Susquehanna University Department of Political Science

Honors in Political Science
The departmental honors program encourages and commends outstanding academic work in political science. To graduate with departmental honors, political science majors must:

Complete their studies with a minimum GPA of 3.5 in the department and 3.25 overall;
Request admission to the honors program no later than the beginning of their Senior Seminar course, which should be taken in the first semester of the senior year.
Complete, present and defend an honors-quality project in Senior Seminar and in another extra-departmental forum approved by the faculty. Commonly this is done on Senior Scholars Day, but it may be done elsewhere.

Project Guidelines:

The senior seminar project must use primary sources. Secondary sources must also be utilized in a supplementary capacity.
The project should be analytical and not simply descriptive. It should raise questions about the topic, and provide answers to those questions. It should entail evaluation and result in the researcher's own conclusions based upon the analysis of data in the body of the project.
The project must exceed non-honors senior seminar projects in both quality and extent.
A standard style manual agreed to by the advisor should be used as the guide to correct procedures for both the form and style of the written project. The Department's Citation Guide can be downloaded at the Citation Guide page.

Evaluation:

Department faculty will evaluate the project on a variety of aspects, including organization, grammar, and logical consistency. The substance of the project will be evaluated on the basis of its thoroughness as well as its general content and its strength of argument, analysis and evidence.