Honors Thesis

Dr. Alix Rexford

Upper division includes all UF courses you have taken after you reached ‘Junior’ status. You can look up your upper-division GPA on your one.uf account.

Students with an upper division GPA of slightly below 3.50 are allowed to submit a thesis in anticipation that grades in their last semester might push them to 3.50 or above. They should get in touch with the Honors Thesis Adviser to discuss.

Yes. The honors designation upon graduation is open to all students at UF.

Yes. We will accept undergraduate research credits from other UF departments. However, note that for your thesis to be viable it needs to emphasize the chemistry or biochemistry of your project.

Use this CHM4910 fillable pdf form, which you and your research advisor fill out and send back to the department contact listed on the form. Do this before drop/add ends. CHM4910 will then be added to your semester schedule with the number of credits you and your research advisor have selected. The process may differ in other departments. Talk to the undergraduate coordinators in the department which houses your research.

The maximum credits is 3 per semester and the minimum is 0. Yes, there is a zero-credit option which is helpful if you want to do research but don’t want to earn credit for it for any reason. It is important that you sign up for CHM4910 or equivalent since that will get you the benefit of insurance in case an accident happens in the lab.

Follow the steps under (6). In addition, go to one.uf and make the request to late add the course. Guidance on how to sign up late can be found here: https://training.hr.ufl.edu/instructionguides/oneuf/oneuf_sida.pdf.

Make sure to check out the 5-digit class number of the course since you will need it in the process. Once you have made the submission it is up to the department and college to approve and process the late addition. Late addition allows you to add CHM4910 until about 2/3 into the semester.

If you are starting your research toward the end of the semester, you will need to fill out a volunteer form and have an appointment with HR. Ask your research advisor to tell their program assistant to get you started with the paperwork. The volunteer work will not count as credit toward your honors thesis.

It is important that you get a recommendation letter from a UF-affiliated researcher, ideally tenure-track or research faculty. This will usually make it very difficult to get research performed outside UF credited for your honors thesis, unless you work with someone who has a UF affiliation and a home department at UF.

Graduating seniors who fulfill the college requirements will be contacted by the Department (typically about 6 weeks into their final semester) and asked whether they plan to submit an honors thesis. If they reply with the answer ‘yes’ they will be enrolled in an ‘Honors Thesis’ Canvas site where they can find a checklist with important deadlines regarding the thesis submission. Typically, the thesis needs to be submitted to the Honors Thesis Advisor (currently Dr. Alix Rexford) ~two weeks prior to the reading days of the student’s final semester. The Honors Thesis committee will read and evaluate the thesis and if necessary, ask students for modifications or corrections. Students typically have a weekend and a few extra days to make these changes.

No. There is no formal proposal necessary. If you wish to discuss your thesis with someone before you get started contact the Honors Thesis Advisor for an office hour appointment. They will answer your questions and give you advice.

Submission deadlines for the honors thesis differ from semester to semester. However, the first submission deadline is typically three weeks before the end of classes (not including Finals week).

No, the process works on very strict deadlines that are non-negotiable. Plan accordingly and give yourself enough time before a deadline is upon you.

Yes, your honors thesis will only be accepted if your faculty advisor (supervisor) sends us a letter (by email) in which they tell us that they have read your thesis and approve of it and give us a recommendation for either magna or summa cum laude. The letter needs to come from your faculty advisor, not from a graduate student or postdoctoral assistant. The deadline for this recommendation letter is the same as your first submission deadline. It is your responsibility to remind your faculty advisor of this deadline.

Submit your thesis as an electronic copy (PDF) to the Honors Thesis Canvas course assignment by the deadline stated in the checklist. There are no departmental or college forms to fill out. Important information and guidance on submission of an honors thesis is found at the library website: http://guides.uflib.ufl.edu/etds/honors_theses.

If the faculty committee deems the thesis to be of lower quality than that typically seen for the designated level of honors, the student will be asked to defend their thesis if they wish to obtain the higher honors level. Thesis defenses are open to the public and are typically held during the Thursday or Friday before finals week (reading days). The student is given approximately 10 minutes to present their work followed by a ~5 minute question and answer session by the committee. The Q&A session is not open to the public. If your thesis designation determined by the faculty committee aligns with your pre-assigned designation based on your GPA there is no need for a thesis defense.

The thesis needs to document substantial research work by the student. This is typically demonstrated by the presentation and discussion of multiple experiments or calculations, a thorough discussion of the scientific problem the thesis tries to address including a review of the pertinent literature. Documentation of experiments/calculations that did not succeed may be appropriate if the scientific reasons for the failed attempts are discussed. The thesis should be formatted neatly and use correct English grammar and syntax. Avoid the use of ‘lab slang.’ Explain terms used in your field to the non-expert reader. Go to https://ufdc.ufl.edu/ufhonors and type “Major: Chemistry” to find examples of previous honors theses in Chemistry/Biochemistry.

Sections typically include:

1.     Abstract – details the main findings of the project

2.     Table of Contents

3.     Acknowledgements

4.     List of abbreviations used

5.     Introduction – to introduce the scientific problem that the thesis addresses

6.     Materials and Methods – to outline the materials and methods that were used in the work

7.     Results – a careful presentation of the main research results, typically done in graphs and tables with appropriate description in the main text

8.     Discussion – a thorough discussion of the experimental or theoretical results from the preceding chapter, comparison with literature data, and with an emphasis on how the scientific problem (given in the Introduction) is addressed

9.     Conclusion – a brief review (not repeat) of the main points that were concluded from the data and its discussion

10.  References – a numbered reference list of the pertinent literature, cited in the main text with increasing numbers

11.  Appendix – if necessary, the appendix can be used to document additional supporting data, e.g., NMR spectra, protein structure data, etc.

Don’t forget to number the pages. Review previous honors theses on the UF library page (see https://ufdc.ufl.edu/ufhonors).

Try to avoid the way MS Excel formats graphs with gridlines. Make sure that your data is well visible and distinct from other data you present on the same graph.

Check out a recent ACS journal, such as the Journal of the American Chemical Society, and review their reference style. Reference management software such as Zotero (free!), EndNote, Mendeley, etc. may be used and can make your life easier.

Yes, if your thesis contains copyrighted material (figures, tables, or any other large portions of information or data where someone else holds the copyright), a signed and dated letter from the copyright holder(s) needs to be submitted together with your thesis. This includes co-authors who are not UF faculty, staff, or graduate students. It is your responsibility to contact the copyright holder(s) of material you wish to reproduce and gather their signatures on the permission letter(s).* A sample letter can be found here: http://cms.uflib.ufl.edu/portals/etd/editorial-copyright-permission.pdf. For more information see UF’s copyright guide: https://guides.uflib.ufl.edu/copyright/authorsrights. Feel free to email your question(s) about copyright permissions to copyright@uflib.ufl.edu.

* Obtaining copyright permission can sometimes be a time-consuming process. Start it early so it won’t conflict with your submission deadlines. Ideally, you should seek copyright permission at the time when you decide to include copyrighted material in your draft thesis.

No. The thesis is your work and you need to be the sole author. You should acknowledge the work of others that contributed to your research in an acknowledgment section. In any case, make it very clear in your thesis what part is your own work and what part is other people’s work.

Electronic submission to the Libraries is done via an online form at: http://apps.uflib.ufl.edu/Honors/. Submission files should be in PDF format. The Libraries also accept supplemental material such as video, audio, code, etc. as .zip files. If you need assistance with your submission, feel free to contact MediatedSubmissions@uflib.ufl.edu or 352-294-3785.

Congratulations on getting published. However, the paper is not a substitute for a thesis. You may use the data in your paper for your thesis but the thesis needs to be a different document following the formatting typical for a thesis (see preceding point).

You will be informed of the decision of the thesis committee after it has met and reviewed your work. If you are defending your thesis the decision will be made by the committee after your defense and you will be informed by the Honors Thesis Advisor after your defense.

It depends. The program booklet gets printed several weeks in advance of commencement. Departments are asked to submit the projected honors designations for their graduating seniors five to six weeks before commencement. Therefore only the preliminary honors designation will show up in print in the program booklet. If your final honors designation matches your preliminary one, then the printed program is obviously correct. If your honors designation changes, e.g., by you defending your thesis and getting a higher/lower designation, or if you registered late for graduation, the program booklet will have it wrong. However, your final honors designation will be part of your transcript from UF.