thesis process synonym

Thesis Process Guide

Using This Guide

This guide is meant to help seniors and rising juniors of any major through any stage of the thesis-writing process. Kate Barrett BC '20 shares tips for cultivating a successful and organized thesis throughout a semester or a year, from the initial generation of a topic to the final bibliography. Additionally, this guide provides insight into time management skills, research tools, and stress management strategies for alleviating stress and increasing clarity around the project. You can use the tabs on the left side of the page to toggle between information for different parts of the thesis process, as well as Kate's personal reflections on her experience. Feel free to contact the CEP for further thesis-writing skills and resources, or attend the Writing Center's Senior Thesis Co-Working Hours by going to  Barnard Writing Center website .

What is a Thesis?

A thesis is...

• An independent research project that students conduct in their final year of undergraduate studies.
• A reflection of one’s major.
• An opportunity for students to show their ability to conduct research and formulate their own thoughts.
• A chance to work with an advisor to figure out a topic and research question to explore.
• A paper that can range from 20-100 pages, including title, table of contents, references, appendices, footnotes, figures, acknowledgements, and dedications.

How to pick an advisor

At Barnard, you are assigned a thesis advisor based on the seminar you sign up for. Each seminar usually has a theme, and each major has the same date and time for all thesis seminars.  Additionally, all of the professors are in the major's department. Therefore, it is probable that you've had these professors as teachers before and you will likely know their teaching style. T he hard part about picking an advisor is that if you have one topic that aligns with a certain seminar, you cannot decide to switch to an advisor that teaches a different seminar. Make sure you have an equal desire to have a specific professor as well as a topic in mind. If you don’t have a topic in mind before the fall, then choosing a seminar based on the professor is probably your best bet.

How to pick a topic

Carefully choose the topic you want to explore—could you study it for a year? Is there enough existing research available for you to fully explore it? It's important to consider the complexity and scope of your topic. Topics that are too narrow might pose research issues down the line, while overly broad topics can cause you to feel overwhelmed.  It can be helpful to choose a topic with recent published research so that you have a lot of references to pull from. Additionally, this tactic will push you to engage with ideas that many people are already discussing and finding valuable.

How to conduct and organize your research

Once you have determined the topic of your thesis, you can begin by utilizing the college’s research librarians ; they are great resources and can help you find more articles and references on your topic. As you begin finding and reviewing primary and secondary sources, u se citation managers such as Zotero to help keep track of your materials.  Diversify your sources for research—use books, website articles, scholarly articles, videos, primary documents, and archival material, if relevant.  Print out and markup articles if possible, so that you can write your thoughts down as you read; this will help you analyze material from your own perspective. It can also be helpful to a dd all online documents to your Google Drive so you can access them anywhere and organize them by reference type or theme.

12 Things to Know About the Thesis Process

Pick a topic that you truly care about and are passionate about..

Depending on major, thesis projects occur over year-long or semester-long seminars, so you'll want to pick something that will be engaging to you throughout the entire year.

Determine if an independent study is the right choice for you.

Some students opt to conduct independent studies rather than engage in senior seminars to write their thesis. While opportunities for independent study vary depending on major, consider this option if you have a specific relationship with a certain professor, if you have a niche thesis topic in mind that doesn't align with any seminar, or if the traditional timeline of the thesis writing process seems daunting to you, due to multiple majors or other reasons.

Brainstorm topics over the summer before your first session meeting with your seminar class.

By planning beforehand, you’ll be able to get ahead of your research so you have an idea of what you want to write about.

Your main research questions might change throughout the process and that is okay.

Being flexible is crucial during the thesis process because there are a lot of instances where your topic or main focus could shift due to issues with research, access, or interests.

While it's likely that not all of the research you conduct will make it into the paper, using research to narrow your topic is an important aspect of the process.

Engaging with a variety of different source material will provide a foundation for what you do  want to put into the paper.

Don’t procrastinate on your weekly/monthly/semesterly deadlines.

Professors assign deadlines throughout the semester to help keep you on task and make the process more manageable. You don’t want to be scrambling to write something at midnight the night before it is due.

Make your thesis clear, specific, and easy for readers to understand.

While writing your thesis, assume that your reader does not know anything about your topic; this will help you to explain everything thoroughly. You can always revise later and edit out parts that are no longer necessary.

Your thesis advisor is a resource to help you—they want to see you succeed just as much as you do.

Reach out to your advisor through email, set up meetings, and talk to them before or after class. They are knowledgable scholars in your field and are teaching this seminar for a reason.

Lean on your classmates. 

Usually, thesis seminars are comprised of small groups of students. Discussing your ideas and topics with one another is extremely helpful throughout the process.

Don’t assume that a longer paper means a better paper.

If you feel that you are stretching out your paper in order to add pages, most of the time that will be transparent in your writing. Reach out to your advisor or research librarian if you feel you are running out of ideas. On the other hand, if you feel strongly about your paper and it is at the minimum page count, keep it there; often, concision is key.

Do a literature review of your topic to ensure that your specific research question hasn’t been answered yet.

Reading about your topic will also help you craft your question and determine the path of your paper.

Write and memo everything—every thought you have, every question, every struggle.

Reflecting on the process while it's still ongoing will help you work through your challenges and track your progress. You can do this by hand, in word documents, or through online folders in Google Drive.

Tips for conducting a long-term project

Draft a plan that starts at the end.

• Start with the final deadline and work backwards.
• This helps ensure that you stay on track.

Try the SMART goals method

• This will help you achieve small milestones along the way.
• Track your progress by creating Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time Bound Goals.
• This method makes it easier to notice what adjustments need to be made to stay on track.

Utilize online management tools.

• Collaborative and organizational tools like the ones listed on the Center for Engaged Pedagogy’s website can help you prioritize your tasks
• By using these tools, you can keep track of daily, weekly, or monthly priorities, all in one place. 

Keep circling back to your research question.

• Make sure you constantly remind yourself of your goals so you don’t get sidetracked and start researching things that aren’t relevant to your project.

Don’t plan out more than 75% of your time.

• Only focus on the biggest deadlines you need to accomplish.
• Over-planning sets you up for failure and feelings of defeat if you don’t hit each micro-deadline on time.

In the initial preparation of the project, try to think of all the tools you need to complete it.

• Do you need funding? 
• Outside sources?
• Connections/access to databases/libraries/journals?
• Access to sites? 
• Additional researchers or readers?

Cultivating Good Habits

When writing, try not to leave deadlines to the last minute..

You want to be able to reread and edit everything you write along the way, and waiting until the last minute to complete sections of your thesis makes it difficult to provide fresh edits.

Write every thought, every experience, every question you have.

With the amount of literature, data, questions, and other classes circulating in your head, it's unrealistic to rely only on memory.

Ask your friends and family what their opinions of your topic are, and/or try to explain your topic to them.

This will help you fine tune your own opinions, and even inspire certain research questions. Further, being able to explain an idea to someone else demonstrates that you have a strong understanding of it yourself. Utilizing the Writing Center to talk through your topic with fellows, even at initial stages, can also be extremely helpful.

Don’t stop reading literature about your topic.

New studies might come out as you’re writing, and y ou'll want to stay as up to date as possible.

Keep separate journals and notebooks for separate things.

For example, you could have one journal dedicated to your ideas and internal struggles/questions, and another dedicated to keeping track of more logistical and solid data, goals, and logistics.

Tips for Organization and Motivation

Make a plan For example, if you are doing a yearlong thesis, you could plan to spend half of the year researching and the other half writing.

Set goals with your professor and for yourself Try to set goals for how much time you want to spend each week doing different tasks: researching, memo-writing, working with your professor etc. Set personal deadlines of dates that you would like to have specific things completed by.

Be flexible with your plan Look at the year or semester and mark off when you assume you will be done with certain tasks to make sure you’re still on track—but don’t get upset if those goals aren’t met. Writing a thesis is a give-and-take process.

Stay on top of your citations Stay on track with your citations as you write your paper. Don’t assume that you will go back later and fill them in. Once you write something, cite it in-text and write the full citation in the bibliography immediately, or use tools like Zotero, which will do this automatically. 

Look to your topic for inspiration Remind yourself why you chose this topic in the first place.  What inspired you? Why does this topic interest you? What were you excited by? 

Reflect on how your thesis connects to your Barnard experience Reflect on your time as an undergrad at Barnard. In a way, your thesis  is a culmination of your college experience—it is an opportunity to showcase your growth.

Draw strength from your peers Supporting and motivating your peers to finish their projects will, in turn, motivate you to complete yours. You're all in this together.

Think of the big picture Remember that the work you are doing now could be very useful in other situations in your life. For example, you may draw on your thesis when putting together  grad school applications, doing job interviews, or switching job industries. Also, the skills you cultivate while working on your thesis—research, writing, editing, collaboration, and so on—will very likely come in handy in the future.

Reflections on the Process

Choosing a seminar .

My major was urban studies, and I had four different options for my senior thesis seminar. When choosing classes in the spring of my junior year, I wasn’t really sure what a thesis looked like, so it was hard for me to decide what seminar I wanted to participate in. Reaching out to past urban studies graduates helped a lot, because I was able to get a better understanding of what the research project would look like. Ultimately, I felt that I wanted to choose a seminar that would excite and motivate me. Since I didn’t have a topic in mind, it was even harder to choose between seminars, but I was most drawn to the description for the New York Field Research seminar. I had taken many anthropology classes in the past that taught me about ethnographic research and the importance of studying communities and cultures, so I figured that field research would be a good fit for my thesis project.

While the other topics were interesting as well, I feel that I resonated more with an ethnographic style than a traditional thesis paper. This was completely due to my research style as a student, because I feel like I am more of an interactive learner than a researcher. Knowing your research style is really important because it will help you choose a seminar, like it helped me choose mine. The professors are assigned specific seminars, so you have to make sure that the advisor you want is also in a seminar you could picture yourself basing your study on. I knew I wanted to work with my advisor so it worked out, but if I had wanted to do the seminar on international cities, I would not have been able to work with them.

Choosing a topic

Choosing a topic depends a lot on the seminar you are in, but there is some flexibility if you are really interested in something specific. Usually the seminars are broad enough that if there is one topic you would like to pursue, you could probably tweak it depending on which seminar you are in. For example, I knew I wanted to study food and restaurants, so for my field research it made sense that I would do an ethnography on a restaurant while looking at the social and cultural repercussions of gentrification. If I wanted to take the international cities seminar, I could have studied the importance of certain restaurants in different countries around the world. In order to choose a topic, I made a “mind cloud” where I mapped out as many of my interests as I could think of.

After I had a solid number of topic ideas, I went through each of them and tried to think of subtopics or research questions that would interest me. After I had thought about each topic, I did a process of elimination for the topics that seemed too broad or narrow for a thesis, or things that might not have sufficient research already conducted. Then I went through and ranked the topics I would be most interested in studying. From there, I started looking for scholarly articles related to each topic, and decided to pursue the one that had the most material to work with. When I decided that I had one solid topic, I then fleshed out potential research questions that I could study. I was able to find a few questions that I felt really strongly about, and when I went to class that week I talked it through with my classmates. They pitched in ideas and helped me fine tune my question into a more digestible statement that I was able to base my entire project on.

Staying Motivated

Staying motivated during the thesis process was difficult at times. It was really hard for me when my topic started to shift a few months in, and I felt like I was much further behind than most of my classmates. I realized that I needed to shift my research away from food sovereignty and take a closer look at the effects of gentrification. It was daunting having to switch topics, and I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to finish my thesis on time even though it was still fairly early on in the year. Instead of giving up, I went to my advisor for help, and she was able to alleviate a lot of my fear. We devised a plan to get me back on track, which had me busier than usual for a few weeks, but ultimately got me back to the place I needed to be at. During this transition period I was feeling very unmotivated, but setting small goals for myself helped a lot. I set these smaller goals so that when I was able to cross them off my list, I felt a sense of accomplishment. With each strike, I felt more motivated to keep going. 

For me, it was important to combat feelings of hopelessness and lack of motivation by opening up to friends, teachers, and peers who were going through something similar. By talking to my other friends who were writing theses, I realized that feeling discouraged is really common. The thesis process has ebbs and flows of excitement, and, at some points, disassociation. During the lows, it is important to lean on friends, but also to remember that this is a feeling of stress that will pass. So many students have written theses in the past, and there are so many resources at school to help you succeed and finish. My biggest takeaway was the importance of finding the root of my lack of motivation, which was the fact that I was insecure because I felt like I didn't know where my thesis was going anymore. Once I accepted this, I put all my energy into having a solid research question that I felt proud of. This helped me alleviate so much of my underlying stress that was manifesting in laziness and lack of motivation.

Moving from Researching to Writing

The yearlong thesis seminar is mainly split in two parts: the initial research stage, and the writing stage. Most students don’t even start writing their thesis until the spring semester. I never really understood this before starting my thesis, but the first semester is mainly focused on gathering data and learning as much about your topic as possible. This isn’t to say that the research fully stops before the writing begins, but rather that it slows down as writing takes more of a priority. Your professor will advise you on the specific ways you will collect data regarding your course, and you will learn about the basics of dissertation writing. For my seminar, my advisor had to teach us what an ethnography was, how to collect data through participant observation, qualitative coding analysis, and memoing - all things I had no prior experience with. Therefore, the foundational fall semester was crucial for a successful spring semester.  

Author’s Bio

Kate Barrett is a member of the Barnard Class of 2020. She majored in Urban Studies with a concentration in Anthropology, and completed a senior thesis in the New York Field Research Seminar. She wrote this guide for the CEP in her senior year.

Thesis Features

Many academic departments at Barnard offer students an opportunity to pursue a senior thesis or capstone project, which typically involve original research, analysis, and collaboration with faculty and other students. The following are supplemental guides for senior capstone projects and theses across a variety of departments. These guides are intended to give an overview of the senior thesis process and experience for specific academic programs. Please refer to department websites for contact information and detailed requirements. 

Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Thesis Statements

What this handout is about.

This handout describes what a thesis statement is, how thesis statements work in your writing, and how you can craft or refine one for your draft.

Introduction

Writing in college often takes the form of persuasion—convincing others that you have an interesting, logical point of view on the subject you are studying. Persuasion is a skill you practice regularly in your daily life. You persuade your roommate to clean up, your parents to let you borrow the car, your friend to vote for your favorite candidate or policy. In college, course assignments often ask you to make a persuasive case in writing. You are asked to convince your reader of your point of view. This form of persuasion, often called academic argument, follows a predictable pattern in writing. After a brief introduction of your topic, you state your point of view on the topic directly and often in one sentence. This sentence is the thesis statement, and it serves as a summary of the argument you’ll make in the rest of your paper.

What is a thesis statement?

A thesis statement:

• tells the reader how you will interpret the significance of the subject matter under discussion.
• is a road map for the paper; in other words, it tells the reader what to expect from the rest of the paper.
• directly answers the question asked of you. A thesis is an interpretation of a question or subject, not the subject itself. The subject, or topic, of an essay might be World War II or Moby Dick; a thesis must then offer a way to understand the war or the novel.
• makes a claim that others might dispute.
• is usually a single sentence near the beginning of your paper (most often, at the end of the first paragraph) that presents your argument to the reader. The rest of the paper, the body of the essay, gathers and organizes evidence that will persuade the reader of the logic of your interpretation.

If your assignment asks you to take a position or develop a claim about a subject, you may need to convey that position or claim in a thesis statement near the beginning of your draft. The assignment may not explicitly state that you need a thesis statement because your instructor may assume you will include one. When in doubt, ask your instructor if the assignment requires a thesis statement. When an assignment asks you to analyze, to interpret, to compare and contrast, to demonstrate cause and effect, or to take a stand on an issue, it is likely that you are being asked to develop a thesis and to support it persuasively. (Check out our handout on understanding assignments for more information.)

How do I create a thesis?

A thesis is the result of a lengthy thinking process. Formulating a thesis is not the first thing you do after reading an essay assignment. Before you develop an argument on any topic, you have to collect and organize evidence, look for possible relationships between known facts (such as surprising contrasts or similarities), and think about the significance of these relationships. Once you do this thinking, you will probably have a “working thesis” that presents a basic or main idea and an argument that you think you can support with evidence. Both the argument and your thesis are likely to need adjustment along the way.

Writers use all kinds of techniques to stimulate their thinking and to help them clarify relationships or comprehend the broader significance of a topic and arrive at a thesis statement. For more ideas on how to get started, see our handout on brainstorming .

How do I know if my thesis is strong?

If there’s time, run it by your instructor or make an appointment at the Writing Center to get some feedback. Even if you do not have time to get advice elsewhere, you can do some thesis evaluation of your own. When reviewing your first draft and its working thesis, ask yourself the following :

• Do I answer the question? Re-reading the question prompt after constructing a working thesis can help you fix an argument that misses the focus of the question. If the prompt isn’t phrased as a question, try to rephrase it. For example, “Discuss the effect of X on Y” can be rephrased as “What is the effect of X on Y?”
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? If your thesis simply states facts that no one would, or even could, disagree with, it’s possible that you are simply providing a summary, rather than making an argument.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? Thesis statements that are too vague often do not have a strong argument. If your thesis contains words like “good” or “successful,” see if you could be more specific: why is something “good”; what specifically makes something “successful”?
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? If a reader’s first response is likely to  be “So what?” then you need to clarify, to forge a relationship, or to connect to a larger issue.
• Does my essay support my thesis specifically and without wandering? If your thesis and the body of your essay do not seem to go together, one of them has to change. It’s okay to change your working thesis to reflect things you have figured out in the course of writing your paper. Remember, always reassess and revise your writing as necessary.
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? If a reader’s first response is “how?” or “why?” your thesis may be too open-ended and lack guidance for the reader. See what you can add to give the reader a better take on your position right from the beginning.

Suppose you are taking a course on contemporary communication, and the instructor hands out the following essay assignment: “Discuss the impact of social media on public awareness.” Looking back at your notes, you might start with this working thesis:

Social media impacts public awareness in both positive and negative ways.

You can use the questions above to help you revise this general statement into a stronger thesis.

• Do I answer the question? You can analyze this if you rephrase “discuss the impact” as “what is the impact?” This way, you can see that you’ve answered the question only very generally with the vague “positive and negative ways.”
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? Not likely. Only people who maintain that social media has a solely positive or solely negative impact could disagree.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? No. What are the positive effects? What are the negative effects?
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? No. Why are they positive? How are they positive? What are their causes? Why are they negative? How are they negative? What are their causes?
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? No. Why should anyone care about the positive and/or negative impact of social media?

After thinking about your answers to these questions, you decide to focus on the one impact you feel strongly about and have strong evidence for:

Because not every voice on social media is reliable, people have become much more critical consumers of information, and thus, more informed voters.

This version is a much stronger thesis! It answers the question, takes a specific position that others can challenge, and it gives a sense of why it matters.

Let’s try another. Suppose your literature professor hands out the following assignment in a class on the American novel: Write an analysis of some aspect of Mark Twain’s novel Huckleberry Finn. “This will be easy,” you think. “I loved Huckleberry Finn!” You grab a pad of paper and write:

Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn is a great American novel.

You begin to analyze your thesis:

• Do I answer the question? No. The prompt asks you to analyze some aspect of the novel. Your working thesis is a statement of general appreciation for the entire novel.

Think about aspects of the novel that are important to its structure or meaning—for example, the role of storytelling, the contrasting scenes between the shore and the river, or the relationships between adults and children. Now you write:

In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain develops a contrast between life on the river and life on the shore.

• Do I answer the question? Yes!
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? Not really. This contrast is well-known and accepted.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? It’s getting there–you have highlighted an important aspect of the novel for investigation. However, it’s still not clear what your analysis will reveal.
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? Not yet. Compare scenes from the book and see what you discover. Free write, make lists, jot down Huck’s actions and reactions and anything else that seems interesting.
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? What’s the point of this contrast? What does it signify?”

After examining the evidence and considering your own insights, you write:

Through its contrasting river and shore scenes, Twain’s Huckleberry Finn suggests that to find the true expression of American democratic ideals, one must leave “civilized” society and go back to nature.

This final thesis statement presents an interpretation of a literary work based on an analysis of its content. Of course, for the essay itself to be successful, you must now present evidence from the novel that will convince the reader of your interpretation.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Anson, Chris M., and Robert A. Schwegler. 2010. The Longman Handbook for Writers and Readers , 6th ed. New York: Longman.

Lunsford, Andrea A. 2015. The St. Martin’s Handbook , 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Ramage, John D., John C. Bean, and June Johnson. 2018. The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing , 8th ed. New York: Pearson.

Ruszkiewicz, John J., Christy Friend, Daniel Seward, and Maxine Hairston. 2010. The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers , 9th ed. Boston: Pearson Education.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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