Thesis Formatting

Word Count

Social Studies Senior Theses should be between 20,000 and 30,000 words of text. Theses that exceed 30,000 words may be penalized by up to half a grade for excessive length. Theses that do not reach the minimum required length may fail to receive honors. You are required to attach a word count to your thesis. To do so, type out the word count on an otherwise blank page and include it as the last page in your thesis. Theses will not be accepted without a word count.
 

Formatting

One copy of your thesis is to be submitted electronically to the Social Studies office, uploaded to the Social Studies 99 Canvas site. If you are a joint concentrator, you should submit one copy of your thesis to Social Studies and one to your joint concentration.

Apart from quotations of more than 50 words and from foot­notes, theses should be double-spaced.  

Pages must be numbered.

All margins should be standard one-inch margins.

Follow the foot- or end-noting conventions of the discipline with which the essay is most closely associated.  
 

Title Page

Your title page should follow the standard college requirements shown here. In other words, the following text should be appropriately centered and spaced on your title page:

(title of thesis)

A thesis presented

by

(first name, middle name, and last name of author)

Presented to

The Committee on Degrees in Social Studies

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree with honors of 

Bachelor of Arts

Harvard College

Cambridge, Massachusetts

(date of submission)
 

Acknowledgements 

When the thesis is submitted, please leave out an acknowledgements page. If your thesis is accepted for archives, you will be contacted to provide an acknowledgements page and any minor updates you wish to include.