Senior honors theses are bound and shelved for public access in the James Addison Jones Library. Manuscripts submitted to the George Center for Honors Studies should, therefore, follow a consistent format, outlined below. The theses shelved in the library, of course, provide models from a range of academic disciplines. Questions about thesis style should be conveyed to the Director of the George Center for Honors Studies.

General Appearance and Mechanics

Generally, the manuscript should be clean and free of errors, with no visible corrections. More specifically:

• Margins should be 1 inch, except for the left margin, which is 1.25 inches.

• The font should be a plain serif or sans-serif font, such as Times New Roman or Arial. Font size should be 12 point throughout, except for special cases. Titles and headings, for example, should use a 14-point font, and a smaller font may be appropriate for some tables or charts.

• The manuscript should be double-spaced throughout, with no blank lines between paragraphs and the first line of each new paragraph indented 1/2 inch on the left.

• Pages should be numbered consecutively using lower-case Roman numerals for the preliminary pages and Arabic numerals for all subsequent pages. Each page except the title page should be numbered in the lower right-hand corner.

The manuscript should contain three general sections: preliminary pages, text, and references.

• The title page follows a specific format. Click here to download a sample title page. The full title is three inches from the top of the page, centered, in 14-point font. All else on the title page is centered as well, but in 12-point font. After the title comes a quadruple space to the word by, then a double space to the author's name, then ten spaces to this statement: A Senior Honors Theses Submitted to the George Center for Honors Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts [or Science] with Honors. Then follows a triple spaces to the advisor's name, as listed in the Academic Catalog, then five spaces to "Greensboro College", then the date.

• The abstract fits on a single page (no more than 250 words).

• The dedication is optional.

• The contents page lists all sections of the manuscripts: preliminary pages, text sections or chapters, lists of figures or tables, references, and appendices.

The text section should include an introduction or preface, a body (usually subdivided into clearly identified chapters or sections), and a conclusion. Use headings to identify these sections.

All references should be documented and all sources should be listed in the style appropriate to the student's academic discipline. The most commonly used documentation styles are APA (American Psychological Association), Chicago, CBE (Council of Science Editors, formerly Council of Biology Editors), and MLA (Modern Language Association). Students should consult the thesis advisor for the appropriate style. Guidebooks for the individual styles are available in the James Addison Jones Library. A good online guide to all of these styles is The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing.

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