Senior essays in East Asian Languages and Literatures must be about Chinese, Japanese, or Korean literature and the primary material must be a literary text or texts written in the target language. The senior essay course may be one or two semesters. (A two-semester essay requires significant research.) Most commonly, students complete the essay as a semester course in their final term of undergraduate study, following these steps:
- an initial consultation with the Director of Undergraduate Studies, preferably before the beginning of registration in the semester prior to beginning the senior essay course;
- preparation of a proposal endorsed by a faculty sponsor (not a language instructor) who will serve as the senior essay adviser by the last week of classes in the term preceding the senior essay course;
- submission of a prospectus to the adviser in the second week of the final term;
- submission of an annotated bibliography with a thesis statement in the fourth week of the final term;
- submission a rough draft to the adviser in the eighth week of the final semester; and
- submission of the final draft of the essay, approved by the adviser and submitted to the DUS in the second to last week of classes in the final term.
The student will meet with the adviser on a regular basis to discuss the project, and the adviser will help the student with bibliography, the refinement of topic and thesis, and issues of interpretation, composition and argument. Translation projects are acceptable, but only if at least one-third of the essay’s length consists of commentary on the translated text that would stand alone as an essay in literary interpretation or historical scholarship on literature. Such commentary is expected to be as thorough and academically rigorous as a term paper in a course on literature. There is no regulation regarding the essay’s length, but successful essays in recent years have been in the range of 25-40 double-spaced pages.