Borrowing Keith's suggestions to make the review cycle move more smoothly:* To help students with the thesis submission process I am supplying the following guidelines to each student this semester. Being on several (15 to 20) papers each term makes it very difficult for me to keep track of the progress and feedback to each student.
Based on my needs and the feedback of students, I have developed these guidelines. I will be adding and modifying them so please review them. I am also attaching them to most of my feedback comments to make sure everyone gets the same message. If you have suggestions or comments to improve this process please let me know.
To help your committee keep track of your submission, please follow these guidelines in the future:
1. Name your submission file with your name and the version date, for example Fulton_Thesis_Version_10052007. This way we know we are all reviewing the same version. If you make any changes, update the version date.
2. Always put your course number, your name, the word thesis, and the date in your subject line (QAS598, Fulton Thesis Update, 08NOV07). This helps get it through the spam filter. We will typically confirm that we have received and can open the file. If you don't get a response within three days it is fine to send the message again or ask for confirmation that we received your submission or question.
3. Any time you send a request or have questions please attach the latest version (yes, every time please). We often work on multiple computers and may not have access to the current file. Please include it with every message.
4. If you have obtained IRB approval, please state that in your messages. This is required for any type of survey and it will save us asking you each time we read the paper. A simple I have IRB approval is fine.
5. These things will help us to serve you better as we are each on several committees and it does get hectic. Please don't plan your work based on the University submission dates. We simply cannot handle the load the last four weeks and your paper may not get reviewed if we all can't get to it.
6. Please target a date well in advance of the University submission date. I suggest you target one month in advance to have your paper approved. Each semester some papers are returned as we could not get through the backlog in the last few weeks. Plus, sometimes we are on vacation or out of town and can't review anything so please plan accordingly.
7. We prefer that you submit one Word document as your submission. A Zip file can be a problem and PDF files do not allow me to provide you feedback in the document.
8. When you make a revision to your paper, please include a description of the changes. This may allow me to only read the changed sections and not the entire paper.
9. Plagiarism – the basic guideline is that if you copy more than three consecutive words from another authors work it must be quoted. Please search the CSUDH website and the Internet for Plagiarism and learn how to use other work, especially from the Internet. We will submit your paper to an outside service (www.turnitin.com) that will check for plagiarism. Your paper will not be accepted if there is a negative report.
The CSU Plagiarism policy may be found [here].
10. Here is some great advice “Take notes on your reading, and then write your identification from your notes with your book closed!”. This is from: http://www.csudh.edu/bdeluca/WritingGuidelines/StyleGuidelines/Plagiarism.Idents.htm Please read this information to save yourself the problems created when you copy other people’s work.
One last thing, please end all your messages with your complete name. This makes it easy for me to identify you and your paper. Thank you,
* I have adapted a common set of Keith's feedback to create this. While the compilation is mine, he is the source for the actual questions.