Guidelines for Master’s Theses

A thesis is optional but is recommended especially for students considering pursuing doctoral degrees. If you choose to do a thesis, the we recommend that you sign up for “Special Topics” in the semester preceding the one in which you expect to graduate, in order to do the background reading on your area of study and to write your proposal. You should begin working with your faculty advisor very early in the process. Your proposal should review the literature, identify the purpose of your research, and provide a detailed description of your proposed methodology. This proposal must be approved by a committee of three faculty members, who will also evaluate the completed thesis. Your thesis proposal must be submitted to the entire committee by November 1 if you are planning to complete your degree in the spring. Be sure to check the graduate student handbook for thesis guidelines and deadlines. Criteria for a good thesis include the following:

• Coherence. The thesis should fit together into a coherent whole, with an introduction, which sets forth the purpose of the research, a review of theoretical issues and prior research, statement of method of data collection results and conclusion. These parts should be interconnected, e.g., the data collection should follow from the purpose and literature review, the conclusion should follow from the results and show how they are linked to prior research and to the stated hypotheses.
  
  
• Originality. The thesis can be based on your own data collection or on a review of library/archival materials or analysis of existing data sets. It is not essential that you collect new data; it is essential that you analyze the material you collect in an original way.
  
  
• Critical Mastery of Literature. You should demonstrate that you not only have reviewed the existing literature, but that you understand the debates within that literature and can critique the authors appropriately.
  
  
• Central Argument. The thesis should set forth a key proposition or set of propositions that you wish to evaluate, based on the literature review. This central argument is what holds the thesis together and determines what kinds of data you collect and how you analyze them. It is an important part of what makes the thesis coherent, and it should be obvious in the introduction and in the conclusion, where you may show that it has been supported by your investigation, or refuted by it.

At the last department colloquium of the year, all students who have completed a thesis will summarize their findings before the faculty and other students.