Honours theses

Around Australia, honours degrees are under threat from academic administrators who see them as resource-intensive and fee-sparse. Often terrific work is done in honours theses. But this work often doesn’t get publicised, and we need that kind of publicity to show just why honours degrees are worth doing, and worth fighting for. So it’s great when students get around to depositing their theses in electronic archives, such as the e-Scholarship repository at the University of Sydney – it takes a lot of prodding to overcome post-thesis-parting blues. So, prod away!
You can browse the Sydney list – which is discoverable on the web, thanks to its software, the open source DSpace. A recent addition is Janet Watts’ Conversational Analysis thesis, Children’s Silences in Mareeba Aboriginal English. This list is incomplete of course, since our prodding isn’t always successful. Oh, and ignore the awful handling of the authors’ name – a weirdness induced by a mix of submitter and a rare DSpace glitch. Otherwise – a wonderful thing.

1 thought on “Honours theses”

  1. Great idea to get the honours theses online. They are very difficult to get a hold of. In some cases they are the main source of information on a language – for example Rebecca Green’s description of Burarra. It is possible to put honours theses online through Melbourne Uni eprints but there doesn’t seem to be any facility for doing it at La Trobe yet.

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