Hours of work

Beware this course is 15 credits, your work should be 375 hours.

Description

The Master Thesis is a written work developing a research project, a study, or a memoir. 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.

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 by signing a special form which should be signed also by the student and delivered to the tutor. 

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.

 

Advisor agreement

Students willing to defend their MA thesis in the current academic year must complete a form and upload it signed by them and their advisor to the Campus Virtual.

 

Master thesis format

The dissertation cover should have the form of a journal paper and a maximum of 8000 words.

 

Master thesis defence

In order to defend their thesis, students must have been allowed to do so. The Master Thesis is defended in a public meeting before the MA Thesis Committe.

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 defence meeting.

The deadline to defend the Master Thesis falls usually in mid-September. However, the defence 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 theses can be seen here.

Asessment

The asessment of the Ma Thesis is based 70% on the written report and 30% on the oral presentation. The assessment is done by the MA Thesis Commitee and based on a rubric (published at the Campus Virtual).

The assessing committee of the MA thesis is a committee composed of three lecturers out of which 2 must be part of the CCiL MA or PhD program. Furthermore, 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, the date and place of the defence meeting, and the deadline to deliver the work to the committee members so that the examiners will have sufficient time to assess it before the defence. Students must submit (upload to the Campus Virtual) their research work in the format agreed upon before the deadline.

Bibliography