MA/MS Thesis

For any MS/MA degree you must complete a thesis. The English Department offers two thesis options: Plan A and Plan B. 

The Supervisory Committee

A master’s thesis committee must be comprised of at least three members. Once a faculty member has agreed to serve as your committee chair (which means they will be the faculty member you work most closely with as you complete your thesis), you should work with the chair to select the other two committee members.

Each member of the committee must have at least a master’s degree, and at least one member of the committee should be from outside your area of emphasis (whether inside or outside of the department). If you request a non-tenure-line faculty member to chair or be a member of a thesis committee, and this faculty member has not previously been approved by the area committee to do so, the DGS must receive written approval from the area committee.

Once you’ve selected your committee, you will need to fill out a Supervisory Committee Form with Carol Hatch, the department’s Graduate Program Coordinator (GPC)

The committee should be approved by the end of the second semester of your graduate study.

The Proposal

Before you write a thesis you will write a thesis proposal, which will describe your intended project for your committee and ensure that you have their approval and recommendations before you get too far into your work. You will schedule a proposal “defense” (much less intense than the actual thesis defense) with the whole committee one you’ve completed the proposal, and then with their approval you will fill out the Thesis/Project Approval form. 

The faculty in your specific program, especially your thesis advisor, will help guide you on the specifics of a proposal for your field. As a general guide, please see the following documents:

The Thesis

Before you start writing even the roughest draft of your Plan A thesis or your Plan B project, do the following: 

  • Change the left margins on your document to 1.5” and verify that the top, bottom, and right margins are 1”.
  • Learn what page breaks are and how to use them. Do not use multiple returns to create page breaks. Use the actual page break feature. For example, table of contents, copyright page, and the first page of your writing should all have a page break.
  • Learn how to use headings and associated section breaks. Using headings and section breaks keeps your table of contents accurate as you write and edit. It also makes your work more accessible to people with disabilities.
  • Consult with your major professor/thesis chair to determine which style guide (e.g., MLA, APA, or Chicago) you’re going to use. If it involves footnotes, put those in as you go!
  • Learn how to use tab stops. You should not be using tab repeatedly to create an indent other than a general paragraph indent.

If you are writing a non-traditional thesis (such as incorporating a podcast or a website or incorporating a multi-paper format), make sure your thesis committee approves the structure/format at your proposal defense.

If you are writing a creative writing thesis, most likely you will wish to preserve the intellectual property rights for future publication. If so, you will need to complete an Embargo Request. Your thesis chair will inform the GPC to send the form around for signatures.

ontact the English Department’s Thesis Reader as you begin writing your thesis for help with formatting your thesis in accordance with USU publication guidelines USU publication guidelines. The Thesis Reader will also check your completed thesis before you submit it to the Graduate School.

After your defense (see below), students writing a Plan A thesis will need to fill out the following form:

Students writing a Plan B thesis will need to fill out the Plan B Report / Creative Project Submission Form

Both Plan A and Plan B students will need to upload their thesis to Digital Commons before the last day of the semester (and remind their chair to approve it!).

The Defense

Once you and your thesis chair decide that your thesis is complete, you will need to defend it before your supervisory committee. This is a formal event, about which your thesis chair will talk with you in detail. A typical MA/MS thesis defense involves a short presentation / overview of the work by the student, which can be open to the public if the student chooses, followed by a closed session (meaning the student and any guests leave the room) during which the committee discusses their thoughts and creates a series of questions or talking points that they want to pose to the student. When the student is invited back in, the discussion period begins, during which the student addresses the committee’s comments and questions.

The student will be asked to leave the room again while the committee confers, and the student will be brought back in to hear the committee’s decision. The committee may decide to pass the thesis with or without revisions, which may be major or minor. Remember, while this is called a “defense,” and while you will indeed be expected to defend your work, the goal of the thesis defense is not to trip you up and catch you in a mistake. Rather, the goal is to provide you with an opportunity to contextualize your work, to explain the decisions you made along the way, and to showcase your expertise on the topic.