Thesis prospectus requirements: Standards?

[futureapppsy2]

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I'm in the process of doing two separate undergraduate honors theses (at my school, they use the same guidelines for a MA thesis, except for the requirement for an extra-departmental comittee member), and my advisers have some pretty different views--

one wanted my prospectus to have a discussion section, one didn't; one said that my committee members should have a bound hardcopy, one told me to send my committee members an electronic copy (with a bound hardcopy available upon request); one told me that I could NOT schedule the defense myself as that would be coercisive , the other told me to; one told me that my presentation at my defense should be about 5 slides, the other wanted around 20....

Are there any standard guidelines about this?

PS. One has been successfully defended and IRB-approved and is now the recruitment stage; I'm defending the second on Monday, so wish me luck, if you will.

 

[psychgirl77]

I would go with what your senior supervisor says.

 

[futureapppsy2]

Thy are actually two completely separate projects with completely separate advisers, so I'm just having to learn to take nothing for granted, but still, I assumed there would be some formal or informal standards in the field. Perhaps not?

 

[FranklinR]

Thy are actually two completely separate projects with completely separate advisers, so I'm just having to learn to take nothing for granted, but still, I assumed there would be some formal or informal standards in the field. Perhaps not?

There is the APA style guide, which covers just about every aspect of manuscript production - but the rest of it is largely convention. I would try to just accept that different people have different standards. If you have a good relationship with one or both of them, you could ask about the differences (if you're curious), but really, it doesn't matter -just do as the adviser suggests.

 

[futureapppsy2]

There is the APA style guide, which covers just about every aspect of manuscript production - but the rest of it is largely convention. I would try to just accept that different people have different standards. If you have a good relationship with one or both of them, you could ask about the differences (if you're curious), but really, it doesn't matter -just do as the adviser suggests.

That's pretty much the approach I'm taking.