Congratulations! Your senior Honors Thesis will be, no doubt, the culmination of several months of hard work; it deserves to be presented properly to the academic community. Your thesis advisor can acquaint you with the proper scholarly forms for this kind of paper, and what follows may duplicate much of the advice you have already been given.
Please be aware, however, that College policy is that your thesis will become part of the permanent record of student honors work preserved in its archive in Schaffer Library. Beginning in the spring of 2008, the Library began collecting honors work in electronic rather than printed form. With the permission of thesis authors, the Library has also begun making thesis work available for access on a site managed by Union College. The Dean of Studies Office therefore calls your attention to the following submission requirements. Please read these regulations carefully:
- Self-Submit: As of 2023, all theses will be self-submitted by students by using the online form and theses will be included in Union College’s Institutional Repository.
- Permission Form: The permission form is available on the library's website along with guidelines for How to Choose an Internet Access Option. You should discuss the access options with your advisor, who also needs to sign the permission form. If you complete two different theses in two different departments, you will need to submit two permission forms. If you complete a single thesis for two different departments, you only need to submit one permission form.
- General Format: Your thesis should be formatted so that the primary text is double spaced, is on a white background, and may be printed out (if necessary) on 8-1/2" x 11" paper.
- Electronic File Format: Review the format guidelines for more information. This file should have no restrictions or security implemented. When saving your file to PDF format, select the “reduce file size” option to optimize storage.
- Pagination: All prefatory material including the title page, abstract, preface, table of contents should be numbered in lower-case roman type (i, ii, iii, etc.). Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, etc.) should be used from the first page of your text all the way to the end, including any appendices, bibliography and illustrations.
- Title Page: Strict adherence to the form of the title page illustrated in Appendix A of these instructions is required. Information on this page should use upper and lower case as indicated and include the name of the author, title, date (year) of graduation, and name of the department(s) or program(s) for which the thesis was written. For department or program names, use the form given in the Union College Academic Register. If you use a running title or “header” that is different from your main title, please also include it on the title page as indicated.
- Footnote and Bibliography form: Consult your thesis advisor for their requirements.
- Title: A good title or subtitle ought to give a casual browser a fair idea of the nature of the material in the thesis. Clarity, rather than a provocative imagination, is the virtue here. Avoid fancy or mysterious titles which do not give a good idea of the contents.
- Abstract: You will be required to submit an Abstract (not to exceed 250 words) which summarizes the procedure and findings of your thesis and lists your advisor(s) as illustrated in Appendix B. The abstract should immediately follow the title-page of your thesis. The abstract and keywords of your choosing will be used to increase discoverability when submitting the electronic version of your thesis in our institutional repository.
- Submission: The permission form should be presented to your department administrative assistant. Once this is complete, the online permission form will automatically take you to self-submit your thesis in another online form. Full submission procedures are explained online at the library’s website (under Thesis Information) in the document Honors Thesis Submission Procedures for the Library Copy. The process is not complete until you have submitted all of the following items:
- Signed Union College Honors Permission Form(s)
- Senior Thesis