Master thesis

About the Master Thesis

The Master Thesis is a supervised work that develops a research project, a study, or a memoir in a written form. Its topic should be related to one of the research lines addressed in the program courses. It is especially important to display competence in bibliographical search, research methodology, and analytical and argumentative skills on the subject matter.

Supervision
Supervision

The Master Thesis is developed under the supervision of a member of the Faculty of the program. Exceptionally, the thesis may also be supervised by an external professor, but always with the approval of the student’s tutor, and under her/his guidance. The student’s tutor will help her/him choose a supervisor for the Master Thesis, and the supervisor shall confirm her/his acceptance signing a special form which should be signed also by the student and delivered to the tutor. 

Topic

The student will choose the topic s/he will be addressing in the Master Thesis, though s/he must obtain the approval of the supervisor. A list of topics and supervisors is available below.

Master thesis agreement registration

Students willing to defense their MA thesis in the current academic year must complete a form and send it signed by them and their advisor to the MA administration (via Campus Virtual or email) before Easter (you will be notified by email when the deadline approaches). The form contains the name of the supervisor(s) and a working title for the MA Thesis.

Master thesis format

The dissertation cover should be based in the template provided by the university to where the advisor belongs. Once the thesis is finished students can allow the university to deposit it in their repository using the following form. All this information and documents are also avaliable in the Campus Virtual.

In order to defend their thesis, students must have been allowed to do so. The Master Thesis is defended in a public meeting before a committee composed of three lecturers out of which 2 must be part of the CCiL MA or PhD program. Futhermore, one of them should be the supervisor of the Master Thesis (if the work has more than one supervisor, only one may be a member of the examining committee). The third member of the committee can be a CCiL lecturer or an external member that holds a PhD.

The committee shall be appointed by the supervisor of the Master Thesis, acting on behalf of the Coordinators Committee. The supervisor shall inform the student and her/his tutor about the composition of the committee, date and place of the defense meeting, and about the deadline to deliver the work to the committee members, so that the examiners will have sufficient time to assess it before the defense. Students must submit their research work in the format agreed before the deadline.

In the public defence, the student will have a maximum time of 20 minutes for presentation and, after the observations made by the members of the commission, additional time to answer questions. In the assessment of the Master Thesis, the committee will consider aspects of thematic content, as well as methodological and formal aspects, and transversal skills.

The final grade of the Master Thesis will be notified up to 24 h after the defense meeting.

The deadline to defend the Master Thesis falls usually in mid-September (15th September). However, the defense can be held earlier, for instance in July, if the student and the examining committee agree on an earlier date.

Past MA thesis

Some examples of past MA theses can be consulted here.

The grade will be based on 70% the written essay and 30% the oral presentation.

The final grade of the Master Thesis will be notified up to 24 h after the defense meeting.