Process:

Your SIP Plan should lay out your SIP process, including a timeline with intermediate deadlines you and your advisor develop together. You will also, in the Plan, lay out a meeting schedule. It is your responsibility to reach out to your advisor to schedule meetings, to provide advance notice if you need to cancel or reschedule a meeting, and to meet other deadlines. A CES SIP is not only about “product”–an ethical, purposeful process is also an important part of a CES SIP. Please note the process is a consideration in the assessment of your SIP and will be an important factor in determining whether a SIP is eligible for Honors.

Deadlines:

As noted above, your SIP Plan will indicate specific intermediate deadlines within the SIP quarter, developed in consultation with your advisor. For all SIPs, the final copy (i.e. no more revisions) is due to the SIP advisor no later than Friday of the 2nd week of the quarter following the SIP quarter. While you may turn in a hard copy at your advisor’s request or your own inclination, you must turn in an electronic copy (pdf file) to your advisor by the deadline.

Evaluation and Honors:

SIP grades are due to the Registrar by the end of the 6th week of the quarter following the SIP quarter. The SIP advisor will assess the SIP, evaluating it based on the student’s ability to meet deadlines, respond to and incorporate feedback in revision, and produce a competent piece of work. The SIP advisor can submit a grade of CR/NC after this initial assessment. Or, if the advisor would like to recommend the SIP for Honors—because it represents exemplary work throughout (both product and process)—another faculty member within (or occasionally from outside of) the department will read it and assess it. If both faculty members feel the SIP warrants honors, the advisor will submit a grade of H.

Presentation:

A SIP presentation is not required for CES SIPs, but students are encouraged to find a venue at which they can share their work more broadly, including but not limited to the Social Justice SIP Symposium, Sustainability SIP Symposium, or other gatherings on or off campus.

Every SIP completed in CES must include a preface. This preface should be a 6-8 page document connected to your SIP, but which is not included in the page guidelines listed below. The preface has two primary tasks. The first is to explain the stakes of your work. The second is to reflect on the process of writing the SIP and how it fits into your growth as a scholar during your time as an CES major. The specific way you do so will vary depending upon your project, but your Preface should include the following discussions:

• How important texts, courses, and experiences shaped your project and provided a critical and theoretical framework for how and why you constructed your SIP in the way you did.
• How your project draws upon and contributes to the field of CES.
• Why you made specific choices around materials and methodologies, and what these choices allowed you to do—in terms of both the content and the form of your project.
• What you have learned through your experience in the SIP about the processes of research and writing.
• What new awareness you gained about yourself as a CES scholar.
• How this project fits within the intellectual trajectory of your education at Kalamazoo College and beyond, and specifically your learning within the CES major.
• Finally, it is customary to include an acknowledgments section in your preface, where you thank your supervisor and any other people who have supported and helped significantly with your project.

While the Preface is probably the last part of the SIP you will write, it nevertheless will contain some of its most important work—since it will be the final place where evaluate the “so what?” of your project and where you articulate how your project serves as the capstone in your path through the major and in your K-Plan.

Parts of the Paper

In general, the paper will fall into three main parts: The Preliminaries, The Text, and The Reference Materials.

The Preliminaries

1. Title page, followed by a blank sheet of paper
2. Preface, including acknowledgements
3. Abstract
4. Table of contents, with page references
5. List of tables, with titles and page references
6. List of illustrations, with titles and page references
7. List of appendices, with titles and page references

The Text

1. Introduction
2. Main body, with larger divisions, and more important divisions, indicated by suitable headings
3. The References
4. Appendices (materials not part of the narrative of the SIP but which may have been generated by or essential to the project)
5. Bibliography
6. Pagination: Each page in the paper, except the blank sheet following the title page, should be assigned a number as explained below. The preliminaries use small Roman numerals, centered one-half inch above the bottom of the page. The blank sheet is neither counted nor numbered. The title page actually counts as the first page, but no number appears on it. The first number, then, is “ii” and appears on the page after the blank sheet. The remainder of the paper, including the appendices and bibliography, uses Arabic numerals, centered one-half inch below the top of the page. Number each page on which material appears. Begin with “1” and run consecutively to the end of the paper.
7. Margins: The left margin must be at least one and one-half inches wide in order to allow for binding. All other margins (right, top, and bottom) should be one inch. Do not use right justification.
8. Spacing: Use double spacing throughout the paper except for long quoted passages, which should be indented five spaces from the left and single-spaced. Bibliography should be also be single-spaced.

Additional Formatting Considerations:

Acknowledgements: Please observe the rules of courtesy. Give recognition to those who made significant contributions to your project. Acknowledgements can be included in the preface, or “Acknowledgements” can be its own section.

Title Page: The title page should contain the following. (See Sample Title Page below):

1. The complete title of the project
2. Author’s name
3. Name and office of the on-site supervisor (if applicable)
4. Name and department or program in which SIP was conducted
5. “A paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts at Kalamazoo College.”
6. Year of imprint

Citation of Sources: You will be expected to use a standard citational format and style guide, such as Chicago, MLA, or APA, throughout your project. You will choose this format based on the disciplines with which your SIP is in dialogue, in consultation with your SIP advisor. Reference materials at the end of the body of the SIP include the Bibliography and/or Works Cited.