Senior Thesis

Citations, Citations, Citations: A Guide to Keeping Track of these Pesky Beasts

Posted on February 28, 2025February 19, 2025 by Advik Eswaran

*Many books in a library. Citing them all would probably take a long time. Credit: Emil Widlund*

If I have to be completely honest, dealing with citations is my least favorite portion of the academic writing process. Ascertaining what citation style I need to use, successfully figuring out how to actually format citations in that style, and managing the hodgepodge of footnotes and endnotes are all tasks that seem, to me, cumbersome. Of course, these are necessary tasks: it is imperative that if we paraphrase, quote, or utilize in any way the work of others, we should always attribute the proper credit to them. But recognizing the importance of academic integrity doesn’t prevent us from still finding the task of dealing with citations to be a chore! If you’re in the same boat as I am, I’ll try to provide some advice and tips on dealing with citations!

A Guide to Poster-Making

Posted on February 7, 2025February 7, 2025 by Rebecca Cho

You’ve finished a research project and now you’re on to the final step: presenting your work! It’s time to share the incredible work you’ve done with the general public, and one of the best ways to do so is to create a poster conveying the significance and conclusions of your research. This will be an essential skill during your time at Princeton whether for a course or as a part of your junior and senior independent work. If this is your first time creating a poster presentation, check this blog out!

A student presenting her junior work as a poster presentation. — Sara Akiba ‘26 with her poster presentation on “Foraminifera-bound δ¹³C as a Paleo CO₂Proxy: Methods Testing” for the Geosciences Junior Poster Presentations! If you want a poster as great as hers, continue reading below for some advice.

A Quick Guide to Writing a Funding Proposal

Posted on January 29, 2025December 12, 2024 by Rebecca Cho

A student typing on a computer. — *This could be you working passionately on your funding proposal using the tips in this guide! Photo credit: Glenn Carstens-Peters.*

After having discovered a potential funding opportunity, you might be reading the requirements for the application and find that you need to write a “research proposal” as a part of the application. This might be your first time writing a funding proposal. Here are a few tips to assist you in writing your funding proposal!

A Quick Guide to Securing Funding

Posted on November 13, 2024October 25, 2024 by Rebecca Cho

This photo shows a student working in lab with his mentor. — *A student working in a lab, potentially on a research project for their senior work that would greatly benefit from funding! Photo credit: Nick Donnoli.*

You’ve brainstormed a great idea for your research project. You have the details of your topic all figured out, but you need some assistance with figuring out the logistics of the financial aspects that come with your great idea.

If that’s you, here’s a quick guide on one way of securing funding as a Princeton student!

The Under-the-Radar Thesis Topic: A Retrospective on my own Experience

Posted on June 7, 2024June 6, 2024 by Shane Patrick

Many Princeton students, when writing their senior theses, will be required to submit something resembling a “literature review,” where they give a broad summary of the extant literature on their respective senior thesis topics. Surveying the extant literature on a topic can help students to develop their own independent thoughts on the matter. For many students, the literature ends up being a very important part of the actual final text of the senior thesis.

After reaching this stage when researching my senior thesis topic, a relatively-unknown Arabic Christian legal text from 18th-century Lebanon called the Mukhtaṣar al-Sharīʿa of ʿAbdallāh Qarāʿalī, I realized that only a few paragraphs and couple footnotes had been written about the text in English. All told, the entire body of English-language academic work on the Mukhtaṣar totalled a mere two pages. This lack of a developed scholarly conversation about my topic came with its own challenges and opportunities. The relative obscurity of this topic was a large part of why I chose to write my thesis about it— I found it to be very intriguing and wished there was more written about it. In this post I intend to look back at my own experience writing a thesis on such a niche topic, and hope to offer some considerations on how such a project might be approached.

Firestone Library on a Spring Evening

Seasonal Series: An Interview with Eric Ahn

Posted on April 19, 2024May 9, 2024 by Shannon Yeow

Eric Ahn ’24, from Suwanee, Georgia, is an Operations Research and Financial Engineering (ORFE) major at Princeton University. Ahn is the Class of 2024 Treasurer, as well as a member of Manna Christian Fellowship and Kindred Spirit. This coming summer, Ahn will work as a Trading Intern at IMC Trading before returning to Princeton in the fall to obtain a graduate degree in finance.

In the spirit of upcoming senior thesis deadlines, I wanted to interview a senior currently working on their thesis. As an underclassman that doesn’t have to worry about any form of independent work yet and a COS BSE major, one of the only majors exempt from the senior thesis requirement, I’ve always been curious about the thesis writing process and what a BSE senior thesis entails. As a part of our Seasonal Series, I am excited to present my interview with Eric, as he shares his ORFE senior thesis, his interest in finance, and his advice for rising seniors.

Enhance your Research with Princeton’s Coin Collection

Posted on February 28, 2024February 26, 2024 by Shane Patrick

Students at Princeton are fortunate to have access to one of the largest collections of coins anywhere in the United States. Made up of roughly 115,000 items, the collection includes coins, paper money, medals, and other tokens covering almost the entire history of human money— in fact, the university has coins minted in the 6th century BC by Croesus, who is credited with inventing the first system of gold and silver currency. The university’s collection serves many purposes. For example, you may have been in a class which has gone down to Firestone C Floor to look at coins from the time and place you were studying. The coins are also used for exhibitions and workshops. I’m writing here to explain to you how you can use these coins to do great research.

A small gold coin in the photographer's left hand.

Yours truly holding a 1500 year-old coin in Firestone Library

Research and Foreign Languages

Posted on December 6, 2023December 6, 2023 by Shane Patrick

One of the major differences between the A.B. and B.S.E. courses of study at Princeton is that A.B. students are required to take (or test out of) at least four semesters of a language class. Studying a foreign language is, therefore, an essential part of studying the humanities at Princeton. There are many good reasons for studying a foreign language (besides simply needing to fulfill the language requirement)— perhaps you want to live or study in a different country, you might envision some professional advantages from knowing a foreign language, or you simply see studying languages as a new way to connect with others. Many Princeton alumni have successfully put their language skills to use in these sorts of pursuits. I’d like to offer another reason in addition to these: studying a foreign language at Princeton can prepare you to do exceptional research.

A page from an Arabic-Latin dictionary

Reading Courses: A Guide

Posted on November 29, 2023November 21, 2023 by Shane Patrick

As course selection begins, you might find yourself searching endlessly through the Course Offerings webpage, trying to craft the perfect schedule for next semester. You’re probably weighing a number of different factors— the professor, the class topic, the reading list, the different requirements it fulfills— and trying to balance these in the best way possible.There is another possibility here, which you can’t find in the course offerings: reading courses. Not advertised on department websites or listed with course offerings, reading courses are some of Princeton’s hidden academic gems. The University defines a reading course as a specially designed course not normally offered as part of the curriculum that is arranged between a student and a faculty member. These courses count for academic credit, and focus on a topic of the student’s choosing. If you’ve ever dreamed about designing your own course, this is your opportunity.

Students walk across McCosh Courtyard at Princeton University.

McCosh Courtyard in November

Researching in Princeton’s Special Collections

Posted on November 8, 2023October 30, 2023 by Shane Patrick

If you want to take your research in the humanities to the next level while here at Princeton, one of the best ways you can do that is by availing yourself of Princeton’s Special Collections. Home to vast stockpiles of manuscripts, rare books, coins, and other materials, Special Collections is a great place for students who want to pursue rigorous and impressive humanities research while making use of the excellent resources that Princeton has to offer. Many of these articles were donated by benefactors or acquired by the university specifically so that they could be researched by professors, students, and other researchers. In this article, I’ll present some reasons why you might consider checking out Special Collections, and then follow that up with a basic “how to” for when you visit.

Image shows an Ethiopic book, opened to pages featuring pictures of saints and text in Ge'ez (Classical Ethiopic)

A manuscript of an Ethiopic Synaxarion in Special Collections

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