Thesis writing guidelines
The Master thesis is the culmination of the Master’s degree program. While you will start working on your thesis in the 4th semester of your study, the preparation for the final product should start earlier. This package is designed to assist you to plan your work and make sure you will complete the program successfully. Please note that if there is any discrepancy between information on this page and the course description for the Master’s thesis, the latter will take precedence. Please inform us if this is the case.
1. Start of dissertation
Formally, your dissertation starts when you register for the “Dissertation” course during the general registration for courses. This means that you have to register between November 20th and 30th if you want to write your dissertation in the spring semester and in May if you want to write it in the autumn semester. The course registration also serves as a registration for the exam and any re-exams. The exam is compulsory. The date of the exam (the deadline for submitting the dissertation) is 1st of June if you are writing in the spring semester, and January 2nd for the fall semester. If these dates fall in weekends or holidays, the thesis is due the first workday coming weekday. To enroll in the class you need to meet the following requirements: Have passed the 30 ECTS on the first semester plus 15 ECTS, and been enrolled in/passed an additional 30 ECTS points. Under special circumstances, the university may grant exemption from the rule that the thesis must be the final element in the master’s programme, and/or grant exemption on the beginning and end of the dissertation. Special circumstances include, for example, pregnancy, illness or illness among your nearest relatives (all documented as appropriate).
2. Selecting a supervisor
Academically, the dissertation starts when you contact a lecturer who can provide supervision within the dissertation’s subject area. This serves to get you on the way to the subject of your thesis. You cannot make a formal agreement with a supervisor, as the department will assigns supervisors, but any standing agreement among a student and a potential supervisor will be taken into consideration. The supervisor must be permanently employed at the Department of Political Science and Public Management or the Department of Law. You can find inspiration from the Department’s research groups’ page. A good way to choose a topic is to review the syllabi of your core and elective courses for potential ideas, but in addition, we also asked your teachers and members of SDU’s Center for War Studies to briefly introduce themselves and their supervision philosophy and list topics, which they can offer supervision. There is a lot you can learn about potential supervisors also by looking up their profiles (focusing on their areas of research and work experience) and talking to current students who are working under different supervisors. Once you have made your choice you should contact the supervisor of your choice, briefly explain your interest and initial thesis idea, and see if they find it within their field and if they have suggestions to narrow your scope of interest. As mentioned, you can ask if they want to supervise you, and they can agree to do so. The department will try to accommodate existing agreements, but you will not know for sure who your supervisor is, until the 15th of December if you write in the spring, and the 15th of June if you write in the fall.
3. Thesis supervisor agreement
On the 2nd of December if you are writing in the spring, or the 2nd of June if you are writing in the fall you will hand in the Thesis supervisor agreement for the first time. The Thesis supervisor agreement is an online form.
The first time you hand it in, you will only need to fill out the first part, this includes: Your name and so on, the topic for your thesis and the contact information of your potential supervisor. If you don’t have an agreement with a supervisor, then you don’t need to fill that part out, you will be assigned one based on your topic. Because of this, it is also a good idea to specify your topic, as it will make it easier to match you with a supervisor.
When you have gotten confirmation on who your supervisor is, and you and your supervisor have come to an agreement, you have to complete an electronic dissertation contract. It is the same form as above, but this time you complete the form, so you will also have to upload a plan for the thesis. You can find a Work template for such a plan in the Appendix. When you fill out the form the Thesis supervisor agreement will automatically be send to the relevant people. This agreement should be APPROVED by the 16th of January, so you are advised to send it in good time.
If you miss any of the two deadlines for the Thesis supervision agreement (2nd of December and 16th of January) you will have used an exam attempt. Therefore, it is important to make sure your supervision terms are in place in good time.
If you wish to write your thesis with another student, you each need to complete a Thesis supervisor agreement.
4. Submission
Normally, the thesis must be submitted no later than 1st of June/2nd of January. The dissertation should only be submitted in digital form. Digital submission takes place via SDU Assignment. Whether the dissertation is allowed to be lent to others or not, you have to fill in and sign a form in the Student Information Point. If you do not submit your thesis before the deadline, you will have used one exam attempt and you will automatically be registered for a re-examination three months after the missed deadline. In addition, a new Thesis supervisor agreement must be submitted within 14 days of the missed deadline – otherwise the head of studies will assign a supervisor to you. If your dissertation is given a fail grade, you will be registered for a re-examination three months after your grade is posted in the self-service system. You must submit a new Thesis supervision contract within 14 days. The same will happen if you do not pass the re-examination or do not submit.
You can only receive a deadline extension if you become ill, experience a serious personal problem that results in a documented inability to meet the deadline, or if you become a parent during the contract period and wish to take parental leave. In all these cases you should contact the Study Board to apply for an extension. Apply as early as possible and always remember to provide documentation. Apart from parental leave, you may not take a leave during the dissertation writing period except in exceptional circumstances.
5. Other formalities
The dissertation’s cover page must include the following: your name and civil registration number, the submission date, the name of the Department, the name(s) of your supervisor(s), the number of characters and the title of the dissertation (only an English title is required).
The maximum number of characters includes spaces in the text, but not annexes, the table of contents or the bibliography. If the number of characters in the dissertation is not indicated or if it is exceeded, the dissertation will be rejected. For information about the scope and language of the dissertation, as well as group work, see the curriculum. You can find the curriculum for the master’s program in International Security and Law.
The thesis must be written in English. The linguistic clarity of the thesis can affect the evaluation of the thesis both if it is conspicuously bad or remarkably good. If a student has a documented linguistic or physical disability the Study Board can dispense from this provision. Every student should run a spell-check and re-read the thesis for clarity and language issues before handing it in.
The thesis is expected to be 60-80 pages and it must not exceed 192.000 keystrokes (80 pages of 2.400 keystrokes including spaces and footnotes/end notes, but excluding abstract, table of contents, appendices and bibliography). The number of keystrokes must be indicated on the front page.
Thesis written by two students are expected to be between 110 and 130 pages and must not exceed 312.000 keystrokes (130 pages of 2.400 keystrokes). If the thesis has more than one author, the students are individually responsible for an explicitly specified part of the thesis. All authors share responsibility for the introduction, the summaries and the conclusion.
The thesis should be provided with a summary (in English). The summary should be no more than 1 page. The content of the summary is included in the overall assessment of the thesis.
6. Purpose
The obvious purpose of writing a thesis is to gain in-depth and specialist knowledge of and insight into a particular area of international relations, law, or ethics. In so doing, you are also requested to demonstrate that you can apply knowledge, insight, and skills acquired during the program.
The thesis should demonstrate your ability to: 1) Independently identify a theoretical or empirical puzzle; 2) Formulate a coherent and fruitful research question (or a set of questions) within the general field of international security and law; 3) Identify and explain the fundamental legal, political and/or normative issues pertaining to the chosen subject; 4) Describe, apply and discuss as appropriate legal, political and/or normative theories as well as methodologies that are relevant for answering the research question; 5) Define, as appropriate, a research strategy and design, which (in theses with an empirical research question) includes methods of data collection and analysis; 6) Systematically analyze the chosen subject by making use of relevant data/material; 7) Synthesize, develop, and/or contribute to knowledge within the general field of international security and law; 8) Critically discuss and assess the conducted research, including the research process; 9) Draw conclusions and make assessment, policy recommendations (if relevant) or suggestions for future research; 10) Report the findings in a coherent and appropriate academic form with emphasis on clarity, structure, documentation, analysis and synthesis.
In sum, the thesis should demonstrate that you have acquired theoretical and methodological skills enabling the independent and original formulation, analysis and presentation of academic issues relating to your chosen subject. Therefore, the thesis may not incorporate the student’s previous written work.
7. Structure
A MA thesis typically includes an introduction, a literature review (not mandatory for international law), a section discussing your own approach and methodology, a section presenting the empirical analysis, and the conclusions. However, you should aim at tailoring the structure of your thesis according to your research question and the specific (theoretical and empirical) elements that are necessary to answer that question.
But more importantly the structure should be coherent and make sense within your specific topic, you should consult your supervisor as he/she might have preferences.
8. Editing
A thesis must be typewritten on A4 metric size paper (21 cm x 29.7 cm) in a clear and legible font (e.g., Times 12 or Arial 10) and with 1.5 lines spacing. If you wish, you may use larger size type for the title of the thesis and for chapter headings. Reduced type may be used within tables, figures, and appendices. Every page in the thesis, including those with tables and figures, must be numbered. The manuscript is to be neat in appearance and without error.
References must be inserted in a consistent way: either in footnotes or in the body of the text according to one of the following referencing styles: 1. Harvard referencing style 2. Chicago referencing style
9. Use of electronic databases
The Internet is an immense pool of resources and information that you can use for your research, but it can also be overwhelming. In particular, it can be difficult to evaluate the academic rigour of internet publications. Google Scholar is of course a good starting point, but we strongly advise students to focus on academic databases where you can search across journals and disciplines. For academic journal articles, you can use JSTOR, IngentaConnect, and Web of Knowledge. For newspapers, magazines and legal records you can also use LexisNexis. You can access all above mentioned databases from SDU library catalogue.
Other relevant databases are listed here for international relations and for international law here and here.
SDU’s online catalogue is also an important resource to find out about books, databases and other publications relevant to your topic. In particular, the electronic journal database is an excellent point of entry to look for journals in international relations or international law. SDU librarians are also always available to assist you in your research: don’t hesitate to ask them to help you! They also have a page with interesting tips and they organize courses to improve your information retrieval skills
10. Evaluation
When you have submitted your dissertation, your supervisor and the external examiner will grade it according to the seven-point grading scale. The grade will be available within a month. At the student’s request, the supervisor can give the student detailed oral feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of the dissertation and justify the grade, this however is not something the student is entitled to, but rather something the supervisor can choose to do. If the student would like oral feedback from the supervisor, this should take place within one month of the grading. Prior approval of dissertations has been abolished, since grades will now be available within one month after submission. The final assessment of the thesis will be conducted jointly by the supervisor and a second reviewer. Your final grade will always be decided in consultation between the two and according to the Danish grade scale, a description of which can be found in the Appendix. The second reviewer is chosen from an official list of authorized co examiners. They have academic qualifications equal to university teachers. The objective of involving second reviewers is to strengthen the assessment of each individual master thesis and to safeguard the quality of the study program as a whole.
The linguistic clarity of the thesis can affect the evaluation of the thesis both if it is conspicuously bad or remarkably good. If a student has a documented linguistic or physical disability the Study Board can dispense from this provision.
11. Plagiarism
You are not permitted to use or copy all or part of your own or another person’s work or paraphrase such work without proper acknowledgement of the source(s) through appropriate references. Failing to do this is considered plagiarism. In such a case your supervisor will notify the Study Board, which may impose sanctions including to grade the thesis as “failed”. Your thesis will be checked for plagiarism by means of the ‘Safe Assign’ function on Blackboard.
12. Thesis Supervision
Supervisors are available to help their students at every stage, from formulation of their research projects through establishing methodologies and discussing results, to presentation and possible publication of dissertations. Supervisors also ensure that their students’ work meets the standards of the University and the academic discipline. Thus, your supervisor will offer guidance on selecting and demarcating your subject and discuss your progress with you, but s/he will also assess the final product with a second reviewer. Supervision may take the form of email correspondence, telephone, webcam and/or meetings. The extent of supervision depends on individual needs but cannot exceed 5 hours of face-to-face, verbal or electronic communication in total (that is not including the supervisor’s time for preparation). If the thesis has more than one author 1½ hours will be added for each additional author. Given these time constraints you need to carefully consider how you want to make use of your supervision hours. It is recommended that supervision is focused on methodological and theoretical issues and particularly relevant discussions. The frequency of contact with your supervisor will have to be agreed with your supervisor and presented in a work plan that includes a minimum number of meetings and tentatively define how they will be scheduled. Such a work-plan is drafted on the basis of a template (as seen in the Appendix) and copied into the online Thesis supervisor agreement form. Make sure you prepare well for the meetings with your supervisor. In such meetings your supervisor will assess your progress and provide you with feedback, and it is important that you prepare well for those discussions so that you can benefit from them as much as possible. If you experience any problem with your supervisor, please discuss this directly with him/her. Should the problem persist you can address the Academic Student Advisors, the Faculty contact persons or the Academic Study Board.
13. Procedure
1. In the semester prior to writing your thesis, or even before that, you should start considering the subject of your thesis. Selection of topic and a potential thesis supervisor should begin, as mentioned you cannot choose your own supervisor, but if you have an agreement with a potential supervisor, it will be taken in to consideration. You can also choose not to reach out to potential supervisors and let the head of study appoint you one based on your topic.
2. Registration in the semester before writing your thesis: Register for the Master thesis like you would any other course when course registration opens November 20th to 30th for those writing in the spring, and May 20th to 30th for those writing in the fall. Hand in the first Thesis supervisor agreement as described in the section ‘Thesis supervisor agreement’ by December 2nd/July 2nd.
3. In cooperation with your supervisor you fill in an online Thesis supervisory agreement for a second time (as described in the section: ‘Thesis Supervisor Agreement’ ) which includes a work plan (see template in Appendix). When the supervisory agreement has been approved by your supervisor it is send in electronically, to be approved by the Study Board. The approval must be no later than on the 16th of January/15th of August, so it is advised to send it in in ample time. Entering into a supervisory agreement means you at the same time register for the examination. Cancellation is not possible. If the Master's thesis is not handed in on time, this will be registered as an examination attempt.
4. Hand in: The Master's thesis must be handed in via SDU assignment on blackboard no later than on the 1st of June/2nd of January. When you hand in the Master's thesis via SDU assignment you will automatically receive a receipt. On the cover page please state: Your name and civil registration number (cpr.no.), name of your supervisor and his/her department, the title of your Master’s Thesis (only in English), the total number of keystrokes.
5. Failed attempts: A thesis which is not handed in within the indicated time-frame counts as one failed attempt. In this case, the student will automatically be registered for the re-exam. Cancellation of registration for the re-exam is not possible. If the student does not pass the first attempt, a new thesis supervisor agreement must be submitted no later than 14 days after the student either failed to participate in the exam (i.e. did not hand in the thesis) or was notified about a non-pass grade. It is not necessary to apply to the Study Board. The student then has three months to submit the new thesis from the hand-in date on first attempt, if nothing was handed-in, or three months from the award of the -03 or 00 grade, if the thesis was handed-in. A 3rd examination attempt must be granted according to the same procedures as for the 2nd examination attempt, if the Master’s thesis is not handed in before the new deadline.
6. Possibilities for exemption: In special situations, the Study Board may dispense from the indicated deadlines. Extension of the deadline can only be granted in the case of extraordinary reasons that differ from normal conditions. This could be illness (documented by a doctor’s note) or illness among your nearest relatives. This kind of extension requires an application to the Study Board.
14. Appendix
1. Work plan template
* Please note the right-hand column contains only examples.
|
Supervisor’s holidays / absence |
Christmas, Easter, July, conferences |
|
Student’s holidays / absence |
Christmas, summer break |
|
Meeting schedule (tentative) and required material |
e.g. Meeting 1: week 8 – abstract and table of contents Meeting 2: week 12 – Introduction and tentative Chapter 1 Meeting 3: week 20 – Chapter 1, 2 and 3 Meeting 4: week 26 – Chapter 4 and Conclusions |
2. Meaning of grading
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12 |
10 |
7 |
4 |
02 |
00 |
-03 |
|
|
Overall |
An excellent performance displaying a high level of command of all aspects of the relevant material, with no or only a few minor weaknesses. |
A very good performance displaying a high level of command of most aspects of the relevant material, with only minor weaknesses. |
A good performance displaying good command of the relevant material but also some weaknesses. |
A fair performance displaying some command of the relevant material but also some major weaknesses. |
A performance meeting only the minimum requirements for acceptance. |
A performance which does not meet the minimum requirements for acceptance. |
A performance which is unacceptable in all respects. |
|
Research & Content |
Independent research showing great research skill/s and originality in conceptual understanding. Great breadth of sources. Sophisticated content elaborated academically. Interdisciplinary approach (but not necessary to give a 12). Worthy of retaining for future reference. |
Relevant, independent research. Sources used with very good skill to support thorough content. Very good achievement of stated objectives and awareness of shortcomings. |
Good evidence of relevant research, mostly effectively used to support good content. Demonstrates a clear programme of research supported by evidence of hard work in pursuit of worthwhile objectives. |
Evidence of research and reading. Diligent execution and sound outcome. Some omissions or inaccuracies in content. Satisfactory piece of work, but with identifiable unfulfilled potential. Relatively unambitious and not innovative. |
Limited evidence of research and reading. Some omissions or inaccuracies in content. Objectives not fully achieved. Un-ambitious work, of limited scope. |
Lacking sufficient, properly used or accurate research. Some essential content missing or wrong. Programme of work unclear, incomplete or absent objectives inadequately framed. Over reliance on few references. |
Little discernible use of research or misuse or abuse of research. Weak or irrelevant content. Minimal knowledge of the subject. Does not acknowledge its sources. |
|
Structure & Focus |
Clear and precise development of research question, hypotheses, and main argument. Innovative, coherent, and well organised. |
Structurally and argumentatively y coherent response to the question. Shows mature skills. |
Fairly well structured. Argument relevant to the question. |
Fair attempt at a developed argument but not always focused on the question and/or lacking clarity. |
Sufficiently structured argument but not always focused on the question and/or lacking clarity. |
Structure illogical, disorganized, and/or drifts off the question. Lacks academic approach. |
Unstructured, disorganized and/or doesn’t relate to the question. Overall structure characterized by unsupported |
|
Critical Ability |
Rigorous. Deeply interrogative. Offers (as appropriate) critical analysis; critical evaluation of current research; understanding of methods; problem-solving; management of significant body of data; new queries. Excellent management of significant body of data. Doctoral potential. |
Sophisticated, mature critical analysis with intellectual rigour and original insight. Shows good evidence of (as appropriate): critical analysis; critical evaluation of current research; understanding of methods; problem-solving; very good management of significant body of data. |
Sufficiently critical reasoning, evident understanding but little originality. Shows fair evidence of (as appropriate): critical analysis; critical evaluation of current research; understanding of methods; problem-solving; good management of a significant body of data. |
More descriptive than analytic. Showing some understanding. Limited evidence of attainment in the following as appropriate: critical analysis: evaluation of current research: understanding of research methodology; fair management of a significant body of data. |
Mainly descriptive and showing lack of confidence and clarity. |
Anecdotal, descriptive and uncritical. Understanding too superficial or limited for a Masters thesis. |
Hearsay, subjective opinion or just wrong with little evidence of understanding. Lacks critical appraisal of material. |
|
Style & References |
A pleasure to read and professionally referenced. Lucid, stylish and appropriate for formal published academic work. |
Clear, accurate and appropriate style. Effective communication. Accurate referencing. |
Appropriate style with only occasional spelling and/or grammatical errors. References mostly done to Masters standard. |
Attempts academic style but needs editing or with errors of spelling, grammar and/or missing/ inaccurate references. |
Errors of spelling, grammar and/or missing/ inaccurate references. |
Uneven style, with spelling, grammar and syntax errors. Showing lack of care. Missing or inaccurate referencing. |
Mostly unintelligible. Poor style/presentation and/or much too brief. Sparse or wrong references. |