SoE Thesis / Capstone: Undergraduate

Undergraduate theses and capstone reports should use the same Microsoft Word template document as graduate students, adjusting the content as needed.

The Inamori School of Engineering uses the reference style of the American Chemical Society (ACS) for undergraduate and graduate theses.

For assistance with using the ACS style, or reference management software, ask your librarian.

ACS Style Quick Guide

There are several reference management software options available; either Zotero or EndNote is recommended:

Zotero is a free option. It is open-source and has plug-ins for Word, LibreOffice, and GoogleDocs.

EndNote is a paid product made available by Alfred University to AU students, faculty, and staff. The desktop version will need to be downloaded from the U:Drive.

U:Drive > Public > AU Libraries > Endnote

Undergraduate students are required to submit three printed (paper) copies of their thesis/capstone. Two paper copies are for Scholes Library and the third is for your advisor. All copies are submitted to the SoE Dean's Office; they will coordinate getting them to the appropriate offices.

AU Libraries needs multiple copies of your work for preservation and to make them available to future researchers. One print copy is added to the library's circulating collection (can be checked out like a book) and one copy is added to special collections (historical preservation).

For best preservation, the library copies must be printed on special paper, not regular printer paper (and unfortunately it is more expensive than regular paper). These copies should be printed single-sided. Do not staple these copies.

Acceptable paper for theses:

• 100% cotton paper (often marketed as resume paper)
  • Available from Amazon, most office supply stores, other sources
• Permalife Archival 20lb Bond Paper
  • Available from archival suppliers such as Gaylord Archival and Hollinger Metal Edge

It is recommended that students coordinate purchasing paper to be more cost-effective. Unfortunately, students are responsible for supplying their own paper.

A data management plan (DMP) helps researchers work with, manage, share and archive their data effectively.  A DMP typically describes:

• What data will be produced as a part of the project
   
• How each type of data will be organized, documented, standardized, stored, protected, shared and archived
   
• Who will take responsibility for carrying out the activities listed above
   
• When these activities will take place over the course of the project (and beyond) 

What is in a data management plan?

• Description of types of data, samples, and physical collections you will be creating.
   
• Standards you will use for your data and the metadata to describe it.
   
• Policies for sharing, accessing, and re-using your data.
   
• Methods for archiving and preserving your data.

The DMP Tool is a service built to help researchers create a data management plan according to your needs and based on agency guidelines. You can currently create an account and use the tool.

Whether you are working on a senior thesis or a senior design project (capstone) largely depends on the program you are enrolled in. At Alfred University, students in New York State College of Ceramics (NYSCC) engineering programs (Glass Science, Ceramic Engineering, Materials Science, Biomaterials) complete a thesis and students in private-side engineering programs (Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Renewable Energy) generally complete a capstone. In both cases, these are longer term and larger scale than projects you have previously done for any individual class.

A key element of both types of project is that you -- the student -- are working semi-independently. Your faculty advisor/supervisor is there to guide your project, make suggestions, and evaluate your work, but they are not there to tell you exactly how to do your project. This may be a shift from your previous experience with class projects and assignments, where there are clear instructions and evaluation criteria. But, don't worry! The experience of taking on more self-direction and of working on new problems is part of the learning process.

By the end of your senior year, you will have created (or synthesized) new knowledge and ideas for the world. The senior thesis or project write-up is the documentation of your research/design process and what you learned. These documents are added to the collection of Scholes Library, where they are available to future students and to researchers across the country and around the world.

Because this project will be completed over a long timeframe (one or two semesters) and may have different stages or elements, it can be challenging to stay on track -- the deadline seems very far away, until it is suddenly very close. Many students leave the deliverable of the project (the final write-up) until the last minute, resulting in high levels of stress and a final product that may not be reflective of the amount and quality of work that went into the project. Every student, and every project, is different, but here are some tips for keeping track of your progress and making your life easier:

Scheduling

• Build at least an hour or two into each week for working on your senior project, and put it on your schedule like a weekly class meeting. You may use this time for reading research articles/documentation, doing data analysis, writing code, writing up your work for your final report/thesis, etc. The important thing is that you are making progress each week over the full length of the project.
   
• Do any training or orientation you will need for lab/workshop equipment early on. Having this completed will enable you to have more time for actually doing your research.
   
• Lab and workshop equipment can break. There may be a lot of people who all need the same piece of equipment. Allow enough time for your project that when a delay (inevitably) happens, you don't have to panic and can stay on track in progressing toward your final deadline.
   
• Faculty have busy schedules and a lot of responsibilities. Communicate with your advisor (and committee, if you have one) to schedule meetings; it may not always be possible to meet with only a little bit of notice. If you have to do a defense or presentation with multiple faculty members, coordinating multiple schedules will be even harder -- get on people's calendars early.

Documentation

• Use reference management software (Zotero or EndNote) to keep track of journal articles, books, reports, etc. as you find them in your research. That way, when you are writing, or need to follow-up on a lead in the future, the information is at your fingertips. This technology will also format your references for you, saving a lot of time and headaches.
   
• Take progress photos as you conduct your research. Images of the research setup and/or design progression can be very helpful in final documents and in presentations. Taking photos throughout the project will make that possible, and they can be helpful for refreshing your memory and troubleshooting problems at future stages of your project.
   
• Keep your lab notebook(s) in accordance with the standards for your field. This detailed, dated documentation is important for your research practice and also for patent applications (or defense).
   
• Make (and follow) a plan for how you will collect, store, and label the data you collect. (A Data Management Plan (DMP).) Your data needs to be understandable to other people (and your future self) -- use clear file names and headers/labels for charts and tables. You should include a "readme" document or text file in which you write out what the file names, headers/labels, etc. mean and what software you used (and will need to access the data).
   
• Do a progress reflection every week or two. This doesn't necessarily have to be a formal document, it is for your (and your advisor's) reference. Make a list of what you worked on/accomplished, any major successes or difficulties you encountered, and anything you need to connect with other people about. Depending on your project structure, your advisor or project team may require formal progress reports, but even if they're not required, regular check-ins with yourself will help keep the project on track.

Final Write-Up and Presentation(s)

• Don't make putting your thesis document, project report, academic poster, etc. together an afterthought. When people in the future want to know about your research, these items are what they will be looking at.
   
• Take advantage of resources like the Writing Center and the Libraries for help with structuring your write-up and communicating your ideas.
   
• Work with your advisor and/or committee to get feedback well in advance of your final due date. It is common for students to receive required or recommended revisions and feedback they'll need to incorporate before their thesis is accepted. By building opportunities for feedback into the process, there will be less of these to deal with after you thought you were all done.
   
• Unless your advisor/committee advises otherwise, write for an audience who is familiar with the field, but is not an expert in the specific area you were researching.
   
• As early career researchers, your credentials (why the person looking at your work should care what you have to say) come in large part from you showing that you have done your research and are grounded in the scholarship of your field. That means that your references section is very important! Your work should be grounded in the academic and gray literature of your field so that you can then contribute to it.

If you plan to reprint any figures or tables in your thesis, you will need to be mindful of copyright and intellectual property (IP). When you (or anyone else) want to re-use copyrighted materials, you need to consider the complicated landscape of fair use and copyright permissions. Using someone's work without permission and not as a fair use infringes on their copyright -- even if you provide a citation.

While plagiarism and copyright violations sometimes overlap, they are different issues. Plagiarism is an issue of ethics and good scholarly practice; the impact of plagiarism is usually reputational and career-related. Copyright infringement (and other IP law) is a legal issue and if violation is found damages can be monetary (and significant).

Now that the scare tactics are out of the way, you'll be glad to hear that it is relatively easy to avoid these issues by providing citations and getting permission for re-using copyrighted work. Most publishers have a straightforward online process for requesting copyright permissions.

The Copyright and Intellectual Property page on this guide has more information, and there are many resources available online.

You can also contact your librarian for assistance.

Librarians are here to help you throughout the research process. One of the places we can be especially helpful is in the topic development phase. We can help you clarify your area of interest, come up with keywords and search strategies, and point you in the direction of good resources to start with. Email me to set up a time to talk about your assignment or research project.

The Engineering subject guide (aka LibGuide) is there to help! This guide has information about the different kinds of resources you may use in your project and links to library resources that will be particularly helpful for you.