Guidelines for the MPhil Thesis

Transcription

1 INSTITUTE OF PHILOSOPHY KARDINAAL MERCIERPLEIN 2 B-3000 LEUVEN BELGIUM Guidelines for the MPhil Thesis KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN Contents 1 The MPhil Thesis in the MPhil Programme: General 2 2 Requirements 3 Reporting 3 Form 3 Content 4 Defence 4 3 Realisation of the work: practical tips 5 The role of the supervisor 5 Gathering and structuring the material 5 Reading and Writing 6 Final editing 7 General lay-out 7 Dividing up the text 8 Giving emphasis 8 Quotation marks 8 Binding 9 4 Techniques 9 Finding and consulting relevant information sources 9 Quotations 9 Notes 11 Bibliography 12 5 Appendix - Standards for the bibliographical references 13

2 2 1 The MPhil Thesis in the MPhil Programme: General The MPhil thesis is the key element and pinnacle of your MPhil programme Within this programme it has a weight of 20 out of 60 study points In your MPhil thesis you have to demonstrate an ability to do high-level independent research and to write a dissertation on a specialised topic in the area of philosophy you have chosen Ideally your MPhil thesis includes the first outline for a doctorate so that after obtaining the MPhil you can immediately start with the application procedure of your doctorate and doctoral programme The topic of your MPhil thesis should be linked to the research domain of your Major electives You will carry out your research under the immediate of a supervisor who most likely will also be the promoter for the doctorate Common Seminar which all MPhil students are required to attend has been set up to help you develop necessary research skills Part of Common Seminar is the MPhil thesis workshop and a library session (for the details please see the Calendar of the Institute of Philosophy available on the website of the Institute of Philosophy and/or in the Study Guide) The chair of the MPhil programme will help you if you have problems in finding a supervisor Before choosing his/her subject and supervisor the student can use the list of philosophically relevant subjects and available supervisors updated every year and made available on the website of the Institute of Philosophy (Post-docs can be also supervisors of the MPhil thesis) It is up to the student to take a first step look for a supervisor and submit to him or her the proposal The supervisor s task is to make sure that the project is well-defined realisable and sufficiently philosophically relevant The supervisor also helps with defining the theme and with finding relevant literature It is important that the student sends to the supervisor at regular intervals the pieces of his/her work which the supervisor reads and comments on If it is necessary the supervisor helps the student with the research All the forms and links referred to below in the text are available and can be downloaded from

3 3 2 Requirements To satisfy the given requirements the thesis must meet several conditions which can be divided into four categories: Reporting The following forms have to be submitted as part of MPhil thesis requirement The deadlines for submission must be strictly observed All forms can be downloaded from the website of the Institute of Philosophy o Before 15 November the student submits to the Office of the International Programme the outline of the thesis The outline must be signed by the thesis supervisor and it must include a title and brief description of the thesis essential bibliography and a provisional table of contents o Before the start of the Christmas Holiday the student submits to the supervisor and the Office of the International Programme the 1st progress report (max 500 words) o Before 15 March the student submits to the supervisor and the Office of the International Programme the 2nd progress report (max 500 words) Form The length of the thesis should be around words long - not including the table of contents bibliography and abstract The thesis must be typed 15 spaced The recommended font is Times New Roman 12 pt and the recommended format is A4 The word count limit should be observed and the word count of the thesis should be indicated at the end of the abstract which is included at the end of the thesis The thesis must contain the table of contents bibliography and the abstract be written in correct English and contain a coherent system of footnotes The cover and the title page need to be made according to the template that can be downloaded from the website of the Institute of Philosophy The thesis can be printed on single or double-sided pages

4 4 Content Your MPhil thesis should display that you have developed the necessary analytic and synthetic skills needed to meet the requirements of philosophical research at a higher level and that you possess an intellectual maturity sufficient to proceed to doctoral study This means your thesis must go beyond merely summarising quoting and paraphrasing other authors and must be an original contribution to the knowledge in the field and it has be to be a self-standing work In the MPhil thesis you should: - demonstrate mastery in research skills - demonstrate specialist knowledge in the area of his/her research - demonstrate originality of thought and/or approach - demonstrate creativity in the presentation of his/her ideas - use the methods and techniques appropriate to the subject matter of the thesis - present the results of his/her research in publishable quality - orally present the results of his/her research at defence Defence You can submit the final draft of your thesis either in May (for the June examination session) or in August (for the September examination session) Students who started writing their thesis in the previous academic year can also submit in December (for the January examination session) Before the deadline you hand in three printed and bound copies of your thesis at the student secretariat of the Institute of Philosophy and you submit an electronic copy of your work as a pdf file via Toledo For the exact deadlines please see the administrative calendar on the website of the Institute or in the Study Guide The thesis is evaluated by a jury that consists of 3 members On the basis of the topic the Vice Dean for Education and the Director of the International Programme assign two readers who will together with the supervisor evaluate the thesis During the last week of the Examination Session a Thesis Defence will be held during which the student will have the chance to elucidate further his/her methods and findings before the supervisor and readers During the Thesis Defence the jury will also have the chance to ask questions and the student must prove

5 5 that s/he is able to phrase the question at hand to account for the choice of sources and to defend his or her positions within it The evaluation criteria are among others the following: knowledge of the relevant primary and secondary literature insight into the important themes of the concerned research area clear and correct use of philosophical language good argumentative structure and quality of philosophical argumentation On the basis of the quality of the thesis text and of the defence the jury members each give a grade (on a scale of 20); the three grades are averaged for the final grade The result of the Master s Thesis has a weight of 20 study points 3 Realisation of the work: practical tips The role of the supervisor The relationship between the student and the supervisor is an important factor for the realisation of the work Obviously you need to write the thesis yourself but good contact with your supervisor can very much help with this S/he can give you preliminary orientation in the available literature ask you questions and give you comments on your first drafts etc In short it is in your interest to keep a good relation with your supervisor It is also helpful to make and keep appointments with him/her It can sometimes be the case that you experience difficulties in your work and you feel the tendency to avoid your supervisor In these cases you need to realise that such an attitude only makes the problem worse and you need to talk to him/her as soon as possible Gathering and structuring the material The coherent structure of your thesis is based on the order with which you collect and process the information The best way to begin is researching the most fundamental information that you can find in reference books such as encyclopaedias lexicons and thematic articles However you need to be aware right from the start that this phase is only a small first step and take care that from here you continue quite quickly to research literature more specific

6 6 to the subject and aim of your thesis Collections and bibliographies can prove to be very useful here It will not be possible for you to read everything and therefore you will have to learn accurately and quickly to evaluate your sources In the beginning you will be dependant in this on your supervisor The more you read the stronger your evaluative skills will become The following are the important criteria for judging your sources well: - the influence that the author has on your area of interest - the basic idea of the work (Therefore you need to pay special attention to the blurbs of books and the abstracts of periodical articles ) - contemporary pertinence of the work (which does not mean that you should not pay attention to older works An old work can also be very current!) When researching the literature you should work methodically which means that you note down systematically all your findings In the first place this comprises complete bibliographical references supplemented if necessary with places where the references can be found in the library You should not forget your value judgment At the same time you need to outline your plan: you lay down the basic framework which you would like to give to your thesis Reading and Writing You should begin to write your thesis as soon as possible and should continue to write regularly Students are often inclined to postpone writing because they have not read all the relevant literature feel they have nothing original to say or cannot see how a particular topic will fit into their final thesis To avoid these pitfalls it is important not to ask too much of yourself Your initial research proposal will inevitably have been couched in fairly vague terms and one of your aims should be to get a clearer and more precise view of the problems you want to study Do not embark on a long course of unfocused reading Start by writing a critical account of a small part of the literature on your topic This will help you to understand the issues being discussed and see what problems they raise As you go on you will be able to

7 7 produce a clear set of questions which your thesis will answer and arrive at an overall plan Remember that you will not be able to settle the form or content of your thesis before you have begun to write since the process of writing will alter your conception of the problems you are studying Even if you manage to follow all this advice you may find that you achieve less than you and your promoter were expecting If this happens do not let embarrassment prevent you from keeping in touch with your promoter and do not feel that you have to complete a piece of writing before contacting him/her Be sure to tell your promoter of any intellectual or personal difficulties that are holding back the progress of your research He or she is there to help you prepare the thesis! Further to this please contact the head of the MPhil POC to discuss any other academic problems that may be affecting your work Final editing In this section we will talk about some technical aspects They are not directly connected with the content of your thesis but they still help your writing to be better understood It is important to take these aspects into account right from the first drafts During the final phase of your work you should in any case check if each of the aspects has been taken care of In the end you will also have to check such important aspects such as spelling grammar and the consistent use of punctuation and abbreviations General lay-out The possibilities for lay-out are almost limitless thanks to computers Unfortunately the standards for a good lay-out are rather strict Therefore you should choose a sober easily legible lay-out and you should not venture any experiments It is best that you fix the page specifications already with the first piece that you want to hand in to your supervisor Please see above for the form requirements For the footnotes you should the same font but in smaller size Short quotations are marked in the text by quotation marks; for longer quotations the left margin needs to be a bit wider and spacing a bit smaller

8 8 and the quotation marks are not necessary here For the title of the chapter and for page numbers you use headers and footers (for the footnotes and quotations see 4a and 4b) Dividing up the text The division of your thesis into sections is based on the previously made outline You need to make sure that your division is logical (first the whole and then the parts) balanced (all parts/sections should be equally long) and sufficiently worked-out You should also pay attention to the wording of your titles You can divide the sections themselves through wellconsidered use of paragraphs In numbering you have the choice between numerical division ( etc ) or the alpha-numerical system ( I 1 A B or 1 1a 1b ) You should not use both systems at once Once the division of your thesis is ready you have the basis for your table of contents which can be either at the beginning or at the end of your thesis but which in any case needs to be completely at the beginning or at the end What remains to be filled in then are page numbers Giving emphasis Be careful with emphasizing concepts and sentences Do not give your readers the impression that you are taking them through baby-steps Underlining sentences parts of a sentence or sub-titles is not acceptable You can use italics only in the following cases: - non-english words that are not generally used - scientific terminology: for example terms in Latin - titles of individual publications (these are books and magazines see also Standards for bibliography references cf appendix 1) Quotation marks Normal quotation marks are used to cite the words of somebody else You can use single quotation marks for: - concepts that we have not learned yet

9 9 - terms to which we would like to connote as so-called - titles of non-independent publications (these are articles in magazines and chapters in books cf Appendix 3) Binding Binding is the completion of your work and usually you have it done in a copy centre You should take into consideration that this can take some time and have the binding done on time After having your thesis bound you should check to see that there are no missing pages and that everything is in its place 4 Techniques Finding and consulting relevant information sources Good heuristics is based on the adequate knowledge of the available reference books and bibliographies This knowledge has aspects with respect to both content (Which resources are there?) and technique (How can I use them in the most efficient way?) You will also discover very quickly that each sub-branch within philosophy has its own information sources You will get to know either in the library or through your supervisor which these are Technical aspects are more universal and they are applicable in different forms of the scientific work: skills for examining the catalogues and databanks (formulating question and interpreting answer) and working efficiently in the library If it seems that you need help in this phase do not hesitate to look for it so as to avoid frustration and the loss of time Quotations To support your claims it is often necessary that you use the words of somebody else and here come into consideration only recognisable authors However you do not need to support all your claims in such a way

10 10 A good quotation is a faithful reproduction of the source and it contains an unambiguous reference to the author and the work The latter can be a problem if you are quoting two authors in a confused way You should always use the source that is best referenced and you can quote text in the original or you can translate it into English In any case you should be consistent If you have translated a quoted text once then you should continue to do so and you should also check to see if there is a (good) translation of the concerned text available For the works of the classical philosophers this is usually the critical editions of their work If you want to omit a part of the text within the quotation you should indicate it with [ ] If you want to add to the text then you have to place it between the square brackets [] You should put quotations not longer than three lines between quotation marks for longer quotations you should use a different form (see also 351) You should not end a sentence in English with a quotation in another language You need to translate the quoted part of the sentence into English place it between quotation marks and then quote the text in the original in the footnote You need to provide each quotation with its bibliographical reference and page number so that the reader can check the correctness of your quotation There are two techniques for quoting: - In the first the quotation-note system - you need to place the reference in the footnote which consists of the name of the author (the first name or their initials and the surname) and the short quotation of the title followed by the page reference You need to include the complete reference in the bibliography - In the second technique the author-year system - the quotation is followed within the text itself by the name of the author the year when the book was published and the page reference These are all between the brackets for example: (Whitney 1968:251) except for the case when you have already mentioned the name of the author in the sentence for example: someone like Kim (1990:14) In the bibliography each instance of the name of the author is then followed by the indication of the year so that it is possible to find every reference from the text very easily Both techniques the quotation-note system and the author-year system have advantages and disadvantages The first technique gives you more freedom to illustrate your own position

11 11 with respect to your source The disadvantage is that when you use the source the second time and you use 'Ibidem' (in the same work) or 'Idem' (by the same author) or when you refer to the previous note the whole becomes difficult to survey From this point of view the authoryear system is certainly handier It works best when the bibliography connected with your subject is strictly specialised and homogenous (for example no source from the exact sciences is interchanged with a literary source) The author-year system is very often used in the Anglo- Saxon world but it is not applicable for philosophical masterpieces and it is completely inapplicable for ancient and medieval authors because in these cases the year of 'publication' is very often not known The distinction between a quotation and your own assertions must always be very sharply drawn If this border disappears then it becomes an issue of plagiarism which is not accepted in the scientific world This rule is so strict that it is almost taken for granted that you will not break it Unintentional plagiarism happens much more often and it is often a result of careless note-taking While reading you should therefore always make a clear distinction between the passages that you are quoting and your own comments However it is not forbidden to summarise and paraphrase somebody else's thoughts A real paraphrase (with the reference to the source and with the clear indication of the paraphrase) is allowed Quoting without the quotation marks (for shorter quotations) or without differentiating lay-out (for longer quotations) is not allowed Notes One of the most important functions of notes is the indication of the source by quotations Given that by the author-year system the year and not the title is used as the reference in this case the space for notes can be rather limited Yet notes can be used for different reasons: - to give the translation of a quotation that was in the original in the text - to give other supplemental quotations - to nuance or supplement your assertions when these nuances or supplements are valuable but not immediately necessary for the development of your argument - to refer to assertions elsewhere in the text

12 12 Notes are numbered and are placed either at the end of the page (footnotes) or at the end of the chapter or at the end of the thesis (endnotes) Each word-processing programme on the computer allows for you to have your notes automatically numbered and to provide sufficient space for them From this point of view there is no reason to use endnotes which are for readers much less handy then footnotes Bibliography Everybody who reads your thesis should be able to check the correctness of your claims Therefore you need to mention all the works to which you refer and you need to indicate all the information which makes it possible to find them This happens in the form of a list with bibliographical references: the bibliography The bibliography also serves to show that you are familiar with the usual literature in your area of interest You should pay sufficient attention to your bibliography because your readers will make sure that it is formulated according to the proper standards The extensiveness of your bibliography depends on your subject There is a great difference between a bibliography for a literary study or if your thesis is a critical analysis of a given text In each case you do not have to mention all the works that you have come across during your research Sometimes there is an excellent bibliography on your subject available and in this case several references will save you a lot of work You should not mention in your bibliography the works which you have not consulted and which you only know from the footnotes of the text that you have read A good bibliography should not be a problem for a student from the MPhil programme You can choose from different systems You should take care to make references to different types of works in the same way which means not only independent works (books) but also non- independent works such as articles in magazines and chapters in monographs You can find an example of a bibliography in appendix 1 Finally you will also have to order all your references The division you follow will depend on your subject The following is the standard division: - sources

13 13 - bibliographical reference books - secondary literature - added material You should also make sure that within each sub-division you order your references alphabetically according to the last name You should pay attention when you have this ordering done through the programme of your computer as to which spaces are to be taken into account This could mean for example that 'Vanden Brande' does not come immediately after or before 'Van den Brande' 5 Appendix - Standards for the bibliographical references For an overview of bibliographical referencing systems please see the Purdue Online Writing Lab available at From: Umberto Eco Hoe schrijf ik een scriptie Amsterdam Bakker 1985 p 106 NB: These are the norms for the quotation-note system and they do not take into account that in the author-year system the year is after the name of the author Key: What needs to be in italics is in the standards below in italics What must be between the quotation marks is between quotation marks etc There is a comma where there needs to be a comma there are brackets where there need to be brackets etc The essential information that can never be omitted is marked by an asterix * All the other information is optional and can be omitted according to the kind of the thesis If you know the first name of an author you should use the full first name If you do not know it you should use initials

14 14 BOOKS *1 Name First name of an author (or of authors or other information about pseudonyms) *2 Title Sub-heading *3 print (if it is available) *4 Place of publishing (if it is not available put: sl which stands for sine loco without place) *5 Publisher (it can be omitted if it is not available) 6 (Series; number) *7 year of publication (if it is not available put: sa which stands for sine anno without year guess the year and put your guess between the square brackets [] 8 Possible information about the most recent printing on the basis of which it has been worked 9 Number of pages possibly the number of volumes 10 (Also in: ) 11 [Original publication: ] or [English translation: ] EDITED BOOKS *1 Title Sub-heading *2 Name First name of the author (ed) (rest like with BOOKS) MAGAZINE ARTICLES *1 Name First name of the author *2 'Title of the article or essay' *3 Name of the magazine *4 volume (year) number *5 page number 6 (Also in: )

15 15 CHAPTERS FROM BOOKS CONFERENCE PAPERS ESSAYS FROM COLLECTED WORKS *1 Name and First name of the author *2 'Title of the chapter or essay' *3 In: *4 First name and Last name of the redactor(s) (ed) *5 Title of the collection 6 Possible number of the part of the book where there is the article *7 Place of publishing Publisher year of publication number of pages (like under and 9 by BOOKS)