Honors Requirements

Once you are admitted to the Departmental Honors Program in English, you must complete a capstone course designed for Honors candidates and write a prospectus and thesis under the guidance of a thesis advisor. It is very important to follow the guidelines below and to submit your work on or before the deadlines; late work cannot and will not be accepted, because the Undergraduate Committee, which evaluates your work, follows a very strict schedule at the close of each semester.

Ideally, each honors candidate will have three semesters to complete the following requirements:

1. English 412 Capstone/Honors Seminar
   A special seminar designed for honors students in English; topics vary each semester. It brings together a variety of kinds of literary, rhetorical, and/or theoretical works; asks students to analyze texts from a variety of time periods/cultural movements; and challenges students to engage in an in-depth research project having a clear theoretical base and give oral presentations of their work. This course may be taken any semester after being admitted to Departmental Honors.
   
2. Individual Study (Eng 497)
   This independent study course is taken in the 1st semester of your senior year, in order to write a prospectus for submission to the Undergraduate Committee and to begin drafting your thesis, once your prospectus is approved. The prospectus must be submitted no later than the end of the sixth week of the semester.
   
3. Senior Honors Thesis (Eng 490)
   The thesis should be a 30- to 50-page critical essay, creative work, or professional writing project. You must submit the thesis to the Undergraduate Committee for approval no later than the end of the tenth week of your last semester of your senior year.

For specific deadlines, notices, and announcements about Honors consult the Honors Sigma Tau Delta bulletin board outside Humanities 223.

2007-2008 Deadlines:

September 28, 2007: DUE, Prospectus for Spring 2008 Thesis

 October 26, 2007: DUE, Thesis for Fall 2007

 February 22, 2008: DUE, Prospectus for Fall 2008 Thesis

 March 21, 2008: DUE, Thesis for Spring 2008

 Note: Both the Prospectus and Thesis must be accompanied by a letter of recommendation from your faculty advisor, who should submit the letter directly to the Director of Undergraduate Studies in English by the due date.