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    Much of the information in this document was copied from the online Psychology Graduate Student Handbook, which you should consult.

    Forming a thesis committee.  Near or at the end of the first year, the student identifies a potential chair for the thesis project based on his or her area of interest and that of the faculty member. The committee should include two additional Psychology Department Faculty and conform to Graduate School requirements. The members are selected by the student in consultation with the thesis chair. The chair is responsible for directing the student's project. The committee members should provide resource and evaluative functions during the thesis project. The student is responsible for completing the departmental form identifying the committee and likely thesis topic and submitting it to the graduate program director.

    Who can serve on a thesis committee?  The chair and two other members of the committee must be members of the graduate faculty, full or associate.  A fourth member can be a graduate teaching faculty member who has been certified by the unit head.  For more details on this, consult the document Thesis Committee Membership.

    Preparing a proposal.  Once a thesis topic has been identified, the student works with the chair and committee members, as necessary, to prepare a proposal. The proposal should include an Introduction and Literature Review, Proposed Method (including research hypotheses, if appropriate), and References. The proposal should be formatted in the same way that a thesis is.  See this example title page and this example complete proposal.

    Defending the proposal.  The proposal will be submitted to the committee members at least 7 calendar days prior to the proposal defense.  Although our Graduate Student Handbook (2003, page 8)  stipulates that a copy of the proposal be placed for public review in the graduate seminar room (Rawl 303) at least 7 calendar days prior to the proposal defense and that the student is responsible for posting a notice identifying the time and location for the proposal defense and inviting others to attend the defense, this has not been done recently. Most of our faculty have decided that the proposal meeting should be a working meeting, not a formal presentation, and that it would not be useful to have others attend.  Nevertheless, you might want to announce the topic of your thesis just in case there are other interested parties who would like to talk with you about your research.  See this example. 

    The committee will decide whether or not to approve the student's proposal. A student should not begin data collection or analysis until the thesis committee has approved the thesis.  Research involving human subjects should be reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB), and research involving animals is reviewed and approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC). The thesis chair will submit the appropriate Thesis Topic Approval Form indicating successful defense of the thesis proposal. The form is a Word document, so your thesis director can fill out the necessary information after reading it into Word. If I (Karl Wuensch) am not directing your thesis, be sure to replace my name with your director's name on this form. For more information on the process of getting your topic approved, please consult the Graduate School's document Manual of Basic Requirements for Theses and Dissertations.

    Institutional Review Board (IRB).  If you are using human participants in your research, you are required to obtain IRB approval for the research prior to collecting data.  Check my IRB Tips for Psychology Students page.

    Completing the thesis.  Following the proposal, completion of the thesis itself usually takes at least one semester. During that period, the student is responsible for keeping the thesis chair informed on his or her progress and, if necessary, should discuss the thesis with any of the other committee members. Once the project has been completed, the student will begin preparing the thesis manuscript. Early drafts of the manuscript should be developed by the student in close consultation with the thesis chair. These early drafts are usually not shared with other committee members unless so requested or unless the student needs specific advice or help on portions of the manuscript. Once a draft manuscript has been completed to the satisfaction of the thesis chair, it may be circulated among committee members prior to its submission for defense. Refer to the Graduate School Thesis Handbook for specific guidance on manuscript requirements.

Getting Finished

    Defending the thesis.  Once a final draft has been approved by the thesis chair, the student will provide each committee member with the draft at least 7 calendar days prior to the thesis defense and oral examination.  A copy will also be placed in the graduate seminar room for public review. The thesis defense and oral examination may not be scheduled until the final draft has been distributed and must be at least 7 calendar days after its submission. The student is responsible for posting on ECUPSY-L (ECUPSY-L@Listserv.ecu.edu)  a notice identifying the time and location for the thesis defense.  This notice should be sent at least 7 calendar days prior to the thesis defense and should include the title of the thesis, the name of the student, the name of the chair of the thesis committee, and the names of all other thesis committee members.  See this example.

    The thesis defense and oral examination is open to students and faculty. A student is expected to make a formal presentation of approximately 30 minutes. The presentation should focus on the research problem, hypothesis, methodology, analysis and interpretation of the data, and implications of the findings. Following the presentation, the committee chair will entertain questions of the student, first, from the committee and then, from other individuals in attendance. The committee will then deliberate in private regarding the approval of the student's thesis. If approved, the student will make any requested changes and submit the final thesis for appropriate signatures.

    Depositing the thesis.  Following the defense the student should complete any corrections or additions that are indicated by the thesis director. Once the final draft of the thesis is completed the student should obtain the appropriate signatures from the committee and submit the thesis to the Department Chair for a signature. You should allow at least 7 days for the Chair to read and return the thesis. The student then should make an appointment with the Associate Dean of the Graduate School to have the thesis approved and signed. Once this is complete make the appropriate number of copies and turn them into the Library for binding. A copy of the thesis completion form should be returned to the program director to verify that they have completed the thesis requirement.

    Question:  What happens if I cannot meet the deadline Spring semester but will be completing the thesis soon thereafter -- can I still walk at the graduation ceremonies?  Answer (from Interim Chair Larry Bolen, April, 2005):  "There is considerable precedent. Any student, graduate or undergraduate, that will complete all requirements for the degree – prior to Fall semester – may walk in May.  These students, then, should contact the president of Psi Chi to have their names added on the list for the Psychology graduation ceremony.  If a student, in order to complete the degree, must attend Fall semester (i.e. be enrolled), then he or she may not walk in the May graduation. 

    Since it is a requirement that all research involving human subjects be reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) and all research involving animals be reviewed and approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), students are required to include a copy of the committees' approval as an appendix in their thesis. The Graduate School's review of all theses and dissertations will look for the documentation of the Committees' review and approval of research projects.

    See my document Thesis End-Game for information on what is required from the defense of the thesis onwards.

Each member of the thesis committee must now evaluate the defense using THIS FORM. These forms are then delivered to Dr. Bolen, who compiles the data for use in satisfying those who accredit ECU.

          When I prepared my thesis, back in the dark ages, students usually hired a professional to type their theses. These days many students word process their own theses, and many of them use Microsoft Word. Word processing some of the typical components of a master's thesis is difficult for the novice user of Word. The trouble spots include: Preparing tables with proper column spanners and proper alignment of the contents of the columns; Properly aligning the page numbers that appear along the right side of the page in a Table of Contents, List of Figures, or List of Tables; and Pagination, especially getting Word to print out the page numbers on all but the first page of each chapter. I have prepared a Word document, with some tips on how to handle such problems. If you would like a copy of it, download it here: Tips for ECU Psychology Students Using Microsoft Word .   If you are not already an expert at using Word, you might also find useful Damian Counsell's document, Word for the Wise.  If your thesis chair and other committee members are Word-wise, you can save a lot of time and effort by exchanging drafts of the thesis electronically, and using the Track Changes feature in Word.  Read my document Tracking Changes and Making Comments in a Microsoft Word Document.

          I have encouraged my colleagues to adopt a set of stylistic guidelines that students can use for all theses in the department of Psychology.  I believe the Graduate School would appreciate our doing so. The current document is part of my effort to encourage such.  I solicit comments and suggestions for this document and the standardization process.  Comments from both faculty and students would be appreciated.  Some of the information in this document is appropriate for professors and students involved in Experimental Psychology.

          See the Graduate School's document Manual of Basic Requirements for Theses and Dissertations for information on the basics of what should be in a thesis and how it should be presented. I have, below, repeated and expanded upon some of the information that can be found in that Graduate School document. You should, however, keep this in mind:  The Graduate School has a long tradition of changing their minds, frequently, about how this and that should be formatted.  No matter how carefully you have tried to format it in the prescribed manner, you should expect them to find something that needs to be changed.  Like the reviewer of a scholarly manuscript, they might feel like they have not done their job if they don't find something wrong.  They also have a long tradition of moving pages from one url to another without leaving any forwarding, so don't be at all surprised if some of the links in this document no longer work.

          Be sure to use the correct margins:  1.5 inches on top and left, 1.0 inch on bottom and right.  Staff at the graduate school will measure the margins, and if the margins are incorrect, you will need to correct them, which will change pagination, may require reformatting of tables, and will have you running around to get new signatures on the signature page.

            Pagination is tricky, especially with the prefatory pages. Lower-case Roman numerals are used on the prefatory pages, Arabic numerals on the rest.  Some pages are counted, some are not.  Some pages bear their page number, others do not.

          The abstract is the first typed page in the thesis, but it is not counted or paginated as prefatory or otherwise. The word "Abstract" should appear at the top of the page, centered, followed by the title in upper case.

          Next comes the title page and then the signature page.  Together, these two count as the first prefatory page, but no page number appears on either.

          Look at this example signature page. Note that I have aligned the signature lines rather than having them ragged. Also note that the length of the phrase "CHAIR OF THE DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY" pushes the signature lines far to the right on each line. I think it would look better if we could shorten that phrase to "CHAIR, DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY" or "CHAIR, DEPT. OF PSYCHOLOGY?" I asked both chairman Ron Nowaczyk and Dean Paul Tschetter about this early in 2003 and both said that would be just fine.

          The acknowledgment page(s), if any, are next, followed by Table of Contents page(s).  The headings indicated in their example are not numbered as APA does, but they tell you to check with your department for the proper formatting -- don't think this will stop them from telling you to change the formatting from that which your department recommended.  These pages are all counted as prefatory, but not marked with a page number. The Table of Contents page should include all of the headings and subheadings used in the thesis, with proper indentation to indicate the level of heading. If an entry in the table of contents takes more than one line, single space that entry.  Although bold and italic (where appropriate for the level of heading, as per APA) fonts were accepted in the Table of Contents prior to Autumn of 1998 (for example, in Eric Surface's thesis in 1997), in December of 1998 one of my students (Jean Catanzaro) was required to remove all bold and italic font from her table of contents.  She was also told to remove the word "Page," which she had placed on the right margin above the column of page numbers (previously this word was required to be there).

          Next is the List of Tables, followed by the List of Figures, both of which are counted as prefatory pages and, prior to Autumn of 1998, did receive page numbers (lower case Roman numerals).  In December of 1998 one of my students was required to remove the page number from her list of tables.  She was also told to remove the word "Table," which she had placed on the left margin above the column of table numbers, and the word "Page," which she had placed on the right margin above the column of page numbers (previously these words were required to be placed there).   Both the list of tables and the list of figures should be included in the table of contents.

          The next page is the first page of the body, but it, and all other initial pages of the chapters, (and References, etc.) does not have a page number typed on it.  The Graduate School has created their own definitions of levels of headings.  They do not include chapter titles as a level of headings, but do indicate that they should be all upper case.  Their Level 1 headings are like APA Level 2 headings (which are almost never used in APA-style documents).  Their Level 3 headings are identical to APA Level 3 headings, and their Level 4 headings are identical to APA Level 4 headings.  They have no Level 2 or Level 5 headings, APA does.

    The person who wrote this section of manual goofed up when writing the paragraph that starts like this "In third-level headings, the first line of text follows the period on the same line as the heading ........"  This is a description of a fourth-level heading, not a third-level heading.

          Most theses in Psychology have used all upper case for chapter titles, even though the APA style manual would usually indicate otherwise for the top-level heading.  If you choose to use all upper case for your chapter titles in the body of your thesis, do so in the table of contents as well.  Most of our theses have included CHAPTER # as part of the chapter headings, with the chapter title below, like this:

          Sometimes this has caused confusion in the Graduate School. For example, for one thesis (D. Adams, 1996), the Graduate School treated "CHAPTER I" as being one level of heading and "INTRODUCTION" as being a lower level of heading. It seems clear to me that "CHAPTER I" and "INTRODUCTION" should be together in one level of heading. Perhaps it would be less confusing if we put them together on one line, like this:

          Another alternative, which has been accepted by the Graduate School for theses directed by Larry Means (see E. Clayton, 1996), is to leave out chapter numbers all together (including in the table of contents), for example:

    Psychologists often have a lot of trouble properly using APA-style headings.  See my APA-Style Headings page.

    Here is an example of headings for thesis with only TWO LEVELS:

Participants

      Participants were 205 female and 79 male undergraduate students enrolled in psychology classes ........................

Instrument

      Attitudes towards human-nonhuman similarity and animal consciousness were measured
by ................................

Here is an example of headings for a thesis with THREE LEVELS:

Participants

      Participants were 205 female and 79 male undergraduate students enrolled in psychology classes ........................

Instrument

      Attitudes towards human-nonhuman similarity and animal consciousness were measured
by ................................

      The similarity items. Seven items were used to measure participants' beliefs regarding .............................

      The rights items. Four items were used to measure participants' attitudes about animal research and rights ..................................

          Do notice that I have set all of the headings in bold font.  In the Spring of 1998 the Graduate School started requesting that all headings be set in bold font.  Dr. Tschetter is not fond of the use of italic font in headings, but I hope that he will accept appropriate (APA-style) use of italic font in headings if we set them bold as well.  If he does not, it is not that much trouble to change bold italic to plain bold.  Do note that you should never use just one heading of a particular level.  In the example above where I had three levels of headings, it would not be appropriate to have under the "Instrument" heading only a single subheading such as "The similarity items."  It is appropriate to have two or more subheadings there, such as "The similarity items" followed by "The rights items."

          I strongly recommend borrowing a copy of a recent thesis by a student who had the same director as do you. Ideally this will be a thesis which your director is proud of and which is similar to yours in terms of organization. Such a thesis can be used as a model when attending to all the various details of thesis style.

          Please note that in Chapter 6 of the 4^th edition of the APA Publication Manual there is made a distinction between "final manuscripts" and "copy manuscripts." COPY MANUSCRIPTS are those submitted to a journal and prepared in a way to facilitate their use by reviewers, editors, and other journal staff. Before being published in the journal the copy manuscript is converted into a final manuscript. Theses and dissertations are to be prepared in final manuscript form by the student. FINAL MANUSCRIPT copy must be as readable as possible. To make the final manuscript readable it should NOT be prepared in exactly the same fashion as would be a copy manuscript. For example, TABLES may be more readable if they are single spaced rather than double spaced, they may be inserted in the text (as was done on Cham Trowell's thesis, Spring 98, which was accepted by the Graduate School) or on the next page rather than towards the end of the document, two tables may be put on a single page, etc.

          I strongly recommend that the student obtain published examples of reference lists from recent APA publications (I recommend Psychological Bulletin) and use these as models. Unless you have software which can format text into columns, I would recommend against doing the references in two columns, as is done in published articles.

        If you have only one appendix, call it "Appendix," not "Appendix A."

         See this example of a perfectly formatted thesis (under the rules at the time):  Seth Miller, April, 2007.

         Got a question about APA style, go to my APA-Style Page.

         Also check out Dr. Michael Brown's Thesis Guidelines.

          I also recommend that you read Daryl Bem's online article Writing the Empirical Journal Article -- highly recommended reading not only for those writing a journal article, but also for those writing a thesis.

         Graduate Students are required to be enrolled during every semester (except summer sessions) from the time they start to work on their degree until the time they graduate. So far, the Graduate School has not been enforcing this requirement except for during the semester of graduation. For example, suppose that a student finishes all of her degree requirements except for the thesis. She gets a job and does not finish the thesis until several semesters later. Technically this student should have been enrolled every semester, but in practice the Graduate School has only been requiring that such a student be enrolled during the semester of her graduation. For students in Psychology, the course used to maintain continuous enrollment is PSYC 7000, Thesis (3 hours), even if the student has already completed the required six thesis hours. Thesis hours in excess of six do not, however, count towards graduation -- they are just used to maintain continuous enrollment. Paul Tschetter (Dean of the Graduate School) explained to me, in August of 2002, that the student could, instead of registering for excess thesis hours, register for any other graduate hour(s), such as a one hour individual study course, but that would also require some additional work on the part of the student.  Paul also pointed out that registering for the 3 credit hour PSYC 7000 makes the student half-time, loan deferred, and eligible for financial aid.

          If a student was not registered Spring semester but wanted to graduate during the summer, and has previously registered for 6 hours of PSYC 7000, she could register for PSYC 7001, a one hour course, during the summer session during which she would turn in her thesis.  This course is only available during summer terms.  However, Banner indicated that it was not offered during the summer of 2008.  It is listed in the 2007-2008 catalog, and could be added to our schedule if needed.

         Taking excess thesis hours is rather expensive. The cost (tuition and other fees for on-campus students) to take PSYC 7000 in May of 2007 was $852 for in-state students and $2,574 for out of state students. Maintaining continuous enrollment by taking a 1  hour course cost $284 in-state or $858 out-of-state.  Another option is to take GRAD 6999 as a DE course.   Instate DE tuition is $158 per graduate semester hour, out-of-state is $664 per semester hour, so GRAD 6999 costs $477 or $1,992.  However, Banner indicated that GRAD 6999 is offered only as an on-campus course in the summer of 2008.

    The Department of Psychology could set up a DE one-hour individual studies course which graduate students could use to maintain enrollment.  That would cost $158 or $664 and some work to earn the one credit hour.

         The one-hour courses that are most likely to be used to maintain continuous enrollment are PSYC 6501, 6502, and 6503, "Problems in Psychology." These are individual studies courses. To register in one of these courses one must first obtain the permission of the departmental chair. The chair will want to see a document which explains what the student is going to do, what final product (like a term paper) will be produced, and which faculty member has agreed to supervise the individual study. The student should keep in mind that a final grade will be awarded for individual study. A student who does not produce a reasonable final product should expect to get an 'F' for the course. One past student who was using individual studies to maintain continuous enrollment did not produce a reasonable final product and got an 'F.' That grade, combined with a couple of other bad grades, resulted in that student's graduate program being terminated without receipt of a degree.

         Here is the relevant text from page 44 of the 2007-2008 Graduate Catalog:  http://www.ecu.edu/cs-acad/aa/upload/grCat0708-2.pdf .

    I was told, by acting chair Dr. Larry Bolen, that when the student is required (or elects) to take PSYC 7000 twice, such registrations must be in two different semesters.  One of my students intended to take all 6 of her thesis hours in Fall semester, 2005, but was told that she could only register for 3 thesis hours per semester.  When I suggested to Dr. Bolen that this is moronic, he replied "the graduate school generally and Tschetter specifically see the thesis as a body of work that requires at least two semesters to complete."   Heaven and Earth may have been created in one week, but a thesis takes at least two semesters.

        Do note  that PSYC 7000 need be taken only once (but may be repeated once for credit), with the possible exception of in the General-Theoretic program, but most students will elect to take it twice.  See Thesis Hours.

Can I Walk In the Spring Graduation If My Thesis is Not Yet Completed?

    You will probably be allowed to do so, if it is nearly certain that you will, in fact, complete the thesis before the deadline for summer graduation, but students sometimes grossly underestimate how long it will take to complete a thesis.  For example, during the last week of March one year a student asked me she could walk in the Spring graduation.  She had just submitted a first draft of her thesis proposal and it still needed a lot of work before I would ever consider allowing it to go to the committee.  I felt I needed to give this student a "reality check." I suggested that she had greatly underestimated how long it takes to complete a thesis.  Dr. Cope added the following: 

    You can technically participate in the graduation if you are going out in the summer.  However; if you have not already defended a proposal, the chances of getting through the proposal, IRB, subject acquisition, data gathering, analysis, write-up, and subsequent defense prior to the end of summer is a long shot.  Also given that many of the faculty are not here (or are here sporadically) and/or are teaching every day, the reality that subjects are much harder to get, and the fact that there will be a lot of competition (others in a similar boat) this summer, the problem will become that much harder.  Karl and I as well as the I/O and Research faculty have been prompting, nudging, pushing and etc to little avail.  So please let me summarize the situation.

When is the Deadline For Turning the Thesis in to the Graduate School

    The official deadline can be found in the university calendar, but it appears that it is not set in stone.  For example, look at this email:

From: Cathey, Brook Lee

Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2007 10:42 AM

FYI, I found out today from the graduate school that the April 13th deadline is not set in stone. As a matter of fact, as long as you have your thesis defended, approved, and turned into the graduate school before the 10th day of summer I classes you will officially graduate in May.

Can I Walk at Commencement?

From: Aziz, Shahnaz
Sent: Tue 4/1/2008 9:21 PM
Subject: Commencement

Some of you have been wondering if there are any contingences to walk at the commencement ceremony in May.  It is the opinion of our Department Chair that “students should walk AFTER their thesis has been defended/accepted by their committee.” To clarify, you can still walk at May graduation as long as your thesis is signed off by Dr. Row and your committee members by May 9^th .

• IRB Tips for Psychology Students
• Thesis Topic Approval Form -- to be completed when you have successfully defended your thesis proposal
• Thesis Orals/Completion Form -- to be completed when you have successfully completed the thesis, including the oral defense
• Thesis-Requirements.doc -- What our Department of Psychology will expect of the graduate student preparing a thesis.
• Thesis Authorship - When the thesis is converted to a manuscript to be submitted for consideration for publication in a scholarly journal, whose names appear on the manuscript and in what order?
• The End-Game - Defending the thesis & various other tasks that must be completed before you can graduate.
• Thesis Humor -Rules for writers and other humor.
• Thesis Errors - Examples of what not to do in your thesis.
• Lasting Value of the Thesis - So, what good is the thesis other than being a necessary part of getting my degree?

• Visit Karl's Index Page
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