Preliminary Considerations:

A student who wants to do a creative thesis should have good academic underpinnings for such a project. Although the bulk of the thesis might be creative, it must also reflect scholarship: the creative thesis will itself be part of an academic document and degree granted on the graduate level. To demonstrate a sound academic background for such a project, the student should have completed

• substantial course work that gives a historical and/or critical view of such creative work (such as history of the theatre, the contemporary novel, critical theories - whatever would apply in the history and critical thinking in the field ) and

• substantial course work and/or workshops that teach the craft and techniques to be used in the creative work.

It is the intention of this course work/workshops to give the student both the perspective to intellectually fit his or her work into the appropriate field and to allow the student to profit by becoming familiar with works in that field and with the techniques that have been developed and used over time in creative work. With this knowledge, the student will have a solid platform from which to discuss his or her work and, by being familiar with the field, will increase the chances of creating something new rather than repeating creations from the past. It is assumed here that it is a primary intention of the creative work to be an original creation which also demonstrates the technical competence of the creator.

Thesis Structure -- Three Parts:

I. Introduction

II. The Creative Work

III. Conclusion

The Introduction

The Introduction should introduce some historical/critical content that leads into a discussion of the creative piece within its field, demonstrating the writer's familiarity with some of the basic concepts and terminology within the field. Since the creative thesis is being done within an academic program and leads to an academic degree, this section should use documented historical and/or critical source material. As to the content or focus, this section might explore such areas, as appropriate, as these:

A. The relationship of the creative work to the author and audience:

1. The creative work as the expression of the author's self - biographical/autobiographical elements;

2. The creative work as a creative facsimile of life, developing more authorial distance from the work;

3. The creative work as a work of imagination, perhaps developing even greater distance both from the author and from the audience;

B. The mode(s) of expression in the work, such as realism, expressionism, impressionism, comedy, drama, farce, musical, humor, satire.

C. The content of the creative work:

1. For drama, information about staging choices, settings, sets, actors, accompaniments, and character types and actors; for creative writing, such information as time, place, social stratus, character types.

2. The overall theme/purpose/effect to be achieved: action, static and dynamic characters, social criticism, tragic flaws, conflicts, and resolutions of conflicts .

3. Summary of the work, by acts or chapters or story; brief but helpful in setting up the reader's expectations and understanding of developing elements

The Creative Work:

The Creative work should be reproduced in a form appropriate for the thesis but in a form that is also suitable for its artistic expression (to be worked out between the student, committee, and the Graduate School). In this section, there would be allowances made for any specialized formatting, etc., that is required by the creative presentation. However, the supervising academic unit should have on file with the Graduate School, before the thesis is undertaken, a statement about the form to be used, including a rationale. This statement is needed to enable the Graduate School to check the preliminary draft of the thesis for appropriate form.

The Conclusion:

1. Discussion of where the student places his or her creative work among such works done in the past; for instance, is it seen to be a realistic novel, a drawing room comedy, a Greek tragedy, a historical novel, an adventure film, etc. As appropriate, reference should be made to specific writers and works in the field.

2. What the author learned in the process of creating the thesis; this discussion should point out what the student learned about the field in his or her courses leading up to the thesis and what was learned in writing the thesis. This discussion might focus on techniques, characterization, plotting, beginnings, middles, and ends - those areas on which the thesis creator would need to focus in planning and executing the creative part of the thesis.

3. Future plans for this or other works.