Honors 689 (6H credits over two semesters)
Prerequisite: Junior status; 9H credits
Students who complete 6H credits will earn “Honors with Distinction” designation
Not open to students with credit in Honors 687
What is Senior Honors Thesis?
The senior Honors thesis (Honors 689) is a substantial formal paper reflecting independent research conducted under a supervising instructor. Written over the period of two semesters (3H credits each semester), the senior thesis can be written in any field or area of specialization including the humanities, social sciences, and biological and physical sciences. The thesis should make some contribution to your field of study, though the contribution will, of course, vary greatly depending upon your area of specialization. You might, for example, provide a novel interpretation of a literary text, investigate an event or idea that has received little attention, or design and execute an experiment. Generally, senior theses written in the humanities are argumentative. They present the reader with a disputable thesis and supply arguments in support of this thesis.
Senior Honors theses are usually written within your major field. Theses written in the humanities and social sciences are typically 50 to 75 pages long; in the natural sciences (and other subjects requiring field research or experimentation) they are somewhat shorter, 30 to 45 pages. You do not have to complete a senior thesis to graduate with an Honors degree, but students who complete the thesis option will be awarded the “Honors with Distinction” degree designation.
Why Do Senior Honors Thesis?
Doing an extensive senior research paper can be challenging and rewarding. It will allow you to investigate a topic of particular interest in greater detail than is possible in normal semester classes, provide a forum for independent study if you thrive in such situations, and allow you to work closely with a faculty member whom you admire and find intellectually stimulating.
Completing a senior thesis is also valuable for students considering graduate or law school. A successfully completed senior thesis is often persuasive evidence to admissions and fellowship committees of your potential for outstanding performance in graduate or professional school. Writing a senior thesis can also help you develop the kind of background necessary for success in graduate school. You can develop research skills, writing ability, and self-discipline, learn to pace yourself through a long research project, and learn how to work with faculty members on a sustained research project. It can also provide you with an area of expertise and specialization on which to build in graduate school and perhaps even serve as the springboard for your master’s thesis.
Finally, whether you are considering graduate school or not, a senior thesis provides a capstone to your undergraduate education. A senior thesis, in other words, may serve as a means of pulling together many of the interests you have developed during your years at UWM.
Selecting and Limiting Your Topic
One of the most difficult problems facing the student interested in doing a senior thesis is selecting a thesis topic. Normally, the topic is related to your major field. Often, it emerges either from a class of particular interest or from an independent research project. Students who want to do a senior thesis but who do not have a concrete topic in mind are encouraged either to act as a research assistant or do an independent study under faculty supervision. This will strengthen your research skills, allow you to see how scholars choose, define, and limit topics, and expose you to ideas for a topic. You may want to consult several faculty members in your department for help in identifying and refining your topic.
Beyond this, remember that your topic must be focused, flexible, and capable of sustaining your interest. Do not be too ambitious. A sign of maturity in scholarship is the ability to address broad issues through the medium of specific questions. Remember also that your topic is likely to undergo substantial revision from its initial formulation. So pick a topic that can be narrowed. Finally, realize that at some point in this project you will probably become tired and discouraged. This difficult period may be even worse if you are not interested and concerned about the subject of your project.
Here are some examples of theses written by UWM Honors graduates in recent years:
“West Allis, Wisconsin: A Case Study of an Industrial Suburb”
“The Effects of Social Organization on the Genetic Composition of Primate
Populations: the Vervet Monkey (Cercopithecus aethiops)”
“Seed Bank Study of Ephemeral Wetland Ponds”
“REP‑PCR: Validation of Reaction Specificity and Development of a
Phylogenetic Tool for Whole Genome Comparisons”
“Boy, Girl, Boy: The Ideologies That Drive Sex Reassignment Surgery”
“Virginia Woolf and the World of Action”
“The Rational Voter: In Defense of Economic Theory”
“Gloria Anzaldúa, Ana Castillo, and Sandra Cisneros: Three Approaches to Chicana Feminism”
“Childhood Sexual Abuse as a Model for Conditioning Learned Helplessness”
(Senior theses are available for perusal either in the UWM Library or in Honors House 155.)
Finding a Supervising Instructor
The student is responsible for finding a professor who will act as his or her supervising instructor. You might want to choose a former instructor whom you admire and feel comfortable with. Faculty members supervise senior theses on a voluntary basis, but many will be pleased to assist serious students with a thesis topic pertaining to their field of study or interest.
They offer the student informed, constructive criticism at all stages from the formulation of a feasible topic to the completion of the actual paper. They provide advice and, if necessary, training in the necessary research skills. The supervising instructor will also read and evaluate the finished thesis, but will not do any of the actual research, writing, or revising.
It is important to establish a good working relationship with your supervising instructor at the outset, one in which you both understand the mutual responsibilities. You both must agree on the scope, length, and format of the thesis, the frequency of advising sessions, and a timetable for completion.
The Honors College Thesis Liaison
The Honors College thesis liaison is also available to help you in your research and writing. The Honors College liaison is not meant to serve as a substitute for the supervising instructor but instead provides additional support. Specifically, the Honors College thesis liaison will read and make suggestions on the proposal, meet with you and your supervising instructor about the thesis, read and evaluate the thesis after a semester of work, and read and evaluate the final draft of the senior thesis. The Honors College liaison must approve the senior thesis before the designation “Honors with Distinction” is placed on your diploma.
Credits
The 6 credits for Honors 689 count toward the total of 21 Honors credits required for graduation with Honors. Departments are usually willing, if requested, to count senior thesis credits toward major requirements. If you want these credits to count toward your major, you should obtain departmental approval in advance.
Writing a Proposal
The proposal is intended to serve as a guide and framework to which you can continually return as you focus and refine your research paper. The proposal will also help your supervising instructor understand the nature of your paper and thus provide solid advice. Do not treat this stage lightly. The ultimate quality of your research paper will depend upon whether or not you have written a cogent and substantive proposal.
Every proposal will be different. Nevertheless, as a general rule, the proposal should be four to five pages long and contain the following kinds of information: a description of the paper, an outline and organization of the thesis, a tentative plan of research, and an annotated bibliography.
A. Description of the Paper
The proposal should include a clear statement of the purpose of your paper. Ask yourself the following questions and provide clear and direct answers to them. What am I investigating or testing? Why do I find this question significant and interesting? How does exploring this question make a contribution to my field of study? Is the topic sufficiently narrow that it can be completed in the time proposed?
B. Outline and Organization of the Project
In your proposal, you should provide a tentative outline of your project. Ask yourself questions such as: How many chapters will my thesis contain? What will be the focus of each chapter? What is the most logical order for these chapters? This outline may, of course, be changed during the course of your research and writing. The purpose in drawing it up, however, is to encourage you to think through the overall structure of your thesis and the relationship of its parts.
C. Plan of Research
Your proposal should contain a paragraph or two about how you plan to proceed in your research, explaining what you will accomplish in each semester. What works will you research first? Why are you beginning here? Is there an underlying logic guiding your plan of research? Does your senior thesis build on previous research that you have done? If so, describe this research and its relationship to your proposed project.
D. Annotated Bibliography
Your proposal should also include an annotated bibliography of primary and secondary source material on your topic, derived from intensive independent research and from consultation with your thesis advisor. The purpose of this section is to help you discover what materials are relevant to your project and whether these materials are available in UWM’s library. Start by identifying 10-12 books, articles, and primary documents that you will be using during your research and browse through them. List them with full bibliographical data and provide a sentence or two after each work describing what the work contains and how you believe it will be important in your research. This bibliography is provisional and will no doubt expand as your thesis develops.
Weil Senior Thesis Award
Partial funding for research and related expenses is available through the Herman and Bertha Weil Senior Thesis Award. Successful applicants may be reimbursed for photocopying, use of equipment, travel to a resource library or site, attendance at a professional conference, or other valid expenses. Applications can be submitted at any point after the thesis proposal is approved and should include: an itemized list of expenses; a letter explaining why these expenses are essential to completion of the thesis; and receipts for any items or services purchased. Awards are based on merit and are not guaranteed for all applicants. For further information contact the Honors College thesis liaison.
Library Privileges
Writing a senior thesis entitles you to graduate student borrowing privileges at the Golda Meir Library. You may take out a maximum of 50 books and keep them for a whole semester. (To avoid overdue notices, be sure to inform the circulation assistant that you have these privileges.)
Audience
Strive to make your senior thesis understandable to a general intellectual audience, not simply to a reader within your discipline. This can be achieved in part by avoiding the unnecessary or undue use of disciplinary jargon or (when specialized language is appropriate) by providing your reader with a definition of the terms that you are using. In other words, when you use specialized language, carefully guide your reader through your analysis and argument. In general, ask yourself the question: Is my analysis understandable to someone who does not already know what I mean? This requirement is not intended to dilute the substance of your paper. It is instead premised on the belief that the qualities of good writing cross the boundaries of disciplines.
Documentation
The style of documentation will vary depending upon your discipline and should be worked out between you and your supervising instructor. Normally, the standards provided in MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers or The Chicago Manual of Style should be used for theses in the humanities.
Students must document all material that is drawn from outside sources. Facts, quotations, paraphrases of scholars’ views, and background historical information all must be properly documented. There are no exceptions to this rule!
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is presenting the work of someone else as your own. This ranges from flagrant forms such as simply copying the work of someone else and calling it your own, to more subtle forms such as borrowing selected phrases and ideas and weaving them within a text or paraphrasing the author without citing his or her name. If you use the ideas or language of someone else, you must quote this person and document the source. If you have any questions, consult the Honors College liaison or your supervising instructor. Remember, as a rule, it is always better to err on the side of caution and provide citations rather than risk plagiarism.
Thesis Format and Preparation
The standards of your major field will determine the length and format of the thesis. In preparing the final version, however, please follow the guidelines below.
Here are the most important points:
- Produce the thesis in 12-point font using a laser printer to ensure clear photocopies and microfilms.
- Allow a one and one-half inch left margin. The other margins should be one inch.
- Follow the title page format shown on the final page of this document.
- Follow the title page with a 250-word thesis abstract, headed simply “Abstract.” An abstract is a concise summary of the purposes, organization, methodology, and conclusions of your thesis. It is meant to tell your readers briefly what your thesis is about so that they can determine whether or not it is relevant to their research and reading interests. Normally, an abstract states the purpose and scope of the thesis, outlines its organization, describes the research methods used, and states its conclusions.
- Submit two unbound, single-sided, signed copies of the thesis to the Honors College office. These may both be photocopies if they are clear copies. The Honors College will coordinate binding your thesis and a copy will be kept in the library. You may request a bond copy for a fee.
- All senior theses should contain the following components in the following order: title page, abstract, table of contents, body of the work, endnotes (if endnotes are used instead of footnotes), and bibliography.
- Your thesis needs to meet accessibility standards (WCAG 2.1 Level AA) in order to be uploaded digitally to Minds@UW. You can find them in full here: https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/
Below are the requirements that have been deemed most relevant to your thesis:
- Success Criterion 1.4.12 Text Spacing: Understanding Text Spacing|: How to Meet Text Spacing(Level AA)
In content implemented using markup languages that support the following text style properties, no loss of content or functionality occurs by setting all of the following and by changing no other style property:- Line height (line spacing) to at least 1.5 times the font size;
- Spacing following paragraphs to at least 2 times the font size;
- Letter spacing (tracking) to at least 0.12 times the font size;
- Word spacing to at least 0.16 times the font size.
- Adding Alternative Text to any images and graphs/charts in the thesis. ALT text should describe the purpose or meaning of the image (EX: A poster for an upcoming Honors College event. An image detailing the 2025 Writing Contest Winners.) You can find how to add ALT text into a Word Document here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/accessibility/office-accessibility/add-alternative-text-to-a-shape-picture-chart-smartart-graphic-or-other-object
Procedure and Timetable
Getting started
- Review the Non-Seminar Planning Sheet and schedule a meeting with Dr. Sands to discuss. In this meeting you can expect to discuss your ideas and to be given the opportunity to ask any questions. To schedule an appointment with Dr. Sands, please email him directly (sands@uwm.edu), or visit our front office in HON 154 for assistance.
- We recommend that you schedule your meeting with Dr. Sands as early as possible. It is suggested that if you are interested in doing a senior thesis, you should consult the Honors College thesis liaison during your junior year (56-87 credits) to discuss requirements and procedures. At this time, you should also meet with appropriate department faculty, develop a thesis topic, select a supervising instructor, and if desired, get departmental approval for counting the project toward your major requirements.
Getting the proposal approved - Submit your proposal through the online form: Honors College Non-Seminar Submission Form. You must include your SIGNED Non-Seminar Planning Sheet with your proposal.
- After the Honors College receives your form, it will be sent to Honors College Thesis Liaison, Dr. Peter Sands for final approval. If there are any questions about your proposal, Dr. Sands will be in touch with suggested revisions. The draft proposal must be completed by April 1 for fall semester and November 1 for spring semester. The entire process should be complete by December 1 (for spring) and May 1 (for fall).
- Once approved, the Honors College main office will send you an email to confirm.
- Registration: Honors College administration will give you the class number for you to enroll in via PAWS.
Once you are enrolled - The First Semester: After one semester you should turn in a draft of work completed (about twenty to thirty pages). This draft will be evaluated by both your supervising instructor and the Honors College liaison. This requirement will ensure that you have made substantial progress and provide guidance on how best to finish your senior research.
- The Second Semester/Completing the Thesis: Your completed thesis must be turned into the Honors College for final approval no later than one week before the end of second-semester classes. Submit one unbound, single-sided, signed copy to the Honors College Office. The title page of each must be signed by your supervising instructor, who will assign the final grade. Only when the Honors thesis liaison has approved and signed the completed thesis will it have earned the “Honors with Distinction” degree designation. Sample of a title page can be found here.
- One copy of the approved thesis will be kept permanently in the Honors College. The Honors College submits a digital copy to the UWM Golda Meir Library to be uploaded to Minds@UW. Students will be given a link to the digital copy of their thesis. You must pay for the binding of any additional copies you want.
Forms
Non-Seminar Planning Sheet (please note you will need to Download the PDF to edit)