Master's Project Guidelines

After consulting with your graduate advisor, organize a thesis/project committee meeting. Your committee is composed of your graduate advisor and a minimum of one additional faculty/outside professional for a M.S. project. Submit a preliminary written proposal of your project topic and preliminary bibliography to your committee for discussion at least one week prior to that meeting. The student is responsible for scheduling the room, etc. Human subjects/animal care approval must be obtained before research can start. Guidelines can be obtained from Graduate Studies.

The number of NuFS 298 units for the first semester will be determined by the graduate advisor. You will enroll in NuFS 298 units over a 2 to 3 semester period. For example, you might enroll in NuFS 298 (MS Project) 1 unit the first semester, and 2 units the next semester. The student shall be continuously enrolled in NuFS 298 through out the duration of the project, even if it goes beyond the 3 unit minimum. See the Plan B: Project Curriculum Path to plan your coursework.

Select an appropriate journal (e.g. Journal of the American Dietetic Association or Packaging, Food Science, or Foodservice journals) as your project publication format guide, and prepare your Master's project manuscript following the current guidelines for Authors for that journal. See the General Format for Publication-Style Master's Project. The rest of the project will follow APA format (E.G. Table of Contents, etc.) See your advisor for other variations in the document.

A reasonably complete rough draft of your Master's Project must be submitted to your advisor no later than September 15 or February 15 of the semester of anticipated graduate. Includes review of literature, methods, results discussion, and references. Frequent meetings thereafter are a necessity in order to complete the writing of the project in time to graduate that semester. As many as 7 to 10 reviews or more may be required.

Discuss authorship (for your manuscript) with your graduate advisor. Usually the student is first author, the advisor is second author, and committee members are listed as other co-authors.

Graduate faculty are available during the Spring and Fall semesters only. No final comprehensive exams will be scheduled at a time other than the regular academic semesters. To enroll for NuFS 298 for credit during vacation periods, you must have approval of your graduate advisor who must agree to be available.

NOTE: A minimum of two semesters is required to plan, conduct, and conclude the NuFS project.