Syllabus
1. Agreement about the supervision of the diploma thesis (by November 30, 2020)
By Nov. 30, it is necessary to approach and select one of the teachers from the Gender Studies Graduate Program, who will supervise your diploma thesis.
While searching for a supervisor, think through not only how their specialty meets with your chosen thesis topic but also how their work intersects with your planned methodology and source material of your research.
Also please keep in mind the possibility that your preferred teacher might have a full capacity in their diploma seminar or might find the topic/method unsuitable for his or her supervisory expertise. Please be ready that it might be necessary to work with a supervisor, who was not your first (and rarely even your second) choice.
The supervision of your thesis must be discussed and confirmed by the selected teacher. The teacher must agree to supervise your thesis not only verbally but must also confirm it to you by email. Once you have a written commitment from your future supervisor, you can go ahead and fill their name in the appropriate form in the MSTeams (by Nov. 30). 2. Registration of the diploma thesis topic (by January 15, 2021)
By the end of January 15, 2021, you must register the topic of your thesis. Fill the simple registration form in the MSTeams, including the title and short description of your diploma thesis. The contents of the registration form must be consulted and agreed upon (via email) by your supervisor. Please note that the information in the registration form is binding and will be recorded in SIS.
If necessary, it is possible to change both your supervisor and your topic but only under the condition that all people involved agree with this (the student, old and new supervisor, or the supervisor in case of changing only a topic). It is also necessary to obtain the approval of the guarantor of the GS Graduate Program.
Filling out the thesis registration form in MSTeams is a formal beginning of the cooperation between the teacher and the student. The description provided in the registration form determines the basic coordinates of the future research work. While formulating your research project and its design, you can consult these processes as discussed in Punch (2000: 32). 3. Elaboration of the diploma thesis research project (by February 12, 2021)
By the end of the exam period in winter semester 2020/2021, all students must submit in the DS II team in MSTeams the following materials: a) Literature Overview
The literature overview should demonstrate that you understand the relevant scholarly context of your diploma thesis. It should introduce the most important scholarship for the theoretical and conceptual framing of your thesis, which will later form the core of the theoretical/conceptual part of your thesis. The review should include journal articles and books, which present the main context of your topic, relevant up-to-date research, positions and arguments of your topic.
The literature overview is not an annotated bibliography nor it is a simple summary. Later on, it should serve as the foundation of the theoretical part of your thesis.
The literature review should make apparent the scholarly discussion in your chosen topic, i.e.:
- what is the current state of knowledge in your chosen topic
- what is the historical development of research and approaches to the chosen topic (i.e. what research and when was carried out, with what findings, what are the diverse approaches to the topic, etc.)
- what questions are considered important or controversial by authors who study this topic
- what are the controversies and argumentative positions in the topic (who holds them and based on what research or approaches)
The literature review should be structured. Its structure should reveal the future organization of the theoretical part of the thesis. It should show how the discussed literature is relevant to the planned research.
At the end of the overview will be a list of bibliography, ideally in one chosen citation style. (For creating a bibliography you can use a citation software, for example Citace PRO Free, Citace PRO Plus, or EndNote Basic, which students can access from the e-sources of Charles University).
Length: min. 8 NS (14 400 characters with spaces; without the bibliography!) b) Overview of the source material and methods
This overview should discuss what source material (data, texts, interviews, historical sources, visual material, field work) are needed for answering the research question (and its specific subquestions) and what methods can be used in order to obtain this source material.
In particular, the overview should focus on and discuss:
- investigation of the source material and its limits, both regarding its collection and accessibility as well as its relevance to the research question/s
- narrowing and selecting the source material for the final analysis
- convincing explanation and legitimization of the chosen source material and methods of its analysis
- potential modification of research question/s or methods in case of newly discovered source material or encountering possible obstacles
In the discussion, introduce the source material for your diploma thesis and explain the process of its selection (i.e. why this material in particular is suitable for finding answers to your research questions and how you plan to proceed in its investigation, selection and final narrowing).
Later on, this overview should form the foundation of the methodological part of your thesis.
Length: min. 4 NS (7 200 characters with spaces) and more c) Formulation of the research question/s
The main research question is usually quite general, broad and abstract question (or questions), which is/are (usually) not possible to answer directly precisely because it is / they are broad and general. The main research question can be, and often is, further divided into specific research subquestions, which are more narrow, more detailed and more concrete. The subquestions are answerable directly because they relate to the needed and collected research data. (Punch 2000: 25 – 27.)
Length: not specified, individual d) Outline of the Diploma Thesis
The outline of the diploma thesis should function as a preliminary table of contents and reflect the planned structure of the thesis with regard to the thematic scholarship review (point a), overview of the source material and methods (point b) and formulation of the research question/s (point c).
Recommended Literature for developing a design of a diploma thesis research project:
Punch, K. (2000). Developing effective research proposals. London: Sage Publications. Selection: Chapter 3: A General Framework for Developing Proposals (pp. 21 - 33); Chapter 4: 4 Some issues (pp. 34 - 49)
Purdue Online Writing Lab. (2020). Style guide overview. Available at https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/style_%20guide_overview%20/guide_overview%20.html.
Asberg, C. (Ed.) (2006). Manual : writing a master's thesis in Comparative women's studies in culture and politics at Utrecht University : a collective do-it-yourself guide to feminist scholarly writing. Utrecht: Utrecht University. Wingfield, R., Carter, S. A., Marx, E., & Thompson, P. (2007). A guide to researching and writing a senior thesis in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality. Cambridge: The Committee on Degrees in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality / Harvard University.
Annotation
In the beginning of the 3rd semester, all second-year students are registered by the departmental secretary into the Diploma Thesis Seminar II. During the Diploma Thesis Seminar II., students prepare the design of their diploma thesis, define and polish their research questions, decide on the methodology they will use and continue researching the relevant scholarship.
By the end of DS II at the end of the winter semester, students should be clear about the topic of their diploma thesis and should have firmly posed their research questions. This requires a good knowledge of the current state of research and scholarly debates in the thesis topic.
Through a thorough survey of relevant scholarship, students should become acquainted with the debates, arguments, positions and perspectives that surround the topic of their diploma thesis. Lastly, at the end of DS II students should have a good sense of the source material, which they plan to use in the empirical part of their thesis and know what methods they will use to obtain and analyze their sources.