Thesis & Project Requirements

Overview of COML 680

Students who are in their last semester of coursework in the Communication and Leadership program should register on Zagweb for COML 680 (Communication & Leadership Seminar). COML 680 is scheduled to last over an entire semester, Fall or Spring (the seminar is not offered during the Summer). The longer length is designed to give the graduating student more time for reflection and writing, a key aspect of this integrative capstone course. Each student has the option of completing a Communication Theses or a Communication Project.  It is not recommended that you pair 680 with another course.  Faculty permission is required to take 680 with another course.

Guidelines

Assignment: You are to select a topic in COMMUNICATION and write a thesis (not less than 30, nor more than 75 pages, including your bibliography and supported by communication theory and philosophy. The thesis or project must meet all the requirements regarding content as listed in the structure and format sections of this guide. In addition, your literature review must have a minimum of twenty-five sources.The sources must include at least ten from scholarly professional journals. A list of possible Communication and Leadership journals will be provided. Web sources should be carefully limited and must be based primarily on scholarly professional journals.

Mentor

The thesis will be written under the guidance of a faculty mentor.  Your mentor can be any member of the regular faculty at Gonzaga University. It is crucial that your mentor be familiar with the area you would like to research, the method you would like to use, and the specific requirements of your assignment.  It is your obligation to share all of this with your mentor. Click here for a list of COML 680 Mentors.

Requirements 

You must write a five page proposal of your project or thesis, including what your proposed topic is, a clear statement of the problem and importance of the project or thesis, a description of the area of communication theory this project or thesis emerges, the method you intend to use to collect your research, and a minimum of ten substantive source bibliography to support your ideas written in correct APA format.  We suggest you confer with your Mentor before you write the proposal.

Planning Schedule for Writing Your Thesis Project

It is useful to realize ahead of time the stages that are involved in project or thesis preparation:

  1. Establishing the preliminary focus of the study or project.
  2. Finding a mentor and discussing preliminary ideas.
  3. Agreeing on topic and signing and submitting Mentor Agreement to your 680 Professor.
  4. Selecting research methods.
  5. Developing research and collecting data.
  6. Ordering the data and Analyzing the data.
  7. Writing up your Literature Review.
  8. Completing the study and submitting the chapters of the project or thesis for review.
  9. Preparing and making oral presentation.

680 Thesis Database

Follow this link to view an archive of past 680 work beginning from Fall 2011. These theses and projects are searchable by keyword. We hope these inspire you on your 680 journey!

Thesis and Project Requirement Tools