Page 88 - DISSERTATION AND THESIS HANDBOOK 2017 -2020

the IRB form. You can also find the form in this handbook. It is not a difficult process,
but your advisor will help you complete it if you have questions. Complete the form and
submit four hard copies to Dean Nwokeafor who is Chair of Bowie State’s IRB
(cnwokeafor@bowiestate.edu).

Preparation of the Thesis
If you enlist or employ someone to help you with the typing, proofreading, or editing of
your thesis, then remember you are ultimately responsible for the correctness, academic
honesty, and timeliness of your project. The buck stops with you!

Now What?
After you have consulted with your thesis advisor and decided on a topic for your thesis,
you will conduct a literature review. The literature review allows you to see what other
scholars have published on your topic. You will look at primary and secondary source
materials and develop an annotated bibliography of about 20-30 sources. After you have
studied what others have done with your topic, you can begin developing your own ideas
about what direction you want to take your topic and what kind of methodology you
want to use to develop your study.

A proposal, or prospectus, is a document in which your describe your study in a formal
and precise manner. The proposal is about 15-20 pages. In your proposal, you will detail:

Statement (or Overview) of the Problem
This section explains the central issue or question
that you intend to answer in the thesis. It also provides a
preliminary context for the inquiry.

Need and Timeliness
This section explains why your study is needed
and what it will contribute to the field of English Studies.

Delimitation
This defines some of the matters regarding your topic that you will not address.
For example, if you were studying Beloved and Kindred as novels of enslavement
(neoslave narratives, narratives of resistance, you might note that there are over 40
novels of enslavement written by female authors of African descent, and you will not
detail or examine Beloved and Kindred in light of that entire body of work.

Methodology
This section describes how you will go about your study. If you are doing a
literary analysis, what theories will you apply? If you are conducting a quantitative study,
how will your study proceed? If you are doing film analysis, then from what vantage
point will you examine the movies?

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