Thesis FAQ

Honors students can choose to submit one of three types of thesis projects:

1. Traditional Research: involves research in a student’s discipline and a written, academic thesis.
2. Applied Research/Design: involves research and designing a product or process of practical use in their discipline.
3. Creative Research: involves research and a creative project, usually in the fine or media arts.

The form of the thesis is determined by a student’s discipline, their topic, and a discussion with their advisor.

You may complete a thesis outside of your major. However, before making that decision, you should ask yourself whether you are academically prepared by having taken the relevant coursework to undertake a scholarly or creative project outside your own major and discuss your level of preparedness with your chosen thesis advisor.

Every thesis will be a different length, determined by the conventions of the student’s discipline. However, the scope and length of the project should represent a full year’s worth of work.

Often, the length of a written, academic thesis is that of a typical, scholarly article in the student’s and advisor’s field. The project should be appropriately ambitious.

A creative or applied design project will include a thorough, critical introduction (often 8-10 pages in length), which provides framework for the project.

Your thesis advisor will submit your thesis to the Honors College, using a form that we provide. That submission begins the review process.

Not quite yet. The submission is the beginning of the review process. Once your advisor submits your thesis, it will be reviewed by the appropriate the school director. The school director sometimes asks for revisions before approving the thesis.

Once the school director approves the thesis, it is then sent to an objective Honors Reader who has knowledge of the student’s field. If the Reader requires revisions, students will have ten days after receiving the Reader’s feedback to complete before final review and approval.

During your Junior year, you will enroll in HON 300/301. These courses provide a foundation of support as you begin working toward your thesis. During your first semester in this 1 credit-hour course, you will conduct faculty interviews in order to find an advisor who is a good match for your project. Your HON 300 professor will be there to provide guidance along the way.

Only students working with human subjects or vertebrate animals must apply for approval to do so by the University review board. No data may be collected until the respective board approval has been obtained. Obtaining protocol approval is the responsibility of the student and the thesis advisor.

IRB Approval

The IRB process can take some time, often 3-4 weeks for review. However, many students must revise their applications and resubmit, which makes the process even lengthier. These are conversations to have with your advisor, but you usually want to begin working on the application the summer before your senior year and have final approval no later than October (for spring thesis submissions). For students submitting in the fall, the process will need to begin much earlier. 

IRB Approval

You must use the Honors thesis template for basic formatting (e.g., pagination, headings, table of contents, figures, margins, spacing, and font size) of the required preliminary thesis pages and of subsequent chapters. Theses in Mathematics will use LaTeX format.

Theses won’t be approved if they are not formatted correctly.

If you need help with formatting, you can schedule an appointment with Kelli Sellers, the Coordinator of Research Initiatives.

You will use the documentation style appropriate for your discipline. You can consult your thesis advisor if you have questions or need additional help

The Drapeau Center for Undergraduate Research (DCUR) offers opportunities for students seeking grants and funding for their research. You can find out more about opportunities like the Eagle Spur program and the Drapeau Summer Research Grant Program (among others) by clicking below.

Undergraduate Research Funding

1. Show it off! You’ve worked hard and should be proud of your accomplishment!
2. Many of our students present their work at academic conferences, including the Undergraduate Symposium hosted here at Southern Miss.
3. Students also can submit their work for an opportunity to present at the Mississippi Undergraduate Honors Conference.
4. All Honors students’ thesis projects that meet expectations are uploaded to Aquila, a digital database. If you want to publish your thesis—in a scholarly journal in your field, for instance—you can fill out an embargo request form to prevent your project from being uploaded to Aquila.