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Thesis Guidelines

You will need to submit your thesis to the Honors committee chair electronically as a PDF file. If you need to submit your thesis in another format please contact the Honors chair to make arrangements.

Style Guidelines

When writing your thesis you should follow the style appropriate to your discipline. Be sure to talk to your advisor to find out what style guidelines are appropriate for your project.

Format of the Honors Thesis

You will submit an electronic copy of your thesis as a PDF file. Your thesis should conform to the following standards.

  1. The first page is a title page with: thesis title; your name; your Advisor's name and your Liaison's name; the year; and ˿Ƶ, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
  2. After the title page you should have a copyright page containing the text “Copyright 20xx <author name>”
  3. Next include a page that contains a 75-100 word abstract.
  4. Add a Table of Contents.
  5. Unless the style manual of the discipline specifies otherwise, all papers should be double spaced.
  6. To facilitate binding, your files should be formatted for 8.5”x11” paper with a margin of no less than 2 inches at the left. Other margins: 1.5 inches at top and bottom, and 1 inch at the right. Pages will be printed single sided.
  7. If you need to include oversize pages such as maps or other images please contact the Honors chair.
  8. Remember that typographical errors are errors. If such errors are noted by the Examination Panel, they must be corrected before the final copy is submitted for binding.

How your thesis displays in the library’s catalog

The printed copy will be bound and will be permanently housed in Reeves library. The library catalog has strict formatting rules. If any of items in item #1 above are omitted, then the library supplies the information in brackets. For your thesis to display nicely, please include all of the information.

Please keep your pagination simple. It’s okay to use roman numerals in the introduction and regular numbers thereafter. For example: iv, 86 p. If your pagination gets very complicated (iv, 86 p., A12, B10, C4) then the library uses a generic term to describe it: For example: 1 v. (various pagings) It is best to keep it simple.

Please double and triple check your spelling. We must transcribe exactly what you have written. If a word is misspelled on your thesis title page, it will appear misspelled in the catalog. We will place the corrected spelling in brackets but it is much better for you and for us to have words spelled correctly to begin with. The most commonly misspelled word is liaison.