Spanish Honors Projects

The requirements for completing an honors project in Spanish are the following:

1. ADVISOR
The project’s advisor must be a Spanish faculty member with relevant professional expertise in the selected topic of research. The student must have the commitment of their honors advisor and submit their Statement of Intent to prof. Antoinette Powell (Mudd Library) by 3 p.m. on the Friday of the first week of classes in the fall.

2. COMMITTEE
The student should consult with their advisor to select the other two faculty members in the honors project's committee. The second member can be another Spanish professor and the third must be from a different department. All should have professional expertise in the selected topic.

3. COURSE REGISTRATION
Lawrence does not require students to register for an independent study in connection to an honors project. However, the Spanish department strongly encourages students to register for at least one related independent study in the fall and/or winter term in order to promote accountability and the timely completion of an honors project by April.

4.FORMAT, LENGTH AND LANGUAGE
The format and length of Spanish honors projects should follow the guidelines of the chosen area of research, as approved by the project’s advisor. Faculty scholarship and the Spanish curriculum at Lawrence encompass various academic areas, including literary studies, film and visual art studies, linguistics, cultural studies and literary translation. The parameters for individual projects may vary for this reason. The usual length for an honors thesis in the humanities ranges from 15,000 to 25,000 words (the appropriate format and length of linguistics or translation projects may be estimated differently).

Spanish honors projects that research the cultural products, practices and perspectives of Spanish-speaking communities must be written entirely in Spanish, with the exception of brief quotations, work titles or names in other languages. In this case, the student has the option to write an English translation of their Spanish project if they wish. Projects dedicated to multilingual communities in the Spanish-speaking world—including the United States—may be written in any of the languages of the target communities or more than one, as long as all committee members are able to read the project in its entirety. The language(s) of the project should always be chosen in consultation with the advisor. The Statement of Intent, abstract and other paperwork for the university’s Honors Committee should be in English. Submitted materials in any language are expected to be free of grammatical or typographical errors.

For honors theses written in Spanish, the oral examination may also be conducted in Spanish, provided that all of the committee members and the representative from the university’s Honors Committee have an advanced knowledge of the language. Otherwise, the examination will be in English.

5. INTERDISCIPLINARY PROPOSALS
Proposals for interdisciplinary Spanish honors projects that involve a combination of humanities research in Spanish and academic/creative work in a different department or academic division require the formal approval and commitment of two advisors, one in each of the two areas for the proposed project. In some instances, students may be advised to complete two separate projects.

6. ACADEMIC RIGOR AND ACCOUNTABILITY
The student is expected to follow the professional guidance of their advisor for discipline-specific research processes and scholarly requirements that will determine the relevance and quality of their project. The student must meet all deadlines set by their advisor and the university until the submission of their project and oral examination.

7. GENERAL LAWRENCE INFORMATION AND DEADLINES FOR HONORS PROJECTS

https://www.lawrence.edu/academics/programs/honors_projects/for_students

8. EXAMPLE OF SPANISH HONORS PROJECT

No futuro: Juventud y desencanto en la urbe colombiana (Thomas Matusiak, 2013)

http://lawrence-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/01LAW_INST:Blended:01LAW_LUXluhp-1052