The English Honors Thesis

Description

Loyola's English Department offers an undergraduate thesis in English that is based on two semesters (six hours of credit) of independent work done in the senior year. Projects may be literary-critical or creative. Upon completion of the fifty-page thesis or collection of creative work (poems, stories, essays, or script), the student will be awarded "Honors in English" to be noted on the transcript.

Eligibility

Students who have completed ninety hours of credit, with a 3.5 GPA in the major and a 3.0 GPA over all, are eligible to undertake the Honors Thesis.

Schedule

The thesis program begins in late April of the student's junior year, when a project is proposed and an appropriate Director is chosen, with the cooperation of the Director of the Thesis Program.

Summer between junior and senior years:
Extensive readings in primary sources, as arranged between student and project director.

Fall semester:
Student signs up for English 499, Independent Study, 3 hrs. credit; primary and secondary readings; regular office conferences with director; bibliography established and thesis propounded; drafting.

Spring semester:
Student signs up for 499, Independent Study, 3 hrs. credit; January-March, preparation of first complete draft.

April 1 -- Submission of complete thesis to Project Director;
April 15 -- Submission of thesis to second reader

Grades

Grades on the standard four-point scale will be awarded for independent study work done in the fall and spring semesters; these grades are determined by the Project Director. The possible grades for the whole project, to be determined by the Project Director and the Director of the Thesis Program, are: "Honors in English", and credit in the course but no honors (in the case of a student not completing the thesis or turning in work not of acceptable quality).

Purpose

Many of the better liberal arts colleges in America offer, and some require, undergraduate theses. The experience of researching and writing a paper of greater scope than the standard term paper in a course (ca 20 pp.) prepares students for extensive writing expected in graduate school, the professions, and business. Not only are there differences in scale between pieces of shorter and longer writing, but also in their architectonics -- how they are conceived and put together and carried out.

Contact

Ted Cotton at cotton@loyno.edu or (504) 865-2480

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