Format and Scope of the Senior Thesis

Biochemistry 498 and 498H are writing emphasis courses. Writing emphasis courses are regular junior- or senior-level courses in an academic discipline in which at least half the grade awarded is determined by written work appropriate to the academic discipline.

For detailed information on how to write your thesis, you can study the format of papers submitted to a leading journal such as Journal of Biological Chemistry or Biochemistry. The formatting information is contained in “Instructions for Authors” which are accessible on the Internet (www.jbc.org or pubs.acs.org). You may also consult guides on “How to Write a Scientific Paper” in the library or on line.

Your Senior Thesis should contain the following sections:

1. Cover
   
   Title of thesis, author, faculty director, date of thesis, signature line for faculty director and indicating approval of the scope and content, date of signature, and signature line/date for approval by an undergraduate committee member.
   
   
2. Abstract
   
   State in concise sentences the achievements of the research. The abstract typically contains 250 words or less, with sufficient information to understand the overall content of the thesis.
   
   
3. Introduction
   
   Describe some of the background research that provides the rationale for the thesis project, providing relevant literature references where appropriate. Give the reasons for undertaking the research, and describe the types of results you expected to obtain.
   
   
4. Methods
   
   Describe the techniques used in your research with sufficient detail to help someone knowledgeable in the field understand and reproduce the experiments that were performed. Provide references to paper(s) describing the methods where relevant.
   
   
5. Results
   
   Results are the heart of your Senior Thesis and of the Writing Emphasis component of Biochemistry 498. The purpose of the results section is to objectively describe the results of your research in an orderly fashion using figures and tables to supplement the information in the text. Each section of the results should begin with the question or hypothesis you have investigated. You may also wish to stress the positive and negative controls that validated the experiment. State your findings clearly and simply. Describing negative results may be as important as positive results. What were you testing? Why? How? What did you discover? Is it meaningful? Why? Repeat this information for each different experiment described in the thesis. Remember, the results represent the new knowledge that is the subject of your thesis project.
   
   
6. Discussion
   
   The discussion is your opportunity to explain meaning and significance of research results, and to put your findings in the broader context of knowledge in the research area. Did your experiments conform to the expectations when the research was begun? Have any major new principles been established. Does any prior research in this field need to be re-examined? You should end the discussion with a thoughtful statement about future experiments that could be done to follow up on your results and conclusions.
   
   
7. References
   
   Follow the instructions for citing literature for authors submitting manuscripts to The Journal of Biological Chemistry or Biochemistry.
   
   
8. Legends , Tables and Figures
   
   Follow the instructions for preparing Figures, Tables, Figure Legends, and Table Legends described for submission of a manuscript to the Journal of Biological Chemistry or Biochemistry .

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