Honors Program

An honors thesis project gives you the chance to work intensively with a small group of professors (led by your Honors advisor), pursuing a particular subject at length and with rigor. It will develop your research skills and give you practice with an extended writing project. It can serve as an intellectually satisfying capstone to your studies as an undergraduate (and not incidentally, your thesis will stand as excellent evidence of fitness for an academic or professional career or for admission to graduate school).

If you meet the minimum requirement of a GPA of 3.2 at the end of your junior year, you should begin planning by spring semester of that year. Your first priority is settling on a general topic and a particular thesis advisor. If you are unsure which faculty member in the Anthropology Department might best help you, consult with the DUS. Visit your prospective thesis advisor with your proposal in hand and ask if he or she is able to sponsor you. If the answer is "no" (the faculty member may be on leave the coming year, or overburdened and unable to commit the time that you and your project merit), head back to the DUS for another possibility. If the response is "yes," then the subsequent process is largely up to you and your thesis advisor. The following is only to give you a general sense of the options and protocols of an honors thesis.

You may find it difficult to pick or settle on a topic. Students eager and qualified to pursue an honors thesis nonetheless often begin with the question: "What can I possibly research or write about!?" Look for answers in several ways. A particularly memorable course is a good source of materials. You may, for instance, have an earlier class paper that just barely began to probe a subject in depth, or an outstanding question from one of the books that you read. If you have the opportunity to attend a field school during the summer between your junior and senior year, look for a possible tie-in there. This approach often results in the most satisfying kind of honors experience because you have the option of working with your own, original data. Note, however, that his rarely succeeds unless you have consulted (in advance, that is well prior to the field session) with your honors thesis advisor to settle on a problem and methodology. Or, approach a favorite professor and ask if he or she has a topic to suggest or some data needing analysis.

Honors in Anthropology requires that you register for Anthropology 691H and 692H, usually in the Fall and Spring semesters of your senior year, respectively. These are controlled enrollment courses, given on an individual tutorial basis. Anthropology 691H typically is devoted to narrowing and organizing your topic and doing the reseach and/or analyses required. It usually culminates with a thesis outline agreed upon by you and your advisor. Anthropology 692H covers the formal writing and production (e.g., there may be illustrations, etc.) of the thesis. You will receive a grade of "S" (satisfactory progress) in Anth 691H. It is converted to a permanent letter grade, and a letter grade is assigned for Anth 692H, upon defense of the thesis.

Although the details vary by professor, throughout the year you probably will be having regular (e.g., bi-weekly) meetings with your advisor. Discussion during these meetings moves from defining a feasible problem (early fall) to effective writing and presentation of results (mid spring). Before embarking on research with human subjects you must complete an on-line course about research ethics at http://research.unc.edu/services/human_sub.html and submit a research proposal for approval by the Institutional Review Board (IRB), first within the department and then for the Division of Academic Affairs. Forms and instructions are available at: http://research.unc.edu/red/aairb.html. This is not a complicated procedure, but it takes time. You should get started at least a month before you plan to begin your research. Consult with your advisor and with the chair of the Anthropology Department IRB.

Early in the spring semester, with help from your advisor, you should pick an additional two faculty to advise you on the written project and to fill out the committee that will assemble for the formal oral examination ("defense"). You should plan on having a preliminary draft completed and distributed to this group by mid March. (Keeping to this deadline also means that your thesis will be reviewed for the Honigmann Award). It is advisable that you meet with each member of your committee to get suggestions in time to circulate a second, revised draft for the defense itself. The timing of the defense is up to you and your committee, but it should allow for any further changes, printing and preparation of figures or illustrations (with the usual computer glitches, etc.) and comfortably meet the key deadline: Your thesis must be given to the DUS in absolutely final form, along with a letter from your advisor stating the results of the defense, by two weeks before the beginning of the examination period for that semester.

"Defense" (or the milder, "oral exam") is a bit of a misnomer. By the time you have been through a year's preparation with your advisor, and at least one round of critique and revision with your committee, discussion probably has become a bit more refined than the military connotations of that term. You may be asked to begin by giving a succinct summary of your problem, research and findings. Committee members most likely will seek some insight into the background of your project. They may have questions about your execution of the research (why you chose a particular approach or methodology over another, for instance). They may have stylistic quibbles they wish cleared up. They may want to explore what you might do next with the subject, had you time and research funding to pursue it further. In general these are congenial and informative occasions, fun for faculty and for the student as well, as soon as nervousness subsides.

Your committee will formally decide if you are to be awarded your degree with Honors. In rare cases, they may also recommend the designation "Highest Honors." The latter appellation is reserved for cases in which the thesis is truly exceptional (by honors thesis standards) and follows on an unusually distinguished record of undergraduate performance.

You must provide two, completed, unbound copies of the thesis. One copy will be retained by the Department; the other will be bound and archived in the North Carolina collection of Wilson Library. Please adhere to the formatting instructions of the UNC Honors Program.

Note that this schedule can adapted to suit students who have reason to take the 691H-692H sequence on a Spring-Fall schedule.