As one of the purposes of the defense is to allow students the opportunity to revise and refine a piece of writing more than is normally possible with a paper written at the end of a semester for a seminar, the senior thesis should not be a paper that a student creates ex nihilo his or her final semester. Instead, the student should use as the basis for her thesis either (1) a paper written for a previous philosophy class, or (2) a paper that the student researched and developed independently, but has already substantially completed prior to starting the senior defense. Using a previous seminar paper as the basis for one's senior thesis is not supposed to preclude the student significantly modifying the conclusion or argument of that paper or from developing the paper in new directions. In fact, such modification and expansion is not only permitted, but is encouraged.

In order for the thesis to serve its purpose and be a profitable experience for the student, multiple drafts of the thesis have to be circulated in a timely fashion. We have developed the following requirements for successfully completing the defense.

Time line for the senior defense:

• Meet with your adviser. (Your adviser must be a faculty member of the Philosophy Discipline.)
• Review defense procedure (outlined in this document).
• Give adviser copy of the paper you'll be using as the basis of your senior defense. Discuss with adviser ways in which you'd like to modify and/or extend this paper for your senior thesis.

• Meet with adviser, who will have read over your paper, and discuss what ways you'll be revising the paper. (Sometimes this can be accomplished during the first meeting, if the adviser is already familiar with the paper.)

• Give your adviser the first draft of your thesis. If you do not give your adviser a draft of your thesis by this time, you will receive an "Incomplete" for the defense for the semester.

• Meet with adviser to discuss the first draft and any changes that should be made before circulating it to the committee.

• Have a second draft of your thesis ready, and circulate it to all of your committee members. If you do not give your committee a draft of your thesis by this time, you will receive an "Incomplete" for the defense for the semester.

• Meet with each of the committee members to discuss the second draft of your thesis. Committee members will discuss ways in which your thesis could be improved before the defense. Meet with adviser to discuss the comments of the other committee members on the second draft and agree on what changes should be made before the defense.
• Any committee member, at his or her discretion, may ask to see a penultimate draft of the thesis, to make sure that your revisions have adequately addressed his or her concerns, before you circulate the final draft. If any committee member does request a penultimate draft, then

• Circulate final draft of thesis.

• Defend thesis.

Also, the dates above are deadlines; if you want to circulate drafts of your thesis earlier than these deadlines, or circulate more drafts than mentioned above, you are very welcome to do so. The structure above is supposed to represent the minimum number of drafts, done at the latest permissible time.

• "Alternate Possibilities in Libertarian Free Will" Nat Sayles, Spring 2004
• "Vegetarianism is obligatory" Jessi Gurr, Spring 2004
• "Pragmatic and Conceptual Concerns Regarding Proportional Punishment"Allison Friedly, Spring 2004
• "Hard Determinism and Interpersonal Relationships," David Speetzen, Spring 2002
• "The Truth Value of Statements Containing Names of Literary Characters as Subjects," Andrew Miller, Spring 2002
• "Cyrenaic Epistemology," Wyatt Mondry, Spring 2002
• "Kane, Alternate Possibilities, and Ultimate Responsibility," Scot Hall, Spring 2001
• "Intentional Responsibility," Chris Whitehead, Spring 2001