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Three Credits’ Worth of 
Research
The Librarian as Research Advisor for 
MA Candidates
James Humble, St. Charles Borromeo Seminary

ABSTR ACT In addition to the MDiv degree, granted after three 
years of graduate study, students at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in 
Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, can complete their requirements for the 
MA degree in Theology in their fourth and final year by writing a thesis 
paper. Several years ago, in an effort to ensure that the candidates were 
performing an acceptable level of research before beginning writing, 
academic administrators enjoined the librarian to supervise them during 
the fall semester of that fourth year, when their courseload is lighter. The 
students now earn three credits for the research they do. Thus, with-
out the framework of regular class meetings, the librarian had not only 
to advise each student individually on the best sources and research 
techniques suited to his subject, but to encourage the students to work 
consistently, without the structural benefits that traditional courses 
provide, in the hope that the students will produce academically satisfac-
tory work. The author will relate the trial-and-error course he took to bring 
this enterprise to its current form, and share some of the methods that he 
uses to keep on top of all the students throughout their research journey.

INTRODUCTION

A good number of Atla member libraries serve institutions like 
St. Charles Borromeo Seminary (SCBS) in eastern Pennsylvania—
small seminaries primarily focused on producing people bound for 
ministerial work, not advanced academic work. But in the past five 
decades SCBS has increasingly emphasized academic achievement 
as a prerequisite for successful priestly performance. One illustra-



196  ATL A 2019 PROCEEDINGS

tion of the change in the atmosphere is the Master of Arts in Theol-
ogy it begain offering in the late 1980s. 

In any given year, ten to twenty men may be in their fourth and 
final year of the theologate program (IV Theology for short). Having 
earned their MDiv degrees and been ordained as deacons by the end 
of their third year (III Theology), these men spend more time at their 
parish assignments on the weekends, preparing for life in that envi-
ronment. In addition, all those studying for the Archdiocese of Phila-
delphia must fulfill the requirements for a Master of Arts degree in 
Theology by writing a thesis during IV Theology. Seminarians from 
other dioceses studying at SCBS have the option of pursuing the MA, 
but it is not a requirement for them as it is for the Philadelphians.

The purpose of this degree, the Seminary Catalog asserts, “is 
to provide an opportunity for further research into historical and 
speculative aspects of the foundational theological study… [It] seeks 
to equip the seminarian with the breadth of background in the 
theological disciplines useful as a basis for further graduate study as 
well as to enhance the ordained priest’s general proficiency and aptitude 
in research and study at the graduate level” (p. 91, emphasis mine). 
While the centrality of research is highlighted on paper, in practice 
the results, judging by the completed theses, have been mixed. 

This is where the Ryan Memorial Library (RML) first came in. While 
RML may indeed have helped the MA candidates in their research at 
certain times, the candidates were not required to consult the librar-
ians; oversight of the entire research-reading-writing process was 
entrusted to the faculty advisors. But the variability of the finished 
products led the academic dean to work out a plan, in 2008, with 
the library director, whereby the reference librarian would act as a 
research advisor, supervising the early stages of the MA process. This 
coincided with the formal adoption of the “research semester” as a 
three-credit fall course for IV Theology. When the reference librarian 
position was eliminated, I took on the role of Research Advisor, which 
I continue to maintain as Director of the Library. 

While the impact of the Library’s involvement was felt almost 
immediately, I became aware, after a few years of relatively high 
performance, that the program was moving backward again, this time 
because of other factors. It was at this point that I decided to revise my 
entire approach to RML’s role in the MA program. 



Listen and Learn  197

THE RESEARCH ADVISOR

One procedural matter that hasn’t changed over the years is the forms 
that must be filled out by the librarian to verify the student’s work 
during the research semester. The student will not be granted the three 
research credits without it. A portion of the form is reproduced here.

Two years after the Reference Librarian took on the role of 
Research Advisor, the number of sources cited in the bibliographies 
and the number of pages of the main text, which had been glaringly 
inconsistent, stabilized to where the department wanted them to be: 
30–50 sources, and 45–50 pages.

2009

2011



198  ATL A 2019 PROCEEDINGS

When I took over as Research Advisor, I worked at what I thought was 
my primary duty in this capacity: to supervise the students in finding 
their sources. I emailed the students as a group, introducing myself. I 
told them to schedule a meeting with me as soon as possible—by the first 
week of September. (Too much valuable reading time is lost if they start 
any later than that.) At that meeting, I asked them to send me, as soon as 
they had done a little work on their own, a draft, even in very rudimen-
tary form, of their bibliography—what they’d managed to acquire thus 
far from their initial searches. Knowing what they’d found on their own, 
I was able then to offer both search strategies and selected titles I’d come 
across that they had missed. I would send the bibliographies back to the 
students with these suggestions appended. We would then be able to 
review the expanded bibliographies at a later meeting in the semester.



Listen and Learn  199

By the end of the fall semester, I could tell who had performed 
sufficient research from the state of their bibliographies. The rest—the 
absorption of substance from the sources, the development of the thesis 
into a structured argument, the writing of the actual text—I left to the 
student and his faculty advisor. Sometimes the student would ask me to 
review his bibliography and footnotes before he handed his final draft in, 
but for all intents and purposes I was done with my part of the process.

PROBLEM POINTS

Three years into my tenure as research advisor, I had an opportunity 
to look over the theses that had been written in the last few years. I 
was astonished and ashamed at what I found—not in all, but in enough 
to make a significant impact on my sense of satisfaction. Perhaps, 
because I was so focused on the research portion of the process, I was 
more-than-highly attuned to what I regarded as deficiencies. But other 
faculty members told me they were aware that the work was lacking in 
several respects, some of it having to do with the fact that the students 
were delinquent in producing their work. Most of the problems we 
perceived fell into one or more of the following categories (n.b. for 
“students” read “most students” or “certain students”):

First, students did not meet their target dates for handing in mate-
rial. This went for the interim drafts (e.g., first chapter due in January, 
second in February), bibliographic work (first draft of bibliography 
finished by mid-fall semester, final draft as the MA text nears comple-
tion), and the final draft due in mid-April.

Second, students handed in final (first?) drafts as late as exam 
week. This means that any suggestions, edits, critiques (e.g., that their 
bibliographies were too thin, their expression too choppy) which, 
properly followed, might have improved their work, went unabsorbed, 
unincorporated, unanswered, since they were “on the way out the 
door” toward ordination by that time. 

Third, students relied on non-academic web sources (news articles, 
blogs, personal webpages, YouTube videos) to an alarming degree. 
They seemed not to have even searched the databases for relevant 
literature, even after I gave them suggestions for search strategies and 
results. Four possible reasons why occurred to me, each worse than 
the next: 1) they couldn’t remember their passwords to the databases, 



200  ATL A 2019 PROCEEDINGS

and weren’t inclined to reset them; 2) they couldn’t remember how to 
get to the portal to enter their passwords, and weren’t inclined to ask; 
3) they knew their passwords and where to enter them, but weren’t 
inclined to consult academic literature; 4) they drew no distinction, 
in terms of substance, between journalistic and academic content. 
That students consult less rigorous, popular material isn’t lamentable 
per se—anything can serve as a source for study or as support—but the 
degree to which that material outnumbered formal academic works 
in the bibliographies I was getting was.

Fourth, the students’ tendency to turn to the web for material 
which could easily have been consulted in print versions meant that 
they ignored/omitted what would have been more verifiable, up-to-
date sources (e.g., they used the 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia online at 
the New Advent website, neglecting the advances of the second and 
third editions; they quarried patristic quotations from homemade web 
sites on which someone collected favorite sayings from the Church 
Fathers, with no citations detailing where the quotations were drawn 
from or who translated them). 

Fifth, students seemed to rely largely on sources that agreed with, 
confirmed, or supported their own views. The general drift of their 
bibliographies was toward the focused, the succinct, the predigested 
(or, more unkindly put, the one-sided, the superficial, the predictable). 
Most bibliographies evinced neither a broad survey of the literature, 
nor a determined effort to include views and opinions at variance 
with the students’ own. When the subject matter (e.g., a divisive moral 
issue) called for tangling with opposing viewpoints, students opted for 
selectively packaged presentations with which they sympathized (e.g., 
video interviews with Bishop Barron or Cardinal Arinze), bypassing 
established texts on both sides. 

Troubling as these deficiencies were, I understood that they were 
merely actualizations of problems which are present in potentia every 
year. In the past, the students’ own personal standards of workmanship 
and honesty, coupled with the guidance of advisors and librarians, 
were enough to keep their work from falling into mediocrity. But we 
cannot anymore, apparently, take for granted the presence of such 
safety nets. To ensure that our future students produce acceptable 
Master’s theses, I had to take steps to prevent these problems from 
being realized in the subsequent years. 



Listen and Learn  201

MAKING THOSE THREE CREDITS COUNT 

To that end, I first had to change the way I approached the students 
about the fall semester’s work. They had to see the work they did for 
their MA in the same light as they did their other courses. A descrip-
tion of my current practice follows.

At our first one-on-one meeting, I impress upon each student 
the fact that this is a three-credit course like all the others. Despite 
our lack of fixed meeting times, the principle of Carnegie hours still 
applies: as a three-credit course is understood to derive from three 
hours in the classroom, students must start with a base of at least 
three hours which are devoted to nothing but the finding and, more 
importantly, reading of their sources. But, as students are supposed 
to devote twice as many hours per week to a single course’s work as 
they do in the classroom, they should, in practice, set aside nine full 
hours for their research every week.

Once students get over their shock and disbelief, we try to identify 
the openings in their schedule which they could designate “research 
hours.” Ultimately, the students are relieved to have a schedule (of 
their own devising, no less!), as it’s easy to forget about deadlines 
in the fog of unstructured time. To help them visualize the work of 
the next few months, I drew up a syllabus for this and the following 
semester, laying out a series of meetings whose times, while not fixed, 
nevertheless had to happen at regular intervals. Syllabus in hand, the 
students cannot forget that deadlines exist, and are no longer able to 
treat the “research period” cavalierly as an unfathomable stretch of 
time in front of them. (See the Appendix for an abbreviated example 
of the syllabus.)

MONTHLY MEETING

At each and every monthly meeting, I ask a series of questions about 
what the students have been reading. When I became aware that, 
regardless of the size of their compilation of sources, the students 
were not putting in the time to read them—thus making their final 
products very narrow and parochial in the sources they actually drew 
on to write—I knew that in this capacity I must encourage, prod, and/
or wheedle (if necessary) them to actually read what they find. Not 
skimming them—they must read entire articles, essays, chapters, 



202  ATL A 2019 PROCEEDINGS

even whole books. I knew that they would likely benefit from a voice 
that impels them to read and comment on what they’ve read, espe-
cially at this early stage. 

This led me to institute the research ledger, a daily journal of read-
ing, research, anything else that contributes to the completion of the 
thesis. In order to provide them with structure, I generated a form 
which the students could then fill out and hand in at the following 
meeting (reproduced below). Students must see the entirety of this 
time (the fall semester) as productive, not just short bursts of research 
followed by inactivity. Not only does this form help students keep track 
of what they have read, it actively encourages them to read the mate-
rials they find, since they know that their notes will make it easier to 
consult quotations et al. when writing the paper.

Both the syllabus schedule and the ledger get the students into the 
mindset that every month, something is DUE. If they hand in a brief, 
sketchy, or nonexistent reading journal, or haven’t added anything to 
their bibliographies, they will be aware that they have come up short. 

At each monthly meeting, I also ask several or all of the following 
questions, depending on the course the conversation takes:

1. Which sources have you read/examined this week?
2. What attracted you to them? Why did you feel the need to pick 

them up at this point? (i.e., were they recommended, refer-
enced by teachers; are they classics in the field; did you find 
them referenced elsewhere)



Listen and Learn  203

3. What is the level of discourse of each? (to make them conscious 
of how many popular sources they’re consulting, and how 
many scholarly ones)

4. Have you come across any new terms or phrases that might 
prove helpful in further searches? (to emphasize the need 
to keep searching for sources, even after the initial searches 
produced good returns)

5. Which of this week’s sources was the most challenging to 
absorb?

6. How will these sources prove helpful to you when you write?

To combat the apparent indifference students have toward journal 
articles, I give them a project for the second meeting. To make them 
more comfortable reading an academic article, they must find and 
read one before the next meeting. When we meet, we “take it apart” 
section by section. I ask him what is different or more difficult about 
this type of work than, say, a published book. If necessary, I review the 
database-searching process again.

Once we’ve reached the third meeting (usually mid-October), I 
ask the students to start thinking about their thesis statement, how 
they want to develop it throughout the paper, what kind of form and 
structure they will have their paper take. By Christmas, not only do 
they have a sizable bibliography, they will have read a good portion 
of the titles on that list; and with the outline fresh in their minds, they 
are ready to begin the writing in earnest. In the spring, I am available 
to meet with them, although I step back to let the faculty advisor take 
over during the writing. But I do ask them to submit their papers to 
me before they submit the final drafts, to make sure the footnotes and 
bibliographies haven’t changed for the worse in the interim.

CONCLUSION AND UPDATE

The last IV Theology class saw fourteen MA candidates at the start 
of the year. Of them, twelve finished. While I continue to seek ways 
to make the MA research process fruitful and rewarding for the 
students, two developments occurred since I put this presentation 
together for the 2019 conference that affect my approach and practice. 
First, the MA is now optional, rather than required, for Philadelphia 



204  ATL A 2019 PROCEEDINGS

seminarians. Second, in response to the experiences of the two who 
didn’t finish, as well as a number of students who did but found it 
difficult to research and write the thesis within the traditional eight-
month time frame of IV Theology, students in III Theology are now 
encouraged to choose their topic and advisor well before they leave 
for the summer. Their first meeting with me takes place in the spring, 
meaning that I’m able to send them off with books and articles to dig 
into during those three months. These changes will, I’m sure, mean 
that the quality of the work done for the MA program will continue to 
improve in the coming years.



Listen and Learn  205

APPENDIX: SELECTIONS FROM THE SYLLABUS

MA THESIS RESEARCH
FALL 20XX

Supervisor: Mr. James Humble
Email: jhumble@scs.edu
Office: Ryan Library

Goals
In order to produce an acceptable Master’s thesis, any student must 
first go through a period of intensive research. For students in a 
humanities subject like Theology, this means a period of intensive 
reading, in which he sifts through the published material on his 
topic. During the summer before IV Theology, the MA candidates are 
expected to read widely and deeply, gaining a foothold in their area 
of focus. The work done during this semester will lay the foundation 
for the writing of the thesis in the spring semester.

Recommended Texts
Hayot, Eric. The Elements of Academic Style. New York: Columbia 

University Press, 2014. ISBN 9780231168014
Kibbe, Michael. From Topic to Thesis. Downer’s Grove: IVP, 2016. ISBN 

9780830851317
Wicks, Jared. Doing Theology. New York: Paulist, 2009. ISBN 

9780809145645
Yaghjian, Lucretia B. Writing Theology Well. 2nd ed. New York: Blooms-

bury, 2015. ISBN 9780567499172

Reading Requirements
As the research semester is worth three credits, students are expected 
to devote the same amount of time to work toward their MA degree 
as they are to their other courses. Therefore, the student must set 
aside nine hours each week for searching, reading, note-taking, draft-
ing bibliography or outline, meeting with the librarian. The student 
should look at this as a course whose class meetings are infrequent 
but whose requirements make the same demands as does a course 
that meets three times a week.

mailto:jhumble@scs.edu


206  ATL A 2019 PROCEEDINGS

Assessment / Grade Determination
Grades will be determined according to the following factors and 
scale:

Learning Outcomes Assessment Tool Percentage 
of Grade

1. The student should be able 
to find relevant sources and cite 
them correctly and thoroughly

Bibliography, first 
draft (9/5)
Expanded bibliog-
raphy (10/3)

33%

2. The student should be able 
to plan out his entire thesis and 
explain it in detail

Preliminary outline 
(11/7)
Detailed outline 
(12/5)

33%

3. The student should read all 
or part of all the sources he 
finds in his research

Reading journal 
(9/26, 10/17, 11/14, 
12/12)

33%

NOTE: No grade will be given for this course, but a student will either 
pass or fail the course depending on the amount of work he does.

Schedule

Month Requirements and Assignments Assignments Due

8/20-
9/19

Schedule first meeting with Mr. 
Humble
Make initial research attempts
Meet with Mr. Humble
Start reading sources, keeping a 
reading journal

First meeting (8/28)
Preliminary bibliog-
raphy (9/5)
Hold meeting (9/5-
9/12)
Journal entries 
(9/19)

9/20-
10/17

Add entries to bibliography based on 
subsequent research (submit to both 
Mr. Humble and the advisor)
Continue reading sources, taking 
notes

Expanded bibliog-
raphy, perhaps with 
annotations (10/3)
Next set of journal 
entries (10/17)



Listen and Learn  207

10/18-
11/15

Meet with Mr. Humble
Rough out a structure for the thesis
Continue reading sources, taking 
notes

Hold meeting 
(10/24-10/31)
Preliminary outline 
(11/7)
Next set of journal 
entries (11/14)

11/16-
12/15

Detailed outline due (submitted to 
both Mr. Humble and the advisor)
Continue reading sources, taking 
notes, and adding entries to bibliog-
raphy

Detailed outline 
(12/5)
Final set of journal 
entries (12/12)

1/1-
1/31

Write first chapter
After advisors read draft, students in 
need of more research will be re-
ferred back to Mr. Humble for more 
help

Draft of Chapter 1 
to advisor (1/23)

2/1-
2/28

Write second chapter
Perhaps students could start to 
submit portions of chapters to Mr. 
Humble for an estimate of their foot-
note formatting

Draft of Chapter 2 
to advisor (2/20)

3/1-
3/31

Write third chapter
Insert footnotes for completed work 
so far, if they haven’t already been 
Review bibliography, make sure all 
sources are accounted for

Draft of Chapter 3 
to advisor (3/13)
Drafts of all chap-
ters to Mr. Humble 
for footnote format 
checking (3/13) 
Draft of latest 
bibliography to Mr. 
Humble (3/20)

4/1-
4/15

Review returned drafts, make chang-
es accordingly
Prepare final version based on advi-
sors’ comments

Submit final draft 
(4/15)


