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Begin to plan your thesis project early in your graduate career. You must make several important decisions that require careful thought before you can successfully write a thesis, such as identifying faculty members who would be appropriate advisers for prospective thesis topics. In language and literature, a thesis topic may be developed as a result of your interest in specific courses you have taken; you might begin by talking about your ideas for a topic with your professors.
Consult the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures webpages each semester for information on comprehensive exams, and thesis and graduation deadlines. Remember, if all course work has been completed, students can register for FREN 790X or SPAN 799G, a one-credit thesis research course, in order to maintain active student status.
Application forms may be obtained via the BC WebCentral Portal. Click on “E-services” and then on “Forms.” Paper forms may be obtained in 3238 Boylan Hall or the Enrollment Services Center.
A proposal is a description of a plan for your thesis. Writing the proposal requires some preliminary research. Your adviser may help you write a good proposal, but before you approach an adviser for help, investigate your prospective topic and sketch a draft proposal. Begin by searching for literature on the subject using standard bibliographies in your field and reading one or two key books or articles.
Consider your resources and time constraints in developing the proposal. The topic you choose depends on your interests; whether your adviser will be on campus while you are working on the project; your adviser’s expertise in your area of study; and the time you have available to complete the research and writing. You may need to focus on a more narrow aspect of your topic.
Some titles of modern languages and literature theses from prior years include:
The proposal that you write before you meet with your adviser should explain:
A proposal is a starting point, not the finished thesis, so do not worry if it seems vague or incomplete. Include ideas that you feel sure you would like to investigate as well as related ideas that you think might be worth exploring. Make sure that your ideas are clear and that your proposal is typed neatly before you approach your adviser. This will give your adviser a sense of your commitment to the project and provide a starting point for discussion.
Work with your adviser to revise your proposal in specific ways. Consider the following questions:
Keep in mind that at this stage nothing is set in stone. You are not committing yourself unalterably. You cannot possibly know in advance all aspects of how the project will evolve. In fact, the unexpected things are part of what makes writing a thesis exciting and rewarding.
The completed final draft of your proposal should include the following:
After you have made final revisions to your proposal and your adviser has approved it, begin work on the project. Or, more precisely, continue to work on it—writing the proposal has given you a good start.
Be sure to file the “Application for Filing Thesis Title” form with the graduate deputy. The thesis title is due at the end of the first month of each semester. The actual date is published on the Schedule of Classes. You must include the working title of your thesis on the form and have your adviser sign it.
Writer: Jane White
Working title: “Casualties of Civilization: Repression and Progress in the Works of Stephen Crane” My thesis will examine the social and economic forces of Crane’s time and how Crane’s prose embodies the harmful consequences of these forces in such characters as Maggie, Henry Fleming, Trescott, George Kelsey, and the Swede (“The Blue Hotel”).
Crane lived in a time of enormous social and economic change. He wrote a great deal about the people trampled under America’s feet and tossed to the side as the country marched on toward the 20th century.
I will apply psychoanalytical concepts to the understanding of Crane’s work and times. From research I have already done, I think there is substantial material available to demonstrate that Freud’s ideas of the subconscious and of civilization’s effect on the individual psyche are exhibited in Crane’s texts. I want to look at the impact that society has on individual characters from Crane’s oeuvre: for example, Maggie’s suppression of desire, the Swede’s death wish and George Kelsey’s Oedipal guilt. I have begun to compile my working bibliography. In addition to the Library of America’s edition of Stephen Crane’s works, I am reading Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents and a work about Freud and his ideas in relation to progress, Norman O. Brown’s Life and Death. I have also researched some general works dealing with the theory of progress: Lewis’s The American Adam, Smith’s Virgin Land, and Bury’s The Idea of Progress. I will also use the select bibliography of works about Stephen Crane provided to me in American Literature of the Nineteenth Century II.
I will spend the semester break (January) researching and reading materials. In February and March, I will write a rough draft, turning in one chapter to my adviser every two weeks for comments. In April, I will revise the draft and present the final version to my adviser by May 1. If no further revisions are necessary, I will spend the second week of May preparing the final copy so as to be able to turn it in on May 13.
Research projects differ in many ways, but they usually have at least two important things in common: the pressure of time and the tendency to forget, in your natural concern to produce a final product, what you have done day-to-day on the project.
The schedule you drafted in your proposal was only an estimate of how long your research would take. As you begin your project, set up tentative intermediate deadlines that will remind you daily and weekly how much work you have left. You will probably have to adjust these deadlines as you go along, but even the process of adjusting them will help you know how far you have to go. One way to keep track of time is to use a monthly box-calendar that includes major research work points during the term, deadlines in your other courses, and important events in your personal, family, and work life.
Stay on schedule by checking your calendar regularly. If you see that the project is getting too large or too complex for the time you have left, ask your adviser to help you subdivide it and subordinate pieces that you will not be able to treat in depth.
Although the pressure of time may force you to meet your deadlines, it may also cause you to forget what you did, how you did it, and what you thought and felt about it. For this reason, many researchers and scholars keep a research log—a long-term memory bank and creativity tool. With a complete record of what you did and thought, you may review your work periodically to see how your ideas have developed and discover new ideas or new directions for research. You may want to use a double-entry process log: Use left-hand pages for work notes, right-hand pages for personal responses to your work.
On left-hand pages you might describe what you did, when and where you did it, and why. You may quote passages from your reading that seem interesting, useful or suggestive; draft sentences or paragraphs that may find a place in your proposal or final thesis; and list books and articles you have consulted or plan to consult.
Right-hand pages contain an informal record of your personal experience while working on your project. This is the place to carry on a running conversation with yourself about what you are doing: your hunches and guesses; your off-the-wall ideas; any questions that arise in your mind; your plans, doubts, and hopes; and your reflections on passages you have read or on those you have quoted on the left-hand page.
Maintaining a double-entry log of this sort takes only a few minutes a day. But its value, as the material accumulates, extends far beyond that small investment of time.
You should write about the project as you go along, restating your position as your understanding changes. Even a paragraph or a page once a week in your research log will help.
Plan to write your first draft early enough to submit it, chapter by chapter, to your adviser and to revise it on the basis of his or her comments. Set a deadline to complete a second draft well before the final due date so that your adviser has time to read it and you have time to make necessary further revisions.
Talking with your adviser after you complete each chapter may help decide what you need to do in order to complete the project. You may choose to continue investigating the sources outlined in your initial plan or to read something else instead. You may decide that you have read enough and should now revise your paper to more clearly expand your ideas.
Keep in mind that revising the final product of a research project will probably involve more than merely refining stylistic elements. You may have to do more research, write new sections, or even rethink the whole thing. In the end, the quality of your essay may depend on how much time you have set aside to rework your thoughts for the final draft.
Every research project is unique, but all successful projects have one thing in common: polish. Polish means that every sentence is succinct and is written in Standard English and that every paragraph is unified and clearly relates to its immediate context and to the main point of the essay. Edit your final essay until it looks and reads like a publishable article. It should represent you at your very best. Adhere to the guidelines in the style manual used in the field of literature, the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. (You may wish to consult the Brooklyn College Library for excellent research resources on this topic and others.) In addition, follow the “Instructions for Preparing and Filing the Master’s Thesis” (available from your graduate deputy or the Office of Graduate Studies and Research) for specifics about margins, binders, labels, etc. Print your thesis on a high-quality printer. Use your computer’s spell check and then proofread carefully yourself. Ask someone else to proofread your thesis as well.
When you are finished, place two copies in a large envelope or something similar, label them, and take them to your adviser. Your adviser should then complete and sign the “Approval of Thesis/Master’s Recital/M.F.A. Project” form. Bring the two copies and the approval form to your graduate deputy by the final due date for the semester in which you are planning to graduate. If everything is in order the graduate deputy will sign the form. Take the form and one copy of the thesis to the Office of Graduate Studies and Research. After approval, that copy will be placed in the Brooklyn College Library; the second copy will remain in your department.
A thesis topic may be:
Most of the work is usually done after completing course work. You may begin any time, but the effort will be limited during your course work. You may be able to use an essay written for a course as a starting point.
The cover page of your thesis should follow this style (pdf).
