Goals
The content-based purpose of this assignment will be to draw together and elaborate the foundational research and thinking that you have accomplished this semester into a Thesis Portfolio. The skills-based purpose of this assignment is to gain experience on synthesizing significant amounts of data (i.e., your foundational research) into a coherent presentation (i.e., a Literature Review) alongside insightful critical reading and thinking (i.e., your thesis question and solution), as well as representing the achievement of successfully planning a long-term project in a professional document.
Content
You will create an archive of the foundational work on your thesis that you accomplished this semester by drawing together all of the formal assignments from the semester into a single document: the Thesis Portfolio. Your Thesis Portfolio will also provide you a venue to build from these foundational elements to create a secure base for your mentored writing of your thesis in the spring by the creation of a Literature Review, a Research Narrative, a Thesis Outline, and a Sketch First Paragraph.
Instructions
Seminar Archive
The first element of your Portfolio is an archive of the important work you’ve done this semester. Assemble the following into your Seminar Archive, in this order:
- Thesis Idea Post
- Questions Please!
- Thesis Portrait
- Symposium Slides / Handout
- Thesis-related essays
- Writing into Your Thesis 1 Essay
- Writing into Your Thesis 2 Essay
- Writing into Your Thesis 3 Essay
- Bibliography
- Lay of the (Research Land)
- Preliminary Bibliography
- Categorized Bibliography
- Annotated Bibliography
- Elevation Assignments (include any you completed):
- Antiracist Classicism 1 / 2
- Writing Into Your Thesis Revision 1-3 (don’t include both versions of the assignment; simply include the revised version and your reflection)
- Just Classics Manifesto
- Categorized Deep Dive
Literature Review
Compose a Literature Review.
A literature review summarizes and evaluates the prior research on your topic according to some organizational pattern (e.g., chronological, by trend, thematic, or methodological). The length and organization of your literature review will depend on many factors (number of sources, contentiousness of the debates, variations in methodology, etc.). Rather than aim for a particular word-count, have this as your goal: your Literature Review would be the ideal document that would have provided you a roadmap of key sources, debates, insights, and errors at the moment when you began your research on the topic. Or, to think about it another way, you could think of the Literature Review as a narrative of the scholarly conversation that you are aiming to join (and improve) through your thesis; imagine that your audience is another academic who wants to understand the intellectual foundation on which your project rests and the (academic) stakes involved.
Additional guidance on writing a literature review available from our research librarians here.
Research Narrative
Compose a 600-900 word (2-3 double spaced pages) Research Narrative.
A Research Narrative will describe (1) the subject of your thesis, (2) how you arrived at this problem and why it matters (i.e., what need or gap does this proposed study fill in the scholarly conversation); (3) the main primary sources that you will use to explore this subject; (4) the difficulties and challenges you anticipate in successfully arguing your solution.
You could approach the Research Narrative as a revision of the introduction to your presentation in the Fall Thesis Symposium. You should incorporate and/or update elements from Thesis Idea, Questions Please, and the Thesis Portrait.
Thesis Outline
Compose an outline of your thesis.
First, read this guide to producing essay outlines.
Divide up your thesis project into the chapters and sections that will compose your argument. Your outline should begin with an introduction, with notes about the important topics you’ll consider there. Then, break the project into chapters: what are the major steps in the argument, or topics of the inquiry? Then, break each chapter into sections: what pieces of evidence need extended consideration? what methods and types of scholarship need to be explained? what are the individual steps in the broader argument? Where will your “Writing Into Your Thesis” essays fit in?
This outline will be your plan for the spring: it’s a difficult task, but a deeply rewarding one, if done thoughtfully.
First Paragraph
Write the first paragraph of your thesis.
This is purely a draft, and you’re not bound to it. Instead, think of this as an exercise to help you clear the first major hurtle of the task of writing your actual thesis: the blank page! Consider opening with a strong statement of your argument, or a striking example from the evidence you’ll be considering. How can your opening paragraph explain the significance of your project? How might it entice a reader to read the entirety of your thesis?
Submit Your Thesis Portfolio
Create a single PDF of your Thesis Portfolio containing, in the following order:
- Cover Page with engaging Thesis Title
- Table of Contents for entire Portfolio
- Research Narrative
- Outline
- Literature Review
- First Paragraph
- Seminar Archive (all elements listed above)
Note: Creating a PDF
The easiest way to produce a PDF is to combine all your elements into a single Word document. Open the print menu, but in the lower left, click the “PDF” drop down and choose “Save as PDF.” If you’re working in Google Docs, you can instead click “File –> Download –> PDF.”
Send your thesis as a PDF to Prof. Farmer and to your Advisor by 12:00pm (noon) eastern on December 16th. DO NOT miss this deadline: it is set by the colleges, and extension requires the intervention of a dean.
