A written report ("thesis") describing your SIP work is required. The thesis should be carefully written with a degree of professionalism commensurate with a four-year chemistry background. The style used in journals of the American Chemical Society is most satisfactory. Consult with the College guidelines, the ACS Style Guide, and previous SIP reports (available for review within the department from the chemistry secretary) for style guidance. Note that the format for the title page given in the College guidelines indicate that a departmental supervisor be listed on the title page in addition to the project supervisor. In your case, your supervisor (whether off or on campus) is your direct project supervisor and is the person who should be listed; you do not have a separate departmental supervisor.

Though you should seek the advice of your supervisor in preparing the written thesis, the report must be your own work. It must be sufficiently self-contained to be understood by anyone having completed the minimal course sequence for a B.A. in chemistry at Kalamazoo College. In particular, this means that the introduction and background should be more substantial than in a typical journal article. Not all projects are successful in terms of producing the desired results, but in all cases the thesis must make it clear that the author understood the goals and methods of the project and can explain the results s/he did acquire, even if they are negative or inconclusive. Students performing chemistry SIPs who are not chemistry majors may require additional outside study to bring their depth of understanding of the chemistry content up to the level required. Be sure to acknowledge the help of others and make clear which work is yours and which is that of someone else. If your research leads to a publication, that publication alone will not constitute a report.

The department requires only one copy of your report, bound in the College folder. Your SIP supervisor will want a copy as well. Because the SIP thesis is not due immediately after the SIP term, you should exchange one or more rough drafts with your supervisor for revisions and corrections. Give him/her sufficient time to check the draft and a reminder of the deadline for the final version. Delay by your supervisor in reading a draft is not an acceptable reason for submitting your thesis late.

The quality of the printing of the SIP thesis is important. The department will not accept SIP theses which are hard to read or are poorly formatted. Sometimes computer printouts and photocopies of instrument output are hard to read.