Undergraduate Honors Thesis Requirements

In order to complete the requirements of CPH:4990 and to graduate with Honors in the Major, students and their mentors must do the following:

  1. In the semester in which you plan to graduate you need to apply to graduate with Honors in the major.
  2. Write an Honors Thesis and have it approved (i.e. signed) by your faculty mentor and the CPH Faculty Honors Advisor.
  3. Students must present their thesis research.
  4. Students must complete a self-assessment.
  5. Mentors must complete an assessment of the student.

Deadlines and Preparation of Thesis for Submission – Instructions for Students

  1. Once your faculty mentor has approved your final thesis, obtain their signature on the title page AND turn in the complete electronic thesis to the CPH Faculty Honors advisor, Brandi Janssen. A scanned or electronic signature will be sufficient. This should be completed no later than the Wednesday of the last week of classes.
  2. The CPH Faculty Honors advisor, Brandi Janssen, will review your thesis for final formatting and return the thesis to you with any requested formatting changes no later than the Friday of the last week of classes so that you may make any necessary editorial or formatting changes.
  3. Submit the final electronic version of your approved thesis with all suggested changes to the CPH Faculty Honors Advisor, Brandi Janssen, no later than the Monday of finals week of the semester in which you intend to graduate. This version will be stored on a collegiate server.
  4. What happens to an undergraduate thesis or project after it has been completed and graded?
  • Click here if you are interested in binding your thesis.
  • Students and the faculty mentor may decide to give permission to have the thesis or project added to the UI Iowa Research Online, a repository of work produced at UI by students and faculty, with the site provided as a service by the UI Libraries.  This is an option to consider but submission to this site is not required to earn either Honors in the Major or University Honors. Likewise, the thesis is no longer submitted to University Honors. If you are interested in depositing your thesis to the UI Iowa Research Online repository, then we refer you to this page, while we update our own website. The deadline for submitting both the submission agreement form and the thesis is Friday of Final Examination Week at 11:59 p.m. The thesis cannot be published without the permission form.

Please follow these guidelines when writing your thesis:

Thesis Sections

Your thesis should have the general format of a scientific paper and should contain the following components in the order indicated below. Each section begins on a new page.

  • Title Page
  • Abstract (400 words or less)
  • Acknowledgements
  • Table of Contents
  • List of Tables (optional, but desirable for lengthy theses)
  • List of Figures (optional, but desirable for lengthy theses)
  • Introduction
  • Methods
  • Results
  • Discussion
  • Literature Cited

Formatting

Font

Please use Times New Roman with a font size of 12.

Formatting of Title Page

Use this template to format your title page.

Page Margins for Remainder of Thesis

All pages, except for the title page and abstract, should have margins (top, bottom, left, and right) of 1.0″.

Page Spacing

All pages, except for the title page, abstract, and the legends to tables and figures, should be printed double-spaced.

Formatting of Table of Contents, List of Tables, and List of Figures

Please click here to view correct formatting of these documents.

Tables and Figures

Make sure that you draw the reader’s attention to a specific figure or table by inserting a “flag” within the main body of text, e.g.”Parent and Child Characteristics According to Beverage Consumption (Table 1).” Tables and figures (with relevant legends) should NOT be provided as a collection at the end of the thesis.

Insert figures (along with relevant legends) into the thesis, one table or figure to a page, immediately following first mention of that table/figure in the text. This means that the main thesis text should be taken to the end of the page (leaving no large empty spaces preceding figure and table pages) and then the figures and tables that are mentioned for the first time on that page of text should each occupy their own page.

The easiest way to do this is to draft your thesis with the figures and tables in a separate document.  Once your research advisor has approved your thesis, go back through and insert the figures and tables into the document. First, read through the main text and highlight the first mention of each figure and/or table. Wait until you get to the bottom of a page and determine how many new figures and tables were mentioned on that page. Next, insert each figure or table in the order in which they were mentioned in the preceding text. Remember that each figure and table should be printed on a separate page.

Page Numbering

The title page and abstract should not be numbered. The acknowledgements (ii), table of contents (iii), list of tables (optional) (iv), and list of figures (optional) (v) pages should be numbered with Roman numerals (iii, iv, etc). Then, use Arabic numerals for the remainder of the thesis, beginning with the introduction as page 1. Number the pages centered at the bottom of each page.

Questions

Please feel free to consult the CPH Faculty Honors Advisor by emailing brandi-janssen@uiowa.edu at any time, if you have any questions or concerns.