Developing a Clear Thesis Project

Catalog description

This class has two goals: First, to take your nascent prelim papers/dissertation idea and turn it into a very clear project; second, to use some readings and discussion on key topics in research design to service the development of your project. Thus, the class will be highly participatory and rely on many presentations by you. Each student presents three papers of increasing length on their research topic. These presentations start early in the semester, so you need to enter the class with a moderately clear research question. This is not a class for students in search of an idea and who want to investigate a broad array of potential methodologies to inform their future research.