This checklist runs you through everything you will have to do to successfully complete and defend and receive recognition for your Honors Thesis. In the course of the project you will need to meet seven (7) official Deadlines. These are the deadlines for completing and submitting:
- PNP Honors Application
- PNP Honors Prospectus
- PNP Honors Mid-Project Evaluation
- Solid Draft
- Defense Draft
- Thesis Defense Form
- Final Version
The checklist itself does not provide these deadlines but gives a coarser timeline for completing each portion of the project. Please consult this Deadlines page for a precise official timeline of your Honors Project.
Note: If you are studying abroad during your Junior year, it is vital to plan ahead carefully. Secure the agreement of a Primary Advisor prior to your departure. Face-to-face discussion is both more efficient and more likely to be successful than is email communication.
Your fourth-to-last semester:
(1) Brainstorm topic ideas. See Choosing a Topic.
(2) Speak with potential Primary Advisors.
Each Honors Thesis Project must be completed under the direction of two advisors, a Primary Advisor and a Secondary Advisor. Both advisors must be WUSTL faculty members.
In the ordinary case, an Honors Thesis Committee consists of one core PNP faculty member and one (non-core) affiliated faculty member.
Core PNP faculty members: http://pnp.artsci.wustl.edu/people
Affiliated PNP faculty members: http://pnp.artsci.wustl.edu/people/affiliated-faculty
A PNP postdoc may also serve in the place of a core PNP faculty member, but only as a secondary advisor.
PNP postdocs: http://philosophy.artsci.wustl.edu/people/post-docs
It is sometimes possible to have one non-affiliated faculty member serve as one advisor if the second advisor is a core PNP faculty member. Please contact the PNP Administrative Assistant if you would like to pursue this option.
It is sometimes possible to have two (non-core) affiliated faculty members serve as advisors, with no core PNP faculty advisor. Please contact the PNP Administrative Assistant if you would like to pursue this option.
Your Primary Advisor should be someone you're comfortable working with, someone who shares your interest in your topic. Primary Advisors must be faculty members (e.g. no lab managers or Post Docs). If you find a potential adviser not in our list, please contact the PNP Administrative Assistant.
(3) Make your decision. Undertaking an Honors Thesis is a serious commitment. Your interest in your chosen topic must be supported by self-discipline, organizational skills, and a willingness to work independently. Because writing an Honors Thesis is a massively cooperative effort, you must follow PNP policies closely. Please see Should I write an Honors Thesis.
Your third-to-last semester:
Secure a Primary Advisor, research Secondary Advisors, and complete the Honors Application, including the Timeline and Reading List.
(1) Secure a Primary Adviser. Your Primary Advisor will be your chief contact on the thesis.
(2) Research a Secondary Advisor. Your Secondary Advisor may choose to be more or less involved in the project, as they wish. The minimum commitment on their part is to a) read and provide feedback on your Solid Draft and b) read your Thesis Draft and c) attend your Thesis Defense.
Note: Your committee members—your Primary Advisor and a Secondary Advisor—must agree to be available to hold the defense prior to the defense deadline (see Deadlines here).
(3) Develop your topic. An Honors Thesis might be predominantly theoretical, or it might involve a substantial empirical component, but it should have more of an interdisciplinary focus than an Honors Thesis in Philosophy, Psychology, or another of the component disciplines. A PNP Honors Thesis would normally be 30 – 60 pages, divided into chapters, although theses that are more empirical in their orientation could take a different form.
(4) Apply for funding and authorization. Students performing original research may need to acquire funding and authorization for their experiment.
You should talk with your Primary Adviser about whether you will be required to acquire funding for your project, and, if so, what funding resources might be open to you. The Office of Undergraduate Research can be helpful in this regard as well.
If your Thesis involves human participants, you will need to obtain prior authorization from the Human Research Protection Office. You are urged to plan ahead and factor in the significant lead time this process involves. You will need to take a brief Human Subject Education course, submit a complete description of your experiment, and await approval before you can begin collecting your data. This process can easily take two months or longer, especially if revisions are requested. Faculty in the Medical School and the Psychology Department are typically well versed in these procedures and might be able to give you some guidance on filling out and submitting these forms.
Do not assume that you do not need to get permission even if your Advisor tells you it is unimportant. Washington University policy is clear on this: students who do not follow these procedures "will not be allowed to use the data in an Honors Thesis, presentation, or publication of any sort. Blatant violations may be referred to WU academic integrity or research integrity review boards."
(5) Complete and submit your Honors Application. This application asks for the working title and topic of your thesis and for a brief project description. It also requires that you provide a timeline demonstrating when and how you will complete the work as well as a preliminary reading list for the project.
The summer before you graduate:
(1) Work hard. Once the semester begins you will almost certainly have less time to work than you do now the semester begins. Note that you do not have the entirety of the semester you defend the thesis in order to work on the project. In fact you only have about half of that semester available to work on the thesis. (See the deadline for submitting the Defense Draft, under Deadlines.)
(2) Register for PNP 499. In order to register, you must have a section created in WUCRSL with your Primary Advisor listed as the instructor. The PNP Administrative Assistant will create this section for you upon approval of your Honors Application and again upon approval of your PNP Mid-Project Evaluation.
(3) Contact candidate Secondary Advisors. If you are unable to do so, contact the PNP Honors Coordinator.
Your second-to-last semester (or the summer thereafter, for fall graduates):
(1) Submit your Prospectus. This prospectus asks for a longer project description, an updated Timeline and Reading List, as well as an outline for the thesis.
(2) Submit your Mid-Project Evaluation. This evaluation needs to be signed by your Primary Advisor. It will decide whether you continue on with an Honors project in the next semester or whether the work you have done so far is converted into an independent study instead. (Note: for fall graduates, this may be submitted at the very beginning of the student’s last semester; see for specific Deadlines.)
Your last semester:
(1) Schedule your defense. People are busy. Faculty members are especially busy. We recommend that you schedule your defense as early as is feasible.
(2) Complete your Solid Draft. A polished and complete draft of the entire thesis must be submitted to your Secondary Advisor (and to your Primary Advisor if they request) early enough in the semester for them to provide substantive critical feedback on the draft and for you to revise in light of that feedback.
(3) Complete your Defense Draft. After substantively revising the Solid Draft, student must submit the draft to-be-defended to both Primary and Secondary Advisor, sufficiently in advance of the defense date.
(4) Defend your thesis. Be sure to have all committee members present complete the Thesis Defense Form.
Expect your defense to last about an hour. You will be asked to deliver a brief overview of the thesis, then face questioning from the committee. At the conclusion, you will be asked to leave the room, while the Thesis Committee determines a grade for the thesis. When you return, you will be informed of the result.
(5) Submit your Thesis Defense Form.
(6) Create your Final Version. After revising your Defense Draft in light of any requests made by your advisors at the Defense, please modify it to meet all Formatting Requirements. Submit to the PNP Administrative Assistant.
The PNP office (Wilson Hall, Room 208) is willing to print up to 4 bound copies for you; you can make an appointment with the PNP Administrative Assistant (314-935-4297) for help binding the thesis.
(7) Graduate with Honors!