Registration for the MA Thesis
The deadlines can be found in the course booklet and here.
MA theses need to be registered with the Department of English as well as with the Dean’s Office. Please consult the website of the Dean’s Office for information about how to register your MA thesis at the Dean's Office. To register your MA thesis with the department you must complete the MA thesis registration form and include your supervisor’s and study counsellor’s signatures before handing in the form to the secretariat.
In order to register for the thesis you must have completed all other compulsory modules with the exception of the MA Colloquium. At the moment of registration (early December/early June) you cannot have more than one graded seminar pending (i.e., already attended but still awaiting entry in KSL) and you must have already attended your second MA Colloquium. Furthermore, you cannot miss more than 10 ungraded ECTS (excluding the final MA colloquium) when registering your thesis.
Use this MA thesis registration form (PDF, 87KB) to register your thesis.You do NOT have to sign up on KSL for your MA thesis as the grade will be entered manually by the Dekanat.
Format Requirements
The MA thesis is 30’000-40’000 words long. The thesis word count includes everything except appendices and cover page (i.e. references, table of contents, etc. are included).
For further information and guidelines please consult the Manual for Writing Papers (see "General Information" above).
Ready to submit? Please see "Thesis submission" (below) for further information.
Prolonging your thesis
At the supervisor's discretion, short extensions may be granted: one month for the MA thesis, via the Dean's Office. Only in exceptional circumstances (e.g. serious illness) may the thesis be extended into another semester; in which case, students may be deregistered from the final colloquium and required to repeat it.
If you want to prolong your thesis you will have to adhere to the deadlines from the Dean's office. You will have to fill in the form you can find at the Dean's office (here) and have it signed by your supervisor who has to agree. Your options are the following:
- Extending for one month: You have to get permission and a signature from your supervisor on the form above. Please make sure you hand in your form at the Dekanat at least 1 week before the official deadline!
- Extending for one semester: You have to get permission and a signature from your supervisor on the form above. Please make sure you hand in your form at the Dekanat at least 1 week before the official deadline!
- Second extension for one semester: If you need a second semester-long extension, the Collegium Decanale will need to approve this. Write a short letter (signed by the supervisor of your thesis), submit it to the Dean's Office (for the attention of Collegium Decanale), explain the reasons for the further delay in writing and enclose any employment or medical certificates as applicable.