I'm about to sign up for an undergraduate honors thesis at my university. I originally wanted to study the changes/continuities in day-to-day life and urbanization in the region of the Western Roman Empire immediately prior to and in the centuries after 476 C.E., but the professor I approached to be my faculty advisor (a prominent historian of Ancient Rome) advised me that there would be far more primary sources available if I studied the Eastern Roman Empire/Byzantine Empire in that same period. So, I plan to focus on changes and continuities in urbanization and day-to-day life in western Anatolia. The professor specifically advised me to look into the excavations of Ephesus and another city which I cannot remember (didn't have time to take out paper for notes).
Does anybody have any advice on undertaking an honors thesis? My longest paper ever was 10 pages, and this is supposed to be 40-60 pages. Additionally, does anybody have any input on my research area? I haven't yet submitted the application for a thesis, as the professor just agreed to supervise me today. I still have time to edit the topic.
I would generally heed the advice of your advisor, especially if he is an expert in the time period and general topic you want to study. They exist to point you in the right direction and help you narrow or broaden your focus as needed. Sometimes, though, you may want to slightly deviate from their advice, but only under certain circumstances.
For my undergraduate thesis, I wanted to talk about the role of music in Irish nationalism from the end of the 18th Century until the War of Independence. All my instructors advised me to pick a different focus, mainly because there wasn’t an instructor at my school that studied something similar. My advisor team ended up being a professor who studied nationalism (albeit not exclusively), an instructor with a general understanding of violent political movements and Irish history (though his focus was on Arab movements), and a new instructor who had an interest in Irish history. They were able to point me in the direction of general histories of Ireland and studies of nationalism in Ireland, but the music aspect was largely foreign to them.
I decided to pursue it anyway since I want to do at least my Masters on the subject. I decided that I would take the hit on my final grade and create a rough final product since I could refine and build on it when I had time to focus my studies. I was mostly on my own for much of the research which sucked, and my thesis defense was more trying to explain the concept than digging at an actual concept. The final product was rough and scattershot. It lacked focus and balance. My grade reflected that (though I still got a decent enough grade likely out of pity, plus they didn’t want me to lose my honors status).
In the end, I’d probably be more hesitant to pursue my topic or at least have a way more refined time period if I had to do it again. Your professors want to look out for you and help you grow academically. Take their advice into great consideration and don’t get blinded by your ambition. Undergrad theses should be more about focused research and writing than exploration. Your masters and beyond is really where you should start looking for relatively uncharted waters. Those are just my thoughts anyway.
What have written about before?
In addition to Ephesus, he may have been thinking Miletus or Priene; the other big western Anatolian cities at the time, like Nicaea and Nicomedia, are still inhabited, so there’s not too much in the way of archaeological sites.