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ASU English Home > Undergraduate Students > Guidelines for Honors Theses in the English Department

Guidelines for Honors Theses in the English Department

These guidelines are intended for both faculty and students, to facilitate the process of planning and completing Honors Theses in the English Department. They should be used in conjunction with the Honors College requirements for theses; a student must meet both English requirements and Barrett Honors College requirements to successfully complete the thesis.
General Departmental guidelines appear first; following these are guidelines specific to Creative Writing.  For further information on Honors theses in Linguistics, please contact Professor Mark James; for theses in Literature, contact Professor Claudia Sadowski-Smith.

1. Students wishing to write a thesis in the English Department must be English Majors or Minors (BIS). The thesis must be in the area of concentration.  For rare exceptions involving Creative Writing, see the Guidelines specific to Creative Writing at the end of this document, or contact Professor Terry Hummer.
2. The thesis Committee should be made up of full-time faculty; at least one member should be tenured or tenure track faculty.  Only in exceptional circumstances, where their particular expertise is needed, may FAs serve on an Honors Thesis Committee.  FAs may not chair a committee. TAs and graduate students may not serve on Committees.
   The Third Reader may be selected by the Honors College.  For theses in the English Department, the third reader should preferably be full-time faculty; she or he must have a Master’s degree in the field.
3. It is the student’s responsibility to formulate the thesis topic, to request faculty to serve on her or his Committee, to submit the necessary forms and to ascertain and inform the Chair of the Committee of all Honors College requirements and deadlines.
   
4. An Honors Thesis Prospectus should be submitted to the Director of Undergraduate Studies, Professor Rosalynn Voaden, by October 1 for a defense in the following spring semester, or by March 1 for a defense the following fall.   The prospectus must also be submitted to BHC by their deadline, which may differ. The prospectus may, of course, be submitted earlier than these dates, and we encourage students to do so.  The prospectus should give contact information for the student, the topic and a working title for the thesis, list the Committee Chair and Second Reader, and indicate a tentative date (month is sufficient) for the defense.  It should be signed by the student, the Committee Chair and the Second Reader.  This may be a copy of the prospectus which the student is required to submit to the Honors College, as long as it conforms to the above requirements.
5. In the case of a multi-disciplinary thesis where English is one of the disciplines involved, these same guidelines will obtain.

Honors Theses in Creative Writing.

For both English majors with a Concentration in Creative Writing, and for BIS majors with a split concentration in Creative Writing:

Creative Writing professors reserve the right to select or approve those students who best qualify for an Honors thesis in Creative Writing. Thesis work is not something that Creative Writing can guarantee every Honors student who has a concentration in Creative Writing. When the student has progressed to a degree of excellence in writing, has exhibited talent, and

• has completed ENG 411 (if a BIS student)
• has completed ENG 411 and is registered for ENG 495 (if an English major with any concentration other than CW)
• has completed ENG 495 and is registered for ENG 498 (if an English major with a Concentration in CW),

only then should the Honors student request that a Creative Writing professor direct their thesis committee. No substitutes of these requirements will be considered.

The Creative Writing faculty will not Chair a committee unless they have already worked with that student in the classroom situation. Also, students must have completed at least two courses (if BIS major) in Creative Writing, and three courses (if ENG Major)–– including the advanced workshops-- at ASU's Tempe-Main campus. It is at the professor’s discretion whether the Honors student has achieved sufficient competency to undertake a thesis.
 
Creative Writing Thesis requirements

• The Proposal is worked out and written during the first half of the student’s thesis time.  Some professors will require that the student research some texts in their genre of choice. The writing in either poetry or fiction can begin here (ENG 492), and will be completed during the second half of their thesis-(ENG 493).
• Fiction: Professors will expect the student to write and revise between 40-50 pages of prose.
  *(a Science Fiction thesis is also possible if the student has completed all of the major coursework in fiction and taken one science fiction workshop at ASU)
• Poetry: Professors will expect the student to write and revise 21 pages of poetry. (This amount is equivalent to a chapbook in length.) 
• Attending at least one poetry reading or one fiction reading is expected of all students---those who are working for one credit hour, as well as for those who are working for three.
• NB. This advanced course completion(ENG 411)and professor permission is also required for the rare Honors students in other majors or minors (outside of English) who would like to write a Creative Writing thesis. 
• Creative writing faculty reserves the right to decline to serve as 2nd or 3rd readers on honors thesis committees that focus on a creative thesis (poem, short story, novel, creative non-fiction) unless the non-English or non-BIS major has completed at least the intermediate level CW course(s) at ASU.

Footnote 18 Requirements

• Fiction: The same as above except that the length of the prose response will be more extensive; it will be determined by the individual professor.
• Poetry: the student will discuss with the instructor what “special project” they would like to work on to receive Honors credit for the course. The writing usually involves no more than 3 pages of poetry in response to one or several poems and/or a 3-5 page paper responding critically to a selection of poems decided upon by student and professor.

 *As with the student writing an Honors thesis in Creative Writing, the Creative Writing professor will work with a student to design the extra work required for Footnote 18.