 SDSU MALAS Thesis Guide posted by W. Nericcio, April 21, 2011 Additional Resources Web site: For numerous student services and access to forms at the Graduate Division go to http://gra.sdsu.edu/grad/graforms.html The Graduate Division Office is located in Student Services East #1410 Appendix A: Procedural Steps toward Earning a Master’s Degree offers the Graduate Division’s summary of the steps taken to earn the M.A. Degree. Most steps involve paperwork that has to be filed with them, either online or on paper forms. They will monitor your progress and send out communications that list outstanding requirements. We offer a brief summary of stages that have occasioned the most questions. Appendix B: The Care and Feeding of Your Dissertation or Thesis Committee. Great advice from the Graduate Division about selecting and working with your thesis committee. Other Milestones in Completing the Degree Program of Study (POS): This should be filed online in the office of the MALAS Advisor by the semester preceding anticipated graduation. It is an electronic form that states which courses you have taken or will take to complete the degree. Successful submission of the POS is necessary to Advance to Candidacy. You must have an adequate (3.0)grade point average. You will be notified about anything in your course plan that fails to gain approval. Fairly often students select a different course than they have planned for one of their final courses. Any changes must be submitted to the Graduate Division Office on a “Request for a Change in Official Program for the Master’s Degree” form. Nota bene: this paper form must be signed by the MALAS Advisor. Interruptions in Study: You may maintain continuing status in the program if you stop out for only one semester in a calendar year. Longer leaves require an official leave of absence, and without this you must re-apply for admission within University deadlines. See “Leaves of Absence” in the Graduate Bulletin. Graduation: You need to file a form with the Graduate Division informing them of the time you intend to graduate. There will be a fee for this filing. THESIS PLANS AND PAPERWORK: Selection of a Chair for your Thesis Committee: guidelines for making the decision are below, but ideally your chair will assist in the following steps. Permission to Use Human Subjects: You must make an application to the University's Institutional Review Board if you involve people in any way in your research. You cannot "do" anything to humans (even interview them) without this approval. See the IRB site: http://gra.sdsu.edu/irb/, where forms and a manual are available. You may also e-mail the IRB office irb@mail.sdsu.edu regarding questions about Human Subjects issues. It is ideal to obtain this permission as soon as you have defined your research, as you cannot proceed with a thesis without it. Doreen Mattingly is available to look over your proposal and offer you comments before you submit it. Thesis Committee Approval: You will be assembling a committee, usually composed of 3 tenured or tenure track faculty from SDSU. Assuming that you have been advanced to candidacy and that you have satisfied human subjects permission, you can obtain a “Thesis Committee Form” at the Graduate Division Office. On this you state what your thesis topic is, who the members of your committee are, etc. The MALAS Advisor can help you with this form. The graduate advisor’s signature is also required. This approval is needed in order for you to enroll in 799a: Thesis, by the second week of the second semester of your second year. The Graduate Division Office gives out registration numbers for this course. Thesis Format: SDSU has a very specific format it requires you to follow. It also offers a thesis template and workshops that tell you how to use it. USE THE TEMPLATE TO WRITE YOUR THESIS. Purchase the Master’s Thesis and Project Manual published by SDSU’s Graduate and Research Division and Thesis Review Service (available in Aztec Shops). You can also access the Dissertation/Thesis Review website for help: http://gra.sdsu.edu/Graduate/Thesis/manualpage.htm. The Graduate Division’s Dissertation and Thesis Reviewer is well worth consulting. She has several informational handouts that are very helpful when doing your thesis. They list “most common mistakes” graduate students make, etc. Do NOT take these rules lightly. There is a “ruler person” who goes over your completed thesis (your “final draft”) with a fine-tooth comb, and any “errors” that person spots MUST BE CORRECTED BEFORE your thesis will be approved by the University. Watch the deadlines for thesis submission carefully. Delays will mean further expense. Guidelines for Developing a Thesis or Project There are two options to choose from for your culminating work: Thesis or Project. If you are unsure which one is best for you, please consult with your committee chair and the graduate advisor. At all times you are solely responsible for formatting according to guidelines set by the Graduate Division, being aware and communicating to your chair and committee members the due dates set by the Graduate Division and delivering hard copies of all materials. No email submissions will be accepted. The Graduate Division web site is gra.sdsu.edu and their phone number is 619/594-5213. The Thesis Before Beginning the Thesis You should begin thinking about your thesis topic as early as possible in your graduate program. You should begin selecting a thesis chair and thesis committee 6 months to a year before you plan to actually begin work on the thesis. You will need to formalize the committee as discussed later under “Assembling the Thesis Committee.” Typically you will register for MALAS 799A, Thesis, the semester you do the majority of your research and writing. You may also take your final 1 or 2 courses concurrently with 799A. Before you register for 799A, you must be advanced to candidacy, which requires filing an official program of study, satisfying the language requirement, and being advanced to candidacy. You may continue thesis work in successive semesters by registering for 799B. The Thesis Committee A thesis committee consists of three full-time members of the University faculty, the chair and two readers. At least two of the members must hold permanent (tenure or tenure-track) appointments. While it is not required that your committee members be official MALAS Faculty, these faculty have already made a commitment to the program and may be more willing to take on the additional work that other faculty members. If you desire someone from outside the university, such a person may serve as a fourth reader. However, the fourth reader must meet the standards of scholarly achievement set by the department, must have substantially different expertise from SDSU faculty and must be approved by the MALAS advisor. Lecturers (including Jeroen Pinckaers) may serve as the second or third readers, but special paperwork is required. Unofficially Jeroen can play a more active role on thesis committees. Choosing a Thesis Chair As you are taking courses, you need to be considering whether each professor might be a good choice to chair your MA thesis. Normally, in searching for a thesis chair, you should approach a professor with whom you have had one or more graduate classes. The thesis chair should be a specialist in the area central to your thesis. Ideally you are looking for someone who is 1) knowledgeable about your research topic and/or method, 2) is willing to chair a MALAS thesis, and 3) is someone you feel comfortable with. Your thesis chair may have very specific ideas about working together. For example, they may or may not want regular meetings, they may or may not want you to first write a proposal, and they may or may not want to edit one chapter at a time. You should ask them their advice on selecting your second and third committee members. They are likely to know other SDSU faculty with similar research. It is a good idea to approach the prospective chair with a fairly good idea of what your thesis project will be; the more clearly you can articulate your idea, the better the chances that the professor understands clearly what you are proposing to do. This makes it easier for the professor to make up her or his mind whether to be your chair. Generally, if the professor and you share a mutual interest in an area of the professor’s expertise and the professor knows that your work is of acceptable quality, the professor will agree to chair your thesis. In some cases, the professor may already be chairing so many theses that she or he cannot take on more despite her or his genuine interest in your work. If you ask a professor to chair your thesis, but it is not within her or his realm of expertise, you may be directed to a chair with more relevant expertise. Before the professor definitely agrees to chair your thesis committee, she or he may want you to prepare a full thesis proposal (see the guidelines below for what a thesis proposal should look like). Each professor has a different policy on this. The purpose of the proposal is to help you articulate your ideas to a point where it is clear to you and to the professor what it is you want to do and how exactly you are going to proceed. The professor will usually help you prepare the proposal; however, that does not mean that the professor is as yet committed to be your chair. A signature on the thesis proposal form alone denotes the commitment to serve as chair or reader. Assembling the Thesis Committee As you work on your thesis proposal, you may begin to assemble the other members of the thesis committee. Some professors will agree immediately; others will ask to see your thesis proposal first. You should consult your chair as to when your proposal is ready to submit to prospective committee members. Your proposal may help you in assembling the committee by articulating your goals and describing the proposed project. If they wish, you may discuss the proposal briefly with prospective members of the committee and give them a copy of the thesis proposal. They can study it before they make their decision as to whether they wish to serve on the committee. Faculty in different departments have different expectations about what it means to be a chair, second reader, and third reader. IT IS THE STUDENT’S RESPONSIBILTY TO REACH AGREEMENT WITH EACH COMMITTEE MEMBER ABOUT HER OR HIS ROLE. Specifically, you should establish the following: • Do they want to see a proposal? • Do they want to meet as a group to discuss the proposal? • Do they want to see drafts of any or all chapters? • How much time do they want to review your complete draft? IMPORTANT: Please read Appendix B: The Care and Feeding of Your Dissertation or Thesis Committee At the end of this meeting of the full committee the thesis committee form can be signed and submitted to the appropriate offices. Registering for 799A: Thesis At this point, get a Thesis Committee Form from the Graduate Division to formally establish the committee. Have the form signed by the chair, readers, and Graduate Advisor. Turn it into the Graduate Division. Now you are ready to register for WMNST 799A. Go to or call the Graduate Division to obtain the schedule number. Before a schedule number will be released, you must: • Have an official program on file. This is done during an appointment with the Graduate Advisor in September of your second year • Be advanced to candidacy • Have a completed Thesis Committee Form (either on file or in hand). Thesis Research: Topic Selection: Ideally this will happen with your thesis chair or in a methods class (see below) but please keep the following in mind. Begin with a general area of interest, and start reading the existing research to get a feel for the kinds of questions, theories, and methods being used. Eventually you want to narrow down a specific question, some understanding of why the question is important, and a method for answering the question. Research Methods: If you are going to conduct research, it is strongly suggested that you take a methods course from another department. Some have prerequisites or require the consent of the instructor, so please check the Graduate Bulletin first. They will teach you about doing research and many will require you to write a thesis proposal. A few appropriate classes are: ANTH 520: Ethnographic Field Methods ASIAN 600: Seminar in Interndisciplinary Methods CCS 602: Methods of Inquiry in Chicano and Chicana Studies Seminar ED 690: Methods of Inquiry ENG 600; Introduction to Graduate Study GEOG 586: Qualitative Methods in Geographic Research HIST 601: Seminar in Historical Methods LATAM 601: Seminar in Latin American studies POLS 515: Research Design and Analysis in Political Science SOC 600: Proseminar in Sociology WMNST 602: Seminar: Methods of Inquiry in Women’s Studies Guides: There are dozens of guides to writing the thesis – it is worth reading one or two. This is a small sample; the library has many more. Turabian, Kate L.2007. A manual for writers of research papers, theses, and dissertations : Chicago style for students and researchers . Chicago : University of Chicago Press. Ogden, Evelyn Hunt. 2007. Complete your dissertation or thesis in two semesters or less. Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Thomas, R. Murray and Dale L. Brubaker, 2008. Theses and dissertations : a guide to planning, research, and writing. Thousand Oaks, CA : Corwin Press. Rossman, Mark. 2002. Negotiating graduate school: a guide for graduate students. Thousand Oaks, Ca : Sage Publications. Thesis Proposal While some thesis chairs may not insist on a proposal, it is recommended that you write one (and Dr. Mattingly will require one from you). A sound thesis proposal should be about eight to twelve pages long and have the following elements: 1. Title 2. Statement of the Topic/Problem A brief (one page) description of the “problem area” of the proposed study. This section should demonstrate a familiarity with the major issues and scholarship involved. Think of this section as providing the context for your proposed study. You may provide a brief description of the situation, issues, debates, and questions that motivate interest in the topic and in your proposed study. This section should also serve as the rationale for the proposed study,. demonstrating the need for such a study: Why is the proposed study relevant, interesting, called for, or worth doing? 3. Major Questions This section elaborates upon the Statement of the Topic by posing the general questions that you will attempt to answer. Alternately, this section may pose and explain the hypothesis or assumption that you seek to substantiate, explain, extend, test, or question. 4. Method This section explains the proposed method of proceeding (archival research, oral histories, ethnography, empirical, textual analysis, observation, data analysis, and so on). This section should also detail the relevance of your methodology to the goals of the study, e.g., how do they complement and strengthen one another? If your study involves human subjects in any way, including observations, interviews, or previously collected data from another study, you must secure appopriate permits from the SDSU Institutional Review Board (IRB). Contact IRB at 594-6622 for the procedures and paperwork. The thesis proposal must contain a statement that the research will respect the guidelines set out by the IRB. Consult the section “Thesis Research Involving Human Subjects and Animal Subjects” in your edition of the SDSU Graduate Bulletin (in the chapter “Basic Requirements for the Master’s Degree”) as well as the guidelines put out by IRB. You should also contact IRB directly; they are very helpful. IMPORTANT: Begin work on your Human Subjects proposals immediately: you must secure IRB approval before you begin data collection or analysis of existing data from an earlier study, and you may have to work with the committee’s deadlines and requests for revision. The IRB website is http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~gra/grad/research/hrpp.html 5. Chapter Outline This section lists the tentative chapters or sections of the thesis and briefly describes their proposed content. 6. Timetable for Completion This section presents the timetable for completing the thesis. Allot sufficient time for research, writing, reviewing, and revising. IMPORTANT: Please make sure to read the section “Submission of Theses” in your edition of the SDSU Graduate Bulletin (in the chapter “Basic Requirements for the Master’s Degree’) as well as the academic calendar at the beginning of the current edition of the Bulletin for appropriate deadlines for the submission of the thesis. Also helpful is the Thesis Review Service website at http://www~rohan.~gra/Graduate/Thesis/thesis.htm 7. Working Bibliography This section is a list of primary and secondary sources that will be used in the study. For a well-focused study, about 20 to 25 sources would constitute a working bibliography, but consult your committee chair for further advice. The Project Option Students may choose to do a project instead of a Research Thesis or a M.A. Written Examination. This could take the form of a videotaped production, children’s book, self-styled creative body of work, curriculum development intended for a specific level of students, activist program implementation and so on. Preparation for the project option of the master’s degree is identical to preparation for the previously described thesis. A project typically includes two components: 1) the actual project (e.g. film, website, curricula, etc,), and 2) a narrative about planning and executing the project: including a survey of relevant literature; an articulated methodology; placing the project in cultural/historical context, and so on. Specific ideas for projects need to be approved by Doreen Mattingly, MALAS graduate advisor. Appendix A: Planning for the Dissertation or Thesis Available online from the Division of Graduate Studies: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~gra/grad/thesisreview/planning.html Preparing a dissertation or thesis (from the proposal development stage to the final manuscript) takes advance planning to manage time, people, external resources, and expenses. This page offers some suggestions for your consideration. TIMELINE Following are some questions to think about as you plan for the preparation of your dissertation/thesis and attempt to establish a timeline for its completion. When the SDSU Dissertation & Thesis Manual contains answers to a question, the relevant sections are shown in parentheses. • What steps need to be completed before I can enroll in dissertation/thesis and what is the registration deadline? (See Sec. 2.2.1 & 2.2.3.) • What university deadlines do I need to know about and when are they? (See section 2.3.3.) • Do I need to plan for animal or human subjects research clearances? (See Sec. 2.1.1 and 2.1.2.) • At what point will the full committee be involved in reading the dissertation/thesis? That is, will your prospective faculty chair want to approve a penultimate draft before allowing it to go forward to the rest of the committee? • How much time is "normal" for a full committee review and subsequent revisions? If an oral defense is required (for thesis), when does the department normally schedule thesis defense--only at a specific time during the semester or as needed? Doctoral students, check with your program coordinator. • Will the committee members be available when you anticipate that you will need them? To answer the last question, you will need to prepare a timeline, share it with all committee members, and directly ask them if they will be available when you are nearing completion of your dissertation/thesis (as indicated in the timeline). Maintain constant communication with all committee members to update them on the progress of your manuscript and any revised timelines. YOU are the project manager for your dissertation/thesis, and it is your responsibility to coordinate the work and the people involved. Remember that faculty are not always present during an entire semester. They may have commitments to conference attendance or be working on joint projects with faculty at other universities in the United States or abroad. Be prepared to work around their schedules! For master's students: If a faculty member is absent when the thesis is ready for signature, and such absence will delay your ability to submit your thesis by the at-risk or end-of-semester deadline, be sure to contact the Dissertation and Thesis Reviewer or the Graduate Division to discuss available options. Summer session. If you expect to complete a thesis or project during the summer session, it is especially important to make sure that your committee members will be available. Many faculty are not on campus, or even in town, during the summer. Remember, if it is necessary to appoint a substitute member, your graduate adviser and the Associate Dean of the Graduate Division must give prior approval for that change. Once you have prepared your timeline, consider the possibility of not meeting the deadlines you have set. If your research and writing take longer than expected, do the answers to any of the above questions change? Will the members of your committee still be available? If you are working, will your work commitments change during this period? Do other possible problems surface? TIME CONSIDERATIONS FOR FORMATTING You must know your word processing system well in order to format your dissertation or thesis to the required specifications. If you don't, you need to build in time to learn it. For example, in addition to the basics, those using M.S. Word also need to know how to: use templates and wizards;* work with headers and footers, including page numbering;* use the ruler to change indentation and apply hanging indents and tabs; insert and delete footnotes and endnotes; insert graphics (tables & figures); work with styles (applying and removing);* create an auto-generated Table of Contents using styles;* work with line spacing features; know the difference between page breaks and section breaks;* insert or remove hyperlinks; and be able to work with the reviewing, comments, and tracking functions. * Items with an asterisk denote skills needed to use the SDSU Template effectively. Students working in LaTeX have available a thesis template produced by the Department of Mathematics and Statistics that conforms to the DTM. As with the SDSU Template in Word, the LaTeX program has a significant learning curve. In conclusion, build in time to format your thesis when you make projections about a completion date. It is suggested that you allow: • 2-30 hours learning the regulations of your departmental style guide, depending on your current level of familiarity with it. This includes rules on how to cite sources in your text and how to prepare the reference list. Also, see the Citing Internet Sources handout. • 8 hours, minimum, becoming familiar with and using the SDSU Dissertation & Thesis Manual. • 8 hours reading the ReadMe File and learning how to use the SDSU Thesis Template. If you are using LaTeX or some other software program, you should plan on spending the same amount of time or more depending on your level of expertise. • 40 hours, minimum, to actually format your thesis. Even if you are using one of the templates, some things need to be formatted manually. The templates help with most but not all of the formatting. • 8 hours proofreading and tweaking. Therefore, as an absolute minimum, you should plan to spend two weeks (80 hours) formatting your dissertation or thesis. Some students may be able to format their theses in 40-60 hours. However, many more are likely to need 100 hours or more. Therefore, don't underestimate this part of the process! It will be much easier on you if you spread these hours across 2 semesters by starting the formatting process as you write your thesis/dissertation proposal. On the other hand, if time is worth more than money to you and you are not confident about formatting, you might want to consider hiring a professional. The Graduate Division maintains a list of professional formatters and editors for your use (see the Formatters & Other Professionals link on the left side of this page). DEADLINES The responsibility for meeting deadlines rests with you, the student, not the faculty. Once your committee has been formed and your topic approved, check for the deadline dates you will need to meet and take these into consideration as you prepare your timeline (see the Deadlines link on the left side of this page). EXPENSES Some of the expenses you will incur are mandatory, such as: • Enrollment in dissertation or thesis. You are required to be enrolled in Dissertation 899 (or the joint institution's corresponding course) or Thesis 799 whenever using university resources (faculty, library, labs, etc.) as well as when the final manuscript is submitted to the Graduate Division for format review. Cost will vary depending on whether you are enrolled through the university or through the College of Extended Studies (master's students only). If you need financial aid, you must enroll through the university. Please note that you must be enrolled in Dissertation 899 or Thesis 799 (A or B) by the add deadline (the 15th day of the semester). See Enroll in Thesis on the Procedures page for more information. • Preparation of the required hardbound and microfiche copies for deposit in the University Library as well as any departmentally required copies. These costs vary depending on the size of the manuscript and whether special action (color copying, production of oversized maps or charts, etc.) will be required. The Montezuma Publishing Thesis Processing - itemizes the fees and provides an example of a typical order. Some costs are not mandatory (as in "required by the university"), but are necessary in order to conduct your research or produce the manuscript to your own specifications. Examples of these are: • postage (for questionnaires) • printing supplies and other computer-related costs • consultant fees (Will you need to pay someone to help you with statistics, input data to a database, conduct interviews or focus groups, type or format your thesis?) Think about these issues early so that you will have the resources you need when you need them. Appendix B: The Care and Feeding of Your Dissertation or Thesis Committee Available online from the Division of Graduate Studies: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~gra/grad/thesisreview/careofcommittee.html The most important people in the academic life of a graduate student are the members of his/her dissertation or thesis committee. The committee chair is usually the director of the student's research and has a vested interest in seeing that the student does well and finishes promptly, but all members must be satisfied that the student has done a thorough and responsible job of research. In the best of all possible worlds, the student-committee relationship is one of mutual intellectual respect and stimulation, warmth, support, and understanding. Faculty often learn as much from good graduate students as students learn from faculty, and their reputations rest in part on the quality of their graduate students. In the less-than-perfect real world, however, such relationships sometimes fall apart. Faculty and students alike are human, with the same variety of likes, dislikes, preferences, personality traits, blind spots, and tender egos as any other group of people. What follows are some suggestions for choosing your committee, for working well with it, and for seeking help if things go wrong. Establishing Your Committee 1) Think carefully about what special knowledge or expertise each member of the committee can contribute to your successful completion of the best possible doctoral dissertation or master's thesis. In addition to their research knowledge, methodological skills, and expert scholarship, the ideal committee members also bring the ability to emotionally support you, challenge and extend you, help guide you through the system, and provide stringent editorial input. Aim for this mix of skills whenever possible. 2) Do not confine yourself to those faculty members whose current research interests closely mirror your own; your choices are wider than you might think. Talk with other graduate students, with faculty members both inside and outside your own department, and to your graduate program adviser. Most departments have folklore about how particular faculty members interact with their graduate students. Do not choose a committee completely based on folklore; but do not ignore it, either. 3) If you already know who the chair should be because you have a good working relationship with a particular faculty member, talk with him/her about the makeup of the committee. S/he may already have established a network of faculty who work well together on committees. You do not have to accept all suggestions, but it is to your advantage to discuss your choices with the chair before you make them final. 4) Departmental traditions vary as to whether the student or the committee chair asks the other members of the committee to serve. It is advisable to inform a faculty member that you would like for him/her to serve on your committee. That gives the faculty members an opportunity to tell you if they will be on sabbatical, if they already have so many graduate students they cannot serve you well, or if there are any other possible problems they foresee. Keeping the Committee Happy 1) Visit the members of your committee periodically and report on your progress. This suggestion serves several functions. Frequent consultation serves to recharge your creative batteries and helps you finish your dissertation or thesis more quickly. If you will have to orally defend your dissertation/thesis prior to final submission/approval, this assures that the faces around your oral examination table are familiar and understanding; you will be less nervous and will perform better. 2) As a bare minimum of consultation, provide each member of the committee with his or her own copy of the next-to-last draft of your dissertation/thesis. Most faculty members resent being asked to sign a dissertation or thesis that they have not seen until it is presented for the oral defense, or which is presented to them as a "finished product." If you choose your committee members wisely, every one of them can be of help to you with suggestions about style, organization, or approach. 3) You do not have to accept all suggestions about minor changes; but you should listen carefully to major objections. Consult, discuss, and redefine. Whether your future career is in academia, government, industrial research, or the private sector, you will be involved in collegial resolution of intellectual problems for the rest of your life. Start now! Troubleshooting Problems Most students maintain good relations with their committees, finish their research, and earn their degrees with no problems. Occasionally, however, differences of opinion regarding the research occur within a committee, or some personality conflicts may develop. If you find yourself in one of these situations, remember: By all means, try to stay on good terms with your committee chair and keep calm. Acceptable accommodations can be found to almost any problem and the Graduate Division can try to help you as you seek to resolve these problems. Final Thoughts on Committees Doctoral and master's candidates still have a great deal of responsibility, and hence, control over what goes on during this period of time--the role of the committee is important but limited. Most significantly, the conduct and presentation of the dissertation/thesis research is the student's responsibility. Meeting the canons of the particular discipline governing dissertations/theses in the student's field is, again, the student's responsibility. Faculty can provide encouragement, suggestions, and opportunities, but it is not up to the committee to see that you get a degree. You must take the initiative, partly as a way of proving that you are serious about graduate research, partly as an overture to opening a person-to-person relationship that can be intensely rewarding. Each student-committee relationship is unique. Some very successful ones are quite formal and distant; others are close and vivacious. You may need to do a little soul searching before you name a committee to determine what you want the committee to do for and with you. As one veteran graduate advised some new enrollees, "Don't necessarily choose as your long-term mentor the professor with whom you have easiest rapport, who gives ready praise, or who promises the least hassle. Choose one who will push you to excel." MALAS Advisor: Dr. William Anthony Nericcio bnericci@mail.sdsu.edu 594-1524 273 Arts and Letters 5500 Campanile Drive San Diego, CA 92182.6020 |