Department of English
P.O. Box 413
UW-Milwaukee
Milwaukee, WI 53201

Curtin Hall 439
3243 N. Downer Ave.
Phone: 414-229-4511
Fax: 414-229-2643
E-mail: connieb@uwm.edu

Guidelines for Completion of the Plan D MA Project

After completion of the written exam, Plan D students are required to complete an MA project. The project is evaluated by a three-person committee consisting of the student's advisor (who is selected by the student from among the Graduate Faculty members of the program core faculty) and two other members of the program faculty. For students who choose the Composition in a Second Language Setting specialization, one of the latter must be a member of the English Department's Composition & Rhetoric faculty.

For students in the Linguistics, Second Language Acquisition, and Composition in a Second Language Setting tracks, the project ordinarily consists of a written paper of 40 - 100 pages, double-spaced, on a topic chosen by the student in consultation with his/her advisor. Details regarding the format of this written project appear below.

Students in the TESOL for Adult Learners track generally do their final project while registered for the three-credit teaching internship course (English 789). After finishing the internship, the student is expected to present some documentation (a paper, a videotape, a set of lesson plans, etc.) of the work s/he has completed on the topic of investigation. This project is evaluated by the student's committee. With the approval of their MA committee, TESOL track students who have already completed the internship required for the TESOL certificate, or who already have substantial ESL teaching experience, may substitute a standard, 40-100 page written project for the internship-based project.

After completing their project, students in all specializations meet with their committee for an hour-long project "defense." The M.A. degree is awarded upon successful completion of this oral defense.

Before beginning your project, you should consult with your advisor and agree on two other faculty members you will ask to join your committee. As the first step in your project, you should submit and discuss with each committee member a project prospectus.

Project Prospectus:

The prospectus reports on what you intend to do, rather than on work you have already done. In writing it, you should make sure to:

State the focus of the project. If you are doing data collection and organization, describe your goals [e.g., writing a grammar]. If you are testing a hypothesis, state the hypothesis.
Describe the data you will be working with, what the sources of the data are, and how you will collect them [if this is relevant to the type of project you are doing]
Make references to prior work by others on the topic. Here, you need to reference only really crucial works; a few will do. Include a bibliography with full references to the works that you cite.
Describe how your work will be done, i.e., the methodology you will use if carrying out an experiment, the mode of argument if testing a hypothesis, etc.
If you're testing a hypothesis, explain what sorts of data would likely confirm or invalidate the hypothesis.
Describe the contribution to the field your work will make.

It goes without saying that you may find it hard to provide all the sorts of information listed, but try nonetheless. Your advisor can help you shape the prospectus.

Students in the TESOL for Adult Learners track will work out the format for their projects in consultation with their committee. Students in the other tracks should produce a written M.A. project that conforms to the following guidelines:

The Written Project:

The written MA project is normally between 40 and 100 double-spaced pages in length, divided into chapters or structured into numbered and titled sections. In quality and theoretical interest, it should ideally be at the level of papers presented at the major national conferences: NELS, CLS, BLS, LSA, TESOL, etc. Since the project is usually the candidate's initiation to doing academic research, and the advisor's input is necessary to get the work into shape, the final draft is almost always the product of a joint effort by the candidate and his/her advisor. Almost without exception, all parts of the project will undergo a number of revisions based on feedback from the advisor and the other committee members. Don't be offended or put off by critical comments and requests for changes you receive from your committee; critical feedback is a normal and necessary part of the process. Take it as given that anything you write will undergo a number of rewrites. Be sure to allow at least two weeks for your committee members to read each draft that you submit to them for comments.

In general, it is best to prepare the project in stages and not to write the whole thing in one lump without feedback from your committee. The reason for this is that if your committee decides that basic structural changes have to be made, you will have wasted a great deal of time and effort. So, as a rule, it is best to prepare your prospectus first and then to present your committee with a detailed outline. Then, write the chapters one at a time, presenting each to your committee upon completion.

It is not always necessary to write the chapters in order. A detailed outline will allow you to deviate from the numerical order without losing continuity. Suppose, for example, that you have organized your thesis into chapters which include a Chapter 1 which is a summary of your project, its aims and goals, a Chapter 2 which is a literature search, a Chapter 3 which describes your methodology, a Chapter 4 which describes the results of your research, and a Chapter 5 which describes the significance of your results. You could write Chapters 2 and 3 even before you are through analyzing your results; you might want to put off writing Chapter 1 until you have finished the other chapters since it summarizes them.

Make sure to proofread and number the pages of any work you give to your committee, and to supply proper bibliographic references for any item cited, even in drafts that you know will be revised. If you know you will need help with grammar [e.g., if your native language isn't English], find a knowledgeable friend who can help you proof your writing. You can also arrange with an English Dept. graduate student [whom you may have to pay] to do the proofing for you.

In preparing the MA project, you should consult the LSA Style Sheet, which is available at http://www.lsadc.org/info/pubs-lang-style.cfm, or printed annually in the LSA Bulletin, and follow its recommendations. Since you are preparing a project and not a thesis, it is not necessary to prepare the final version on special thesis paper or to prepare a signature sheet.

While the manner of presentation of material will, of course, vary from project to project, it is nonetheless advisable to include the following components in the project:

Abstract: An abstract constitutes a brief summary of the project. Examples of abstracts can be found with papers printed in the journal Language, or other major journals in the field.

Table of Contents:

Project Summary: The summary is very similar to the abstract except that, unlike the abstract, it is incorporated into the text. Since it is integrated into the text, it can be longer and more fleshed out. It should briefly describe the project - its goals, methods, and conclusions.

Literature Search: In the literature search, the candidate reviews the important literature relevant to the topic of the project. The literature search should be thorough, more thorough, in fact, than would be expected from a literature search in an ordinary journal article. Here the candidate should review the current literature that bears on the topic of the project, evaluate its significance, discuss how it relates to what the candidate intends to do, and note how the candidate's work advances the state of knowledge in the field. It is not uncommon for the literature search to be upwards of 10 pages in length.

This section should include lots of bibliographic references to prior work. These are a way of demonstrating your intellectual honesty: you cite works [and individuals] from whom you have obtained ideas and data. [It's not necessary, by the way, to cite personal communications you've had with your committee members: it's assumed that they have provided you with ideas. It's OK, however, to include a note in the preface thanking people who have been especially helpful. But don't feel obliged to do this.] These citations also serve other functions. Since the thesis is part of an examination process, and since citation implies that you have read or have used in some way the works you cite, lots of citations imply that you have read widely in a professional manner. Further, citation of particular works can be used to head off questions others might have about your line of argument: by citing a work, you show your awareness of the problems discussed in the work. Don't cite wildly or randomly - on your exam you might be asked about any work you cite in your thesis - but ample citation is a sign of good scholarship.

Methodology: Here the candidate describes the methods used to collect and analyze data. For many sorts of projects, a section devoted to a discussion of methodology will be unnecessary - the methods used can either be described in a couple of sentences or may be inferred from the discussion in the literature search and/or project summary. For others, particularly projects which involve collection of data from informants and/or statistical analysis, a discussion of methodology will be of great importance.

Data Presentation and Analysis: This may constitute one or several sections, depending on the nature of the work.

Conclusions: Here the candidate reviews the data and the arguments already presented, discusses their significance, notes possible conflicting evidence, counterarguments, etc., and describes the implications of the conclusions reached in the project for current theories or the general state of knowledge in the field.

Bibliography: The bibliography should include all and only the citations mentioned in the body of the thesis.

Project Defense:

After all members of your committee have had a chance to read what you intend to be the final draft of your project, you should ask them if they think you are ready to defend the project. If they concur that the project is in defensible (i.e., near-final) form, you should consult with each member about when they would be available for the oral defense, then contact the departmental Graduate Studies Office, and ask that the defense be scheduled. This exam normally takes about 60 minutes; you should talk with your advisor in advance about the format of the exam. Students are generally given some time to present what they see as the major findings of their project; committee members then follow up with questions regarding project methodology, the interpretation and significance of results, and links to other literature in the field. Upon successful completion of this oral exam, the project will be accepted, or minor revisions will be requested, and the master's degree will be awarded.

Distribution of Final Version of Project:

After the project defense, when the project is in final form, the student should provide personal copies of the project to each member of the committee, with one additional copy going to the advisor, for archiving in the Linguistics Department library, and one copy to the English Dept. Graduate Studies Office for archiving in the English Department.