Resources: Projects and Theses

Question: Is project synonymous with thesis? Hope this question isn't stupid i checked the reference guide and couldn't find anything.

Answer: No -- it's a good question -- and the answer is yes and no. Here's one way to think about it: a project is a specific kind of thesis. If a thesis is the main point of a paper, then you can have all kinds of theses. You could, for example, have a thesis for a paper that's making a summary, or one that's making a comparison. A project is a thesis that is trying to accomplish something. By that I mean that it's trying to ADD something to what's known or what we can know from these essays. A thesis that's a summary adds nothing--it just restates the essay, A thesis that's a comparison adds very little. A thesis that's a project means making your own unique contribution to these issues.