Program Notes | ENGL 460 Senior English Project

May 11, 2021

When you become a senior English major at Southern, a portion of your last year will be spent writing a Senior Research Project. This assignment is exciting, challenging, and rewarding. Proper planning will be important.

This project consists of original, independent research undertaken with a faculty advisor. The paper will showcase your abilities to the Department’s faculty and your fellow English majors.

Students generally opt for one of two types of projects: (1) significant primary research resulting in a paper of 12-15 pages (2) a creative or applied work that documents the context and impact of the work, the procedures used, and the scholarly sources supporting the work.

The project has a lot of flexibility built into it. In consultation with the faculty advisor, you will decide  what to investigate and how to present it. However, basic criteria apply to all projects.

To begin the project, you will need to apply formally. This way, the Department will understand your interests and goals.

Because research in English takes place in the context of a scholarly conversation about a text, you will plan your project around some issue addressed in an upper-division literature, language, or writing class.

As your project unfolds, you will present a research proposal, an annotated bibliography of secondary sources, various drafts, and an abstract. Early in the winter semester of your senior year, you will join other English majors in a research workshop with the English Department of Oakwood University.

Finally, in April of that semester, you will present your research before the Department at a symposium open to the public.

ENGL 460 will generate an experience of a lifetime and prepare you in part for a successful future career!