Thesis Format
Students who are currently writing and completing Honors thesis projects should familiarize themselves with the formatting requirements linked on this page. Questions about them, or about formatting issues not discussed by these guidelines (or by other resources discussed in them), may be addressed to Dr. Al Beck, Assistant Director of the Honors Program; or to Ms. Mary Ziehe, Honors Program Program Manager.
Thesis Handbook and Formatting Guide
1. A useful handbook for formatting the Honors thesis. Of particular benefit are the checklist on the second page and the examples of properly formatted pages found in the appendix. This document also contains information on the overall thesis process.
2. Access a PowerPoint presentation from a recent thesis formatting workshop. This PDF also contains written instructions for formatting section breaks, page numbers, and heading levels.
Final Copies
Once you have finished writing, defending, and editing your thesis, a digital copy (archival PDF) will be submitted online to BEARdocs and thus made available on the internet. From this, we will prepare a final paper copy for the Honors Program office. This copy will be bound and kept in the thesis library located in the Honors Suite, Morrison 203.
Number of Copies
The Honors Program office requires submission of a digital copy of your thesis. This copy must be uploaded to BEARdocs as a single PDF/A file. Digital copies are not to be sent via email or turned in on a flash drive. The Honors Program will use this file to print and bind the paper copy for our suite.
Students may also purchase additional, professionally bound copies for a small fee. Students can purchase a maximum of 4 personal copies of the thesis.
Please note: The program strongly recommends, but does not require, that each Honors student print and purchase an additional bound copy to be given to her or his thesis director.
Turnaround Time
Students will be notified via Baylor email when it is time to order personal copies of the thesis. For those who defend in the spring semester, this is usually in June; for those who defend in the summer or fall, orders are typically placed in December. Once the orders have been submitted to the Honors Program office, the thesis copies are printed and sent to our third-party bindery for final production. It takes approximately three months for them to come back to the office, at which time personal copies will be available for pickup or for shipment to the address provided on the order form.
Cost
The Honors Program pays the printing and binding costs for the shelf copy kept in the Honors Suite. The binding fee for personal copies will be announced via email when it is time to order and will likely range somewhere around $50 to $60. At this time, a maximum of 4 personal copies can be ordered. Note that we are unable to split shipments to multiple addresses. Payment for personal copies are made through an online order form at the time the order is placed.
Thesis Formatting Practice Document
Access a MS Word document that you can use to practice formatting techniques. Note that this is a random document that is incorrectly formatted for an Honors thesis.