what is the senior essay

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The senior essay.

The Senior Essay Handbook

Requirements and Guidelines for the Senior Essay

In the English Department, as in other departments, the Senior Essay consists of an extended research and writing project (critical, not creative) undertaken with the guidance of a faculty advisor. The Senior Essay is not a requirement for completing the English major, nor is it required for receiving distinction in the major. It does, however, offer a satisfying way to fulfill one semester of the senior requirement. Writing an essay provides an opportunity for those who are eager to pursue a special interest, who like to write long papers, and who work well independently. Be warned that it entails inexorable deadlines and exacting effort; it can be thrilling to write a senior essay, but only if you are committed to the project. Procrastination has repeatedly proved a grave mistake. Given an essay of this magnitude, you cannot leave reading, writing, and ruminating until the last minute. If you have any doubts, take a Senior Seminar.

In addition to the prospectus and final draft, you will be asked to hand in, at the end of four weeks, five to ten pages of writing or, if appropriate, an annotated bibliography so that you, your advisor, and the department will know how your work is proceeding relatively early in the term.  By the end of the seventh week, an extended piece of writing should be submitted.  And by the end of the tenth week, a rough draft is due (to ensure the essay will be carefully thought through and receives feedback from your advisor before you revise).

You will be expected to consult frequently with your advisor throughout the semester, both about your research and about the substance of your developing argument; we recommend at least four meetings, with bi-weekly meetings as the norm. Typically, finished senior essays range from 30-40 pages. Some drafts are considerably longer (40-50 pages) and require cutting as well as revising; other drafts are shorter (25-30 pages) and require expansion as well as revision of the argument.

Specific requirements are as follows:

1. In the term before you intend to write your essay (see I mportant Dates ), you must hand in to the DUS office a completed proposal form for ENGL 490 or 491 and a prospectus, which includes the following information:

(a) a description of your topic (approximately 2 pages)

(b) a bibliography of the reading and research, both primary and secondary, you intend to undertake (If part of your project will consist in looking for sources, you must still indicate subjects that you will pursue in your research.)

(c) a list of the introductory and advanced courses you have taken that have prepared you to do independent work on your topic

(d) a schedule of meetings with your advisor

(e) your advisor’s signature

If you intend to pursue a two-semester essay (not commonly done, but a possibility for substantial research projects), please conceptualize your project in two parts so that you can submit an essay for evaluation at the end of the fall semester.

Within two weeks after you submit your prospectus, you will receive an email from the senior essay committee, via the Registrar in the DUS’s office, granting approval or asking for clarification. Approval is not automatic, and the Senior Essay committee may stipulate revisions to the project as a condition of approval.

2. By the end of Week 4 of classes, you must hand in five to ten pages of writing, along with an annotated list of at least two secondary sources relevant to your essay;  or , if the project requires a substantial amount of research, an annotated bibliography of the works you have consulted together with an outline of the reading you have still to do. You may decide, in consultation with your advisor, which of these options is the more appropriate for you. This work should be turned in to your advisor.

3. By the end of Week 7 of classes, you must hand in ten to twelve pages of writing (possibly inclusive of your earlier five pages) and, as part of that writing or separately, a brief discussion of your project’s engagement with one or more secondary sources.  This work should be turned in to your advisor.

4. By the end of Week 10, you must hand in a full or almost full draft to your advisor: consult your advisor for details.

Failure to submit the draft on time or the preliminary work described above may affect the final grade received for the essay.

5. The final essay is due by noon on the last day of classes in the fall term and on the Friday before the last day of classes in the spring term (see  I mportant Dates ); it should include a bibliography of works consulted. Submit the essay to the DUS office electronically (pdf preferred) by emailing it to the departmental registrar.

Your essay will be read, graded, and commented upon both by your advisor and by a second reader chosen by the Senior Essay Committee. The two readers’ reports, will be available from the DUS office two to three weeks after you hand in the final draft. The department will keep a copy on file so that students in the future can see what kinds of projects have been undertaken.

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Click here to complete the online request form to schedule a meeting with your librarian. The appropriate subject specialist will reply to you via email.

Finding a Manageable Senior Essay Topic

Take a deep breath … you’re writing a senior essay, not a dissertation or a book! Here are some thoughts on keeping the process manageable throughout the upcoming academic year.

First, it usually takes some time at the outset to define a specific research topic. Engage with the ideas and arguments of the sources you're finding and think about where you'd like to join the scholarly conversation. Remember that the research process will often take you in unexpected directions, and that the interplay between your research questions and the sources you unearth is a cornerstone of historical research. Give yourself time to allow that interplay to happen during your senior essay research!

Some books that might prove useful:

• The Craft of Research Wayne C. Booth et al.
• Essaying the Past: How to Read, Write, and Think about History Jim Cullen
• Going to the Sources: A Guide to Historical Research and Writing Anthony Brundage
• How To Write a Thesis Umberto Eco

Subject Specialists & Research Guides

Every subject taught at Yale has a librarian assigned to it. A list of these librarians, or "subject specialists," can be found here.

Subject specialists curate subject guides that are a great starting point in finding resources on your potential research topic. The guides bring together the most useful and important resources that are available, whether encyclopedias, bibliographies or other "reference" works, databases of primary and secondary sources, archival materials at Yale and beyond, or freely available websites created by libraries, museums, and academic centers around the world.

On the first page of a subject guide, you will generally find substantial information on subject-specific databases and other library resources. Every subject librarian organizes their guides a little differently, but most follow this approach. While Quicksearch and even Google are valuable tools for research, for a senior thesis it is essential to engage with these specialized databases and resources to thoroughly mine what is available for use in the research. Bear in mind that the publishers who create the databases and reference sources don’t always give them meaningful names that help you to understand what the resource could be useful for. Take time to explore the subject guides as they are chock-full of information and help.

Reach out to a subject specialist if you have questions about getting started!

For questions about library services for your Senior Essay, contact James Kessenides at [email protected].

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• Last Updated: Jun 12, 2023 4:20 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.yale.edu/senioressay/history

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Junior and senior essays.

The senior essay is often the longest and most complex paper a student will write during a Yale career. While the Writing Center supports all student writers, we’re especially eager to help as you plan, develop, and revise your senior essay.

The expectations for a good essay vary by department, because different fields have different standards for evidence, analysis, and argument. Below we offer some general good advice for developing a senior essay, followed by a list of some of the additional resources available to help you complete your essay.

Tip #1: Write about something you’re curious about or don’t quite understand. Although this advice applies to any writing project, it’s especially crucial for a long essay. If you don’t begin with something you’re curious about - something you really care about figuring out - you’ll have trouble sustaining interest in your essay, either for yourself or for your readers. Papers you’ve written for coursework can be a great source for topics, if there are issues that were just starting to excite you when it was time to turn in the initial paper. Think, too, about unanswered questions you’ve had from the courses in your major; your senior essay can be an opportunity to explore more deeply an issue that you feel has been neglected. Most advisors will want to begin discussions of your topic as far in advance as possible. If yours hasn’t initiated that conversation, take the first step and set up an appointment today.

Tip #2: Use writing to help shape your research - not just to record your results. The most productive change most students need to make in working on their essay is to begin writing sooner. We don’t mean by this just avoiding procrastination. Even if you begin researching and meeting with your advisor early in the year, you may still be tempted to delay writing until you have a strong sense of your direction, or even an outline. But research shows that taking time to write all throughout the process will help you develop a richer, more complex thesis. Here are some occasions to write that you may not have thought of on your own:

Write about your ideas as a way to find and explore your initial topic.

Don’t just underline and take notes on our early research; take ten minutes to write at the beginning and end of each research session about what you’ve learned and the new questions you’ve discovered.

Write before and after meeting with your advisor. Even if you have a draft or chapter to show, take an extra ten minutes to write about your sense of the project - where it’s going well and where you need help.

It’s possible that you won’t incorporate this writing directly into your final essay, but doing it will help you reflect more effectively on the progress of your research, which will lead to fuller and more satisfying results.

Tip #3: Develop a bigger network of readers. Ideally, you will have the opportunity to meet with your advisor several times in both terms while working on your essay. This is the person who can help you the most with questions of general direction, with focusing on the most productive parts of your topic, and with finding the most relevant research sources. But most professional writers get feedback from several readers before publication, and so should you. One obvious source for additional readers is the Writing Center, which offers several different kinds of tutoring. But showing your work to friends, roommates, and classmates can also be immensely helpful. If you haven’t shared your work with other writers before, let us give you some advice about how to make these opportunities productive: don’t expect student readers to offer solutions. Instead, get your readers to raise questions that you can talk and think through more deeply. Or ask them just to say what they understand and where they get stuck, then use your own judgment about whether your advisor will have the same kinds of questions. Until you’ve tried it, you have no idea how valuable it is just to show your work in progress to someone. Even before they say anything back, the meeting will allow you to think about your own writing differently. If they also give you helpful advice, well that’s just a bonus.

Departmental Guidelines Many departments publish guidelines for senior essay writers. We’ve compiled a few of these below. If your department is not listed, ask your DUS if any guidelines exist. The Writing Center Director, Alfred Guy, is available to help departments create and post advice for their senior essay writers.

History Senior Essay

Residential College Writing Tutors Every residential college has a dedicated writing tutor, and they have experience with senior essays from a wide range of departments. Students who work with a tutor write better essays, and the sooner you start, the better. Go to the tutoring section of this Web site and contact your tutor today.

Workshops for Senior Essay Writers Many departments offer a senior essay colloquium—the Writing Center directors are available to lead discussions about any topic related to developing your essay, including: setting a timetable, soliciting and using feedback, and structuring a long essay. In the past few years, we’ve worked with colloquia in American Studies, Sociology, and African Studies, and we’d love to meet with your group. Ask the coordinator of your colloquium to contact us to arrange a meeting.

Other Yale Resources

The Mellon Seminars

Each residential college organizes a Mellon seminar for senior essay writers. During these seminars, you’ll have the chance to talk about your work in progress with other seniors. Check with the Master’s office in your college for more details.

YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN

Reserve a Room

The Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning partners with departments and groups on-campus throughout the year to share its space. Please review the reservation form and submit a request.

Writing with Turnitin

The Poorvu Center organizes resources to help students use Turnitin to improve their writing - see patterns of source use and misuse, and learn best practices for the revision process.

Drop-In Writing Partners

Writing Partners are Yale College or graduate school students selected for both their writing skills and their ability to talk about writing. They have a student’s-eye view of the challenges you’ll face in writing papers.

A Sophomore or Junior’s Guide to the Senior Thesis

Written by Christine Rose

A senior thesis can offer an amazing opportunity to dive deeply into a subject that intrigues you. It can also be an incredible, perhaps daunting, amount of work. So below, to add some clarity and hopefully make this seem less daunting, we’ll explore 

what exactly a senior thesis is

how to decide whether to write one

how to choose your subject matter

how to find an effective advisor

a time management checklist

an example to illustrate how you can work toward your research question

a sample timeline

Sound good? Good. So …

What is a Senior Thesis?

A senior thesis is a chance to investigate a topic, author, literary or artistic style, historical event, policy problem, philosophical or theoretical question, or psychological-sociological issue. It is a substantial piece of original research and writing that you’ll need to start contemplating during the first semester of your junior year (or earlier). Want to see a sample timeline? Click here.

The truth is, when it comes right down to it, senior theses don’t have a lot in common. Once you factor in what discipline you are writing in, such as the humanities (e.g., philosophy, literature, art history, classics), social sciences (e.g., anthropology, sociology, psychology, politics, economics, history, geography, linguistics), or natural sciences (e.g., physics, math, chemistry, biology), they don’t tend to look alike. A senior thesis in psychology, for example, is often a year-long research project—perhaps in conjunction with one of your faculty advisor’s labs—where you might design and conduct your own study utilizing human subjects. Or maybe monkeys. 

A senior thesis in literature, on the other hand, will likely involve studying a movement, trope, author, or theme, and your sources will involve a combination of fiction, historical context, literary criticism, and literary theory. At many schools, a thesis ranges from 80 to 125 pages. At other universities, as few as 25 pages might fill the requirement. Regardless of department, topic, and length, the senior thesis is: 

Likely the most daunting academic project you’ve taken on thus far

A major commitment of time, brainpower, and energy

A stepping stone to graduate-level research

A marathon, not a sprint

A precious opportunity to work closely with a professor

A rewarding endeavor for those with a genuine interest in research and analysis 

A living nightmare for procrastinators and people who don’t enjoy wrestling with the same concept for an extended period of time

When Should I Start Thinking About It?

Now! If you are reading this your first or second year of college, outstanding! If it’s your junior year, great! If you’re already a senior, it’s never too early to begin thinking about graduate school! 

If you haven’t already, here is some invaluable advice:

Get to Know Your Professors!!!

This advice holds for all students, whether or not they write a senior thesis. How?

Take a seminar that limits the number of students so you have more time with them in intimate, discussion-based scenarios.

Go to office hours. Professors love it when students show up to ask questions or talk further about a topic that came up in class. It’s also a good opportunity to realize that they are human.

Investigate the possibility of a research assistantship (RAship).

Attend campus lectures sponsored by your department on topics pertinent to your major. Professors will be there, and there is often a chance afterward to socialize informally (if you’re lucky, with free snacks). 

Good Reasons to Write A Senior Thesis

Deciding to write a senior thesis is a personal choice (unless you attend one of the few schools that require it of all graduates, such as Bates, Haverford, Princeton, Reed, and Scripps). It’s also a significant time commitment! If you are trying to determine if this experience is right for you, read through the following descriptions to see if they resonate. If so, you might enjoy writing a senior thesis.

You love digging deep! The thought of knowing everything that has been published about whether woodpeckers get headaches, mosquitoes like cheese, or if “Netflix and chill” qualifies as a modern courtship ritual excites you.

You like the idea of engaging in detailed scholarly conversations by analyzing, dissecting, and critiquing really, really, shockingly specific topics, such as William Randolph Hearst and the power of the press (history); the Latinx vote, immigration, and identity in political campaigns (politics); cisnormativity in patient-provider interactions (gender studies); the effects of low-dose radiation on zebrafish (biology); iterations of critical race theory in the 21st-century American popular imagination (African-American studies); random matrix theory over finite fields (mathematics); conversion narratives in the wake of 9/11 (religion); or Zulu traditions in pregnancy and birth (anthropology). 

You’ve written a short paper about something and in doing so realized how much more complicated and fascinating it is than you initially thought. 

You are pretty sure some kind of graduate school is in your future and want an opportunity to test the waters to see if this kind of endeavor is right for you.

You like thinking about research designs, methodologies, conceptual frameworks, and theoretical concepts.

You feel well prepared to tackle the challenge, and you have identified a faculty member you trust to guide you through the process.

Your college requires one.*

*If you read through this list and landed on this one, reread the list and reinvent yourself! There is always something—some angle, some topic, some approach, no matter how weird, nerdy, alternative, or conventional—that can get you genuinely engaged.

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Tip: Talk to current seniors in your major and ask them the pros and cons. Then, take that information and create your own personalized pros and cons list. Once you have your lists, read through them and ask yourself how you feel about the possibility now. And don’t simply go by the number of items you have on one side. It might be that you have a bunch of cons and only two pros, but the way you feel about the two pros outweigh the negatives on the con side. 

Good Reasons NOT to Write One  

There are a lot of myths surrounding the senior thesis, as well as very good reasons to decide that this is not the best way to spend your senior year (and likely the summer before it):

You think you need to write one to get into law school.

Your parents think you need one to get into law school.

You tend to put things off or struggle with time management. 

You get bored easily or you don’t want to sacrifice all the cool classes you could be taking your senior year to focus on one topic in depth.

Wikipedia is still your go-to resource when you have a research assignment, and you aren’t excited to discover that there are far better (and more reliable) resources out there written by experts in the field.

You want your senior year of college to be heavy on the social and cultural opportunities college provides and light on the academic challenges.

We all find writing to be sometimes scary, frustrating, intimidating, tedious, or even painful (you are definitely not alone), but you are someone who never feels the reward after the struggle is over.

Preliminary Work

If you're still here, that probably means you're leaning toward writing a senior thesis. Congratulations! Let's talk through the important pre-planning considerations that can make all the difference between a positive and negative experience. 

Tip: Before you begin, it’s good to understand what kind of document you are expected to produce. Ask where your department keeps copies of past senior theses and glance at a few. Pay attention to their style, language, organization, length, use of secondary sources, and number of citations. Ask yourself, Does this look like the type of thing I’d like to produce?

Identify Research Interests and Potential Topics

Not sure how to decide what to focus on because the commitment feels like marital “till death do us part” and you see lots of fishies in the sea? Try the following brainstorming exercise:

Get a piece of paper and jot down all the possible topics you can think of. Nothing is off-limits here—nothing is too trivial or grandiose. For the moment, don’t even limit yourself to traditional topics in your major, since there is tons of room for cool interdisciplinary projects. The only rule for this exercise is that you must be genuinely excited about the topic. Explore questions like these:

What do you want to know more about? 

What fascinates you? 

What ideas do you find yourself mulling over? 

What bothers you? 

What surprises you? 

What compels you? 

Spend 20-30 minutes on this list. Sleep on it, then revisit the next day. Spend another 10 minutes adding anything new that has come to your mind and crossing off anything you’re not still keen on. Then …

Narrow Your Options

A few possibilities here for narrowing your options if one doesn’t leap out at you as the clear winner:

Try clustering them to see if there is rhyme and reason behind the mad brainstorm

Ask yourself what resources you’d need access to in order to do the topic justice, and find out if those will be available to you (online, on campus, or during the summer)

When in doubt, make a pros and cons list for each topic

Rank your list in order of how likely you think it is that you will still be deeply invested in this topic after 6 months of exploring it

Look at the faculty interests in your major, and make sure it would be possible to match up with a professor for every topic still on your list (NOTE: it doesn’t have to be an exact match! It’s enough that a professor has a research interest in the same general area)

Ask yourself how difficult it will be to produce an original body of research on the topic

Narrow the Scope

Once you’ve landed on a topic and done a little digging, you’re likely to find out that it needs to be narrowed. Lots of students make the mistake of deliberately picking something too broad because they are afraid they won’t have enough to fill 80 pages if they narrow it, or are afraid that by focusing too closely on a specific aspect of their original topic, their work won’t have as wide of an appeal or will seem too insignificant or random. Au contraire! 

Overly ambitious (read: too wide) topics are a perfect setup for disaster. If you try to tackle too much in one thesis, you wind up doing many different topics a disservice. Far better to do justice to one clearly delineated topic, as that will set you up to do the in-depth type of scholarship expected of one such as you, embarking on a senior thesis! 

To illustrate this process, here’s an example from a student in anthropology:

Topics of Interest = Indigenous Populations; Colonialism; Healthcare; Globalization (Wayyyyyyyyyy too broad!)

Topic Idea   = How We Can See Colonial Legacies in the Healthcare Struggles of Indigenous Populations (Still wayyyyyyy too broad)

First Attempt to Narrow = Dietary and Lifestyle Changes of Indigenous Populations in Peru (Starting to get the idea, but a wayyyyyys to go)

Second Attempt to Narrow = How the Indigenous Quechua of Peru Navigated Local Healing Practices with Westernized Biomedicine (Even closer! Still… all Quechua? All Local Healing Practices? All Westernized Biomedicine? For all Medical/Health Issues?)

Third Attempt to Narrow = Current Experiences of Indigenous Quechua of Peru with Type II Diabetes Navigating the Choice Between Herbal Remedies, Dietary and Lifestyle Changes, and Insulin (Bingo!)

Note: This student already knew, from taking previous anthro courses, that there would be one or two faculty in the department qualified in these areas. Once you have your topic in hand, your next step is to choose an advisor. Speaking of …

Choosing an Advisor

Your advisor’s role, in a nutshell, is to guide and inspire you to reach your scholarly potential. They will work with you closely as you determine your interests, topic, thesis, and research questions. They will help you design your study (when applicable) and choose the most appropriate methodologies. They will provide feedback about your ideas, drafts, writing, and research. They will also encourage and motivate you to persevere through frustrations and setbacks. 

Whereas this is the first time you’ve ever taken on such a significant academic challenge, they have done this kind of thing for years, so they are in a unique position to help you avoid pitfalls and steer you in fruitful directions. If you are considering a senior thesis, it’s never too soon to start weighing your options for which faculty member would be a good fit, both academically and personally.

Before You Pop the Question …

Ideally, you will already have taken several classes with them and have established a good rapport. Before you pop the question, do your research! Once you identify one or more potential advisors to interview, find out their specific research interests by looking at departmental information and reading their faculty website page, their CV, and some of their recent publications. There is no better way to start off on the right foot than to let them know you have read their work and take a genuine interest in one or more of their areas of specialization.

Qualities to Look For

A good advisor has a genuine interest in your topic and your intellectual development

They believe in you and your commitment to accomplishing this feat

They reply to your emails in a reasonable amount of time

They can be understanding and supportive when necessary, but they are also capable of pushing you if that’s what you need

Your conversations with them are intellectually stimulating

When you leave their office, you have more clarity than when you entered

They are someone you feel comfortable exploring ideas with

You aren’t embarrassed to let them know if you don’t understand something

You admire them but are not afraid of them

They communicate their expectations clearly

Tip: Beware of falling for the tendency to pick the “nicest” person. Niceness is not going to help you create a stellar piece of scholarship. Look for someone who can be supportive, intense, and rigorous simultaneously.

Search Within Yourself

Like friends and lovers, professors come in all shapes, sizes, and personality strengths and weaknesses. Some veer toward laissez-faire, while others battle the urge to micro-manage. Some are known for being impossible to please, while others are more lenient. The same principle holds for students: some are Type A, fastidious go-getters who turn assignments in early. This kind of student might work well with a hands-off advisor who relies on students to keep their own deadlines. Other students are Type B, contemplative philosophers who tend to mull things over, possibly long enough to need an extension. These students might need someone a little more demanding to direct their project. What makes one advisor compatible with one student might not be a dynamic that suits you. Before you approach professors, ask yourself what you bring to the table and what kind of personality will complement your work style. 

Tip : Talk to current seniors being advised by the professor you have in mind! They can offer valuable insight into the professor’s approach to directing a senior thesis. Also, ask your department where you can find past theses that your potential advisor directed.

Questions to Ask During Your First Meeting with a Potential Advisor 

1. How promising do they find your research topic? Are there particular directions they think you should explore in developing a research question? 

2. Do they consider themselves hands-on or hands-off?

3. How many drafts are they willing to read? How many days do they typically need to turn around a draft with commentary and revisions? 

4. How available will they be during your senior year? During the summer before your senior year?

5. Do they have any books or journal articles they think you should read before your next meeting?

6. Are they currently researching a project or running a lab that intersects with your interests?

Best Practices for Managing Your Relationship

In relationships, communication is critical. This holds just as much for your relationship with your thesis advisor. 

Establish frequency of meetings early on (Every week? Twice a week? Every other week?)

If you aren’t clear about what is expected of you, ASK!

Working backward from the final deadline, create a timeline of mini-deadlines guaranteed to ensure no last-minute disasters

Ask for feedback

If you get behind, explain your situation to your advisor. Don’t leave them out of the loop

“Google can bring you back 100,000 answers; a librarian can bring you back the right one."    –Neil Gaiman

Tip : Before Day One of research, schedule a meeting with a campus librarian to learn about your library’s resources! They can show you how to customize Advanced Searches and sort through the overwhelming amount of information that will likely appear in your first basic searches. They can give you examples of primary, secondary, and tertiary resources in your major and point you to scholarly databases (e.g., JSTOR, Web of Science, psychINFO, Pub Med) and peer-reviewed journals likely to be useful for your topic. For more details check out these guides on evaluating resources and avoiding plagiarism.

Time Management Checklist

You've got an advisor, and you're ready to begin! Before you start digging through databases, it can be helpful to develop a plan of attack for managing your time and getting your work done. Here are some tips for managing your time:

☐ Work backward to create deadlines. If you know that a certain kind of deadline is in October of your senior year, create deadlines throughout your summer. Design doable mini-tasks (e.g., reading 15 abstracts, conducting fieldwork, reading 1-3 articles, researching several keywords in one database; developing the first half of your outline for your methods chapter, drafting a section of your introduction; learning to fix the kinks in your citation program).

☐ Block out reasonable and specific chunks of time rather than having a generic commitment to “work on my thesis” today. Ask your advisor how many hours per week they recommend on average.

☐ Be realistic! Track how long it takes you to settle down to work and do typical tasks like complete a search, read an abstract, read a short article, read a systematic review, take notes, summarize arguments, and understand different methodologies or theories. Plot your goals and plan your schedule accordingly.

☐ Don’t fall for the myth of busy! In our hectic, multi-tasking world, it’s easy to confuse the appearance of being busy with actual progress. Make sure you are actually checking things off your To Do/To Read/To Write/To Summarize list. 

☐ Before you finish for the day, jot down a note to yourself about where you should begin tomorrow.

An Example, From Topic to Research Question: Lessons from Cats

It can be confusing to understand the difference between your research interests, your topic, and your research question. So let’s climb out on a limb and take a look at these distinctions by using cats as our subject matter. 

Nothing immediately leaps out at you as an obvious thesis topic. In the meantime, you are obsessed with cats, so let’s pretend you have a single-minded, perhaps ill-advised, dogged (pun semi-intended) determination that cats will meow their way into your thesis, regardless of your major.

Side note: Of course, this is a terrible way to approach your actual topic! If you aren’t interested in an actual topic in your major, you probably shouldn’t be writing a senior thesis. We’re just using this example so that all of our readers, regardless of major, can learn about the process of narrowing a topic and formulating a research question. 

A recent library search yielded 806,541 results on “cats” from studies in biology, literature, history, psychology, animal science, statistics, art history, economics, public health, gender studies, and—alas—theater/performance studies. You need to narrow your topic! 

First, by discipline. Literature students might quickly rule out Margaret Atwood and Kurt Vonnegut (neither The Cat’s Eye nor Cat’s Cradle is actually about cats, to your chagrin). Search engines might steer you toward Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, Edgar Allen Poe, Ursula Le Guin, T.S. Eliot, or Colette. 

Physics majors might already be investigating Schrödinger’s cat, and medieval studies majors might tackle why depictions of medieval cats look like furry humanoid devils. 

But let’s pretend you are a psych major. Using your library resources, you try “cats” and “psychology” and comb through every title, saving each one that piques your interest. It dawns on you that there aren’t any articles addressing how to interpret cat’s dreams, or how bullying affects cats’ cognitive development. You get excited because you think you’ve identified a gap in the literature, but then you remember: they are cats, and Freud didn’t tell us how to interpret cat’s dreams. So you try “cats” and “humans.” You see what the results yield, and then try other combinations: cats, felines, kittens, pets, animals, animal studies, psychology, people. 

It’s best to be open-minded and discover the full range of options (given your refusal to write about something typical in psychology, like mindfulness and smartphones, or the effects of cocaine on rats). After glancing at 100 titles and reading abstracts about owner personality and cat’s well-being, owner scent, pheromones, and feline anxiety, lo and behold! You come across the article, “Not the Cat’s Meow? The Impact of Posing with Cats on Female Perceptions of Male Dateability.” You read the abstract and are eager to read the whole article. Bingo! You’ve discovered a specific passion for the relationship between gender, desire, and cats. 

At this point, you go back and try new combinations of all things cat with words like “women,” “females,” “men,” “males,” and “relationships” to see what else is out there. With each article you find, you mine its bibliography and add new articles to your “To Read” list. You also pay attention to the language in the abstracts and refine your search terms. This will be critical for your literature review, so make certain to keep track of your search terms and author/titles.

Tip : Prepare an elevator speech! As in, get the topic down to three sentences that you could explain to a stranger on an elevator. If you find yourself going on and on and the stranger would have already arrived at their floor, practice more.

In this phase, you are skimming titles and abstracts to understand what’s already been said. You are also noticing how to write about cats in a scholarly way. Finally, you are discovering what hasn’t been said. In the meantime, you have figured out that you want to find out if there is a difference in the way that women relate to cats versus how men relate to cats. Later, you might refine this to factor in gender identity and sexual identification. You will keep honing your language and clarifying your terms, but for now, you’ve landed on your topic, you’ve conducted some background research , and are ready to write your research question!

So what’s a research question?

A research question is an answerable question that will guide your inquiry and help you navigate the flood of information that you are going to encounter. Here’s one possible one for cats. 

Is there a difference between the way that females relate to their household cats and the way that males relate to their household cats? If a difference is identified, do gender identity and sexual identity account for some of those differences? What other variables might influence the outcomes? (Note: this question likely sets you up for a qualitative project where you conduct semi-structured interviews or an observational study conducted in households).  

Locating Your Primary Sources  

Your sources are who or what will provide answers to your research question/s or thematic focus. Know where to find them!

Do answers to your question reside with a population, a key informant, panel of experts, or a first-person account of an event?

Archival materials, government documents, maps, or a museum exhibition?

A healthcare system? A lab? Pharmaceutical companies? 

A social issue like poverty, immigration, racism, or homophobia?

An advertising campaign or political cartoons?

Tangible objects, extreme weather, or the neocortical circuit?

A leadership style or political system?

A mathematical or computational model?

A novel, play, or poem, films, paintings, photographs, or sound recordings?

Cryptocurrency? Human rights discourse?

Manifestos, treatises, religious, or philosophical texts?

Locating Your Secondary Sources

The majority of your academic resources should come from peer-reviewed (also called refereed) journals, the most respected source of academic information. Peer-reviewed means that an expert has written the article and that several experts in the field have reviewed it before it is published. Secondary sources can also come from academic books. How do you know when a book is academic? Look at the publisher information. If the publisher is a university press, it is likely an academic book or anthology written by a professor. With a few exceptions, the word “university” will be part of the publisher’s information. Non-university presses that are still considered academic include Routledge, Sage, and Wiley. Not sure? Ask a librarian!

Tip: Learn a Citation Program From the Get-Go! This is something you can do the summer after junior year. Stay on top of your citations. Find out which citation management programs your university supports (e.g., Mendeley, Zotero, Endnote). There are pros and cons to all of them, but the basic idea is the same: you import the details for each reference (author’s name, date of publication, title of article and journal, volume number, page number). Once you are ready to write, insert your citations for your paper using the citation program instead of typing them in manually. This will automatically format your citations and generate your bibliography in whatever citation style (MLA, APA, Chicago) you need.

Tip: Use your sources, don’t let your sources use you! Tackle them actively, always asking yourself how they relate to your own project. Try not to absorb information passively, as if their results and conclusions are just Truth or Facts to regurgitate. Want to know more about evaluating sources? Click *HERE.*

Sample Timeline:

Junior year.

First Semester Junior Year:

Decide on a thesis topic or approach and start to narrow your focus.

Start identifying potential advisors and ask about their availability … and make sure they aren’t on sabbatical your senior year.

Try to take at least one class with each potential advisor.

Draft a description of your potential topic and a statement of your preliminary ideas about how to go about researching it.

Talk to seniors currently writing their thesis.

Read past theses in your department.

Take a statistics class if you are in the social or natural sciences.

Second Semester Junior Year:

Decide on your advisor and discuss plans.

Conduct enough background research to determine the viability of your topic and make changes if necessary.

Draft a thesis proposal and write a prospectus (unless your university doesn’t want this until senior year).

If you plan on working with human subjects (psychology, sociology, anthropology), submit an IRB protocol. Even if you just plan on interviewing people, you’ll need approval first. You may need to attend a training workshop. Find out sooner rather than later.

Seek funding for your research.

Make a one-on-one appointment with a reference librarian in your area of focus and ask for help conducting advanced research through electronic databases.

Take a research methods class.

Plan your summer with your advisor. Ask them what they recommend, and establish deadlines. Find out how often they want you to give them updates, and ask about their availability for check-ins.

Summer Between Junior and Senior Year:

Read! Read more! Nope, even more!

Conduct research! Conduct fieldwork!

Take notes! (Note on notes: Develop a note-taking system that works for you.)

Learn your citation program!

If you are in the humanities (actually, even if you aren’t), order and devour Umberto Eco’s How to Write a Thesis . Check out Powell’s Books, Alibris, ThriftBooks, and AbeBooks for second-hand options.

Senior Year

Confirm your primary thesis advisor and the rest of your committee.

Establish healthy and reliable communication patterns! Fix a regular meeting time with your primary advisor and provide regular progress reports or written drafts to advisor/s.

Imagine your finished thesis. Consider chapter breakdowns or other forms of presenting the finished product. How long will it be? How many chapters? What might the breakdown of chapters look like? Sections within chapters?

Attend all informational meetings your department offers and understand all requirements and expectations for both the process and the finished product.

Create your own project timeline and goals. 

Conduct research. Conduct more research.

Meet with librarians for guidance on conducting advanced electronic database research.

Categorize information as you find it. Keep accurate bibliographic notes and organized files.

Establish a place to keep notes on your ideas, questions, confusions, and research discoveries.

Consider drafting some introductory sections of your thesis, as well as your literature review, methodology, and definitions of terms.

November/December:

Begin to outline and draft a chapter (does not necessarily need to be the first chapter).

Plan a detailed research and writing agenda for winter break. 

January/February:

Submit a draft of a chapter or section of your thesis to your advisor. Remember to include a bibliography with any draft you submit to your committee members.

Schedule a meeting with your thesis advisor to discuss your work over winter break.

Plan a new timeline for spring. Plan to have the thesis substantially written BEFORE spring break.

Continue to send regular progress reports to your committee.

February/March:

Tackle your thesis one section at a time. When you have a section or two completed, ask your advisor if they can tell you if you are heading in the right direction.

Along the way, be scrupulous about citing your sources correctly! You don’t want to have to go back and check your sources at the end because you got sloppy! Accidental plagiarism is still plagiarism .

Set a date and time for your defense. 

Rewrite, revise, rewrite, revise: think about tackling any organizational and structural revisions to make your logic as sound as possible.

Pay careful attention so that you address all of your advisor’s comments. If anything doesn’t make sense to you, ask them!

Keep in frequent and positive contact with the rest of your committee so that you aren’t in for any surprises during your defense! You can even ask them what you should be prepared for.

Double-check your citations and references.

Submit completed thesis to your committee. Protocol typically offers them the thesis at least two weeks before your defense. Check with each member individually to see if they have an alternative timeframe.

Complete any revisions your committee requires.

Prepare the final document for archives according to your university’s instructions.

Sound good? Good.

Special thanks to Christine Rose for writing this post and contributing to other College Writing Center resources

Born to parents from Tennessee and Mississippi, Christine was the first in the family to cross the Mason-Dixon line for college. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Smith (to her parents' delight) with a major in Literature (to her parents' chagrin). She completed her PhD in the History of Consciousness Board (UC/Santa Cruz), specializing in the History of Medicine, Biopolitics, Postcolonialism, and Gender & Sexuality with a dissertation involving 19th-century vampires, spermatorrheaics, wet nurses, menstrual madwomen, onanistic schoolboys, and syphilitic prostitutes. Before leaving academia to pursue the good life in Miami Beach and Berlin, she was a professor at Macalester College and UC-Davis. 

Top values: Knowledge | Curiosity | Integrity | Cats

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What Is a Senior Thesis?

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A senior thesis is a large, independent research project that students take on during their senior year of high school or college to fulfill their graduation requirement. It is the culminating work of their studies at a particular institution, and it represents their ability to conduct research and write effectively. For some students, a senior thesis is a requirement for graduating with honors.

Students typically work closely with an advisor and choose a question or topic to explore before carrying out an extensive research plan.

Style Manuals and the Paper's Organization

The structure of your research paper will depend, in part, on the style manual that is required by your instructor. Different disciplines, such as history, science, or education, have different rules to abide by when it comes to research paper construction, organization, and modes of citation. The styles for different types of assignment include:

Modern Language Association (MLA): The disciplines that tend to prefer the MLA style guide include literature, arts, and the humanities, such as linguistics, religion, and philosophy. To follow this style, you will use parenthetical citations to indicate your sources and a works cited page to show the list of books and articles you consulted.

American Psychological Association (APA): The APA style manual tends to be used in psychology, education, and some of the social sciences. This type of report may require the following:

• Introduction

Chicago style: "The Chicago Manual of Style" is used in most college-level history courses as well as professional publications that contain scholarly articles. Chicago style may call for endnotes or footnotes corresponding to a bibliography page at the back or the author-date style of in-text citation, which uses parenthetical citations and a references page at the end.

Turabian style: Turabian is a student version of Chicago style. It requires some of the same formatting techniques as Chicago, but it includes special rules for writing college-level papers, such as book reports. A Turabian research paper may call for endnotes or footnotes and a bibliography.

Science style: Science instructors may require students to use a format that is similar to the structure used in publishing papers in scientific journals. The elements you would include in this sort of paper include:

• List of materials and methods used
• Results of your methods and experiments
• Acknowledgments

American Medical Association (AMA): The AMA style book might be required for students in medical or premedical degree programs in college. Parts of an AMA research paper might include:

• Proper headings and lists
• Tables and figures
• In-text citations
• Reference list

Choose Your Topic Carefully

Starting off with a bad, difficult, or narrow topic likely won't lead to a positive result. Don't choose a question or statement that's so broad that it's overwhelming and could comprise a lifetime of research or a topic that's so narrow you'll struggle to compose 10 pages. Consider a topic that has a lot of recent research so you won't struggle to put your hands on current or adequate sources.

Select a topic that interests you. Putting in long hours on a subject that bores you will be arduous—and ripe for procrastination. If a professor recommends an area of interest, make sure it excites you.

Also, consider expanding a paper you've already written; you'll hit the ground running because you've already done some research and know the topic. Last, consult with your advisor before finalizing your topic. You don't want to put in a lot of hours on a subject that is rejected by your instructor.

Organize Your Time

Plan to spend half of your time researching and the other half writing. Often, students spend too much time researching and then find themselves in a crunch, madly writing in the final hours. Give yourself goals to reach along certain "signposts," such as the number of hours you want to have invested each week or by a certain date or how much you want to have completed in those same timeframes.

Organize Your Research

Compose your works cited or bibliography entries as you work on your paper. This is especially important if your style manual requires you to use access dates for any online sources that you review or requires page numbers be included in the citations. You don't want to end up at the very end of the project and not know what day you looked at a particular website or have to search through a hard-copy book looking for a quote that you included in the paper. Save PDFs of online sites, too, as you wouldn't want to need to look back at something and not be able to get online or find that the article has been removed since you read it.

Choose an Advisor You Trust

This may be your first opportunity to work with direct supervision. Choose an advisor who's familiar with the field, and ideally select someone you like and whose classes you've already taken. That way you'll have a rapport from the start. 

Consult Your Instructor

Remember that your instructor is the final authority on the details and requirements of your paper. Read through all instructions, and have a conversation with your instructor at the start of the project to determine his or her preferences and requirements. Have a cheat sheet or checklist of this information; don't expect yourself to remember all year every question you asked or instruction you were given. 

• What Is a Bibliography?
• Turabian Style Guide With Examples
• What Is a Citation?
• Formatting Papers in Chicago Style
• What Is a Style Guide and Which One Do You Need?
• Bibliography: Definition and Examples
• Definition of Appendix in a Book or Written Work
• Tips for Typing an Academic Paper on a Computer
• What Are Endnotes, Why Are They Needed, and How Are They Used?
• How to Organize Research Notes
• MLA Style Parenthetical Citations
• Formatting APA Headings and Subheadings
• Definition and Examples of Analysis in Composition
• Bibliography, Reference List or Works Cited?
• What's the Preferred Way to Write the Abbreviation for United States?
• Margin (Composition Format) Definition

Department of Comparative Literature

You are here, the senior essay.

Feeling a little intimidated? Don’t be. The senior essay gives you the opportunity you’ve always wanted to sink yourself fully into your favorite literary topic under the supervision of a Yale faculty member.

Normally, unless there’s a very, very good reason not to, you’ll find yourself working with texts in the language of their original composition. But that won’t be a problem for you by then. You’ll welcome it.

Nuts and Bolts     |      Senior Essay Due Dates      |      Senior Essay Prizes

Classical Studies

Senior Thesis & Senior Essay

A successful Senior Thesis or Essay will deal directly with primary sources (in the original language to the extent possible), show knowledge of and critical engagement with current scholarship on the subject, and present an original argument developed in response to these sources.  The topic might grow out of an oral presentation given in a class, a visit to a monument or site during an overseas study program, or a desire to study in greater depth a set of texts already encountered in a classroom setting.  Students thinking about a thesis may wish to look at the past theses in Downey House 115; see a  list of recent thesis titles.

While the Senior Thesis is a two-semester project, the Senior Essay is a substantial one-semester research project undertaken in the context of an individual tutorial. It may be completed in either the fall or the spring semester of the senior year.  Both should be considered serious academic undertakings and students should plan to begin research in the semester or summer which precedes it. While there is no prescribed minimum length, 30-40 pages is the typical range for an Essay and 70-80 pages for a Thesis.  In order to write a thesis or essay, one must first secure the agreement of a departmental faculty member to serve as an advisor.  In consultation with the advisor, the student should then outline the topic and compile a basic bibliography. 

All students who intend to write a Senior Thesis are required to submit a thesis proposal to the Department by April 15 of the junior year. Students who wish to write a Senior Essay should submit their proposal to the Department by the end of the previous semester (April 15 for an essay to be written in the fall semester, November 15 for the spring). 

The Proposal

The Senior Thesis or Essay proposal should be a clear and concise statement of the aims and scope of the project. It should include a description of the central topic or the question to be explored, the main primary sources to be considered, and a bibliography of major secondary sources that will be consulted.  The student should also outline the analytical method to be used and any theoretical approaches that may be brought to bear on the topic under consideration.  The proposal should be no more than 2-3pp. in length.  The student must also include in the proposal the name of the faculty member who has agreed to serve as advisor for the thesis.  Students on foreign study programs in the spring of the junior year should identify an advisor as soon as possible to ensure timely submission of their proposal.

Proposals will be considered by the departmental faculty.  If the project is deemed appropriate in scope, depth and sophistication for a senior thesis, it will be approved.  The student will be informed of the faculty's decision by May 1 (or Dec 1 for fall essay submissions).  Appeals of that decision will not be considered, so it is extremely important that students work with a faculty member well in advance of the deadline to develop a suitable project. 

Junior Spring (or Senior Fall for Spring Essay-writers):  After consultation with the advisor, students submit proposals to the Department for approval. Submission dates are April 15 or November 15. 

Summer before Senior Year :  Research. This might include broad secondary reading, gathering of data or of bibliography, or a first reading of a text in the original Greek or Latin.  Students may wish to look into summer seminars, language programs, or archaeological excavations that will provide skills, ideas, or data sets for a senior thesis.

Senior Fall:   Register for the thesis/essay tutorial (For thesis: GRK,LAT, or CCIV 409; for the Essay:  GRK, LAT, or CCIV 403).  During regular meetings the advisor, in consultation with the student, will establish expectations for the completion of the project in stages.  After discussion with the advisor, a student may wish to consult other members of the department whose expertise may be relevant to the thesis topic.  Work in progress reports are due in January.

Senior Spring: Submit completed thesis in mid-April. The Honors College provides information about formatting theses for submission, including standards for paper, printing and binding.  Students may not use departmental printers or copy machines for theses, but may seek the help or advice of the department for printing Greek or using illustrations.  ITS provides a printing service.

Evaluation and Honors

In most cases, the faculty advisor alone reads the Senior Essay and assigns a grade for the tutorial. Students should not enter upon a Senior Essay project with the expectation of being considered for honors.  Departmental Honors are normally reserved for students who write a thesis, although in extraordinary circumstances the department may elect to consider a senior essay for honors.  For the Thesis, the evaluating committee will consist of the advisor, one additional faculty member within the department, and one faculty member from within or outside the department.  The advisor and the student will discuss and choose the other readers in the spring, with the advisor responsible for contacting readers in other departments (unless both advisor and student agree that the student shall make the contact).  Promptness is recommended in speaking to possible readers in departments like English and History, which typically have many theses to read within their own departments.  

Committee members will receive the thesis soon after it is submitted to the Honors College in April.  They will forward to the departmental chair written evaluations, including a recommendation for a grade, and a recommendation for Honors or High Honors, or a recommendation that Honors not be awarded.  Sufficient time must be allowed for the chair to forward a recommendation about grade and Honors to the Honors College by the deadline.  Each reader has the option of forwarding evaluations, or an edited (shortened or expanded) version of the evaluations, directly to the student, but the student should not be told the recommendation for Honors or grade.  A thesis must receive a grade of B+ or better to receive departmental Honors, and A or better to receive departmental High Honors.  If the readers' recommendations differ, the chair will discuss with them possibilities for compromise or, more rarely, use of an additional reader.  A student who does not receive departmental Honors may and ordinarily will still receive credit for the thesis tutorials, if the advisor feels this is appropriate.  When all decisions have been made about departmental Honors, the department chair or (with the chair's approval) the advisor shall inform the student about the decision regarding Honors and grade.   The advisor shall give the student a course grade for the two terms of work on the thesis; this grade need not be the same as that awarded to the thesis.  Often a grade of "X" will be recorded for work on a thesis in the fall, and grades for both 409 and 410 will be determined in the spring.

Students who have been awarded departmental High Honors for the thesis and who have completed all General Education expectations are eligible to be nominated by the department for University Honors.  A very small number of Wesleyan students compete for University Honors each year; only a handful receives the prize.  This recommendation should accompany the grade and recommendation for High Honors sent to the Honors College on the deadline mentioned above.  Selected nominees for University Honors must qualify in an oral examination administered by the Honors Committee, which includes discussion of the thesis but which focuses on other areas of questioning designed to show the students' breadth of knowledge in all areas of the curriculum.

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• Senior Essay

The senior essay for economics majors is optional. However, the senior essay is required for consideration for Distinction in the Major. Most students who write a senior essay find it immensely rewarding and consider it one of their best experiences at Yale.

Senior essays are an opportunity for students to engage in independent, original economic research. Essays are not reviews of the literature, rather they are an examination of an hypothesis using the tools of economics. In particular, the essay must contain original research and/or analysis. They can be theoretical, empirical or computational. The senior essays that receive A’s and are awarded prizes are typically those that use economics tools (and, where appropriate, data) to offer fresh insights on questions. Topics are as diverse as recording and analyzing the behavior of black jack players, the effect of charter schools on student performance, the effect of China’s development on trade, the effect of the Fed on the stock market…. Examples of past essays are available on the department website .

See below for a guide written by thesis writers in the class of 2023.

There are no page requirements or formatting requirements for senior essays in economics. Advice regarding bibliographies, graphs, etc. should be given by your advisor. Generally, essays run about 30 pages.

Senior essay writers may receive a maximum of $500 for legitimate research expenses, provided the student has made a good-faith effort to obtain funding from Yale College. There are many funding opportunities available for research which can be found here: https://funding.yale.edu/find-funding/class-year#toc2 . Funding requests are reviewed on a case-by-case basis and must be approved by the DUS and Chair.

NOTE: Students must take two econometrics courses (or ECON 135 plus one econometrics course) in order to write a senior essay. The second econometrics course can be taken Cr/D/F for the purposes of the senior essay (but in this case it will not count toward the major requirements). The second econometrics course can be taken in the fall of senior year.

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Senior essays can be 1-term or 2-term essays. The difference between a 1-term and a 2-term essay is that the 2-term essay is broader in scope and/or goes in greater depth. Most economics majors do 2-term essays.

Senior essays can be done in one of several ways:

1-Term Essays

• Enroll in Econ 491a in the fall of your senior year.
• Expand a term paper from a fall-term seminar in your senior year ( depends on availability of seminar instructor )
• Please note that a 1-term essay cannot be done in the spring term of your senior year.

2-Term Essays

• Enroll in Econ 491a and Econ 492b
• Expand a term paper from a fall-term seminar in your senior year and enroll in Econ 492b ( depends on availability of seminar instructor for both semesters )

For the class of 2024

• Enroll in Econ 491a ( not necessary if you are doing a senior essay out of a fall seminar)
• Choose an advisor and a topic. You should refer to the Potential Advisors webpage for help finding an advisor who is available and is appropriate for your topic. If you have difficulty finding an advisor, see the ECON 491 instructor or the DUS for suggestions. There are many economics faculty members who may be ideal advisors for your topic.  Students may also choose a campus economist from outside of the department. (Permission of the DUS required to choose a non-economist adviser.) In order to do an essay out of a fall seminar, you need the seminar professor to agree to be your advisor (for both semesters in the case of a 2-term essay).
• Meet with your advisor regularly. It is the student’s responsibility to make sure that these regular meetings occur.
• Submit a “Senior Essay Prospectus” on or before Monday, October 2, 2023 by 4:30 pm. The prospectus must be signed by your advisor. All students planning to write a senior essay must hand in a prospectus at this time. Failure to do so results in your not being permitted to write an essay. A late prospectus will not be accepted without a Dean’s note.
• Students enrolled in a 2-term essay must submit a written progress report to their advisor on Wednesday, November 8, 2023. For essays involving substantial data collection and statistical analysis, a description of the research question and the data that has been gathered for analysis may be appropriate. For others, a portion of the essay itself or a detailed outline describing the thesis question, existing literature, and planned method of analysis is suitable. Based on this report, your advisor will be asked to give you a temporary grade of satisfactory or not satisfactory for the fall term. This temporary grade will be replaced by the final grade on your senior essay in April.
• You are allowed to switch advisor, with DUS permission, but no later than the progress report due date . In this case you need to submit a new prospectus form signed by the new advisor by the progress report due date .
• A student who wishes to change a 1-term essay to a 2-term essay must get permission from the advisor and the DUS prior to the Thanksgiving break. To convert, a student must have made satisfactory progress on the essay by that time. No conversions will be allowed after Thanksgiving.
• 1-term senior essays are due to your advisor on Wednesday, December 6, 2023 by 4:30 pm. For students doing a 1-term essay by enrolling in Econ 491a, the advisor will evaluate and grade the paper, which will be your grade for the course. For students doing a 1-term essay out of a seminar, the advisor will evaluate and grade the paper, but the essay grade will not appear on your transcript. The grade and evaluation will be used for determination of distinction and departmental prizes. A final version of the 1-term senior essay must be submitted on or before Wednesday, April 3, 2024 by 4:30 pm via email to Dan Rehberg, Interim Undergraduate Registrar, at [email protected] for grading by the outside anonymous reader. Late essays will be accepted only with a Dean’s Extension. Essays that are submitted late without a Dean's Extension will receive a grade penalty (which will grow with the length of the delay).
• Note: students doing the 1-term essay may continue to make additional revisions beyond the fall term before the April due date. Please bear in mind, however, that advisors of 1-term essays may have other commitments and are not obligated to advise you beyond the fall term.

Spring 2024

• For students doing 2-term essays, enroll in Econ 492b.
• 2-term senior essays must be submitted on or before Wednesday, April 3, 2024 at 4:30 pm via email to Dan Rehberg, Interim Undergraduate Registrar, at [email protected] . Late essays will be accepted only with a Dean’s Extension. Essays that are submitted after the deadline without a Dean's Extension will receive a grade penalty (which will grow with the length of the delay).
• Advisor’s Reports with grades and comments and Reader’s Reports with grades and comments are usually available by the end of reading week in the Economics Undergraduate Registrar’s Office.

Hi Juniors, If you are reading this guide, this means (we hope) that you’re considering writing a senior essay in economics! Writing an economics thesis is an incredibly fulfilling experience, and we hope that if you feel prepared, you write one! To help clarify the process and give advice, the Economics Peer Mentors from the 2022-2023 academic year have made an updated version of this guide from the Class of 2021 that was created by Alya Ahmed and Lara Varela Gajewski, with responses from the Class of 2023.

Link to Class of 2023 Guide

Best of luck, Sarah Moon ‘23, Economics & Mathematics Ayumi Sudo ‘23, Economics

Some Takeaways: 

Most seniors, including all seniors that responded to our survey, wrote a two-term thesis. 

Seniors wrote essays on topics in:

• Labor economics
• Macroeconomics
• Econometrics
• Behavioral economics
• Public economics 
• Environmental economics
• ...and more 

Advisors were chosen from: 

• Herb Scarf RA and Tobin RA positions
• Classes taken in junior year or in the fall semester senior seminars
• Recommended by other professors/ECON 491 TA's
• Cold emailing

Econ thesis advisors are from:

• Yale Economics Department
• Yale School of Management 
• Yale School of Environment
• ...and more

Topics were inspired by: 

• Personal interests 
• Previously taken classes
• Summer research work
• Interesting data sets

Economics 491 counts as a 400 level, senior requirement course. Economics 492 counts as an elective.

Students writing a one-semester essay out of Economics 491 will receive a letter grade at the end of the fall semester based on the quality of their senior thesis. Students writing a one-semester essay out of a senior seminar will only receive a grade for the seminar on their transcript. They will not see their senior essay grade on their transcript, but it will be recorded by the department for distinction purposes. Students writing a two-semester essay by taking 491 and 492, will receive a temporary 491 grade (Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory) at the end of the fall semester. That grade will be replaced by a letter grade given for 491 and 492 based on the quality of the senior essay. Students who write a two-semester essay by taking a seminar and then 492 will receive a grade based on the requirements of the seminar in the fall. In the spring they will receive a grade for 492 based on the quality of the senior essay. Your senior essay will be graded by your advisor.

To qualify for distinction, a senior must receive a grade of A or A- from their advisor on the senior essay and have 3/4 of their economics grades be A’s or A-’s. For the purpose of distinction economics grades include related course credit, but do not include introductory microeconomics, introductory macroeconomics, the math requirement nor courses taken outside of Yale.

Senior Essay Course Lecturer:

Rebecca Toseland will be the Fall 2023 lecturer for The Senior Essay (Econ 491a) course.

Lecturer and TF office hours are by appointment only. Schedule a time on office hours sign-up sheet below.

Senior Essay TF:

Ken Jung will be the Fall 2023 TF for The Senior Essay (Econ 491a) course.

Office Hours Sign-up Sheet

Lecturer and TF office hours are by appointment only. Schedule a time on this sign-up sheet (must be signed-in with Eli Apps to view and edit).

If you would like to request an appointment at a different time, please email the Lecturer or TF.

Senior Essay Prizes

Essays will also be read by an anonymous economics department faculty member. Only the advisor’s grade will appear on the transcript. However, both the advisor and the anonymous readers must nominate an essay for that essay to move on to the awards committee.

Three or more prizes for outstanding senior essays are awarded each year by the economics undergraduate prize committee. The  Charles Heber Dickerman Memorial Prize  is awarded for the best senior essay; the  Ronald Meltzer/Cornelia Awdziewicz Economic Award  is awarded for one or two more outstanding senior essays and the  Ellington Prize  is awarded for one or more outstanding essays in the field of finance.

Senior Essays Nominated for Prizes

Women in Economics 2021 Senior Thesis Spotlight

Program on Ethics, Politics and Economics

The senior essay.

The EPE Senior Essay

A senior essay is required for the major and should constitute an intellectual culmination of the student’s work in Ethics, Politics, and Economics. The essay should fall within the student’s area of concentration and may be written within a relevant seminar, with the consent of the instructor and approval of the director of undergraduate studies, provided that the EPE essay constitutes most of the grade for the seminar. The senior essay must be written by the EPE deadline, which may in some cases be earlier than the course deadline, and the overall grade for the course will constitute the grade for the EPE essay. If no appropriate seminar is offered in which the essay might be written, the student may instead enroll in EP&E 491 with approval of the director of undergraduate studies and a faculty member who will supervise the essay. Students who wish to undertake a more substantial yearlong essay may enroll in EP&E 492, 493. In either case the grade will be calculated on the basis of evaluations by the primary and secondary readers, in the proportion of two thirds to one third.

The senior essay reflects more extensive research than an ordinary Yale College seminar paper and employs a method of research appropriate to its topic, which should address a topic in each of the three dimensions – normative, institutional, and economic. Some papers might be written entirely from library sources; others may employ field interviews and direct observation; still others may require statistical or econometric analysis. The student should consult frequently with the seminar instructor or adviser, offering partial and preliminary drafts for criticism. One semester essays should be about 40-50 pages in length, while year-long essays should be about 80-100 pages long. 

Whether students are writing in a thesis or in a seminar or 491-493, regular attendance at the EPE senior essay workshop and contact with the advisor is mandatory.

Click here for a list of past EPE senior essay titles.

The Advisor and Second Reader

The senior essay grade will be calculated on the basis of evaluations by the primary and secondary readers, in the proportion of two thirds to one third.  All students and their faculty advisors devise a schedule for regular meetings to discuss progress on the essay and consider drafts throughout the writing process. All students will also choose a Second Reader, regardless if the essay is written independently or in a seminar.

Students should consult frequently with the seminar instructor or adviser, offering preliminary but carefully written and organized drafts for criticism.  The body of a one-semester essay should be about 40-50 pages in length.  The body of a year-long essay should be about 80-100 pages in length.

Joint Senior Essay

If an EPE student decides to write a joint senior essay, he or she must satisfy each major’s distinct senior essay requirements in one senior essay.  Also, please know that no additional overlap in course credits is permitted.  Additionally, you must meet with the EPE DUS for approval if you want to write a joint senior essay.

The Senior Essay Consultant

An advanced graduate student from one of EP&E’s affiliate departments will serve as a senior essay consultant, available to essay writers for consultation on the formulation of research questions, integrating normative and positive analysis, working with data and evidence, and drafting and revising essays.

The Senior Essay Writing Workshop

The Department of EP&E offers senior essay writers the opportunity to participate in a workshop organized by the Senior Essay Consultant and the Director of Undergraduate Studies. Participants will share proposals, literature reviews, and drafts of their essays amongst themselves, receiving feedback on ideas and methods from their peers. Students writing the essay in a seminar are require to attend at least one of these workshops; students writing the essay as an independent study are required to attend all three. All meetings will be held in the first-floor conference room in the EP&E building at 31 Hillhouse Avenue.

All seniors must submit a Senior Essay Form and Requirements Progress Report (both available on the EP&E forms page) signed by their senior essay advisor, indicating their writing plans (dates TBD).  If you are writing your essay in in the fall semester the due date is December 4, 2023; if writing a spring semester or yearlong essay the due date is April 15, 2024.  Students and their advisors are encouraged to develop their own deadlines and mechanisms for marking progress, but the Department maintains deadlines, which correspond to meetings of the Senior Essay Writing Workshop, for both participants and non-participants.

Submission and Grading

On the day the senior essay is due, students should submit an electronic copy of their essay to the EPE registrar and cc the Senior Essay Consultant and their two readers by noon of the due date. Any recognized standard writing format is acceptable. You must list the names of both readers on the title page.  Grades are determined by averaging the grades of the advisor (2/3) and the second reader (1/3).

The EP&E Program awards two departmental senior essay prizes -

• The George Hume Prize is awarded to the senior essay that best investigates both the normative and empirical components of public issues.
• The William H. Orrick Jr. Prize is awarded to the essay that best integrates EP&E’s constituent disciplines while illuminating a concrete problem.

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The Senior Essay

In November of your senior year, you will submit a proposal for your essay to the Department of Literatures in English. The purpose of your proposal is to define the project for your senior thesis, demonstrate the viability of your project, and locate yourself within the critical debate about your chosen literary texts.

The essay should be 30-40 pages long, not including notes, bibliography and other apparatus. In late April of your senior year, you will submit a bound copy and an electronic copy of the Senior Essay in its final form . The hard copy should be delivered to the English House Office and the electronic copy should be sent to Bryn Thompson [email protected]

Once you turn your bound essay in, it is distributed to your thesis adviser and to a second reader for response and evaluation . 

Essay Schedule Spring 2024

Department of Literatures in English

English House Bryn Mawr College 101 N. Merion Avenue Bryn Mawr, PA 19010-2899 Phone: 610-526-5306

Bryn Thompson, Administrative Assistant [email protected]

Department of Political Science

Year-long Senior Essays

• - What is the year-long senior essay?
• - How does the year-long senior essay work?
• - Why write a year-long senior essay?
• - What should I know before I select an adviser?
• - Do I have to write my essay on a particular topic? Do I have to involve a quantitative exercise?
• - What is the application process?
• - Am I required to do research over the summer?
• - What do I need to know about PLSC 490?
• - What will I gain from PLSC 490?
• - Does PLSC 490 fulfill the requirement that all majors must take at least one seminar in the senior year?
• - What do I need to know about PLSC 491?
• - Is there a specific page requirement for the year-long senior essay?
• - Can I see examples of past year-long essays?
• - How does the grading system work?
• - Where should I look for additional information?

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Senior Essay

The Senior Essay (CLAS 495) is required of all majors in the Department of Classics except for those writing an Honors Thesis.  The minimum requirement is two credits of CLAS 495, and the maximum number of credits allowed is generally three.  The Senior Essay will usually be written in the last year of study and usually in conjunction with another course (e.g. an upper-division Latin or Greek course or other course approved towards the degree).  The Senior Essay will generally be written for the instructor of the course to which it is attached and may, in certain cases, simply consist of a longer or fuller paper than that assigned for a course. The following guidelines will give you an idea of the nature of the requirement.

1. For each credit of CLAS 495, 7 to 10 pages of finished text (excluding bibliography, contents, title page, etc.) is the normal minimum.

2. Papers should be typed double-spaced, adhere to the conventions of academic writing, and conform to the standard professional stylesheet approved by the Society for Classical Studies and found here (copies are also available in the Department of Classics office):

https://classicalstudies.org/sites/default/files/documents/TAPA_Style_Sheet.pdf

In accordance with this stylesheet, the paper should also be accompanied by a short abstract no more than 100 words in length.

3. The paper is to undergo at least one revision until it reaches a form acceptable to the instructor involved. The first full draft of the paper is due by Monday of the 8th week of class. The final version is due the last day of class.

4. Students are strongly encouraged to discuss potential topics for the paper with the appropriate faculty member PRIOR to the quarter in which the paper will be written.  Topics for the paper should, in any case, be finalized in consultation with the instructor involved as soon as is feasible but no later than the end of the second week of classes.  A general description of the project should be provided on the independent study form (available in the departmental office), and must be approved by both the instructor and the chair.  Topics should require students to draw insights from, and make connections with other related courses they have taken. The scope of the topic should require the application of the student’s accumulated scholarship and demonstrate proficiency in research appropriate to an advanced undergraduate.

5. Papers will be evaluated on the basis of form, content, organization and style.

Registration procedures for CLAS 495 will be the same as for independent studies.  Once the independent study form (available in the departmental office) has been filled out, submitted to the Undergraduate Adviser, and approved by both the instructor and the chair, the office will issue an add code.  This should happen no later than the second week of the quarter, and preferably earlier.

by Classics Faculty June 5, 2012

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The Senior Essay or Senior Thesis

Every student who completes the major in Comparative Studies writes a senior essay or a thesis.  The essay or the thesis is completed in CS 4990, “Senior Seminar,” a writing workshop offered every Spring in which students share drafts, present their work orally, and receive detailed feedback from their peers. 

You may choose between two options:

• The Senior Essay , usually between 12 to 15 pages, written largely during the semester you take CS 4990, though often building on earlier class work.
• The Senior Thesis , which requires a semester of CS 4999 or 4999H (usually taken autumn of senior year; that is, ideally before the spring term you plan to graduate), “Undergraduate Thesis” or “Honors Thesis,” working closely with a professor who you select to serve as advisor to your thesis. This option is usually between 25 to 40 pages. Students who choose to write a Senior Thesis may plan to fulfill the requirements for either “Research Distinction” or “Honors Research Distinction" . Details on these options are offered below.

Whichever is chosen, the senior research project serves as a capstone experience for students in the major, and results in a piece of original work that can be shared with the Comparative Studies community.  The essay or thesis may also be valuable as a writing sample if students apply to graduate or professional schools, or pursue a wide range of careers that value individual initiative and effective communication.

The Process: What You Need to Know to Get Started

Both the senior essay and the thesis require some advance planning, though the timeline for the thesis is typically longer.  If you choose to write the senior essay, you should have selected a paper to revise and expand, or else identified a topic for a new research paper, no later than the semester  before  you enroll in COMPSTD 4990.  You will need to submit your draft or proposal for a first round of peer review early in Spring semester. 

If you choose to write the thesis, you should have identified a topic and an advisor by the start of Autumn term of your senior year (some students choose a topic in the Spring of junior year and begin work in the summer) so you can enroll in COMPSTD 4999/4999H and begin your research.

In either case, take note that prior to enrolling in COMPSTD 4990, you'll have already taken the required 4000-level course (all of which require the completion of a research paper). The research paper written for that course often provides / may provide the paper that you choose to use for the senior essay or the senior thesis option.

Whether you write the senior essay or the thesis, nothing is more important than the choice of a topic.  It should be something that engages you, that sparks your curiosity or imagination, and that has stakes that matter to you.   But it should also be a topic of manageable scale, one that can adequately be explored in the time available to you.  Your faculty advisor can help you to shape your project at the outset, and to make any necessary adjustments along the way.

No formal advisor is required for the senior essay.  If you choose to revise and expand an earlier paper (such as the one you would have written for your 4000-level research course), you may want to reconnect with the instructor for whom you wrote the original.  They may be willing to serve as an informal advisor as you undertake your revisions.  If choosing a new topic, you may wish to speak with a professor in the department or on our affiliated faculty with expertise in the subject matter.  Each of you also has your own faculty advisor with whom you can confer, as well as the professor who will be teaching COMPSTD 4990.

If you write a thesis you must have a formal thesis advisor; you may also elect to have a co-advisor. They will supervise any thesis research courses you take (COMPSTD 4999), the writing of the thesis itself, and the oral exam at the end of the process. This might be the same person as your faculty advisor but it need not be. You should choose someone with whom you are comfortable (usually because you have been in a class together before) and who has enough knowledge of the subject matter to guide your work. You may wish to speak informally with more than one professor before making a final decision.

Senior Essay or Thesis?

If you choose to write the senior essay you will complete most of the work of research and writing during the Spring semester of your senior year, while enrolled in CS 4990, “Senior Seminar.”  You may either revise and expand a paper you wrote for another course (usually, but not always, a course in Comparative Studies), or begin and complete a research paper on a new topic.  Senior essays vary in length, but are typically around 12–15 pages (and sometimes longer if they are expanded versions of earlier essays).

If you who choose to write a thesis you will typically begin working on it during the Autumn semester of senior year (and sometimes during the preceding summer) by enrolling in CS 4999 or 4999H (“Undergraduate Thesis” or “Honors Thesis”).  You will then complete the writing while enrolled in CS 4990, “Senior Seminar.”  Theses vary considerably in length, but are typically between 25 and 40 pages.  The thesis process also includes an oral "defense" (really more like a conversation about the completed work with your advisor and one or more other faculty members).  If you choose the thesis option you may be eligible to graduate with “Research Distinction” or “Honors Research Distinction.”

To graduate with Research Distinction in Comparative Studies or with Research Distinction (if the thesis is completed in another discipline), you must meet the following requirements:

• Complete a minimum of 60 graded credit hours at Ohio State
• Graduate with minimum GPA of 3.0
• Students intending to graduate at the end of Autumn term: Application due no later than the first Friday of the previous February
• Students intending to graduate at the end of the Spring term: Application due no later than the first Friday of the previous October
• Students intending to graduate at the end of the Summer term: Application due by the first Friday of December
• Complete at least 4 credit hours of COMPSTD 4999 (these may be spread over more than one term)
• Complete and successfully defend the thesis during an oral examination

For a more detailed list of instructions, see:  https://artsandsciences.osu.edu/academics/current-students/advising-academics/graduation

If you are in the Honors Program you may graduate with Honors Research Distinction in Comparative Studies or with Honors Research Distinction (if the thesis is completed in another discipline) by meeting the following requirements:

• Be enrolled in the ASC Honors Program and complete an approved Honors Contract
• Graduate with minimum GPA of 3.4
• Submit “Undergraduate Thesis Application” to the ASC Honors Office upon enrolling in COMPSTD 4999H, or no later than the 3rd Friday of the semester you intend to graduate
• Complete at least 4 credit hours of COMPSTD 4999H (may be spread over more than one term)

For a more detailed list of instructions, see:  https://aschonors.osu.edu/honors/research-thesis

Other Useful Information

There are several sources of funding for undergraduate research.  Arts and Sciences awards two kinds of scholarships on a competitive basis each academic year; each requires a letter of support from an academic advisor, and preference is given to students planning to write a thesis. Undergraduate Research Scholarships range from $500 to $12,000.  Applications for a given academic year are due in early February of the preceding year.  International Research Grants provide up to $4,000 for research-related travel abroad for students in Arts and Sciences.  There are two application cycles per academic year.  For more information, see:  http://aschonors.osu.edu/opportunities/scholarships/undergrad .

The Division of Arts and Humanities provides Undergraduate Research Small Grants (up to $500) to help fund travel to things like conferences, research collections, and exhibitions and to purchase materials for research or creative activity.  The Aida Cannarsa Endowment Fund offers grants of $500 to $3,000 to students in arts and humanities, with priority given to those with demonstrated financial need.  Applications for both are reviewed twice a year.

See:  https://artsandsciences.osu.edu/academics/current-students/scholarships-grants/research .

There may be additional sources of funding, on and off campus, for particular kinds of projects.  You should consult with your advisor and the Office of Undergraduate Research.

Please note that research funding involving human subjects may require prior IRB approval .

Every Spring, there are opportunities for Comparative Studies students to present the results of their research, whether they choose to write the senior essay or the thesis.  The Richard J. and Martha D. Denman Undergraduate Research Forum is a university-wide showcase of undergraduate work that awards prizes by areas of interest (for example, Humanities).  There is a competitive abstract submission process in January, and a day devoted to presentations in late March.  Though most of the forum involves poster presentations, Humanities majors give brief oral presentations (8-10 minutes) on their work to faculty judges.

In April, the Department of Comparative Studies hosts its own Undergraduate Research Colloquium.  Working closely with their advisor, students prepare and submit paper abstracts in February—300 words or fewer that describe the project’s central questions, methodologies, theoretical framework, and (tentative) conclusions.  Students may choose to give a 10-minute presentation on work in progress or a 20-minute presentation on completed work (by April everyone enrolled in 4990 should be ready to give a presentation).  This is a more relaxed atmosphere, with an audience of your peers and friends, as well as faculty and graduate students in the department.

Autumn of senior year

• Choose a topic

Spring of senior year

• Enroll in COMPSTD 4990, “Senior Seminar”

Spring of junior year

• Identify an advisor

Summer between junior and senior years (optional)

• Enroll in COMPSTD 4998 or 4998H, “Undergraduate Research in Comparative Studies” (2 credits)
• Submit “Application for Graduation with Research Distinction” or “Undergraduate Thesis Application”
• Enroll in COMPSTD 4999, “Undergraduate Thesis” or 4999H, “Honors Thesis” (2 credits)
• Enroll in Enroll in COMPSTD 4999, “Undergraduate Thesis” or 4999H, “Honors Thesis” (2 credits)

Additional Information

• You can find copies of undergraduate theses online at the OSU Knowledge Bank:  https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/handle/1811/134 .
• Further information on undergraduate research opportunities is available at:  http://www.undergraduateresearch.osu.edu/ .

St. John's College

Senior Essays

The senior essay is the signature effort of a student’s career at St. John’s College. The essay is a sustained performance in the liberal arts and culmination of the student’s learning. The essay is not a work of specialized research, but the extended pursuit of a difficult question in dialogue with a great author.

In the first semester each senior selects a book, a question, and a faculty advisor. The student and advisor meet periodically in the first semester to discuss the book and define the project. In the first four weeks of the second semester, senior classes are suspended for essay writing. Each completed essay is assigned to a committee of three tutors, who examine the student on the essay in a one-hour, public conversation. Submission of a satisfactory senior essay and completion of the oral are conditions for receiving the degree. 

Learn more about the essay writing process and oral examination for seniors, and read about the student who wrote a prize-winning essay on “The Probability Function in Quantum Mechanics: A Formal Cause Beyond Space and Time.”

See senior essay topics for the St. John’s Class of 2019.

Seniors Talk Essays

Read what students wrote about for their senior essays.

“I wanted to write on a Hispanic author, especially a Latin American author. The book is about how to approach life, and how we need some sort of shared experience with the things that we are taking our learning from. He approaches Machu Picchu, and thinks it’s just this thing that he can grab and mine and take some sort of life from—but it turns out the ruins resist him in a particular way, and they have to change him in order for him to be able to take anything. Especially here, with all that we read, we need to be changed by the things that we read as much as we take from them.”

“Despite its vast dramatic territory, Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen is largely focused on a single character: Wotan, the chief god of oaths and contracts. Without attempting to account for the entire work, I wanted to examine Wotan as Wagner initially presents him. This meant narrowing my essay to the first two operas: Das Rheingold and Die Walküre. I discovered that despite its heavy-handed political allusions, Wagner’s work is ultimately focused on the question of Wotan’s will. What is Wotan’s will? And what does it mean for the will to exist at all? My resulting work was a surprising revelation of both the significance of the will and Wagner’s creative genius. ”

“I wrote about The Lord of the Rings because it’s been a mainstay in my life. I learned how to read from The Hobbit, and have re-read Lord of the Rings every year since. It has helped me through a lot of trying times. In junior year, we learned to separate head and heart, and we have ennui: where everyone is existentially bored. I think fantasy and escapism can be a solution to that. This was a huge culmination of everything I learned here, philosophically.”

“I wrote my senior essay on The Phenomenology of Spirit . Hegel is one of the hardest philosophers in the Program. He expresses that we have a deep spirit in us that needs to be moved. Once that spirit is moved, our self-consciousness develops. But that self-consciousness must go through stages in order to arrive at what he calls ‘the absolute known’ or ‘the absolute spirit.’ If people do believe that we have this spirit in us, it can move and develop and grow to its fullness. I think I’m getting to fullness. I don’t know if I’m halfway there yet. I’m still young.”

“We begin philosophy with Plato, and we end up with Nietzche and Heidegger, where everything seems to be nihilistic. I return to Plato and articulate the theory in which love can really give birth to someone’s self and to being. I tried to extract some kind of life-affirming philosophy from a program that seems to become increasingly nihilistic as it enters the 20th century. I’ve never had this much time to think about a book. I had a month to formulate all of the thoughts that have circled unconsciously for the past four years. I didn’t realize I had this much to say, but it all spilled out. And now there’s a paper, and it’s really exciting.”

“I wrote my essay on Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. I was curious about Gulliver’s account of rationality and whether there is a universal standard or if it is relative to particular societies. By analyzing Gulliver’s infatuation with the Houyhnhnms (the ruling race of horses in the final country he visits) and his growing disdain of his own species, I found that it is impossible to rank rational beings because the facets of human rationality and reason are so intricate. I also found that Gulliver’s proclivity for learning languages and his willingness to assimilate into new societies helps him to understand the merits and value of societies different from his own.”

“I discussed getting to know yourself, and the horror of the darkness that lurks inside everyone — being able to accept that and not descend into self-hatred.”

“Why is it necessary to use straight lines in understanding curves? I am examining why the method for mathematically describing a curve using points and straight lines is fundamentally opposed to the conception of a curve as a continuous object. It was inevitable that I was going to write about math. In all my St. John’s math classes, I have been interested in how geometric objects can be measured through ratio. I considered Euclid or Apollonius, but I took Calculus 2 over the summer and the questions raised in junior math were brought up continuously (ha!), so I decided to focus my questions about ratios in geometry by using curves. ”

On Thucydides

“My senior essay is about the rise and fall of the Athenian empire, inspired by the most recent turn of events in American politics. I decided that the Athenian empire inevitably conquered itself. Though they had met no strong opponents that could do battle with them, they turned on one another and that’s what caused their entire society to collapse. When a city gives in to fear and loathing, that is when things are at their worst and that’s when the situation in the empire is irredeemable. People shouldn’t doubt for a second that we live in an empire, and fear is our greatest enemy.”

“I’ve read it every single year of college, including the year that I took off. Writing the essay was liberating. In the past, on all the other papers I’ve written, I always wished I’d had more time. With this, I finally wrote a paper where I thought, ‘This is where I wanted to end up.’”

On Dostoevsky

“My essay on The Brothers Karamazov focused on some specific irrational actions that Smerdyakov, Ivan, Alyosha, and Dimitri commit. I discussed in detail what motivated these actions if not reason or desire, how these kinds of acts affect our moral judgements (especially the system of judgement that Kant sets up in his second critique), and why Dostoevsky makes the bold decision to have such a deep and cohesive novel dictated by actions devoid of any purpose.”

“I’m writing on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. We read it at the very end of junior year. I got really stuck on food: what Huck eats throughout the novel and how he describes it. It’s a fun thread to follow throughout the Program, from the Lotus-eaters in The Odyssey to Augustine’s pear. In Huck Finn, I was struck by how much he enjoyed the cold meat served to him by the cruel Grangerford family, who are embroiled in a pointless, multi-generational feud. I wanted to know how the kind of food Huck eats speaks to his growth.”

“It’s a novel about the encroaching legal aspect of society amidst the Industrial Revolution of England. It’s a dreary tale about the loss of personal strength and the reliance upon law, especially as large families come to use [law] to crush individuals who are otherwise upstanding members of society. But it has a happy ending, as Dickens is a man of sentimental feelings, and they come out. Good characters get rewarded, bad characters get punished—it’s a fun book.”

Senior Essay Titles

The titles demonstrate how wide-ranging the topics can be for senior essays.

(e.g. [email protected])

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Doctrine essay contest winners announced

Maxwell air force base, alabama, united states, story by senior airman evan lichtenhan  , air university public affairs.

MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, Ala. – With 29 essays submitted, the Inspiring Doctrinal Innovation (IDI) judges chose the three-winning submissions at Maxwell AFB, June 13, 2024. With the prompt “How AI will necessitate changes to US Air Force Doctrine,” the writers were given until midnight of May 5th to complete their essays. “The essays are judged in a few rounds,” said J. Todd Self, LeMay Center for Air Force Doctrine Development and Education outreach team. “We first look at each submission to ensure it met the submission criteria. If it did, then those essays are forwarded to a panel of judges around Air University who have some expertise in the topic area for the essay or are just doctrine subject matter experts.” Once essays are with the judges, they are scored on two metrics. The first being how well the essay answers the prompt, and the second metric rates the essays in comparison to each other. “The top five papers based on the judge scores are then sent to the leadership and additional doctrine subject matter experts around the Doctrine Development Directorate to judge, using the same criteria,” Self said. “The top 3 are the winners based on that final round.” After waiting weeks for their results, we congratulate the top three winners: 1. 1st Lt. Ian Palmer, 43d Electronic Combat Squadron, Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona.The essay topic was “Accelerating Decision-Making Through Human-Machine Teaming.” 2. Tech. Sgt. Matthew Calhoun, 566th Intelligence Squadron, Buckley Space Force Base, Colorado. The essay topic was “Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of the United States Air Force.” 3. Maj. Matthew White, Lifecycle Management Center’s Armament Directorate at Eglin AFB, Florida. The essay topic was “Effects of AI-Enhanced Decision-Making on Air Force Doctrine.” The LeMay Center partnered with the Air University Innovation Accelerator (AUiX) office on the contest. AUiX provided a great deal of collaborative support, to include a financial award for the winner. The first-place prize is the purchasing of the essay from the author for $1,000. The top three writers will also be coined by Major Gen. Parker Wright, Curtis E. LeMay Center for Doctrine Development and Education commander, and Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base Ala. Deputy Commander. To read the top three essays, Click here: https://auix.org/inspiring-doctrinal-innovation-essay-contest/

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Department of Psychology

You are here, senior requirement information, table of contents, senior essay submission.

• Slides used during Senior Requirement Orientation, Spring 202 3
• Senior Requirements
• Enrolling in tutorial / research courses (PSYC 493, 495, and 499)
• Some common senior requirements questions
• Helpful Links for writing Psychology Papers (including Senior Essays)
• Examples of Award Winning Senior Essays

If you are submitting a senior essay this term (i.e., the so-called “substantial paper” with more than 5,000 words), the deadline for Spring 2024 is April 26 (Fri) 5:30pm for students who are not seeking Distinction. For students who are seeking distinction, it is due April 19 (Fri) 5:30pm (it is sooner because we need to assign it to a second reader). 

Please see below for instructions on how to submit your senior essay. 

Even if you are writing a senior essay through a senior seminar, you must submit your senior essay to the department as explained below. 

How to submit senior essays

·  You will receive (or have already received) an email from Canvas, inviting you to join “Senior Essay in Psychology.” If you haven’t done so, accept this invitation because you will be submitting your senior essay through this site. If you have not received an invitation from Canvas or can’t find it, please contact  fredericka.grant@yale.edu .

·  To submit your senior essay, log onto Canvas, and go to “Senior Essay in Psychology”. If you are taking Psyc 499 (Senior Essay), please do not confuse it with ”Senior Essay in Psychology.” 

·  Once you are at “Senior Essay in Psychology”, find an “assignment” that applies to you (distinction or no distinction). 

Under the assignment, you will see a link to fill out some information (e.g., title, abstract, and suggestions for a second reader if relevant). After filling it out, upload your senior essay as an assignment.

Deadlines for Spring 2024

If you are writing a senior essay during Spring 2024   (i.e., the so-called “substantial paper” with more than 5,000 words), the deadline is  April 26 (Fri) 5 :30pm  or  April 19 (Fri) 5:30pm   for students seeking distinction . 

If you are writing your senior essay in PSYC 499, Senior Essay (required for the BS) you must enroll in PSYC 499 during Spring registration or by the first week of the add/drop period at the start of the Fall semester. To enroll please follow the instructions here . 

Slides used during Senior Requirement Orientation, Mar 6, 2023

Senior requirements , majors are required to earn two course credits from courses numbered psyc 400–499. at least one of these course credits must be taken during the senior year, for which a student must write a substantial final paper (a minimum of 5,000 words) and receive a letter grade, which excludes psyc 490-495 that can only be taken pass/fail. .

The following table illustrates 400-level course combinations that are acceptable for senior requirements and comments for each combination. 

Explanations for the codes used in the table

• 495: 0.5 credit tutorial, Pass/Fail
• 493: 1 credit tutorial, Pass/Fail
• 499: Senior Essay

• Psyc 493, 495, and 499 can be repeated as many times as you wish. Though, only 3 credits from these courses can count towards psych credits. 
• Students seeking a BS degree must conduct empirical research through Psyc 499. Thus, those students can only choose from options 4-7. 
• Students seeking a BA degree can choose from options 1-7, but most do options 1-3. 
• Students in the neuroscience track have the same requirements, but both of the 400-level courses must have neuroscience content. 
• Students seeking distinction in the major have the same requirements except that their senior essays must be submitted 1 week before the last day of the class in the term they are taking the course for senior essay. 
• Option 7 is recommended for those who want to go to graduate school in Psychology, would like to publish their senior essay, plan to conduct multiple studies, or plan to do extensive literature review. If Option 7 is selected, the student must produce two substantial papers (> 5,000 words), one from each term, and the word count applies to only the non-overlapping portions. (For instance, one may submit a 7,000 words paper at the end of the second semester of Psyc 499 using some of the write-ups from the first semester of Psyc 499, but of these, 5,000 words should be new.) 

Back to Table of Content s

Enrolling in tutorial / research courses (PSYC 493, 495, 499)

In order to sign up for a  Directed Research ( PSYC   493 ), Research Topics ( PSYC  495),  or   Senior Essay (PSYC 499)  course, students must fill out  this survey  and add the course to their course sheet (being sure to request instructor permission). Students can complete this process either during course registration or during the first week of add/drop period. It is imperative that students discuss this process with their proposed advisor prior to filling out this survey or adding the course; a checklist of the information you need is available  here .

Some Common Senior Requirement Questions

Q: What qualifies for distinction in the major?

A: To qualify for distinction in the major, students must obtain grades of A or A– in three-quarters of the credits in the major as well as a grade of A or A– on the senior essay. All courses taken in the Psychology Department will be included in these calculations for Distinction in the Major (which for some students may include classes above and beyond the 12 courses used for major credit). We also include classes outside are department which are taken for major credit (e.g., MCDB classes that are used for Psychology major credit in the Neuroscience Track) in these calculations. Note that Grades of F as well as marks of CR in courses taken on a Credit/D/Fail basis are included as non-A grades.

Q: I preregistered for a 400-level senior seminar.  What are my options for fulfilling the second senior requirement credit? Can I take two senior seminars to fulfill my 2 credit senior requirement?

A: Yes, you can fulfill your senior requirement with a senior seminar (unless you are seeking a BS degree) or with a senior essay course (PSYC 499). You can take two senior seminars to fulfill both senior requirement credits, but we can pre-register you for only one seminar.  Pre-registration for senior seminars takes place at the end of the Junior year.

Q: I am planning to take two semesters of Senior Requirement Directed Research to fulfill my senior requirement.  May I still preregister for a senior seminar?

A: All rising seniors may pre-register for a senior seminar for their senior year.  However, if there is a shortage of slots available for senior seminars, priority will be given to students who need a senior seminar in order to fulfill their senior requirement.

Q: I am seeking a BA degree with Distinction.  Do I have to write a literature review for my senior essay or can I do an empirical research project?

A: There are no restrictions in research format for students seeking a BA.  For a BA degree with Distinction, the senior essay can be a literature review or empirical study.

Q: How is the senior essay graded for distinction in the major?

A:  Unlike the papers submitted for other PSYC 400-level classes (which are only graded by the faculty member supervising the 400-level class), senior essays submitted for distinction are also graded by a second reader appointed by the DUS. You and your advisor may suggest possible second readers for your essay. 

Q: What sorts of papers qualify for “substantial writing” or a senior essay?

A: “Substantial writing” or a senior essay means a paper with at least 5,000 words for a senior seminar course (PSYC 400-489) or for PSYC 499. Most senior essays will consist of a literature review and/or empirical study. A literature review summarizes and analyzes a large body of empirical research concerning a specific topic. Writing a high quality literature review requires reading a large number of journal articles, synthesizing the results of previous experiments, and highlighting areas for future research. Since the senior essay must involve an original contribution, at least some part of the literature review must approach the topic from a novel angle. An empirical study is an experiment (or series of experiments) that addresses a novel research question. Performing an empirical study for the senior essay requires identifying a question that has not been adequately explored by existing studies, developing an experiment that addresses the question, and analyzing the results and drawing conclusions. If you choose to do an empirical study for your senior essay, your essay must also include a literature review; however, the literature review will be significantly briefer than if you choose to make the literature review the focus of your senior essay. But you should also discuss this issue with your advisor who may have more specific suggestions based on the nature of your senior essay project.

Q: How do I choosing a lab and advisor for the directed research course I’ll use for my senior requirement?

A: If you plan to conduct an empirical research study for your senior requirement, you will need to join a research lab affiliated with the psychology department. The three most important criteria for choosing a lab are (1) the amount of overlap between your research interests and the lab’s research interests, (2) the quality of mentorship afforded undergraduate students in the lab, and (3) personal compatibility between you and your advisor. First, It is essential that there is some overlap between your interests and the interests of the other members of the lab. Faculty members are most knowledgeable about topics relating to their research interests, and furthermore, if your interests do not intersect with those of other lab members, it is likely that either you or your advisor will not be enthusiastic about your essay. The psychology department website contains information about faculty research interests . Faculty member websites often contain more detailed information about their research and links to journal articles they have recently published. It is especially important to read recent publications to find out about your faculty advisor’s current interests. Second, different labs vary greatly in the nature of responsibilities and support given to undergraduates. In some cases, students will join existing essays and gradually develop their own essays, whereas in other cases, students will be encouraged to start their own essay immediately. In some labs, the professor works closely with undergraduates and in other labs, graduate students are primarily responsible for advising undergraduates. It is important to ask (i) “what do you expect from me?” and (ii) “what is the nature of the mentoring I will receive?” before joining a lab. Here are some specific considerations you might want to ask about. (i) What is the expected time commitment? What will my responsibilities be (e.g., running experiments, designing experiments, data analysis, writing a paper based on the results)? How much input will I have in the experiment’s design and other intellectual aspects of the essay? Are there opportunities for becoming a co-author on research studies? (ii) What is the advising structure in the lab? What contact will I have with the professor (e.g., weekly one-on-one meetings, group lab meetings)? To what extent will I be expected to work independently and to what extent will I be expected to work collaboratively with other members of the lab? Third, academic considerations are very important when choosing a lab, but you also need to consider the personal compatibility between you and your advisor. As is the case with any endeavor, if you can’t stand the people you are working with, you probably won’t have a good research experience. Alternatively, if you have a positive working relationship with your advisor, this will increase your enthusiasm and improve your attitude toward your essay. Thus, you should consider “personality” and “fit” issues in addition to academic issues when selecting a lab and an advisor. Other undergraduates working in labs are an excellent source of information regarding their experiences. They are likely to speak candidly concerning the pros and cons of their labs. Speaking with current seniors is particularly helpful for learning which professors are especially good senior essay advisors.

Q: How do I make contact with a potential advisor for a directed research course for my senior requirement?

A: Once you’ve decided that you want to work in a particular lab, you should contact the professor with an e-mail describing your background and why you are interested in joining their lab. Professors want to see that you’ve taken the time to think about why their lab is a good fit for you and that you are familiar with the lab’s research. An ideal candidate will have read several of the lab’s recent publications. This shows that you are genuinely interested in their work.

Q: What’s the best timeline if I want to do an empirical project for my senior requirement?

A: If you have a passion for research (or want to find out if you would enjoy doing research), you should consider doing research as early as possible during your Yale career. Research takes a long time and many studies that are eventually successful don’t work at first and undergo lots of fine-tuning. It is ideal to start thinking seriously about the senior essay in the spring of the junior year.  Since it is easy to underestimate the amount of time needed to complete a senior essay and you will undoubtedly run into a few snags along the way, it helps to start early. We suggest that at least by the spring of junior year, you should start thinking seriously about potential topics for a senior essay. Once you have some idea of what topic you want to explore, contact faculty members who may be suitable advisors. You don’t need to have a concrete plan for a specific research study at this point, but potential advisors will want to guage your interests before deciding to accept you into their lab. If you plan to work in a psychology lab over the summer, you will need to apply for positions during the spring semester. Many labs at Yale offer summer research opportunities for rising seniors. If you plan to pursue graduate school in psychology or want to get a head start on your senior essay, seriously consider working in a lab over the summer. The summer is a great time to work in a lab because you won’t have to balance your commitment to the lab with other classes and extracurricular activities, allowing you to immerse yourself in your essay and make significant progress.

Q: I’d like to do an empirical research project. Who can I talk to about study design/analysis?

A: We now have a Senior Thesis Advisor who holds regular office hours and is available to meet by appointment. See more information here .

Back to Table of Contents

Other Helpful Links on Writing A Substantial Psychology Paper

• Technical Writing: By Gray et al.  [ pdf ]
• Writing Narrative Literature Reviews: By Baumeister & Leary [ pdf ]
• Writing the empirical journal article: by Bem [ pdf ]
• Writing a Review Article: by Bem [ pdf ]
• The Science of Scientific Writing: by Gopen and Swan  [ pdf ]
• Revision Strategies: by Sommers [ pdf ]

Examples of Award Winning Psychology Senior Essays

• Len Chan ‘21,  Angier Prize Winning Senior Essay entitled ”Classification of Conduct Disorder using a biopsychological model and machne learning method” [ pdf ]
• Arianna Neal ‘19 “Interneurons and Amyloid-Beta in Alzheimer’s Disease” [ pdf ]
• Alice Oh ‘19 “Characterizing relationships between resource insecurity, internalizing symptoms, and functional brain connectivity in children” [ pdf ]
• Kate Zendel ‘19, “All the Money in the World” Americans’ Misperception of Gender Economic Equality [ pdf ]
• Hong Bui ‘17, “Gender Categorization in Infants and Children” [ pdf ]
• Amanda Royka ‘17, “Metacognition across Domestication: A comparison of Dogs and Dingoes” [ pdf ]
• Suzanne Estrada ‘16, “The Impact of Individual Differences and Community Factors on Altruistic Behavior” [pdf]
• Madeleine Marino ’15, “Prosocial Helping in Dogs: A Strategy to Secure Loyalty?” [ pdf ]
• Deanna Palenzuela ’15, “Growing Up in Neverland: An assessment of the long-term physical and cognitive correlates of the Operation Pedro Pan exodus” [ pdf ]
• Scott Snyder ’10, Angier Prize Winning Senior Essay entitled “Adaptive Traits Associated with Psychopathy in a “Successful,” Non-Criminal Population” [ pdf ]
• Meg Martinez ’10, Angier Prize Winning Senior Essay entitled “The Blame Game: Lay causal Theories and Familiarity with Mental Illness.” [ pdf ]
• Stav Atir ’10, “Memory for Information Paired with Humorous, Relevant Jokes” [ pdf ]

If you still have questions, contact the DUS  (Yarrow Dunham) or the departmental registrar,  fredericka.grant@yale.edu .

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College Essay Format: Top Writing and Editing Tips for 2024

A good college essay format, with the right topic, goes beyond describing your academic accomplishments and extracurriculars. Learn how to make your college essay stand out with these tips.

You want to stand out in a crowd, particularly when you’re applying to the college of your choice. As part of the application process, many schools ask for an essay to accompany the standard academic and personal information they require.

At its core, your college application essay tells a story that offers admissions officers a glimpse into who you are, beyond your grades, extracurricular activities, and test scores. Your college essay, often called a "personal statement," is your opportunity to reveal your personality and give an idea about the kind of student you'll be in college.

So how should a college essay be formatted? This article covers formatting best practices, how to choose a compelling topic for your essay, and tips to help you craft an essay that captures your reader's attention, clearly communicates its message, and is free from errors.

College essay format best practices

Your personal statement should tell a compelling story that effectively demonstrates your unique values and personality. While the format of your college essay is largely up to you, consequently, it can be helpful to have a sense of how you might format your essay before composing it.

Consider the following college essay format to organize your writing and craft the most compelling story possible.

1. Think about using a title.

A title for your college essay isn't necessary. But, including one could make your essay intriguing to readers. That said, if you're low on word count, skip a title altogether and just jump into your narrative. You can also wait until after you write your essay to decide. It's often easier to come up with a fitting, compelling title after you've told your story.

2. Open with a hook.

Your opening sentence is one of the most important parts of your essay. It's what you'll use to capture the attention of the reader and compel them to continue reading. The start of your essay is your opportunity to make an impactful first impression, so make your opening a good one.

Here are two examples of how you might craft an interesting hook for your essay:

Start in the middle of your story: Call out the most interesting point of your story, and then backtrack from there. For example, "And there I found myself, surrounded by baby sea turtles on the hazy shores of Virginia Beach."

Make a specific generalization: This is a sentence that makes a general statement on what your essay will be about but gives a specific description. An example: "Each year on our family vacation out of the city, I contemplate the meaning of life as we cross the Golden Gate Bridge."

3. Use your introduction to set up your story.

While your hook will spark the reader's curiosity, the rest of your introduction should give them an idea of where you're going with your essay. Set your story up in four to five sentences, making sure to only include information that is absolutely necessary to understand your story.

4. Tell your story in the body of your essay.

The Common Application has a 650 word limit for personal statements. That means, if both your introduction and conclusion are roughly 100 words each, your body will most likely end up being about 450 words. Think of that as three to five paragraphs, with each paragraph having its own main idea or point. 

Write in a narrative style—closer to how you might write a short story than an instruction manual. Tell your story in a way that’s logical, clear, and makes sense for what you're trying to convey about yourself.

While you should pay strict attention to using proper grammar and sentence structure, you have the freedom to make your essay a reflection of your personality. If you're a humorous person, use humor. If you're an eternal optimist or love getting into the minute details of life, let that shine through. But, keep in mind that your essay is fundamentally about highlighting the qualities that you'd bring to a college community, so keep your anecdotes focused and on point.

5. Use the conclusion to clarify your essay's core idea. 

Finish your story with a conclusion paragraph, where you clarify the value or idea you're trying to convey. What is the main thing you want the college to know about you through this story? Is it what you've learned, a value that's important to you, or what you want to contribute to society? Finally, use the last line of your personal statement to reinforce this central idea, so that your reader leaves with a clear impression about who you are. After the "hook" of your personal statement, the concluding line is the most important of your essay.

How to develop your college essay story

Now that you know how to format your college essay, we'll explore how to develop the story you'll tell in it. Here are some steps to get started:

1. Explore past college essay prompts

Over 900 colleges use Common App essay prompts, which means you may be able to write one essay for several college applications. Some past Common App college essay prompts—which are announced publicly each year—include the following topics:

Share a story about your background, interest, identity, or talent that makes you complete as a person.

Describe a time when you faced a setback, failure, or challenge and what you learned from it.

Tell about a topic, concept, or idea that is so captivating to you that you lose all track of time.

Write about something that someone has done for you that you are grateful for, and how gratitude has motivated or affected you.

These are broad topics that give you the freedom to tell all kinds of different things about yourself. Explore these questions to start brainstorming ideas of stories you may be able to tell about yourself.

There are a lot of potential prompts out there. Some of the other college essay prompts you might encounter include:

Describe a person you admire and how that person has influenced your behavior and thinking.

Why do you want to attend this school?

Describe your creative side.

Name an extracurricular activity that is meaningful to you and how it has impacted your life.

Tell about what you have done to make your community or school a better place.

2. Pick a topic.

Choose a topic that allows you to best highlight what you want the college to know about you. A good start is to list three positive adjectives that describe you. Then, see if you can write two or three real-life examples of each trait that demonstrates that you possess that characteristic.

If you're having trouble coming up with ideas, think about the stories other people tell about you or the positive words they use to describe you. Consider asking people who know you well the following questions:

What do you think sets me apart from others? 

What are my strengths? 

How would you describe my personality? 

What are my quirks?

These ideas can become the inspiration to develop material for a good college essay. You don't have to write about a major life-changing event. It can be a mundane or ordinary situation—like a dinner table conversation, a day at school, or a conversation with a friend. Often, slightly unusual topics are better than typical ones because they hold a reader's attention.

Regardless of the topic you choose, remember that the true topic of your college essay is you, and the purpose of it is to show how you are unique. It highlights an important piece of who you are and where you want to head in life.

3. Consider length.

Consult your college application instructions to see how long your essay should be. Typically, personal statements are between 500 and 650 words long, while supplemental essays are often around 250 to 300 words. Use the required essay length to help you determine what you will share. You won't be able to tell your life story within these few paragraphs, so choose the most impactful examples as your content. 

4. Outline your essay.

An outline helps you plan your essay's key points, including its beginning, middle, and end. Use your outline to stay on topic and get the most out of your word count.

The most effective outlines are usually the simplest. For instance, a good story has a beginning, middle, and end. Likewise, your essay will have an introduction, body, and conclusion. Unless the college requests a specific admission essay format, use the format you've been using to write essays in high school that you're likely to be the most comfortable with.

If you're stuck on how to open your essay, write the middle of your story first. Then, go back and write a compelling introduction and a concise conclusion.

Tips for writing your college essay

Your college essay format and writing should be both compelling in clear. So, as you're writing your college essay, keep these tips in mind:  

1. Be authentic.

One of the most essential parts of how to format a college application essay is to be authentic. The college wants to know who you are, and they will be reading dozens of essays a day. The best way to make yours stand out is to just be yourself instead of focusing on what you think they want to hear. 

Imagine you’re speaking to an actual person as you write. Be honest and accurate, using words you normally use. Your essay is a personal statement, so it should sound natural to the reader—and to you too.

2. Show you can write .

While the most important part of your personal statement is showcasing who you are, you'll also be judged on your writing ability. That's because knowing the fundamental principles of writing is important to college success. Show that you understand the structure of an essay and proper use of the English language.

3. Stay on topic.

If you're using a specific question as your writing prompt, answer the question directly in the opening paragraph. Then, use the rest of the essay to elaborate on your answer. Make good use of your word count limit by being concise and coherent. Stay on topic and refrain from adding any information that doesn't add to the main idea of your essay. 

4. Use concrete details to make your story come to life.

Your essay should describe a real-life event that you've experienced. And, to make that experience as vivid as possible for your reader, you'll want to lean into concrete details that effectively convey it through the written word. This adds color and validity to your personal statement. Personal examples will show you embody the characteristics or values you claim to, rather than merely saying you do.

5. Follow directions.

Read and understand the specific instructions set by the college for your essay. Then, review them again before you submit your essay to make sure you've met all of the requirements. Only once you're confident that you've followed them correctly and that your essay is free from any errors should you submit your essay.

How to edit your college essay

Once you've written your essay, you'll want to edit it until you’re satisfied it conveys your message and is free of errors. Let your first draft be as messy or pristine as it comes out. Then, go back later—several times if needed—to clean it up. Ask yourself these questions as you edit your essay:

Is my essay free of grammar, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation errors?

Is it the proper word length assigned by the college?

Have I answered the question in the prompt?

Does the introduction make me want to read more?

Are there any vague statements I can replace with more specific details?

Do any parts drone on or feel boring?

Does it feel too formal?

Are any parts or words repetitive?

Have I misused any words (such as there, their, and they're)?

Are my sentences varied in length?

Have I shared with the college what I most want them to know about me? 

It can also be helpful to ask someone you trust to read your essay and give you constructive feedback. This might be a trusted teacher, parent, school counselor, or college student. It's best to choose someone who is familiar with the purpose of a college essay.

Ask them to give feedback about your essay using the same questions as above. But they should never try to rewrite your essay. And never let others edit out your voice. Ask them to focus on grammar and mechanics and to give suggestions on items to add in or leave out. 

Above all, ask your guest editor what point they think you were trying to make with your essay. If they get it right, you know you've crafted a college essay that reflects you and your intended message. 

PSA: Save your essay drafts!

Instead of writing your essay directly in the online application, draft and save your essay in a document like Google Docs or Word—or start out on paper and pen if that's what you're most comfortable with. That way you can make edits and use helpful online spelling and grammar checkers. And, you won't risk losing your essay if the application times out or you navigate away from it by mistake.

When you copy and paste your essay into the application, make sure your formatting, such as line spacing and bolding for headings, remains intact.

Enhance your writing skills on Coursera

Bring out your best in your college essay with a course in Writing a Personal Essay from Wesleyan University. Learn how to find your voice, structure your essay, choose relevant details, and write in a way that pulls in your readers.

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We Can’t Have a New Paradigm as Long as People Think the Old One Was Free-Market Fundamentalism

• ARTICLE Beat the Press

June 17, 2024

The belief in free-market fundamentalism runs very deep. When I say that, I don’t mean that support for the concept runs deep, I mean the belief that we had been pursuing free-market policies in the years before the Trump and Biden presidency runs very deep. I was reminded of this fact in a New York Times column by Farah Stockman, touting the development of a new post-free-market fundamentalist paradigm.

To be clear, the period of so-called free-market fundamentalism was one in which we saw a massive upward redistribution of wealth and income as has been extensively documented in numerous studies. It is understandable that the people who are happy about this upward redistribution would like to attribute it to the natural workings of the market.

The story goes, yeah Elon Musk and Bill Gates are very rich, and lots of ordinary workers are kind of screwed, but shit happens. If we feel bad enough about it, we can toss some dimes to the left behind. After all, Bill Gates started a big foundation to help the world’s poor.

That’s a far more generous story for the rich than the reality. It was not just a case of “shit happens,” where the natural workings of the market gave them all the money. It was a story where they actively rigged the rules to ensure that a huge amount of money would be redistributed upward.

The place where I always begin is with government-granted patent and copyright monopolies. It is mind-boggling that serious people can think that these massive forms of government intervention are somehow the “free market.”

And to be clear, there is huge money at issue. In the case of prescription drugs alone the gap between the patent-protected prices we pay and the price drugs would sell for in a free market is likely more than $600 billion a year.

This is more than 2.2 percent of GDP. By comparison, after-tax corporate profits in 2023 were less than $2.7 trillion. And this $600 billion figure is just for drugs. Add in medical devices, software, computers, video games and all the other items where patents or copyrights account for a large share of the price, and we are almost certainly far over $1 trillion a year. Yet we are supposed to believe that this is just the free market here?

It is also important to recognize that we could use other mechanisms than these monopolies for supporting innovation and creative work. We can and do have direct public funding or tax credits in various forms. We can also make the patent and copyright protections we have shorter and weaker, rather than longer and stronger, as has been the case over the last half-century.

This is far from the only area where the government has played a huge role under “free-market fundamentalism.” While we were ostensibly pushing a free trade agenda, we did little or nothing to reduce the trade barriers that protect our most highly paid professionals, like doctors and dentists, from international competition.

As a result, these professionals are paid more than twice as much here as their counterparts in other wealthy countries. We would save close to $150 billion a year (more than $1000 per family) if we paid our doctors the same salaries they get in Germany or Canada.

Our policies were never about free trade. They were about selective protectionism, where we expose manufacturing workers to direct competition with low-paid workers in the developing world, but we protect our most highly-paid professionals from the same sort of competition.

Again, it’s not surprising that the winners from this policy would like to call it “free trade.” That sounds much better than structuring trade to make the rich richer. But why would opponents of this policy accept this dishonest terminology?

The UAW strike last fall highlighted the huge disparity in pay between the CEOs at the Big Three auto companies and the pay of top execs at the major auto companies in Europe and Japan. Our top execs get roughly four times the pay of their counterparts at European car companies and, in the extreme case, ten times as much as their pay at Japanese companies.  

This gap in pay is not explained by differences in size and profitability. The European and Japanese car companies are every bit as big and profitable as the U.S. companies. They just have different rules of corporate governance that make it more difficult for the CEOs and other top executives to rip off the companies they work for. And rules of corporate governance are not set by the free market, they are set by governments.

The massive fortunes in the financial sector are only possible because the government has rigged the rules to encourage a bloated financial sector. If there was a tax on financial transactions, similar to the sales tax most of us pay when we buy food or clothes, the sector would be far smaller and there would be many fewer Wall Street millionaires and billionaires. The free market didn’t tell us to exempt the financial sector from the taxes most other sectors pay.

Similarly, tax rules, like the carried interest deduction, along with bankruptcy laws that are very favorable to corporate debtors, provide much of the basis for the fortunes earned by hedge fund and private equity partners. These were given to us by the lobbying of powerful interests, not the free market.

Facebook, X, TikTok, and other social media giants are able to thrive in large part because of their Section 230 protections. Here also Section 230 came to us from corporate lobbyists, not the free market.

It is hard to understand why we have this obsession in intellectual circles that we have been living through a long period of market fundamentalism. It is a lie and it should not be perpetuated, especially now that people are declaring its demise.

This is not just a semantic point. It speaks to the issue of how we want to structure the economy. If we fail to recognize that there is no such thing as a “free market,” then we are not thinking seriously about the economy.

The government always must structure the market. It is literally infinitely malleable. If we think of the options as government versus the free market, then we don’t understand what we are dealing with and it is likely to end badly.

(Yes, this is my book Rigged [it’s free]. There’s also the video version.)

Dean Baker | Senior Economist

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