Course Overview
DWA 490 represents the culmination of the Diplomacy and World Affairs major. This capstone seminar guides students through the transition from consumers of scholarly knowledge to independent producers of original research.
Students will demonstrate mastery of a specialized subfield by developing an original thesis grounded in relevant theoretical frameworks and supported by rigorous analysis of primary and secondary sources. The Senior Comprehensive requires sustained independent scholarship and reflects the full scope of analytical and research skills acquired throughout the DWA curriculum.
Course Expectations: DWA 490 is a 4-unit course requiring approximately 12 hours of work per week.
Track 1: Academic Thesis
A 30–50 page comprehensive thesis based on original research, academic research, or an internship focused on a topic that culminates your DWA studies.
- A clear research question
- A theoretical framework
- A review of appropriate theoretical or policy literature
- A relevant case study (or case studies)
Track 2: Multimedia Option
A 20–30 minute film, podcast, or other multimedia format on a topic that flows out of your DWA studies, accompanied by a 12-page paper summarizing the project's theoretical connection to your DWA studies.
- Work must begin during the fall semester
- Limited to four students per year (departmental approval required)
- Previous experience in documentary making recommended
- Human Subjects Committee approval required
Spring 2026 Key Deadlines
| Date | Milestone | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Tue, Jan 20 | First Day of Classes — Joint Session | — |
| Thu, Feb 5 | 📌 Extensive Outline Due | 10% |
| Thu, Mar 5 | 📌 Rough Draft Due | 15% |
| Mar 9–13 | ☀️ Spring Break (No Classes) | — |
| Tue, Apr 14 | 📌 Final Draft Due | 60% |
| Mon, Apr 20 | Comps Grades Due to Registrar (P/PD/F) | — |
| Tue, Apr 21 | Founders Day (No Classes) | — |
| Tue, Apr 28 | 🎉 Poster Presentation — Last Day of Classes | 5% |
Grade Breakdown
Peer Review (5%): 2 pages of comments and edits on a peer's draft. Tracked through Canvas.
Extensive Outline Components
- Issue description
- Research question
- Annotated bibliography
- Methodology / case selection
Rough Draft Components
- Introduction with thesis statement
- Literature review
- Methodology section
- Case study analysis (preliminary)
- Tentative conclusions
Two-Grade System
Students receive two grades on their transcripts:
- Pass / Pass with Distinction / Fail: Determined collectively by DWA faculty supervising senior comps projects. Both "Honors" and "Distinction" recipients receive "Pass with Distinction" (PD).
- Letter Grade: Determined by your individual thesis supervisor and submitted to the Registrar at a later date.
Weekly Schedule Course Readings
| Week | Date | Topic | Deliverable |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tue, Jan 20 | Joint Session Course overview, expectations, semester plan |
Revised thesis statement (Thu 1/22) |
| 2 | Tue, Jan 27 |
Variation, Variation, Variation Research design fundamentals 📖 Required Readings (~32 pp.)Gerring (2004) "What Is a Case Study and What Is It Good For?" APSR 98(2): 341-354. Entire article.
Seawright & Gerring (2008) "Case Selection Techniques in Case Study Research." PRQ 61(2): 294-308. pp. 294-300 only.
Optional:
|
Email update to IL on changes to research plan (Thu 1/29) |
| 3 | Tue, Feb 3 |
Case Selection & Justification
📊 Week 3 Slides 📖 Required Readings (~8 pp.)Seawright & Gerring (2008) "Case Selection Techniques." pp. 300-307 (complete the article).
Optional: Van Evera, Guide to Methods, Ch. 3 (pp. 77-88) — 11 case selection criteria. |
📌 Extensive Outline Due (10%) (Thu 2/5) 📄 Download Template |
| Week | Date | Topic | Deliverable |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Tue, Feb 10 | Independent Writing & Research Week No class meeting — focus on case study research. Office hours available. |
— |
| 5 | Tue, Feb 17 |
Literature Review Synthesizing sources, identifying debates 📖 Required Readings (~8 pp.)Cantero (SJSU) "How to Write a Literature Review." Entire guide (~7 pp.).
King (2006) "Publication, Publication." PS: Political Science & Politics 39(1). Section 8 only (~1 p.).
|
Literature review draft (Tue 2/17) |
| 6 | Tue, Feb 24 | Independent Writing & Research Week No class meeting — focus on drafting. Office hours available. |
— |
| 7 | Tue, Mar 3 | Draft Workshop | 📌 Rough Draft Due (15%) (Thu 3/5) |
| Week | Date | Topic | Deliverable |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | Tue, Mar 17 | Research Week No class meeting — focus on writing and revision. Office hours available. |
— |
| 10 | Tue, Mar 24 |
Research Design Check-In Final research design justification, case selection questions 📖 Required Reading (~10 pp.)Bolker (1998) Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day, Ch. 4: "Getting Started Writing." ~10 pp.
|
Updated research design to IL (optional, Thu 3/26) |
| 11 | Tue, Mar 31 | Peer Review Day Meet in class or coordinate with partner elsewhere |
2-page peer review (5%) (Thu 4/2) |
| 12 | Tue, Apr 7 | Final Class Meeting Last questions, final push strategies |
Final revision plan (Thu 4/9) |
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| Tue, Apr 14 | 📌 Final Draft Due (60%) |
| Mon, Apr 20 | Comps grades submitted to Registrar |
| Tue, Apr 21 | Founders Day — No Classes |
| Tue, Apr 28 | 🎉 Poster Presentation (5%) — Senior Comps Celebration |
Honors and Distinction
Given the high standards for these projects, 'A' and 'A-' grades are the exception—generally, about 1 in 10 theses receive an 'A' or 'A-'.
Honors Eligibility
- Comprehensive Project grade: A
- College GPA: 3.25 or higher
- DWA GPA: 3.50 or higher
Distinction Eligibility
- Comprehensive Project grade: A-
- College GPA: 3.25 or higher
- DWA GPA: 3.50 or higher
Calculating Your DWA GPA: Include only (1) required economics courses, (2) language courses up to 202, and (3) courses from other majors that count toward your DWA requirements. Do NOT include study abroad or U.N. Program classes.
Building on Previous Work
Students are encouraged to base their thesis on papers or projects on which they have previously worked, including:
- Previous course work
- Summer research or travel
- Internships (U.N. Program, NGOs, etc.)
- Oxy abroad experiences
Important: If you build on previous work, be aware that your Comprehensive is expected to go considerably beyond such projects. This will be much more than a simple extension and/or revision.
The Independent Nature of Comps
Senior Comprehensives mark a fundamental shift in your relationship to academic work. In previous courses, faculty structured your learning: they assigned readings, set prompts, and guided you toward predetermined outcomes. Comps inverts this dynamic. You define the question. You design the research. You drive the project forward.
Your faculty supervisor serves as a consultant and mentor—available to discuss ideas, suggest sources, and provide feedback on drafts. But they are not responsible for ensuring your success. There is no safety net of weekly assignments building toward a guaranteed result. The thesis you produce must be yours: conceived, researched, written, and defended by you.
This is intentional. Comps simulates the conditions of professional intellectual work—where you must identify problems worth solving, marshal evidence, construct arguments, and deliver results without someone managing each step. The independence that feels uncomfortable now is precisely what employers, graduate programs, and colleagues will expect of you.
What This Means in Practice
- Initiative is required. Don't wait for your supervisor to check in. Schedule meetings, come prepared with specific questions, and take ownership of the timeline.
- Feedback is guidance, not instruction. Your supervisor may suggest revisions, but you decide how to incorporate them. You are the author.
- Quality is your responsibility. Submitting drafts on schedule and following advice does not guarantee Honors or Distinction. The work must demonstrate genuine intellectual achievement.
- Expertise has limits. If your topic falls outside your supervisor's specialization, you must identify and consult with a second reader in another department.
The students who thrive in comps are those who embrace this independence—who see the thesis not as an assignment to complete but as an opportunity to demonstrate what they're capable of producing on their own.
Resources
Outstanding Thesis Examples
Writing Resources
Campus Support
Writing System: Consistency Over Everything
The most successful comps students prioritize daily consistency over sporadic bursts of productivity. A simple 80/20 approach yields the best results.
The 300-Word Rule
Write a minimum of 300 words per day, every day. 300 words × 90 days = 27,000 words (well within the 30–50 page range).
Track Your Progress
Use the Google Docs Word Count Tracker add-on: Extensions → Add-ons → Get add-ons → Search "Word Count Tracker" → Set daily goal of 300 words.
Why This Works
- Eliminates procrastination and last-minute scrambling
- Keeps your thesis fresh in your mind
- Builds momentum that makes writing easier over time
- Reduces anxiety by breaking an overwhelming project into manageable daily tasks
Remember: A mediocre 300 words today is better than a perfect 1,000 words "someday."
AI Use Policy
Artificial intelligence tools are rapidly transforming how knowledge work gets done. This policy is designed to help you develop the skills that will matter most in an AI-augmented professional environment.
💡 Why This Matters for Your Career
In the workplace you're entering, AI will be ubiquitous. It can generate content, summarize research, draft memos, and produce polished prose on demand. This is already happening.
But here's what AI cannot do: stand behind the work.
The skills that will differentiate you are judgment, taste, and accountability:
- Judgment — Knowing what questions to ask, which sources to trust, when an argument is sound versus superficially convincing
- Taste — Recognizing quality, originality, and what actually matters in a field of inquiry
- Accountability — Being the person who can defend the work, explain the choices, and take responsibility for the conclusions
Your Senior Comprehensive is where you develop these capacities. If AI writes your thesis, you graduate without them. The question isn't whether AI can produce content—it's whether you will be the person others trust to stand behind it.
Where AI Cannot Be Used
The following represent the core intellectual work of your thesis and must be entirely your own:
- Writing thesis content — Your argument, analysis, and prose must reflect your own voice and thinking
- Developing your research question or thesis statement — This is your original intellectual contribution
- Literature review — You must actually read, interpret, and synthesize sources yourself
- Case study analysis — Original analytical work is the point of the exercise
- Drawing conclusions — Must flow from your own reasoning
- Peer review feedback — Giving meaningful critique is how you learn to assess your own work
Where AI May Be Used (With Disclosure)
The following uses support but do not replace your intellectual work. If you use AI for any of these purposes, note it in your acknowledgments:
- Grammar, spelling, proofreading — Similar to Grammarly or spell-check
- Citation formatting — Checking consistency (Chicago, APA, etc.)
- Explaining unfamiliar concepts — As a learning aid when encountering difficult theory (but you must then read primary sources)
- Brainstorming in early stages — Generating ideas to react against, not adopt wholesale
- Stress-testing arguments — Asking AI to identify weaknesses or counterarguments in your draft
- Translation assistance — For non-English sources
The Key Principle: If AI could have written it, it's not a Senior Comprehensive. The value of comps is demonstrating that you can produce independent scholarship. The struggle is the learning.
Academic Integrity
Academic dishonesty of any form will not be tolerated. You are expected to properly cite all sources incorporated into your working drafts and final thesis.
Plagiarism occurs when the ideas, organization, or language of another are incorporated into one's work without properly crediting the original source. This includes:
- Re-writing or re-formatting material without acknowledgment
- Using ideas or information (even in your own words) without citation
- Any ideas or information that are not common knowledge must be acknowledged
Penalties for academic misconduct are severe. Ignorance of principles and policies is not a defense. Consult your instructor if you have any doubts.