Information for the student – Cognitive Science and Language

Final project

The Master Thesis is a supervised work that develops a research project, a study, or a memoir in a written form. Its topic should be related to one of the research lines addressed in the program courses. It is especially important to display competence in bibliographical search, research methodology, and analytical and argumentative skills on the subject matter.

The thesis should be entirely your own individual work and it should not have been submitted previously as course paper for a degree at this or any other university.

Supervision

The Master Thesis is developed under the supervision of a member of the Faculty of the program. Exceptionally, the thesis may also be supervised by an external professor, but always with the approval of the student’s tutor, and under her/his guidance. The student’s tutor will help her/him choose a supervisor for the Master Thesis, and the supervisor shall confirm her/his acceptance signing a special form which should be signed also by the student and delivered to the tutor.

Topics

The thesis can focus on any aspect on Cognitive Science and Language and it can be an empirical work or a theoretical one. A list of the updated research interest and latest papers of current faculty by branch is made available each year via the Campus Virtual, students can also come up with their own ideas for their research, as long as they obtain the approval of a suitable supervisor.

Master thesis advisor agreement

Students must obtain the approval of a supervisor before Easter (students are notified by email when the deadline approaches). In order to make that approval the student will deliver a form signed by both the student and the supervisor committing to advise the thesis. The form must be submitted via Campus Virtual.

Master thesis requirements and format

The dissertation must not exceed 8000 words (excluding references and appendices). It will be written preferably in English. The dissertation can have a theoretical or experimental approach. We accept critical and state-of-the art essays and empirical studies, original or replication studies (quantitative, qualitative or mixed methodologies).

The requirement of a theoretical and an experimental thesis vary, but both must include the following (not necessarily with these labels):

A cover page (must include university logos, a template is provided at the Campus Virtual)
An abstract (200-500 words) and four keywords (if your thesis is not in English you must include this section in English along with the ones in the original language of the dissertation)
A table of contents (index)
Introduction, State of the art, Results/Arguments, Conclusions
A References section: The references will follow preferably the APA 7^th regulations
You will find a complete template for your MA thesis at the Campus Virtual.

For experimental works, in cases were data is collected from scratch, sample size should be comparable to a pilot study for a PhD. Take into account that your advisor can provide you with contacts where data can be collected. Alternatively, you can consider using publicly available data such as corpora at European Language Resources Association or at Talkbank or your advisor can provide you with data already collected.

Some examples of excellent past MA theses can be consulted ar the university repository [link].

Master Thesis submission

Your Master’s Thesis must obtain your supervisor’s approval before submission.
Submission by upload to the Campus Virtual should be done at least a week before of the public defense.

Master thesis defence (oral presentation)

In order to defend their thesis, students must have been allowed to do so. The Master Thesis is defended in a public meeting before a board composed of three lecturers out of which 2 must be part of the CCiL program. Furthermore, one of them can be the supervisor of the Master Thesis (if the work has more than one supervisor, only one may be a member of the examining board). The third member of the board can be a CCiL lecturer or an external member that holds a PhD. In the case that the advisor is part of the board, they cannot be president.

The examination board shall be appointed by the supervisor of the Master Thesis, acting on behalf of the Coordinators Committee. The supervisor shall inform the student and her/his tutor about the composition of the committee, date and place of the defense meeting, and about the deadline to deliver the work to the board members, so that the examiners will have sufficient time to assess it before the defense. Students must submit their research work in the format agreed before the deadline.

In the public defense, the student will have a maximum time of 20 minutes for presentation and, after the observations made by the members of the board, additional time to answer questions

Grading

The final mark of the MA thesis is agreed by the three members of the examination board. In the assessment of the Master Thesis, the board will consider aspects of thematic content, as well as methodological and formal aspects, and transversal skills. A rubric based on MA competences is provided to the tribunal and accessible to the students through the Campus Virtual. The final grade is 70% based on the written essay and 30% based on the oral defense.

The final grade of the Master Thesis will be notified up to 24 h after the defense meeting.

Dates

The deadline to submit the advisor agreement is usually before Easter.

The deadline to defend the Master Thesis falls usually in mid-September (15th September). However, the defense can be held earlier, for instance in July, if the student and the examining committee agree on an earlier date.

Deposit

Once the thesis is graded, students with excellent MA theses will be offered to publish their work in the university open access repository.