Skip to Main Content

Honors thesis guidelines

The purpose of this guide is to provide guidelines preparing and submitting your honors thesis. This document is intended to be used in conjunction with the guidelines provided by your academic department.

Introduction

The purpose of this LibGuide is to provide guidelines for preparing and submitting your honors thesis through the Centennial Honors College at Western Illinois University. This document is intended to be used in conjunction with the guidelines provided by your academic department. The length and scope of honors theses vary by discipline, but they share some common characteristics:

An honors thesis is your original research, not a summary of research that has been already published. AI use in an honors thesis is discouraged. However, any usage of an AI tool must be explicitly approved by your thesis advisor, and you must publish the entire input and response used in an appendix (as screenshots). The entire thesis must comply with the University's Academic Integrity Policy.

An honors thesis is a culmination of your undergraduate study at WIU. It goes beyond any project or paper done for a course, but it may expand upon a term paper written for a course.

  • An honors thesis has an audience that is wider than that of an assignment written for a class. In writing an honors thesis, you are contributing to the body of knowledge in your discipline.

  • An honors thesis is a substantial written manuscript of at least 20 double-spaced pages, but the length often is considerably longer. In some disciplines, the length might be shorter. If your thesis is shorter than 20 pages, you should obtain explicit approval by the chair of your department/school. The appropriate length often mirrors the length of a typical journal article in the discipline. 

  • An honors thesis demonstrates substantial knowledge of a topic, as evidenced by a range of authoritative and appropriate sources in the works cited/references list.

  • An honors thesis showcases your very best academic work.