{"id":208731,"date":"2022-09-11T12:29:49","date_gmt":"2022-09-11T16:29:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/english\/?page_id=208731"},"modified":"2026-02-11T16:50:55","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T21:50:55","slug":"guidelines-for-the-masters-thesis-in-english","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/english\/programs-of-study\/ma-in-english\/guidelines-for-the-masters-thesis-in-english\/","title":{"rendered":"Guidelines for the Masters Thesis in English"},"content":{"rendered":"

Please note that these guidelines are not meant to modify or override anything in the Graduate School\u2019s <\/em>T<\/em>hesis Procedure Manual<\/em><\/a>, though they do represent what has worked best for thesis writers in English.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Graduate School will also provide you with a range of information and instructions through the \u201cMastering Your Thesis\u201d Canvas site, in which you will be automatically enrolled when you are enrolled in the thesis course (ENGL 698). Note that your thesis committee currently does not have access to this Canvas site<\/strong>\u2014do not assume that anyone on your committee is familiar with anything on it.<\/p>\n

Please contact the English Department\u2019s Graduate Program Coordinator with any questions<\/em>.
\n
\nOverview
\n<\/em><\/strong>
\n<\/em>The thesis is the culmination of your MA in English: it\u2019s meant to demonstrate your accomplishments in close reading, research, argumentation, and original thinking, and to showcase the particular interests you\u2019ve developed in your studies. With this in mind, many students have found it helpful to think of the thesis less as a final exam for the MA than as an opportunity to develop their ideas and intellectual interests in a more focused and sustained way than they\u2019ve been able to do before.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also important to remember that at 25-35 double-spaced pages, the thesis is neither a book nor a dissertation. The best model to use is one of your favorite scholarly articles (ideally one published in the last twenty years or so), and it\u2019s important to study a source like that in thinking about how you want to structure your argument, make use of your sources, and foreground your contribution.<\/p>\n

You should generally plan to write your thesis in the final semester of your MA program (unless you are a BA\/MA student with an undergraduate teaching certification, in which case you may need to take one additional summer course after completing the thesis in the spring). Throughout your MA coursework, you should be on the lookout for topics and term papers that might serve as the basis for your thesis. In the semester before you write your thesis, you will need to write a short proposal, assemble your committee, and send the relevant materials to the Graduate School so that they can enroll you in the thesis course for the following semester. Each of these steps, along with the standard process for the thesis semester itself, are described in detail below.
\n
\nEarly planning
\n<\/strong>
\n<\/em>The thesis project is designed to take shape from a final paper for a graduate seminar. There is no strict requirement for this to be the case, and the thesis can depart quite a lot from the approach of the original paper; but students and faculty should be aware that additional preparation and a significantly more intensive process during the thesis semester will probably be necessary if the thesis does not have a basis in a prior project.<\/p>\n

Students are encouraged to consult with their professors about whether a specific term paper might be a good basis for a thesis, and about what approach might be most promising.
\n
\nSemester before the thesis course<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Choosing your topic and committee<\/p>\n

Early in this semester, you should decide what you\u2019d like to write about and choose a professor who will be available to supervise your work (the thesis \u201csponsor,\u201d or \u201csupervisor\u201d). Ideally, your choice of what to write about stems directly from one of the final papers you\u2019ve written for a graduate seminar. It can be helpful in some cases for your sponsor to be the professor for whom you wrote that seminar paper, but this is not a requirement.<\/p>\n

Your choice of thesis sponsor should be based first on the professor\u2019s expertise in the general topic you\u2019ll be working on. This does not need to be anything like a perfect match: someone whose primary field is in nineteenth-century poetry, for instance, may make a great sponsor for a thesis on nineteenth-century novels, or early twentieth-century poetry. If possible, though, avoid asking a professor to sponsor a thesis that\u2019s unrelated in any clear way to their area of expertise. A second consideration in choosing your sponsor should be whether the professor is someone you\u2019re happy to work closely with. This is a largely personal choice, and may be based on your respect for their scholarship or their teaching, or on an intellectual relationship you\u2019ve established with them. Please do not choose a sponsor based only on whether you think they will be easy on you\u2014this can backfire, in the form of a thesis\u00a0 that ends up incomplete by the deadline.<\/p>\n

Once you\u2019ve decided on a sponsor, get in touch with them and ask whether they\u2019d be willing to serve in that role for you. You\u2019ll want to describe your project to them briefly at this point, and they may ask to see a proposal before they decide (see next section for more on the proposal). They may also, at this point or after asking for and reading a proposal, decide they cannot take on the sponsor role for you. Don\u2019t take this personally: professors have all kinds of reasons that they may have to decline, from over-commitment to other projects to a sense that their areas of expertise are too far removed from your topic for them to supervise your work (though they may still agree to be second or third readers). If your first choice says no, ask them who else they might recommend as a sponsor for your project, and continue this process until someone says yes. As always, get in touch with the Graduate Program Coordinator if you\u2019re running into trouble at this stage.<\/p>\n

When you have a thesis sponsor signed on, ask them if they have any recommendations for second and third readers. These roles are required for the thesis, but they are less intensive than the role of your sponsor\u2014second and third readers may have some suggestions based on your proposal, but most often they give their first significant feedback on your first complete draft of the thesis, midway through the thesis semester. As you did in choosing your sponsor, keep asking professors, and asking for recommendations if they decline, until you have a second and third reader. (In rare cases, the Graduate Program Coordinator may agree to sign in place of the third reader, but only if a student can show that they have exhausted all other possibilities.)<\/p>\n

Proposal and forms
\n<\/em>
\nIt\u2019s possible to secure a sponsor, second reader, and third reader without writing a thesis proposal, and in some cases it may be useful to discuss your plan with your agreed sponsor before writing the proposal. In most cases, though, potential sponsors will want to see a rough proposal before they sign on, and in any case you will need a proposal in order to enroll in the thesis semester itself.<\/p>\n

The proposal can be fairly short: it will eventually have to satisfy your sponsor, of course, but the Graduate School will enroll you in the thesis course on the basis of a proposal in the range of around 4-7 pages, including a provisional bibliography. Keep in mind that the proposal is not a contract, except in as much as it\u2019s an honest representation to your thesis committee about what you\u2019re planning to do.<\/p>\n

The proposal should generally include the following elements:<\/p>\n

A description of your research question. What are you going to examine, and what do you want to find out? Why might the answers you find be important, and how might they go beyond what\u2019s already been shown by others?<\/p>\n

A rough thesis statement. What do you think you might<\/em> end up arguing? (You can think of this as something like a hypothesis in a scientific experiment.)<\/p>\n

A description of your planned analysis and research. What texts (or films) will you be studying in detail, and what will you be looking for? What research do you plan to do? How do you think you might position your approach so that it responds to existing scholarship while saying something new?<\/p>\n

Some description of the structure of your thesis. This does not have to be in actual outline form\u2014a general sense of the planned parts of your argument is fine.<\/p>\n

A brief, provisional bibliography identifying primary and secondary sources you think you will use in your research.<\/p>\n

Once you have your sponsor, second reader, third reader, and proposal, ask all three members of your committee to sign the Approval for Writing a Master\u2019s Thesis form<\/a>. You can send this around electronically for signatures\u2014just fill out your parts first. Note that one line on the form now requires your thesis sponsor to indicate \u201cMethod of Instruction\u201d\u2014i.e., whether you and your sponsor will be meeting face-to-face, synchronously online, or asynchronously online.<\/p>\n

When the form is complete, email it, along with your proposal, to the Graduate School. They will enroll you in ENGL 698, the thesis course, for the following semester.<\/p>\n

Making a plan with your sponsor<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to consult with your thesis sponsor before the start of the thesis semester, so that you can agree on a specific sequence of events for the research and writing process. The plan you agree on should take into account the roles that your second and third reader would like to play: they may want to meet with you while you\u2019re working on the first draft, for instance, or they may only want to see the completed first draft, or they may want to wait to see your sponsor\u2019s feedback on the first draft before they add their own. A suggested schedule for the semester is in the next section.<\/p>\n

Note that any revisions of your thesis proposal should be completed by the end of the semester before<\/em> your thesis semester\u2014you should not still be revising the proposal during the thesis semester.<\/p>\n

The thesis semester<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

We suggest checking in with your thesis sponsor at least once every two weeks, in whatever modality you agreed on. You may also want to ask specific questions of your second and third readers periodically as you go.<\/p>\n

As you research and write your first draft, keep careful track of the calendar and of your progress. Be responsive to what your committee is asking you to do, but make sure that you can understand their suggestions as clear, finite tasks\u2014not confusing, open-ended ones. If you are feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or unsure how to implement what\u2019s being asked of you, ask for clarification and practical advice.<\/p>\n

The same strategy should apply to revisions. Work with your sponsor to maintain a clear sequence of submitted drafts and received feedback, with set dates; make sure that your second and third readers are on board with this plan; and hold yourself and your committee to the calendar you agreed on. Try to allow for one extra set of revisions towards the end of the process.<\/p>\n

Here is a suggested schedule for the thesis semester:<\/p>\n

Week 1:\u00a0\u00a0 Finalize research plan and sequence of drafts and feedback with your committee.<\/p>\n

Week 7:\u00a0\u00a0 First complete draft of thesis sent to your sponsor.<\/p>\n

Week 8:\u00a0\u00a0 Sponsor feedback on first draft sent to you and to both readers (if readers want to see it at this stage).<\/p>\n

Week 9:\u00a0\u00a0 Additional feedback from readers.<\/p>\n

Week 11:\u00a0 Second draft to full committee.<\/p>\n

Week 12:\u00a0 Final comments from committee.<\/p>\n

Week 14:\u00a0 Proofreading draft to full committee; final corrections returned the same week.<\/p>\n

Week 15:\u00a0 Submission of thesis to Graduate School.<\/p>\n

In the final week, double check that your thesis is formatted according to the Graduate School\u2019s guidelines. All three members of your committee will need to sign off on the appropriate page of the thesis before you turn it in through the \u201cMastering Your Thesis\u201d Canvas course site.<\/p>\n

Extensions
\n<\/em><\/strong>
\n<\/em>The guidelines and proposed schedule above are meant to help you avoid needing an extension for your thesis. Still, in unusual circumstances, extensions are sometimes necessary. If you are in such a situation and find yourself seriously behind schedule at around Week 10 of the semester, consult with your sponsor about whether there is still a viable path to completion by the deadline or whether it looks like you may need to apply for an extension.<\/p>\n

If you do think that you will need an extension, contact the Graduate Program Coordinator for English right away. In some cases, the GPC may be able to negotiate a few extra days past the Graduate School\u2019s official deadline. If that is not possible, or if that will not be enough, you will need to work with the GPC and your sponsor to enroll in ENGL 699, the thesis extension course, for the following semester. That semester usually has to be fall or spring\u2014summer thesis extensions are generally not possible, since faculty are not paid or working during July and August (except to teach summer courses).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Please note that these guidelines are not meant to modify or override anything in the Graduate School\u2019s Thesis Procedure Manual, though they do represent what has worked best for thesis writers in English. The Graduate School will also provide you with a range of information and instructions through the \u201cMastering Your Thesis\u201d Canvas site, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":85,"featured_media":665,"parent":61,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-208731","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/208731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/85"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208731"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/208731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":209667,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/208731\/revisions\/209667"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/61"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}