Guide for Writing a Thesis

A proposal is a description of a plan for your thesis. Writing the proposal requires some preliminary research. Your adviser may help you write a good proposal, but before you approach an adviser for help, investigate your prospective topic and sketch a draft proposal. Begin by searching for literature on the subject using standard bibliographies in your field and reading one or two key books or articles.

Consider your resources and time constraints in developing the proposal. The topic you choose depends on your interests; whether your adviser will be on campus while you are working on the project; your adviser’s expertise in your area of study; and the time you have available to complete the research and writing. You may need to focus on a more narrow aspect of your topic.

Some titles of global languages and literature theses from prior years include:

• French
  • Patrice Dorcely, “Fonds-Rouge: Une Representation Caracteristique du Modéle des Campagnes Haitiennes”
  • Joseph Dumena, “Jean-Paul Sartre: Un Existentialiste Humaniste”
  • Frandre Manelas, “L’Education dans La Rue Case Negres”
• Spanish
  • Carmen Rodríguez, “Nuyorican Spanglish”
  • Lucy Santana, “Horacio Quiroga: Sus cuentos, una extension de su vida”
  • Manny Simon, “La imagen de la mujer en la poesía de Rubén Darío”

The proposal that you write before you meet with your adviser should explain:

• the topic you expect to investigate and why it is important,
• the general line of inquiry you plan to pursue or the tentative argument you intend to pose,
• your research plan, and
• your bibliography.

A proposal is a starting point, not the finished thesis, so do not worry if it seems vague or incomplete. Include ideas that you feel sure you would like to investigate as well as related ideas that you think might be worth exploring. Make sure that your ideas are clear and that your proposal is typed neatly before you approach your adviser. This will give your adviser a sense of your commitment to the project and provide a starting point for discussion.

Work with your adviser to revise your proposal in specific ways. Consider the following questions:

• How is the project related to what I have learned in previous courses and from my personal reading and research?
• What question am I trying to answer; what problem am I trying to solve?
• Is the question answerable or the problem solvable? Can it be answered or solved in the time I have to work on it?
• Is there a part of the question or the problem that I could work on that would let me go into greater depth than if I tried to take on the whole thing?
• What should the final project look like (length, format, bibliography)?

Keep in mind that at this stage nothing is set in stone. You are not committing yourself unalterably. You cannot possibly know in advance all aspects of how the project will evolve. In fact, the unexpected things are part of what makes writing a thesis exciting and rewarding.

The completed final draft of your proposal should include the following:

• A succinct, tentative title. The working title summarizes what you think the project is about as you begin it. Your title may change as your work progresses and you develop new insights on your subject.
• A statement of the project’s central issue stated either as a noun phrase (e.g., “Women in Selected Cortázar Stories”) or as a question (e.g., “What Does Cortázar Think of Women?”).
• A list of research questions. What information do you need to gather to solve the problem?
• Your hypothesis. What do you speculate the answer or solution will be?
• The tasks you plan to execute in order to complete the project.
• A description of the resources on which you plan to draw. Explain which of these you will bring to the project yourself (what do you already know that will help?), which resources you will depend on your adviser to contribute, and which resources you will have to go out and find.
• A calendar. Set a tentative due date for each stage of the research project. Decide with your adviser on the due date for the completion of the project. Set realistic goals.Your project should be one of your highest priorities, but do not over-commit yourself. Design your schedule so that you can successfully complete each stage on time without neglecting other important parts of your life, such as work and family. Research requires commitment, discipline, and organization—so plan wisely.

After you have made final revisions to your proposal and your adviser has approved it, begin work on the project. Or, more precisely, continue to work on it—writing the proposal has given you a good start.

Be sure to file the “Application for Filing Thesis Title” form with the graduate deputy. The thesis title is due at the end of the first month of each semester. The actual date is published on the Schedule of Classes. You must include the working title of your thesis on the form and have your adviser sign it.

Sample Proposal

Writer: Jane White

Working title: “Casualties of Civilization: Repression and Progress in the Works of Stephen Crane”
My thesis will examine the social and economic forces of Crane’s time and how Crane’s prose embodies the harmful consequences of these forces in such characters as Maggie, Henry Fleming, Trescott, George Kelsey, and the Swede (“The Blue Hotel”).

Crane lived in a time of enormous social and economic change. He wrote a great deal about the people trampled under America’s feet and tossed to the side as the country marched on toward the 20th century.

I will apply psychoanalytical concepts to the understanding of Crane’s work and times. From research I have already done, I think there is substantial material available to demonstrate that Freud’s ideas of the subconscious and of civilization’s effect on the individual psyche are exhibited in Crane’s texts. I want to look at the impact that society has on individual characters from Crane’s oeuvre: for example, Maggie’s suppression of desire, the Swede’s death wish and George Kelsey’s Oedipal guilt. I have begun to compile my working bibliography. In addition to the Library of America’s edition of Stephen Crane’s works, I am reading Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents and a work about Freud and his ideas in relation to progress, Norman O. Brown’s Life and Death. I have also researched some general works dealing with the theory of progress: Lewis’s The American Adam, Smith’s Virgin Land, and Bury’s The Idea of Progress. I will also use the select bibliography of works about Stephen Crane provided to me in American Literature of the Nineteenth Century II.

I will spend the semester break (January) researching and reading materials. In February and March, I will write a rough draft, turning in one chapter to my adviser every two weeks for comments. In April, I will revise the draft and present the final version to my adviser by May 1. If no further revisions are necessary, I will spend the second week of May preparing the final copy so as to be able to turn it in on May 13.