Honors Thesis Seminar Outlines the Path to Success by “Choosing the Right Methodology”
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Tuesday April 26th marked the final Commonwealth Honors College Thesis Workshop for the 2022 spring semester. This hour-long seminar, entitled “Choosing the Right Methodology”, was led by Elena Carbone, professor and associate dean for curriculum and academic oversight in Commonwealth Honors College, and Ashley Braziel, coordinator of events and programs.
To start off the workshop, Carbone explained the Honors Thesis to students, and emphasized the importance of finding your passion through your topic. She encouraged students to tell their story through a portfolio or to broach a gap in research by conducting an experiment. She also walked through the PATHS submission process where students will submit an outline of their thesis idea and presentation; which leads into the next topic Carbone spoke about; manuscripts versus portfolios.
As Carbone emphasized, finding your passion is a crucial part of a successful Honors Thesis. But how do you present your passion? The two types of theses students can produce are manuscripts and portfolios. Manuscripts look like the typical document that one imagines when they think of a college thesis. They contain a literature review and more elaboration on quantitative research the student conducts or collects. Portfolios are also written documents, but are accompanied with a creative element — like a musical piece or a painting. The beauty of the Honors Thesis is the flexibility in both choosing a topic, and presentation.
Don't be afraid to use multiple disciplines and mediums!
- Elena Carbone
The main topic of this thesis seminar was not the act of choosing a thesis topic or how you will present it, with a focus on discussing the research methodology used to write a thesis. Research methods are crucial to establish validity and importance to the project. If the research question or topic is the “what,” the research methods are the “how.” One could use qualitative (words or prose) or quantitative (numerical) data to address the topic. One could conduct a thematic analysis or interpret meaning within a pattern while another performs statistical analyses between variables. Research methodologies are flexible and capable of being relevant to every discipline.
The final thesis will have a methods section which addresses the following questions; how the data was collected or generated and how the data was analyzed. The last part of the methods section will discuss the why, why this topic was studied. This is an important section where students can express the significance of the methods used to analyze their data.
Before ending this seminar, Carbone left students with some helpful things to remember when writing their thesis.
- Use precise and descriptive language
- Choose a reference style in your discipline and consistently use it in your thesis
- Bring your paper together through making connections between sections.
It is important to emphasize that an Honors Thesis does not have to fall within a student’s official field of study. However, as stated above, Carbone encourages students to combine subjects and mediums to create something unique.
I would love to see more STEM majors doing portfolios.
- Elena Carbone
The Honors Thesis is certainly daunting upon first glance, but this is an excellent opportunity to express and shed light on something important to you.
While this was the last workshop for spring 2022, CHC will be offering one-on-one coaching sessions with Porntip Israsena Twishime, the CHC writing coach, over the summer.