WGSS-affiliated faculty.

Students should discuss their plans with their proposed thesis directors early, preferably in the fall of their junior year. Early planning is especially important if the student is going abroad second semester junior year.

Applying to the Honors Program

Application to the program must be made by March 17 of the junior year. An application consists of a 1-page application form , 3–4-page thesis proposal, 1–2-page bibliography, and current (unofficial) student transcript. Please send the completed form and documents via email to [email protected] .

• Application: The application form includes the following information: name, email address, and signature of the faculty director who has agreed to supervise the thesis. Also required are the names, email addresses, and signatures of two faculty members who have agreed to be readers of the completed thesis.
• brief overview of the topic
• clearly stated research question(s)
• brief literature review  
• method(s) to be used
• timetable for the project
• an acknowledgment of whether IRB approval will be needed and when you plan to submit that application
• Bibliography:  1 – 2-page preliminary bibliography
• Copy of the student (unofficial) transcript (printed out from WEBSTAC).

*Please note that these items may be submitted via e-mail if the student is abroad.

Note: Any work that involves human subjects, whether interviews, surveys, testing, etc., may require application to and approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB). Students planning to use human-subject research done abroad must have received prior IRB approval from Washington University for this material to be used in the honors thesis. If applicable, make sure to include this process in your proposal and in your timetable. IRB applications must be submitted by May 1. IRB approval must be obtained by September 1, or the honors project cannot continue.

Acceptance Procedure

All honors proposals will be reviewed by the WGSS Honors Thesis Committee. Students will generally be notified of their acceptance or rejection by mid-April. In some cases, students may be asked to revise and resubmit their proposals.

Accepted students should register for WGSS 499 (Honors Thesis: Research and Writing) in the fall; with approval from the thesis director at the end of fall semester, students will be able to register for WGSS 499 for the spring.

General Guidelines

• An honors thesis is an original work. For students who plan to earn Latin Honors, the recommended thesis length is 50-70 pages, typed, and double-spaced, including bibliography. For students who plan to earn Departmental Honors, rather than Latin Honors, the recommended thesis length is 35-50 pages or a comparable creative or public intervention project. However this can vary and the specific length of the project should be determined in consultation with the thesis director.
• Work should begin on the honors thesis in the summer before senior year. Thesis directors and students should consult to devise a reading list or other plan for preliminary research to take place before fall semester.
• Frequent meetings with the thesis director should take place during both the research and the writing part of the thesis. Weekly meetings are customary. To help students stay on track, it would be advisable for the student and their thesis director to work together set up a schedule of writing deadlines for fall and early spring semester.
• The thesis director will counsel students on research process, analysis and argument, and presentation. The thesis director will also read drafts and make suggestions on revisions.
• While students work most closely with their thesis director, the two readers are available for consultation. For the sake of continuity, discussions between readers and student should also be communicated to the thesis director.
• The introduction should explain the topic/state the research question and clearly state the thesis. The student should conduct and write a literature review. This task consists of surveying the literature to review existing research about the topic and then situating the thesis work within this scholarship.
• The thesis should be written in a clear, concise fashion, as a double-spaced, typed document.  It should have a cover page with the title, student’s name, the month and year, and the names of the thesis director and second readers.
• For footnotes and sources, students should use the style and format that is appropriate for the subject; students should check with their thesis director to ascertain what format to use.
• A preliminary full draft must be submitted by February 1 to the thesis director. The director should provide suggestions for revision to the student preferably by February 15.
• A final draft, one that incorporates the feedback of the thesis director, must be finished by March 1 and copies given to the thesis committee.
• After the thesis has been turned in, evaluated, and approved by the student’s committee, minor revisions can be made. The final version of the thesis (printed and spiral bound) should be turned in to the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department by the last day of classes, along with a digital copy for the department’s records.
• Please remember that doing an honors thesis is demanding and takes a great deal of time and effort. It is strongly recommended that the student develop a schedule, in consultation with the thesis director, for the research and the completion of the thesis so that deadlines set by the program and the College can be met.

Evaluation of the Thesis and How Honors are Determined

The thesis committee (director and two readers) will review the thesis and if the committee determines that the work earns an A or A-, the student will receive Honors.

For students who are eligible for Latin Honors: levels of Latin honors are determined by GPA and are based on those seniors participating in the honors program in the College of Arts and Sciences. Latin honors will be calculated once spring grades for the eighth semester are submitted, and the breakdown is as follows:

                      Top 15% GPA:    summa cum laude

                      Next 35% GPA:   magna cum laude

                      Remaining 50%:  cum laude

For students who eligible for Departmental Honors: this designation will appear on their transcript as “Honors earned in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.” However, they will not receive the Latin designations outlined above.

Other Requirements for Honors

• Participation in the spring Undergraduate Research Symposium: All honors thesis students are required to present their work in the Undergraduate Research Symposium which takes place in April. The research posters must be dropped off at the WGSS Office within one week of the symposium.
• Participation in the WGSS Senior Presentations: During the Monday of reading week, students will be expected to give a 10-minute presentation of their honors thesis to WGSS faculty and students at the WGSS Senior Presentations.

The research symposium and honors presentation are requirements that must be completed in order to receive Honors..

Junior year:   

• March 17: Completed applications due. Consider also applying for the Andrea Biggs Undergraduate Research Award (due March 17). For more details, see: https://wgss.wustl.edu/undergraduate-awards
• Throughout April: Students notified of acceptance. Begin working on IRB application (if required).
• May 1: Deadline for submitting IRB application. Approved students should also meet with thesis director to determine summer reading list and agree on work that will be completed by fall semester. 

Senior year

• September 1: IRB approval (when applicable) must be secured by this date, or honors may not proceed.
• October 15: Literature review should be complete and submitted to honors thesis director.
• December 15: Approximately 50 percent of the thesis should be complete in draft form and submitted to the advisor. The fall grade is largely dependent on achieving this goal. Other chapters should be outlined for completion by February 1.
• February 1: Completed draft due to thesis director
• March 1: Revised draft due to thesis committee
• Before March 31: Sign up for Undergraduate Research Fair
• By April 1: Recommendations for honors made
• April:  Participate in Undergraduate Research Fair. Within one week of the Undergraduate Research Fair, students should deliver their research poster to Crystal Odelle in McMillan 210 to be displayed in the WGSS hallway. Students should also email a digital copy of their poster to Cynthia Barounis ( [email protected] ).
• Last day of classes: Final bound version of thesis due to Crystal Odelle in McMillan 210 and final digital version due via email to Cynthia Barounis ( [email protected] ). It is also customary for students to give a bound version to their thesis director.
• Monday of Reading Week:  Present honors work to WGSS faculty, students, and public as part of the WGSS Senior Presentations.

Former Honors Thesis Students

Julia Birnbach: "After the Fact is Never After the Fact: Examining Change and Justice in Intervention with Perpetrators of Sexual Assault"

Syndni Perry-Anderson: "From What Threat? A Transfeminist Discourse Analysis of the 2021 Attempt to Legislate the Erasurer of Trans* Student-Athletes in Missouri"

Danielle Sarraf: "Re-Centering Human Trafficking Intervention Efforts: An Evaluation of the Intersection of Human Trafficking and Health in St. Louis using a Public Health Lens"

Dahlia Lehman: "Untwisting the STEM: Examining Gender Disparities in Lag, Introductor STEM Courses:

Siddi Vora: "Find the Incredible You: Sex, Gender, and Incredible India !"

Louisa Judge: "A Room of Their Own: Trauma-Informed Hospital Design"

Lizzi Kehoe: " Help the Helpers-On Vicarious Trauma"

Julia Pasquinelli: "Confronting Sexual Assault at Washington University"

Gabriella Ruskay-Kidd: "Sexual (Mis) Education"

Erica Williams: " Phenomena of Ivies, Pearls, and Polished Girls: Examining the Visual, Embodied, and Sonic AK "

Theaivin Yousef: "A Sense of Steel: Race and Affect in Post 9/11 United States"

Elise Hu: "Homosexuality and Attitudes in Non-Affirming Churches: The Necessity for Family-Like Friendships"

Alyssa Hunt: "The Utility of Risk Assessment to Inform Judicial Decision-Making in Civil Orders of Protection at the St. Louis Domestic Violence Court"

Monica Sass: "The Silence Will Kill You": Implications of the Domestic Violence Act 116 of 1998 on Experiences and Perceptions of Same-Sex Intimate Partner Violence in South Africa"

Molly Brodsky: "Other Knowers, Other Growers: Gender-Conscious Farming and the 'Alternative' Agriculture Movement"

Sally Rifkin: " Cultivating Community: Towards a Black Women-Gendered Alternative Food Politic"

Carly Wolfer: "Lets Talk about Sex, Baby: Communication between Casual Sexual Partners in the College Hookup Culture"

Emi Wyland: "The Embodied Intimacy of Survival: Peer, Partner, and Client Intimacies of Transfeminine Sex Workers of Color in Tangerine and Afuera "

Priyanka Zylstra: "(Re)Locating South Asian Women in Apna Ghar: Evolving Cultural Narratives Within Domestic Violence Intervention"

Katie Chew:  "Widening the Scope: Exploring Student Experiences Responding to Sexual Violence on Campus"

Gayelyn Golde:  "Trouble in Paradise: Investigating Rape-Collusive Attitudes, Beliefs, and Practices on a Boarding School Campus"

Bianca Kaushal:  "Invisible Violence: Battered South Asian Women's Experiences in the American Legan System"

Ryan Paige:  "Elevating Spaces, Changing Communities: Black Women's Participation in the Metropolitan Chicago YWCA, 1915-1925"

Cameron Kinker:  "Contextualizing Transgender Health Care: Meanings, Experiences, and Future Hopes of Trans Adult in the St. Louis, Missouri Region"

Hannah Waldman:  "Abusive Warfare, Not Welfare Abuse: Contextualizing the Intersection of Intimate Partner Violence and Social Welfare Policy"

Christy Marx:  "Barriers to Access: An Analysis of Obstacles to Obtaining Services for Bosnian Immigrant Victims/Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence in St. Louis"

Mackenzie Findlay:  "Understanding Malagasy Women's Preferences for Reproductive Health Care"

Vinita Chaudhry:  "Desi Queer Pride: Experiences of South Asian Queer People in New York City"

Danielle Green:  "Best Cock on the Block: An Analysis of Partnered Dildo Use"

Ariel Frankel:  "The Intersection of Gender, Race, and Ethnicity in South Africa: How Xenophobia Affects Immigrant and    Refugee Women in Cape Town"

Elizabeth Handschy:  "Reworking Heteronormative Understandings of Eating Disorders to Include Alternative Sexualities"

M. Annie Houghton-Larsen:  "Hope but No Change: President Barack Obama's Gender Politics"

Louisa Kornblatt:  "Court Literacy: How Petitioners Weave Their Narratives of Abuse through the St. Louis Domestic Violence Court"

Moira Moynihan:  "Responses to Violence Against Women in French Immigrant Communities: Understanding the Benefits of an Equality-Driven Mode of Advocacy"

Ryan Sasse:  "Queering the Rainbow Nation: An Ethnographic Analysis of how Cultural Norms and LGBT-Inclusive Policies Shape South Africa LGBT Identity Culture"

Wolf Smith: "Where's Our Safe House? Examining the Relationship between LGBTQ+ Communities and the Domestic and Sexual Violence Resources in St. Louis"

Laura Dietrich: "The Good Gals Represent the Bad Guys"

Rosa Heyman: "The Intersectional Opportunity: The Shortcomings of the Media Coverage of the Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas Sexual Harassment Hearings"

Ashley Brosius:  "Understanding the Impact of Sex and Gender on Legal Proceedings and Outcomes: A Case Study at the St. Louis County Domestic Violence Court"

Wesley Sebring:  "Crafting Sex and Gender: Intersex Medical Experience in the Early to Mid-Twentieth Century United States"                 

Dan Woznica:  "Reading Robert R.": The Production of Knowledge about America's First AIDS Patient

Ayla Karamustafa: "The Stigma of Male Sexual Fluidity: The Limitations of  Conceptualizing Masculinity within Informal  Public Spaces"

Robert Harvey: "The Involvement of Men in Service Provision for Survivors of Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence: A Survey of Contemporary Thought"

Cari Sekendur: "Hooking Up as Cyborgs – Text Messaging and Facebook for Sexual Self-Efficacy in College Culture"

Lauren Weiss:  "Keeping Students Safe: A Proposal to Address and Prevent Dating Violence at Washington University in St. Louis"

Alana Burman:  "More Like Our Imaginings: Performing the Transformation of Second Wave Theory Building in the Feminist Utopian Fiction of the 1970s"

Caitlin Gaskell:  "All Are Welcome: The Roman Catholic Women's Ordination Movement and the Motivations of Its Participants"

Anne Lascoe:  "Writing the Breast"

Melissa Goldman: "Professional Sex: A Healthy Approach to Legislating the U.S. Commercial Sex Industry"    

Shaina Goodman:  "Silence, Survival, and Shalom Bayit: The Implications of Jewish Religious and Cultural Values on the Experiences of and Provision of Services for Jewish Victims of Domestic Violence"

Kristi Nigh:  "Moving Beyond "It Just Happened": Using Literature to Transform Female Adolescents' Experience of Sexuality and Desire"

Alexis Wolfer:  "Children of Violence: An Examination of the Inter-generational Cycle of Violence Model and its Impact on Children Who Witness Domestic Abuse"

Rishi Rattan:  "Sexing Them Up, Cutting Them Off: Implications for the Treatment of Intersex Infants by Addressing the Management and Outcome of Male Infants with Ambiguous Genitalia in the United States Through a Postmodern Feminist Bioethical Lens"

Erika Sabbath:  "Can the master's tools, dismantle the master's house? Feminist approaches to organizational democracy"          

Melissa De Jesus:  "BDSM (Un)Bound? Sexual Practice, Stigma and Community"

Mia Eisner-Grynberg:  "On Account of Sex: Setbacks, Strategies, and the  Equal Rights Amendment"

Home > ETDS > ETD

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

All doctoral dissertations authored by Washington University doctoral degree candidates are directly submitted to the UMI Dissertation Services , a division of the ProQuest Company. (For more information on submitting your dissertation through ProQuest, please see the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences' web pages on the Submission of the Dissertation .)

Beginning in 2009 (for degrees awarded in August, 2009) all theses and dissertations completed at Washington University were required to be submitted in electronic form. Print submissions are no longer accepted. Dissertations are submitted directly in electronic form to UMI / Proquest Dissertation Services. Master’s theses are locally submitted in electronic form directly into the Washington University Open Scholarship Repository. Please contact your academic department document for information on the preparation and formatting requirements of the thesis itself. D.Sc. and Masters Thesis Format Guidelines . See the Theses & Dissertations (ETDs) for more information on submission and access options and links to details for PhD Candidates and Master’s Candidates.

Theses/Dissertations from 2024 2024

The Instrument of Ecstasy , Temperance Aghamohammadi

The validity and challenges of third-party funding in the Saudi arbitration framework , Ahmed Alanazi

Numerical Simulations of Supersonic/ Hypersonic Flows in Compression Corners and a Hypersonic Flow Study of Atmospheric Entry of Mars Science Laboratory Capsule , Dexter Allen

Electronic arbitration in disputes and the extent to which the Saudi arbitration law applies its elements , Mohammad Alqaydi

Essays on Intellectual Property Strategy , Byung Uk (Charlie) An

Impact of Parent Reported Adverse Experiences and Other Family Stressors on Child Development and Home Visitation Participation Among Immigrant Families , Fithi Andom

"We live in an unjust system by design, schools included...": Exploring the Perceptions of Black K-12 Administrators on Social Justice in Schools , SynClaire Arthur

Essays in Behavioral and Experimental Economics , Yves-Paul Auffray

Student Self-Efficacy and Attitude in Organic Chemistry: A Comparison of Two Pedagogical Approaches , Matthew Autry

Language Enrollment in Higher Education: Exploring Social Psychological Factors in Spanish Language Programs with Advanced Learners , David Antonio Balmaceda Marenco

Assessing gender equality in political rights: a comparative study of CEDAW Article 7 implementation in Saudi Arabia and Tunisia , Nusaybah Bamuhair

Interleukin-1α and Leukemia Inhibitory Factor Promote Cancer-Induced Extramedullary Hematopoiesis , Derek Arthur George Barisas

Das Gift , Zain Baweja

No Leg to Stand on: Menenius Agrippa's Fable in Book 2 of Livy's Ab urbe condita , Joshua Bayona

Inducible CRISPR-Targeted ‘Knockdown’ of Human Gut Bacteroides in Mice Reveals Glycan Utilization Strategies , Zachary Beller

Development and Structure of Spinal Interneuron Connectivity in Larval Zebrafish , Saul Bello Rojas

On the Enforceability of Rights: Forfeiture and Reclamation , William Bell

Missives from the Liminal Place , Ariana Benson

A Big Voice in a Small Democracy: Three Papers on American Local Politics , Lucas Boschelli

Toward an Artifact-Forward Feminist Design History , Celeste Caldwell

What is Trauma?: From Science to Social Justice , Judith Fleetwood Carlisle

Laughing in the Wrong Places: Daniel Clowes and the Danger of Nostalgia , Liam Cassidy

Welcome Home Stranger: The Evolution & Assimilation of the Queer Monster , Dee Cea

How Visual Narrative Can Elevate Immigrant Food , YITING CHAI

Investigating Murine Uterine Tissue Dynamics: Biomechanical and Histological Perspectives on Postpartum Involution and Scar-Induced Remodeling , Savannah Elizabeth Chatman

Hodge Classes in the Cohomology of Local Systems , Xiaojiang Cheng

Assessing Reproducibility of Brain-Behavior Associations Using Bootstrap Aggregation Methods , ZHETAO CHEN

Essays in Financial Accounting , Chihoon Cho

Madre Tierra: Black Women and Environmental (In)Justice on the Pacific Coast of Colombia , Kache Claytor

Perspectives of Stress and Coping among Older, College-Educated African American Women , Jacquelyn Victoria Coats

Emotions that Feel Bad are Bad: An Investigation into the Purportedly Positive Parts of Negative Emotions , Christopher Colacchia

The Wild Wild West , Tolu Daniel

Vibrational Dynamics of the Intramolecular H-Bond in β-diketones and Intermolecular H Bonding in Halide-Receptor Complexes Investigated with Transient and 2D IR Spectroscopy , Jessika Lira-Santos Dean

The Impact of Age on Second Language Vocabulary Learning , Steven J. Dessenberger

Objects are Subordinate to Spatial Features as Cues for Control , Abhishek Dey

Temporal Order Memory in Naturalistic Events Is Influenced by Semantic Knowledge and Hierarchical Event Structure , Yining Ding

Evaluating Pathological Tau Spread in Early Alzheimer Disease: Developing a Metric for Tau Positron Emission Tomography Quantifying Tau Spatial Spread , Stephanie Sierra Doering

The Daily Struggle: Philip Guston and American Art in the 1930s , Maxwell Dunbar

Chorus , David Ehmcke

Virtual Bodies: Probing Fake Flesh , Emily Elhoffer

Dimerization of the Fluoride Channel Fluc in Membranes , Melanie Ernst

Structural Dynamics of the Human Brain in Vivo from Tagged MRI and MR Elastography , Jordan De Niro Escarcega

Improving and Modeling Heterogeneous Streaming Computation , Clayton Faber

Narrative Networks—Network Narratives: The Function of Space, Characters, and Sequence In Neuro-Novels Published between 1990 and 2010 , Tobias Feldmann

Modeling of NK Cells in Pediatric Patients With Unusually Severe or Recurrent HSV Using High-Dimensional Flow Cytometry , Yunran Feng

Coupling Treatment Technologies with Bioelectrochemical Systems to Optimize Resource Recovery from Wastewater , Matthew Stephen Ferby

The Domain Specificity and Conscious Awareness of Learned Memory Biases , Gizem Filiz

Cover: Essays , Kathleen Finklea

Tracking and Mitigating Imprint Erasure During Human Pluripotent State Transitions , Laura A. Fischer

Ramble: To Wander & Wayfind in Image & Text , Charlotte Fleming

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• Arts & Sciences
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Undergraduate Program Requirements

Declaring a major or minor.

Students wishing to declare a major in Political Science or Environmental Policy, or a minor in Political Science, may do so on WebSTAC. At the time the major is declared, students will be assigned a faculty advisor. Further information can be obtained from Professor  Zoe Ang .

Advising Procedures

Students beginning their undergraduate work in political science may plan their programs in consultation with their assigned Undergraduate Advisor. It is important that students keep their Undergraduate Advisor fully informed of their progress so that misunderstandings or disagreements can be kept to a minimum.

Political Science Major Requirements

Majors in Political Science must complete ten Political Science Courses (30 graded units) with a C or better. Please note that if you use an AP credit to place out of an introductory course, or do not take PS 363 or 263 (Political Methodology), then you must replace these with other political science classes. See below for more specific course requirements.

Introductory

Two of the following introductory courses:

• 101B: Intro to American Politics
• 102B: Intro to Comparative Politics
• 103B: Intro to International Politics
• 106 or 107: Intro to Political Theory

If you scored a 4 or 5 in AP credit, you may place out of the associated introductory course and replace it with an upper-level course in a related subfield.

One required methods course:

• 363: Political Methodology OR
• 263: Data Science for Politics

You may place out of this requirement if you have completed a pre-approved alternate course with a C or better. If you take an alternate course, you must replace the credits with a Political Science course of any level.

Pre-approved alternate courses include:

• U25 323 Intro to Quantitative Methods (subject to the limit of six "outside" credit units; do not need replacement course)
• B59 121 Managerial Statistics II (QBA II)
• Math 3200 Elementary to Intermediate Statistics and Data Analysis
• E35 326 Probability and Statistics for Engineering
• L40 3050 Statistics for Sociology
• L11 413 Introduction to Econometrics

Upper Level Courses

Six upper-level (300 or 400) courses (18 units).

Distribution

Most 200, 300, and 400 level courses have a subfield distribution. Courses must be distributed across subfields with at least one course in three of the five subfields:

• American             
• Comparative
• International
• Political Theory

Click here to view the subfield designations for your courses

3 units of a Political Science course (any level)

Every student must take one 400-level course home based in Political Science as a capstone experience for the major.

* This became a requirement for students who first declared a major or minor in Political Science after July 1st, 2021. Students who declared prior to this do not have this requirement.

Cross-Listed Courses

Courses cross-listed with Political Science change on a semester-by-semester basis. A cross-listed course includes the designation L32; this is the designation you should choose if you want to count credit from cross-listed courses toward your Political Science major/minor. Please note:

• If you are using a course for another major or minor, you may not count it as an advanced credit for your Political Science major.
• The department does not consider petitions to count non-cross-listed courses for credit in Political Science.
• If you have questions about the status of any course, please contact the Director of Undergraduate Studies in Political Science.

Limitations

• No more than 6 units from the following may count toward the major:  internship, directed reading, directed research, or teaching practicum.
• No more than 6 units from the following may count toward the major :  study abroad, summer school, University College, or transfer credit.
• You cannot double-count any  upper-level credits (300 and above)  for both a political science major and a second major or minor.

Environmental Policy Major Requirements (Spring 2024 onward)

The requirements in this section pertain to those who declared their Environmental Policy major during or after the Spring 2024 semester. If you declared your major before that time, you have the option of following these requirements, or choose to follow the requirements in the section " Environmental Policy Major Requirements (pre-Spring 2024)."

Foundations

6 courses (18 credits)

• Intro to Political Science: L32 101B (American Politics); L32 102 (Comparative Politics); L32 103B (International Politics); or L32 106 Or L32 107 (Political Theory)
• Substitutes: L11 451 (Environmental Policy)
• Substitutes: L41 381 (Intro to Ecology); L19 202 (Intro to Earth & Planetary Science)
• Substitutes: B59 121 (Managerial Statistics II); L24 3200 (Elementary to Intermediate Statistics); E35 326 (Probability & Statistics for Engineering)
• Note: substitute here requires additional upper level polisci course to complete credits
• Substitute: L32 3XXX (Politics of Public Policy; permanent course number forthcoming)
• Substitutes: L32 4070 (Global Justice); L30 235F (Intro to Environmental Ethics)

​​​​​​​Upper Level Electives

5 courses (15 credits) upper level electives with environmental focus (from preapproved list or by petition in advance), 2 of which must be in Political Science or cross-listed with Political Science

• For examples within Political Science and elsewhere see the preapproved list

Capstone Experiences

2 courses (6 credits) or capstone experiences Any combination of:

• Internship (credits following polisci rules)
• L82 405 (Sustainability Exchange)
• L82 407 (RESET)
• L82 539 (Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic)
• Environmental Law Clinic
• New course in Political Science in development with Gephardt Institute (TBD)
• Directed research project / independent study
• Honors thesis (following Political Science rules; but counts for 6 credits in Environmental Policy major)

Political Science Minor (optional)

To complete a Political Science minor with an Environmental Policy major would only take 3 upper level Political Science courses (not duplicated for the Environmental Policy major.)

Environmental Policy Minor

To complete an Environmental Policy minor requires:

• L32 2010 (Intro to Environmental Policy); or substitute as listed for major
• L32 4043 (Public Policy Analysis); or substitute as listed for major
• Plus 3 upper level electives with environmental focus (from the preapproved list)

Environmental Policy Major Requirements (pre-Spring 2024)

The requirements in this section pertain to those who declared their Environmental Policy major before the Spring 2024 semester. If you declared your major before that time, you may follow these requirements, or choose to follow the requirements in the section "Environmental Policy Major Requirements (Spring 2024 onward)."

Environmental Policy Overview Flyer

Students who major in environmental policy will be required to complete 40 graded units (13 courses) distributed as follows:

• 16 units from required foundation courses
• 9 units from research methods requirements
• 9 units from the list of upper-division courses in political science and cognates
• 3 units from a social science breadth requirement
• 3 units from a substantive distribution requirement

At least 24 of those total units must be at the 300-400 level.

We also strongly recommend that students complete a capstone experience. Possible options include a senior honors thesis, the environmental law clinic, or an appropriate internship. We intend to develop more capstone possibilities in the future.

Note that as courses related to environmental policy become available across campus, students can petition Environmental Policy to count them for credit in one of the following divisions by providing the syllabi to the director of the major. Students should do so before enrolling in the courses, as we cannot guarantee that it will count for the major.  

Required Courses

Students need to take the following five courses (16 units) to fulfill the foundations requirement:  

• EEPS 202: Introduction to Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Science  
• Bio 2950: Intro to Environmental Biology  
• Pol Sci 2010: Intro to Environmental Policy  
• Pol Sci 331: Topics in Politics: Theories of Social Justice* 
• Anth 361: Culture and Environment 

*Pre-Approved Substitutions for Pol Sci 331:  Topics in Politics: Theories of Social Justice  

• Pol Sci 4070: Global Justice  
• EnSt 235F: Environmental Ethics  
• Pol Sci 338 Topics: Environmental Ethics  

Research Methods Requirements

Students need to take the following three courses (nine units) to fulfill the research methods requirements:  

• Pol Sci 363: Quantitative Political Methodology or 263 Data Science for Politics**  
• Econ 1011: Microeconomics  
• Pol Sci 4043: Public Policy Analysis or Pol Sci Topics: Politics of Public Policy

**Pre-approved alternate courses (please note, using one of these will require student to take an additional upper-level Political Science course to complete the 40 credits) 

• CAPS Pol Sci 323: Introduction to Quantitative Methods 
• Business School - Data Analytics 121: Managerial Statistics II 
• Math 3200: Elementary to Intermediate Statistics and Data Analysis 
• Engineering - Electrical and Systems Engineering: 326 Probability & Statistics for Engineers 

Upper-Division Requirements: Political Science

Students need 9 units (three courses) that must come from upper level political science or cognate courses with environmental politics content. The following courses are recently offered examples that fulfill this requirement. See the “Pre-Approved Courses List” document here for other courses that have fulfilled this requirement.

• Pol Sci 3211: Public Opinion and American Democracy
• Pol Sci 332B: Environmental and Energy Issues
• Pol Sci 3760: Globalization, Urbanization, and the Environment
• Pol Sci 4043: Public Policy Analysis
• Pol Sci 4070: Global Justice
• Pol Sci 4792: Globalization and National Politics

Upper-Division Requirements: Social Science

Students need 3 units (one course) that must come from upper level social science courses with environmental politics content not in political science.  The following courses are recently offered examples that fulfill this requirement. See the “Pre-Approved Courses List” document here for other courses that have fulfilled this requirement.

• ANTH 3472 Global Energy & the American Dream
• ANTH 379: Archaeology and Climate Change
• ANTH 4282: Political Ecology
• ANTH 4456 Ethnographic Fieldwork: Energy Politics
• ECON 451: Environmental Policy
• SOC 4810: Global Structures

Upper-Division Requirements: Substantive Distribution Requirements

Students need 3 units (one course) that must come from upper level courses with environmental politics content outside of the core divisions above.  The following courses are recently offered examples that fulfill this requirement. See the “Pre-Approved Courses List” document here for other courses that have fulfilled this requirement.

• Anth 373 Intro to GIS for Anthropologists
• Bio 381: Intro to Ecology
• EEPS 323: Biogeochemistry
• EECE 210: Introduction to Environmental Engineering
• EnSt 407 RESET: Renewable Energy & Decarbonizing the Grid
• EnSt 539: Interdisciplinary Environmental Law
• INTER D 405: Sustainability Exchange
• No more than 6 units from the following may count toward the major :  study abroad, summer school, CAPS, or transfer credit.
• You cannot double-count any  upper-level credits (300 and above)  for both a environmental policy major and a second major or minor.

Minor Requirements

Students choosing Political Science as a minor field must take a minimum of 15 graded units of course work with a C or better, including at least 9 advanced units. No more than three units may be counted from among the following: Directed Readings, Directed Research, Teaching Practicum, CAPS, or credits from another institution including study abroad. You cannot double-count any credits for a political science minor with any other major or minor.

Subfield Concentrations

All political science majors have the option of "concentrating" their six course distribution requirements by successfully completing three upper-level courses in one of six subfields: 

• American Politics
• Comparative Politics
• International Relations
• Political Methodology

About the Concentrations

Subfield concentrations signal that students have depth in a particular subfield of the discipline. They also prepare students for writing their senior theses in that subfield. Because of this, students may count classes as part of their subfield concentration whether or not they are using that class to fulfill the 30 credits required for their major. For example, students may complete L32 3255 and count it towards a legal studies minor, but use it as part of their subfield concentration in American politics. 

• Consistent with its aim of encouraging subject mastery, to count for a subfield concentration students must complete the class for a quality grade.
• A course that counts for two different subfields may only be used towards one subfield concentration.

Declaring a Subfield Concentration

To declare a subfield concentration, complete a subfield concentration form and submit it to Dr. Zoe Ang . Concentrations will appear on the student's transcript after graduation and may be particularly helpful for students interested in graduate or professional school. 

Subfield Concentration Form

Senior Thesis Program

All majors who meet eligibility requirements may write a senior thesis. The program involves independent work by the student, guided by a faculty advisor, and enrollment in a senior thesis seminar during the fall and spring semesters of a student's senior year.

WashU Libraries

Senior thesis writers in anthropology.

• About your thesis
• Discover Research Materials
• Tools for Citing
• Publish Your Thesis
• Relevant Guides

GIS Outreach / Anthropology Librarian

Publish your thesis in the Digital Repository

Senior Thesis Writers can publish their original research in the WashU Libraries Open Scholarship repository.  The repository is a service of the Libraries, which provides free access to the scholarly output of the university.  

 There are two ways to submit a thesis:

• Restricted , which makes the thesis available only to the  Washington University campus community  and may be useful for future generations of writers looking for a good model
• Unrestricted , which makes the thesis  available to the world  and may serve as a student’s first publication

I would like to encourage all of the Senior Thesis Writers to consider submitting their theses to this site; they will receive a stable URL to include on future resumes.  This is also an opportunity to display the anthropology department’s talent, showcased either on campus or worldwide.

Let me know if you have questions about the Open Scholarship repository; I’m happy to speak to a group, or to individual writers

• Open access and Open Scholarship
• About Open Scholarship
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• Guidelines for submission - restricted
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• Last Updated: Jul 26, 2024 11:19 AM
• URL: https://libguides.wustl.edu/stw_anthropology

Institutional Repository Support

Open Scholarship is the institutional repository for Washington University in St. Louis. Maintained by the Scholarly Communication & Digital Publishing Services Department within the WashU Libraries, it provides free and open access to the scholarly and creative output of faculty, staff, and students by gathering it in one place.

Open Scholarship is intended for scholarly work authored by Washington University in St. Louis faculty, staff, researchers, and graduate and undergraduate students. The focus is on larger collections of material, such as electronic theses and dissertations, undergraduate honors theses, conference posters, and white papers and reports.

For more information about Open Scholarship, contact Repository Services Manager Emily Stenberg or email Scholarly Communication & Digital Publishing Services at [email protected] .

For information about hosting data in the WashU Research Data (WURD) repository, please reach out to Data Services .

Jump to: Doctoral Dissertation Submission Information | Master’s Thesis Submission Information | Binding Options | Finding WashU Dissertations and Theses | Submitting Undergraduate Honors Theses or Capstone Projects

Doctoral Dissertation Submission Information

Doctoral candidates on the Danforth campus submit their dissertations through their individual schools to ProQuest through an online form. If a school’s guide is not listed, contact your registrar’s office for more information.

• Office of Graduate Studies Guides (for Arts & Sciences)
• McKelvey School of Engineering Thesis & Dissertation Submission Procedures

After files for a given degree award period have been submitted to ProQuest and posted to their database, those files are then forwarded to WashU Libraries, and library staff merge the files into the Libraries institutional repository, Open Scholarship . This usually occurs three months after commencement.

Dissertation Access Options

Please expand the options below to learn more about the four ProQuest sections that deal with rights and access.

Select the “Traditional Publishing” option. Open Access is provided for free through the WashU repository.

If you choose to delay the release of your work, access to the full text of the dissertation will be delayed for the specified period, though the work’s citation and abstract will be available.

Embargoes expire automatically without notification. Dissertation authors must contact Proquest and Scholarly Communication & Digital Publishing Services ([email protected]) to make changes. One renewal for up to three years is allowed. Academic departmental policy may govern the use and duration of embargoes, and students should consult their department. Refer to the Embargoes section of the WashU Libraries Open Scholarship Submission and Use Policy for more information.

Reasons to request an embargo might include that the author pursuing a patent for the work, that the research sponsor requires a specified embargo period, or that the submission includes sensitive or proprietary content, such as work conducted with a corporate partner or a risk of research participants’ identity exposure.

If the option “I do not want my work to be discoverable in Proquest through Google Scholar and other major search engines” is selected when submitting a dissertation, Proquest will not make the work available for indexing until the embargo end date.

The WashU Libraries cannot prevent indexing of its repository site but will honor a dissertation’s embargo date.

Dissertation authors do not need to file for copyright (or ask Proquest to file on their behalf) to include a copyright page in their manuscript.

Please direct copyright questions to [email protected]

For more information, please see “Copyright Registration” on the Copyright Support page .

Master’s Thesis Submission Information

Master’s theses are submitted directly to the WashU Libraries repository and are reviewed by the appropriate school registrar. Anyone who submits a thesis will first need to create a free account using the following four steps:

• Create an account through bepress on Open Scholarship by selecting My Account / Sign up.
• You must provide an email address and your full name and create a password. You do not have to use your WUSTL email address, but you should use one you check regularly.
• After you sign up, you will receive an email confirmation with a link you must click to activate your account.
• Open Scholarship should take you to your My Account page if you have successfully created an account and logged in. You can submit your thesis to the appropriate collection (series) from here.

Thesis Submission Instructions by School

MFA in Visual Art candidates submit their approved theses to Open Scholarship’s MFA in Visual Art using the “Submit Research” option under Author Corner on the left-side menu.

MFA in Illustration and Visual Culture candidates submit their approved theses to Open Scholarship’s MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture using the “Submit Research” option under Author Corner on the left-side menu.

Master’s degree students in the Graduate School of Architecture (MSAS) are expected but not required to submit a thesis to Open Scholarship’s Graduate School of Architecture series. Use the “Submit Research” option on the left-side menu under Author Corner.

Master’s candidates in the Brown School should submit their theses to Open Scholarship’s Brown School Theses and Dissertations using the “Submit Research” option under Author Corner on the left-side menu.

Reviewers from the Brown School will approve the thesis and notify a candidate through the Open Scholarship system.

Master’s candidates in the McKelvey School of Engineering submit their theses electronically to Open Scholarship’s McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations using the “Submit Research” option under Author Corner on the left-side menu.

The McKelvey School of Engineering Reviewers will approve the thesis and notify a candidate through the Open Scholarship system.

Students with a Master’s / MS project in Computer Science and Engineering should submit their projects directly to Open Scholarship’s All Computer Science and Engineering Research collection using the “Submit Research” option under Author Corner on the left-side menu.

Please see the McKelvey School of Engineering Thesis & Dissertation Submission Procedures for more information .

Master’s candidates in Arts & Sciences should submit their theses electronically to Open Scholarship’s Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations using the “Submit Research” option under Arthur Corner on the left-side menu.

Reviewers from Arts & Sciences will approve the thesis and notify a candidate through the Open Scholarship system.

For more information, please see the Office of Graduate Studies Guides (for Arts & Sciences).

Binding Options

The University does not accept paper copies for binding. However, individuals may order a bound copy on their own through Thesis on Demand; please see the Dissertation Guide for more information.

If there are questions about using Thesis on Demand, please visit the Thesis on Demand FAQ page (enter “63130” as the zip code, even for students on the medical campus).

Finding WashU Dissertations and Theses

• WashU Open Scholarship (2009 – ) | Beginning in 2009, all theses and dissertations completed at WashU must be submitted in electronic form. Dissertations are submitted directly to UMI / Proquest Dissertation Services; Master’s theses are locally submitted to the WashU Open Scholarship Repository.
• Dissertations & Theses @ Washington University in St. Louis (1996-) | Full-text. Citations and abstracts of dissertations and theses submitted by WashU and published in UMI’s Dissertation Abstracts database. View 24-page previews of dissertations and theses and download the full-text.
• WashU Classic Catalog | To limit to dissertations and theses, modify search and add title=theses and/or author=Washington University (Saint Louis, Mo.).
• Quick Search | Researchers may find dissertations when filtering the Resource Type by Dissertations.
• ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I (1743-) | The complete range of academic subjects appearing in dissertations accepted at accredited institutions since 1743, updated monthly. View 24-page previews of dissertations and theses and download the full-text. Abstracts are included from July 1980; abstracts for master’s theses begin in Spring 1988. Not all universities require doctoral candidates to submit their dissertations to this database. For the most comprehensive search, include other sources. Learn more about the ProQuest Dissertations & Theses database. Note: Researchers cannot request full-text dissertations or theses from the ProQuest database. To request full-text dissertations or theses found on the ProQuest database, log in to ILLiad, select Request a Thesis, and complete the form.

Finding WashU Dissertations and Theses FAQs

• Are WashU theses and dissertations available to users at other institutions through Interlibrary Loan?
• How can I read a dissertation or thesis (an ETD) that is Embargoed in Open Scholarship?
• Read more FAQs on the Dissertation & Theses Ask Us thread

Submitting Undergraduate Honors Theses or Capstone Projects

Undergraduate Honors Theses or Capstone Projects may be submitted to Open Scholarship Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses using the Submit Research option under the Author Corner on the left-side menu.

Department or school-specific collections are at:

• Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers (Sam Fox School)
• Olin Business School, Honors in Management
• Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) Honors Papers

Students may choose Restricted (campus-only) or Unrestricted (worldwide) access. Administrators do not review content before posting it and making it available online. Please ensure you have reviewed the content with your mentor(s) to confirm that you are authorized to include all the content, including data, in your submission.

Undergraduate students are encouraged to read through the Submission Guidelines for Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses and the Policies for Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses.

Let your curiosity lead the way:

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• Arts & Sciences
• Graduate Studies in A&S

Undergraduate Honors

Undergraduate honors in mathematics and statistics.

The Department of Mathematics and Statistics has several different levels of honors and prizes in the department. 

• You can find the requirements of honors at the Washington University Bulletin (scroll to bottom of the page).
• You can follow the newest requirements, or find your entry year and follow those requirements: Washington University Bulletin Prior editions

Distinctions for Majors

For most of the majors in the department, there are three levels of distinction awarded to graduating students:

• Distinction: Usually more advanced coursework at a sufficiently high level.
• High Distinction: Completing an honors project.
• Highest Distinction: Passing graduate qualifer examinations or additional course work.

Latin Honors

Students who graduate with High Distinction are recommended to the College of Arts and Science for Latin Honors (cum laude, magna cum laude, or summa cum laude).  Awards of Latin Honor are controlled by the College and there may be additional requirements that are needed outside of Mathematics and Statistics.

The Honors Thesis

Arts & Sciences mathematics majors who want to be candidates for Latin Honors, High Distinction, or Highest Distinction must complete an honors thesis. Writing an honors thesis involves a considerable amount of independent work, reading, creating mathematics, writing a paper that meets acceptable professional standards, and making an oral presentation of results.

Types of Projects

An honors thesis can take three forms: 

• A thesis that presents significant work by the student on one or more nontrivial mathematics problems.
• A project in mathematical or applied statistics that involves an in-depth analysis of a large data set. To do an honors thesis involving data analysis, it is usually necessary to have completed 3200-493-494 by the end of the junior year, and to have an ability to work with statistical software such as SAS, R or Python.
• A substantial expository paper that follows independent study on an advanced topic under the guidance of a department faculty member. Such a report would involve careful presentation of ideas and synthesis of materials from several sources.

Process and Suggested Timeline

• Junior Year Fall Semester: Talk with your faculty advisor about possible projects.
• Junior Year Spring Semester: Complete the  Honors Proposal Form  and submit it to  Blake Thornton .
• Senior Year, end of January:   Give your advisor a draft abstract and outline of the paper.
• Senior Year, end of February: Give your advisor a rough draft, including your abstract.
• Senior Year, end of March: Complete your final draft and present your work. (Deadline is March 31.)

Finding a Project and an Advisor

Start with the Mathematics and Statistics undergraduate research page .  Then, talk to your major advisor, your instructors and other faculty in the department about your interests, your background.  Be sure to let them know you are interested in doing a honors project.

Departmental Prizes

Each year the department considers graduating majors for three departmental prizes. Recipients are recognized at an annual awards ceremony in April, where they each receive a certificate and a set of honors cords to be worn as part of the academic dress at Commencement. Awards are noted on the student's permanent university record. 

Ross Middlemiss Prize

The Ross Middlemiss Prize is awarded to a graduating math major with an outstanding record. The award was established by former Professor Ross Middlemiss, who taught at Washington University for forty years. From 1936 through the 1960s, Middlemiss authored several books, including a widely popular calculus text that was used in University College courses until the late 1970s.

Putnam Exam Prize

The Putnam Exam Prize is awarded to a graduating senior who has participated regularly in the Putnam Exam Competitionand done exceptionally well throughout his/her time at Washington University.

Martin Silverstein Award

The Martin Silverstein Award was established in memory of Professor Martin Silverstein who, until his death in 2004, was a pioneer in work at the interface of probability theory and harmonic analysis. Each year the department considers for this award students in any major track, but especially those with strengths in probability or statistics.

Brian Blank Award

The Brian Blank Award was established in memory of Professor Brian Blank who passed away in 2018. Each year the Mathematics Department will select distinguished junior(s), majoring in mathematics and statistics.

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Senior thesis?

I'm a current junior who has been planning to do a senior thesis in the polisci department. I do not have any plans on going into academia or graduate school for polisci, but law school is a potential option in my future. I'm double majoring in polisci and environmental earth sciences, with a minor in computer science, and my gpa is high enough to have earned dean's list every semester thus far (except for a credit count mishap first semester).

I've recently come to the conclusion that I'd prefer not to be miserable during my senior year and have thus been reconsidering the thesis. I'm not sure a see a real, practical reason for me to do it other than puffery on my transcript. I'd likely graduate magna cum laude should I complete one, but I don't know if it's worth it if all it is going to do is be another line on my resume that doesn't really mean much to any employer I'm looking at.

Is there anyone here who has done or is doing a senior thesis? Specifically, but not exclusively, is there anyone who's done a thesis in the polisci department who can offer some guidance as to what you've thought about the process? Pros/cons? Any advice anyone can offer would be helpful. I'm trying to decide by Monday so I can drop a class I would no longer need to put myself through the torment of taking.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

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Masters Theses