PHOTO BY JEFFRY PIKE Master of Liberal Arts Program A Guide to the ALM Thesis Seventh Edition © Harvard University Extension School 2012 2 | Table of Contents Table of Contents Preface . Chapter . Introduction and Administrative Procedures . Facilities and Opportunities . Role of the Research Advisor . Role of the Thesis Director . Administrative Procedures . Enrollment . Submission of the Thesis . Notifi cation of Graduation . Library Privileges . Chapter . The Research Process . Diff erences Between Course Work and Research . Creative and Critical Thinking: Asking Questions and Developing a Hypothesis . Questions . The Context of Discovery and the Context of Justifi cation . The Hypothesis . Alternative Hypotheses . General Approaches to Academic Inquiry . Bibliographic Research . Empirical Research . Introduction to Research Methods . Methods in the Biological and Behavioral Sciences (Areas A and B) . Experimental Approaches . Experimentation . Surveys and Questionnaires . Other Approaches in the Biological and Behavioral Sciences . Methods in the Social Sciences (Area B) . Raising Questions . Areas of Social Science Research . Types of Explanation . Types of Interpretation . A Guide to the ALM Thesis Table of Contents | 3 Methods in the Humanities (Area C) . Extrinsic or Contextualist Approaches . Intrinsic or Isolationist Approaches . Recapitulation: The Basic Steps in the Development of a Research Project . Chapter . The Research Proposal . Beginning the Project . Financial Resources . On Using Computers . Introductory Reading . Identifying a Problem . General Format for the Proposal . . Tentative Title . . Research Problem . . Defi nition of Terms . . Background of the Problem . . Research Methods . . Research Limitations . . Tentative Schedule . . Working Bibliography . . Additional Sections . ..