The range of possible topics is limitless, and the Honors Committee encourages students to pursue topics that will continue to engage their interest and excitement over the course of a year. The Honors Committee encourages your freedom of choice and hopes that you will choose an original topic. A simple retelling or narration of a story is not an acceptable substitute for hard and searching thinking about history and historical relationships. Moreover, merely restating what others have already written about a topic does not stimulate your intellectual growth, and stimulating intellectual growth is what the history honors program is all about. The success of the honors history thesis requires close interaction between the honors student and thesis advisor.
Advisors commonly help their students narrow their topics and suggest historical sources.
They may also provide advice on useful historical methods to follow. The exact relationship between students and their advisors may vary, and it is up to the students to negotiate this relationship. In other words, it is the preliminary blueprint for an honors paper. Students will defend their precis before their peers and the Honors Committee. Students should read each other's proposals and be able to suggest potential problems in research design or sources.