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Students should identify a major advisor for the thesis. Typically the advisor will be a core member of the LAS program and need not be the candidate's academic advisor. The chair may approve a professor who is not core LAS faculty to serve as thesis advisor. As soon as possible, another LAS faculty member should be asked to be the second reader.

The proposal should normally be submitted within the first two weeks of the fall semester. This proposal should offer a detailed, not general, discussion of your topic. In addition, it should show a plan for a feasible topic to be completed through the senior honor’s thesis. As you write the proposal, please take into account some of the following issues.

1. Define your topic and specify the major questions about it that you plan to address.
2. Outline a plan for your research. How will you gather information? What are your source bases?
3. What is the previous scholarship on the topic? Identify major issues or major debates in your field. How will these inform your research? How do particular scholars help frame your own thinking? This should reflect a general sense of the scholarship in your area with attention to scholarship produced in Latin America as well as the US.
4. How does your thesis use multiple disciplines in terms of research method or scholarly influences?
5. A statement on the potential significance of your research topic. Depending on your topic this statement might speak to the existing scholarship in terms of its contribution or it might be a contribution to contemporary issues in Latin America or a US Latino context.
6. A rough timetable for research and writing. This should be done in consultation with your thesis advisor.
7. A detailed bibliography in the proper format.

The overall length of the body of the proposal need be no more than about four-five pages, plus a bibliography.

Although the department as a whole evaluates the thesis proposal, the final evaluation of the thesis is the responsibility of the thesis committee alone. The evaluation will be made not only on the basis of the finished project, but also on evidence of steady progress throughout the academic year and on a satisfactory oral defense.

An oral defense with the thesis committee and the LAS chair will be scheduled following submission of a final complete draft. The thesis advisor and second reader will come to the defense having been well versed in the topic across the course of the year; the chair participates to provide a fresh perspective on the thesis for the conversation in the defense. The defense will be held for one hour.

The committee will then indicate necessary revisions for the final version. The student will also present his or her work to a larger, public audience along with the LAS majors in the spring capstone course. The due date for the thesis, will be determined each spring in order to accommodate the defense, necessary revisions, and the early deadline for senior grades. Students should submit the thesis by electronic version to the LAS Chair. Committee members may request electronic or paper copies of the thesis from the student.

The library now accepts electronic versions of the thesis.