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Format:
Summary of the Order of Written Components of a Written Thesis Project:
Format
Paper: Capstone Projects should be printed on standard quality 8 1/2” x 11” paper.
Margins: Left-hand margins must be 2” to allow room for binding. This applies to the entire Capstone Project, including the title page and all appendices, diagrams, and figures. Top, bottom, and right margins should be at least 1”.
Margins: Left-hand margins must be 2" to allow room for binding. This applies to the entire Capstone Project, including the title page and all appendices, diagrams, and figures. Top, bottom, and right margins should be at least 1".
Type: The Capstone Project should be printed in a 12 point font. The right margin should remain unjustified.
Line spacing: The Capstone Project should be double-spaced, with approximately 25 lines per page. The abstract and the list of sources cited and consulted, as well as footnotes or endnotes, should be single-spaced. (Consult an appropriate style manual for proper citation form.)
Page numbering: The Abstract precedes the Table of Contents; these pages are not numbered. All pages after the Table of Contents should be numbered in the upper right hand corner. “Preface,” “Advice to Future Honors Students,” and “Acknowledgments” sections should be numbered in lowercase Roman numerals. All pages thereafter should receive continuous Arabic numbering.
Written Components of the Capstone Project
Here is the order for the written components of a capstone project:
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Abstract
• Table of Contents
• Preface (optional)
• Acknowledgements (optional)
• Advice to Future Honors Students (optional)
• Capstone Project Body
(For students submitting a Creative Project, this is the Reflective Essay)
• Sources Cited and Consulted
• Appendices (optional)
• Written Summary of Capstone Project
Title Page: (required) The proper format for the title page is illustrated on the honors website at http://honors.syr.edu/CapstoneProject/ThesisTitlePage.htm. We advise you to print that page so you can more easily visualize the layout. (Note that all the components of the title page should be on one page, even though some browsers may produce two pages from the web.) The title should be in what Microsoft Word calls “title case,” (See “Format” > “Change Case”) i.e., each word capitalized, with the exception of “a,” “the,” etc.
Copyright: (optional) Copyright protection begins automatically, without any action taken by you, the moment an original work is created and fixed in a tangible form. If you envision publication* of the work or wish for other reasons to reserve rights to the work formally, you may register the work with the U.S. Copyright Office and include a copyright page following the title page.
No copyright notice need be placed on your work in order for full copyright protection to apply; but for practical reasons, an author should always place a copyright notice on his or her work. A notice warns readers that the author takes copyright issues seriously; and it may discourage potential infringers, especially those unfamiliar with the intricacies of copyright law. Moreover, if the work carries a notice, in the event of a subsequent lawsuit the infringer will be unable to claim that he or she did not realize that the work was protected.
For more information about copyright protection, visit the U.S. Copyright Office online at http://www.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ1.html.
* Publication has a technical meaning in copyright law. According to the U.S. Copyright statute: "Publication is the distribution of copies or phonorecords of a work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending." According to this definition, having your Capstone Project bound and housed in the Honors program does not constitute publishing the work.
Abstract: (required) Each Capstone Project must include a one-page abstract. The abstract is a brief summary of the Capstone Project, which sets out the essential ideas of the project. For a traditional academic thesis project, it should typically include a statement of the problem, a summary of the methodology used, the argument, the nature of the proof or evidence, and the conclusion. For a project in the Creative category, the abstract should typically include a statement of the concept, the context of the work, a discussion of the medium/processes used in the project’s creation, and the conclusion. It should be single spaced.
Because the abstract summarizes what the Capstone Project has accomplished, it should be written in present or past, not future, tense.
Table of Contents: (required component) Every Capstone Project should include a table of contents listing the page numbers of the preface (if included); advice to future Honors students (if included); acknowledgments; main body or reflective essay, including chapter and section headings; sources cited and consulted; and appendices/list of illustrations, if any.
Preface: (optional component) The Capstone Project may include prefatory material. This material should be separately designated as a Preface in traditional academic writing.
An Honors preface is a six-to-ten page essay clarifying the main point of the work, explaining the choice of topic, and describing the author's intellectual position. It may be self-reflective, considering the student's growth as a scholarly creator, designer and thinker. Please see the article written by Henry Jankewicz for an expanded description of a Preface.
Acknowledgements: (optional component) In this section, students may express appreciation to those who have contributed to their academic and personal growth as scholarly creators.
Advice to Future Honors Students: (optional component) In this section, students give any practical hints or admonitions that they think other Honors students in their field would find particularly helpful as they create their own Honors Capstone Projects. Many future students will find this helpful.
Capstone Project Body: (required component for written thesis) For a Capstone Project that is executed as a written work, the body of the work is usually about 60-70 pages, though some, particularly in the natural sciences and mathematics, may be shorter, and many in the humanities and social sciences may be longer. It should not exceed 100 pages. If you find yourself going over that limit, ask your Advisor to help you edit it down to within 100 pages. It should follow the conventions of the author's discipline.
Reflective Essay: (required component for a Capstone Project in a creative medium) For a creative Capstone Project, the body of the work is the creation itself. It must be accompanied by a reflective essay of at least 15 pages. Prefatory material is appropriate in the explanatory essay. An article written by Henry Jankewicz provides guidance for writing the Reflective Essay.
Footnotes/Endnotes and Sources Cited and Consulted: (required component) The student should use whatever style of documentation is appropriate for the discipline in which he or she is writing. The Capstone Project Advisor can recommend the correct style to follow. Reference copies of the standard documentation style guides --the MLA Handbook and the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association -- are available on the Bird Library Website; see "Reference Shelf" under "Research tools.".
Appendices: (optional component) Any tables, graphs, illustrations, or other material relevant to the project should be included as appendices, consistent with the conventions of the discipline. (Be sure that all appendix pages have 2" left-hand margins.)
The Written Capstone Summary: A 4-6 page (double-spaced) summary of your project written for a non-expert audience. The summary should include:
- a description of the project;
- a brief, non-technical discussion of the methods used;
- a discussion of the project's significance.
Renée Crown University Honors Program
Suite 306, Bowne Hall
Syracuse University
Syracuse, New York 13244-1200
(315) 443-2759
Copyright (c) 2005
Syracuse University Honors Program
To comment, send email to the Deputy Director of the Honors Program. |
