Master's thesis

Your Master's thesis is a report of academic research within the field of Comparative Literary Studies.

Master's thesis (30 EC)	Report of academic research

When do you write your Master's thesis?

You write your thesis during the second semester of year 2. See the thesis course description.

You cannot enrol for the thesis via Osiris Student. You need to contact the Student Information Desk instead.

Thesis requirements

The central research question should be clearly formulated at the beginning and its relevance to scholarly discussions within the discipline set out. The body of the text should show how you went about trying to answer this question, why you proceeded the way you did, and what your findings were. In your conclusion you should analyse your findings in the light of your original question and explain the broader implications of your conclusions.

The thesis should be written in correct and clear English. Subject to approval by the programme coordinator students in the Comparative Literary Studies programme may be permitted to write their thesis in French, German, Italian, or Spanish if this is appropriate to their topic and specialisation. The thesis should be 20 - 30,000 words long (including notes and bibliography). You will have to submit your thesis proposal for approval to the supervisor, and second assessor by 1 March. You are also expected to attend regular thesis labs.

R. Brands: Unmaking Mastery: Craft Practice, Subjectivity and Solidarity in The White Road by Edmund de Waal [2020]
M.R. Casey: The Future can only be for Ghosts: Foreclosed Futurity in Literature and Film from the American AIDS Epidemic [2020]
S. Forchieri: Cartographies of Implication: Feminicide in Contemporary Latin American Literature [2020]
K.E. Herforth: “If Your Mind Were Only a Slightly Greener Thing”: Scale and Form in Contemporary Deforestation Fiction [2020]
A.H.G. Prudon: (Re)reading the Anglophone Other: Stories of Love and Marriage in India through an Interdisciplinary Lens [2020]
E.C.B. Vásquez Caicedo Rainero: Decolonial Remembrance: Revisiting the Incas in the Twenty-First Century [2020]
D. Xia: Possible Space: Information Narratives in Tom McCarthy’s Remainder and Ben Lerner’s Leaving the Atocha Station [2020]

Submitting and uploading your thesis proposal and thesis

You submit your thesis proposal as well as your actual thesis via Osiris. In Osiris, you can also track your progress and the final grade will appear. Is your thesis approved? Then you have to upload the final version in the thesis archive.

Upload your thesis proposal

Do your supervisor and second reviewer approve your thesis proposal? Then submit your proposal in Osiris > Cases > My cases > Start a new case by using the plus icon in the bottom right corner. A new window will open. Make sure your pop-up blocker is turned off for the new window to open. Choose HUM: Thesis proposal. Your supervisor and second assessor will then officially confirm that you can start your writing process. You will be notified of this by e-mail.

Upload your thesis

When your supervisor has indicated that your thesis is ready for assessment, proceed as follows:

You upload your thesis in Osiris > Cases > My cases > Start a new case by using the plus icon in the bottom right corner. A new window will open. Make sure your pop-up blocker is turned off for the new window to open. Choose Thesis and graduation > HUM: Thesis evaluation

Is your thesis finished and has it been approved as well as assessed? Then you will need to upload the final version to the thesis archive via Osiris Student > Cases > Archive & publish thesis - Follow-up Case.

Retention period

Your thesis will remain in Osiris for 7 years.

What should you consider when uploading your thesis?

Upload the final version, i.e. without comments and/or markings.
Be cautious about including personal details (e.g. telephone number).
You are responsible for any copyright infringement.

Master's student? Publish your thesis

Are you a Master's student? In that case, you can publish your thesis for visibility through Google/WorldCat. You publish your thesis by ticking the appropriate box. Bachelor theses do not have to be published.

Publication embargo

You can also choose not to publish your thesis, for example because you will be doing further research. In that case, you can set an embargo date. This allows you to block your thesis until a certain date. If you still want to publish your thesis at a later date, please contact the Student Information Desk Humanities.

Forms and procedures Master's thesis

Your Master's thesis will be assessed following specific evaluation procedures. You can prepare for this by reading the following documents and explanations prior to starting your thesis.

A Master's thesis is assessed by two lecturers. If your supervisor is one of the lecturers teaching in the Master's programme, then this person will also be the first assessor (or the 'examiner').

Your thesis is assessed using an assessment form (DOC). If there is a large difference of opinion between the first and second assessors, a third assessor will be engaged, who will always work with a separate assessment form (DOC).

Utrecht University takes all forms of academic deception very seriously. We expect all students to observe the ethical standards of proper academic conduct. So make sure you are familiar with the university's regulations regarding fraud and plagiarism. Lecturers or supervisors will report any suspected cases of fraud or plagiarism tot the Board of Examiners.

Your thesis must be entirely your own work. You may not use a chatbot (ChatGPT or other generative AI) to write any part of your thesis. If you do, it will be considered fraud. If your supervisor suspects that you have committed academic fraud, they will report it to the Board of Examiners.

This does not mean that you should avoid research on generative AI. You can discuss the generated text in your thesis, as long as the source is clearly explained and it is presented in your own words. If you are unsure about something, ask your supervisor or the thesis coordinator for more feedback on the proper use of generative AI.

Human-subject related research

In case you are doing research that involves interviewing people, submitting questionnaires or involving people in any other way, you are probably doing human-subject related research. If so, please review the checklist and discuss it with your supervisor. The checklist contains information on privacy, ethics and data management.

Master's thesis

When do you write your Master's thesis?

Enrolment

Thesis requirements

Form and content

Examples of theses

Submitting and uploading your thesis proposal and thesis

Upload your thesis proposal and thesis in Osiris

Upload your thesis proposal

Upload your thesis

Upload your thesis into the thesis archive

Retention period

What should you consider when uploading your thesis?

Master's student? Publish your thesis

Publication embargo

Forms and procedures Master's thesis

Assessment

Fraud and plagiarism

The use of generative AI

Do you use participants for your research?

Human-subject related research

Feedback

Contact

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