Information for the student – Analytic Philosophy (biennial)

Master Thesis Dissertation

The dissertation (called TFM) should address an issue or problem of the student's own choice, but has to be agreed on along with the supervisor. It is possible to write the essay on one of the topics of the other modules, or to develop (substantially) one of the projects done for the other modules.

The TFM will be supervised by a lecturer from the Master's programme. Students can approach any member of the APhil faculty to ask if they would be willing to supervise their work. This is normally done sometime in the second semester. The coordinator will then, before April, ask all students if they have found a topic and a supervisor.

In April, each student will be assigned a final supervisor. This task will take into account, as far as possible, the agreements already made between students and potential supervisors.

In addition to giving initial advice on an appropiate issue to be addressed in the final assignment, supervisors will normally read and provide comments on a complete draft of the dissertation. They are not expected to go over the same material several times. Students are advised to plan their meetings with the supervisor ahead of time.

Evaluation

The Research paper must not exceed 8000 words in length.

Research papers will be examined by a committee formed by three examiners: the supervisor, and 2 other lecturers. At least two must be part of the APhil programme. The coordinator of Aphil may be one of the examiners. 

If the coordinator is the supervisor s/he must appoint two other members. 

The student has to defend the paper in front of the committee. The defence is nominally public, as per university regulations, however in practice the defense meeting will usually be a discussion just between the student and the examiners. The committee will make public the marks of all research papers that it has evaluated in the 24h following the examination (if it evaluates more than one research paper, the qualifications will be published in the 24h following the last examination).

Usually marks have to be delivered to the faculty approximately by 10th of September, the exact deadline for delivery of marks is determined every year by the Faculty of Philosophy of the UB.

The defense meeting has to take place before this date, at a time agreed  early on between student and examiners. The research paper must be submitted by a deadline that allows the examiners to assess it before the defense. This will be agreed individually, but should be agreed well in advance when the date for the defense is set. Thus, a typical timetable might be: deadline for submitting paper: 1st of September, defense meeting: 8th of September.

There is no objection to holding the defense much earlier, say in July.

Students must submit their research paper in an agreed format by the agreed deadline. 

Typically, the agreed format will involve the student sending the paper via email as a pdf file to each of the examiners.

If you have any questions about any aspect of the research paper, please speak to your tutor.