Junior Paper (JP)

Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences: Sophomore Research Seminars

Posted on March 5, 2026March 5, 2026 by Alison Fortenberry

The exterior of the New South Building with fall foliage. — *New South, where many first-year writing seminars and sophomore research seminars take place.*

First-year writing seminars are a rite of passage for all Princeton students, introducing you to the research and writing skills you need to craft an independent research paper. But what comes next? For many undergraduates, sophomore year is a year-long pause before you actually get to apply those independent research skills in your JP. The Princeton Writing Program’s sophomore research seminars offer an alternative.

Growing Up in the Same Lab

Posted on March 3, 2026March 3, 2026 by Angel Toasakul

Members of the Norman Lab taking a group picture together — *Norman Lab group picture*

After the first meeting of the semester with my adviser, whom I’ve been working with since my first-year spring, I looked at the list of papers I had to read for my junior independent work but chose to open the small birthday card my adviser gave me on behalf of the lab. Seeing everyone’s “Happy Birthday” made me feel, more than ever before, like I belonged.

And I was growing up.

I was energized, ready to take on a new responsibility. Since the conversation I had with my PI over the summer, I had been excited to get started. Coming into Princeton interested in memory and potential ways to manipulate unwanted or negative ones, getting to use eye trackers to exert top-down control over what people look at and induce forgetting by weakening the activation of the related pathways based on the eye gaze pattern seemed like a sci-fi movie coming to life. I couldn’t wait to feel ownership over my own project and contribute to the kind of work my lab cares so much about.

After two years, I started to feel like I was equipped to excel on all fronts at Princeton.

But reality… hit.

6 Tips to Prepare for Independent Work Over Break

Posted on December 16, 2025December 4, 2025 by Alison Fortenberry

Firestone Plaza at night — *I’ll be checking out books from Firestone Library before heading home for winter break*.

As another semester draws to a close and winter break looms, now is the perfect time to make a plan for independent work over break. The flexibility of break can give you the freedom to work on your own schedule, but it can also be challenging to keep making progress without the external structure of the semester. Here are a few things that I’m doing before leaving campus to help set me up for thesis writing over the break:

Digital Mapping in the Humanities and Social Sciences

Posted on December 4, 2025December 4, 2025 by Alison Fortenberry

A map of church members' residential address, racial demographic data in each census tract, and an outline of Philadelphia in 1960 — *This is one of the maps I generated for my project. It demonstrates that, in the 1960s, most church members lived in predominantly white areas and many lived outside of the city of Philadelphia.*

In my junior paper, I explored how the racial demographics of a Philadelphia church transformed from exclusively White to predominantly Black within a few short years. I started this project in the archive, looking for any documents that could point to when and how the church’s congregation began to transform. In minutes recorded of church meetings, I identified a period of white flight, where the neighborhood around the church became increasingly non-White, and, in response, many of the church’s White members relocated to the suburbs. I knew that I could describe this congregational migration in a written narrative, but I also wanted my readers to be able to visualize it, so I turned to digital mapping.

The Role of Struggle in Research

Posted on November 11, 2025November 11, 2025 by Gabriel Ascoli

*Roman copy of a Greek bronze bust of Aristotle by Lysippos (c. 330 BC).*

Aristotle’s Metaphysics begin with an oft-quoted adage: πάντες ἄνθρωποι τοῦ εἰδέναι ὀρέγονται φύσει (Aristotle, Metaphysics A.1 980a). “All humans, by their nature, strive to understand.”

With some spare time over fall break, I decided to brush up on my Greek philosophy. My upcoming junior independent work will focus on Lucretius’ philosophical poem De Rerum Natura, and he engages with so many ideas from ancient Greek thinkers – Epicurus, Democritus, Plato, and Aristotle, to name a few – I thought it prudent to be familiar with them. Given that the very purpose of their works is to explain their ideas, I didn’t expect to run into serious trouble as I began reading them. Instead, as I started making my way through Aristotle’s Metaphysics and Plato’s Timaeus, I found myself entangled with ideas of identity, causation, and substance. My overwhelming reaction was… “wait, what?”

Finding Your Focus: 5 Tips on How to Narrow Down Your Topic

Posted on October 14, 2025October 8, 2025 by Alison Fortenberry

A brainstorming man looks at a wall covered with notes and ideas — *Brainstorming Ideas. Photo Credit: Per Lööv*

As someone in the social sciences and humanities, I had a broad idea of what I was interested in when going into my independent research. But once it came time to propose a specific topic, I was overwhelmed by how many possibilities there were. I was drawing on a massive archive of documents that dated back to the 1890s, so trying to decide on just one moment or figure to focus on made me feel like I was leaving a lot of important stories out. The best research projects are the ones that you’re genuinely excited about, but what do you do when you’re excited by a lot of different topics? Here are five tips that have helped me narrow down a broad research interest to a specific research topic.

Thanking Your Mentors: Tips on Writing Your Research Paper Acknowledgements

Posted on April 28, 2025April 28, 2025 by Alexis Wu

Photo of Princeton's Blair Arch with green grass in the foreground and a blue sky in the background. — *I have yet to print my senior thesis, but once I do, I’ll be taking a photo with it in front of Blair Arch (per tradition!).* *Photo by author.*

When I sat down to write the acknowledgements for my senior thesis, I realized something surprising: my department’s resources on how to write a thesis or independent work paper didn’t include any advice on writing this section. In some ways, that makes sense. Most readers focus on sections like the abstract, methodology, and results, which really serve as and highlight the key contributions of the paper. But having guidance on how to write acknowledgements can go a long way in helping students thank the people who made their research possible. In this article, I’ll share a few tips for writing acknowledgements—whether you’re submitting a STEM paper to a conference or wrapping up your senior thesis.

Paying it Forward: A Faculty Perspective on Mentorship in Research

Posted on April 18, 2025April 15, 2025 by Shannon Yeow

David Walker is a Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University whose research focuses on programming languages, formal methods, and computer systems. Known for his commitment to advancing both theoretical and practical understanding in the field, Professor Walker also plays a central role in mentoring students.

As someone who completed my junior independent work under Professor Walker’s guidance last semester, I’ve had the chance to witness his thoughtful mentorship firsthand. In a research culture where both the technical challenge and emotional uncertainty can feel overwhelming, I’ve come to appreciate how crucial the human side of research is—how we learn from and grow with those who guide us. With that in mind, I sat down with Professor Walker to explore how he thinks about mentorship: what it looks like, why it matters, and how he helps students, like me, find their footing in the world of research.

Heads Up: You Might Need Study Approval from the Institutional Review Board

Posted on April 7, 2025April 3, 2025 by Alexis Wu

Image of a fountain in the foreground whose spray creates a rainbow. Background includes the School of Public and International Affairs — *A rainbow at the Fountain of Freedom (colloquially called the “SPIA Fountain”), taken during a break from working on my thesis*

Independent research at Princeton offers an incredible opportunity for students to explore their academic interests and gain experience in the research world. This year, I’m working on my Senior Thesis with Professor Aleksandra Korolova, conducting an audit of Google ad delivery optimization algorithms. Specifically, I am studying whether aspects of advertisements—the image, text, links, and so on—impact the demographics of the audience to whom the advertisement is delivered.

In the fall, many people were curious about how my thesis was progressing. The truth was, for a few weeks, I hadn’t started running any experiments, since I first needed my research to be approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB). Through this experience, I both gained insight into the IRB process and found that many students had never even heard of the IRB. In this article, I share my experience and offer advice for students who are planning to conduct independent research.

Insights and Interests: An Interview with Cevina Hwang

Posted on March 21, 2025March 7, 2025 by Rebecca Cho

Hailing from Saipan and South Korea, Cevina Hwang is a junior in the Ecology & Evolutionary Biology department. With a longstanding interest in the field of dentistry, she chose to expand upon this passion through her junior work, where she will be exploring the evolution of the human jaw and teeth.

Join me below to read about Cevina’s journey in the junior work process.

Cevina Hwang, Princeton University ’26

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