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A Guide to Writing a Senior Thesis in History and Literature

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A Guide to Writing a Senior Thesis in History and Literature
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A Guide to Writing a Senior Thesis in History and Literature

Committee on Degrees in History and Literature Faculty of Arts and Sciences Harvard University

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A Guide to Writing a Senior Thesis in History and Literature

Cover photo credit: Harvard News Office, Copyright 2008, President and Fellows of Harvard College Written by Andrew J. Romig, Copyright 2008

Table of Contents
Introduction: The History and Literature Senior Thesis .................................................................................. 1
Rules of the game...............................................................................2 What’s inside ......................................................................................3 Acknowledgments ..............................................................................3

Chapter Four: Revising, The Final Frontier .............................25
Developing a productive critical eye: thinking in relative terms about precision, clarity, and persuasiveness ....................25 Working the thesis statement.............................................................26 Finding the best structure for your ideas: tell a good story .................27 Critiquing evidence ..........................................................................27 More about content ..........................................................................28 20,000+ words? Should you do it? ....................................................29 Chapter Four recap ...........................................................................29

Insert: Your Relationship With Your Advisor ........................... 4 Chapter One: Developing the Project...................................... 6
Organizing your time .........................................................................6 From “topics” to the basic building blocks of research..........................7 Storming the



Citations: February 29, 2008 A Guide to Writing a Thesis in History and Literature | page 41

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