Completing and Submitting Your Senior Thesis or Honors Thesis to fulfill Phscs 498R Requirement

Beginning for April 2010 graduation we moved to an all electronic submission process for all senior thesis.  This provides a couple advantages.  First we are able to stretch the deadline for submission by a few days.  It also means you will not have to find professors in their offices to get signatures on the paper work.  

In this section we will walk you through the process of completing your thesis, getting it approved, and other options.  You must be cognizant of  the procedures and the deadlines for each semester.  The deadlines given are for turning in your senior/honors thesis to complete the department requirement for Phscs 498R.  The deadline for an honors thesis is earlier and you must abide by that deadline to meet honors requirements.  For either a senior thesis or an honors thesis you must submit an electronic PDF file of your thesis using the link below. 

Website:

As you are reaching the end of your thesis writing and have a complete draft you should start loading PDF versions of your thesis into the electronic submission website.  This is where the entire approval process will be done.  Login to the thesis submission site:  http://physics.byu.edu/thesis/studentlogin.aspx

Deadlines:

You must complete each step in the approval and final submission process before the deadlines below to guarantee graduation on the date at the top of the column.

A Step-by-Step Walk to Turn in Your Senior/Honors Thesis:

Step 1) Complete research and be writing your thesis.  You should be doing as much of this as you go along as possible. Don't wait until the day before the final draft is due to start writing.  The thesis should have gone through many revisions with your adviser before we reach the submission deadline.

Step 2) Make sure your thesis PDF is less than 40 MB.  A huge file size for a PDF probably comes from using images with very high resolution. You should be able to limit the PDF resolution (300 dots per inch should be enough) in Latex, or in whatever PDF creation program you are using.  Or you can simply print from any application or file (even from your present PDF) to a PDF file with lower resolution using free programs like PDFCreator or CutePDF, and setting resolution under the advanced printing options.  As a last resort, submit a low resolution PDF with links to a high resolution PDF or to high resolution images online at a location your advisor suggests.

Step 3) By the first deadline listed above make all changes suggested by your adviser.  Then make sure of two things before the deadline; 1) you have uploaded the latest version of the thesis into the electronic submission website, and 2) that your adviser has electronically approved the thesis.  Just having your thesis uploaded by the deadline is not enough.  If the adviser doesn't complete approval by the first deadline the thesis will not be considered for that semester's graduation.

Step 4) Once your adviser approves the thesis it will go to the department research coordinator.  You will likely receive a few corrections at this point.  Make the corrections and upload the new PDF file into the website.  All changes requested by the research coordinator must be completed by the second deadline listed above.  Once again, if the approval is not completed by the deadline the thesis will not be processed for that semesters graduation.

Step 5) The final approval comes from the department chair.  You might get a request to make a few minor changes from the chair.  Please make these changes since the chair must sign the grade change form and will not sign it until the thesis is complete to their satisfaction.  Once the chair approves then your thesis is accepted to fulfill the requirements of your degree program. 

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Printed Copies:  In the past we have required you to bring in printed copies of the thesis as part of the approval process.  This is no longer the case.  However, you can still have a printed copy signed and bound if you want one for you personal collection.  If you want a bound copy of the thesis please see Diann (N281 ESC) to have the final approved copy printed.  We do not currently have a cost estimate on getting a bound copy of the thesis, so check with Diann.