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Graduate

Additional MA Research Guidelines

MA Research Requirement

Every MA candidate must demonstrate research proficiency by writing either an MA thesis or a long paper (LP). Both require a first reader to guide the process, who must be a member of the Department of Linguistics faculty (including adjunct and secondary appointments). Candidates are encouraged to approach prospective first readers as soon as a possible topic is identified.

Topic and proposal

The candidate must declare a topic to the first reader by the end of the first month of the third term of study (not counting summer terms). Normally, this deadline is September 30 if the candidate enters the program in a fall term. By the end of the same term, the candidate must present a proposal to the committee in a proposal meeting. The proposal is a short (three- to five-page) document that identifies whether the LP or thesis option has been chosen, and describes the research question, some relevant literature, and the course to be taken to finish the LP/thesis. A specific title page must be used (see both the general and subdiscipline-specific further guidelines). Only under very unusual circumstances will the candidate be able to change the LP/thesis option after the proposal presentation.

The thesis and LP differ in content but not quality. Both must demonstrate the ability to do independent research that reflects an understanding of theoretical issues and analytical methodology in linguistics.

The thesis is a work that poses a theoretically driven research question and answers it by analyzing primary data. This data may be originally collected by the student (for example, by performing experiments or by building a spoken or written corpus for analysis), or it may be a new analysis of pre-existing data (for example, the CHILDES database or data collected by one of the readers). It is expected that the analysis will yield a new theoretical insight or perspective on a theoretical question and/or will be a new way of analyzing the data. The thesis requires three readers, at least two of whom must be department faculty. The thesis defense must be public.

The thesis, when finished, also must be orally defended. This defense requires the candidate to make a short presentation summarizing the thesis, then allows time for the readers and then other attendees (if present) to ask questions of the candidate. The possible outcomes of the defense are pass without revisions needed, pass with revisions needed, and fail. If the candidate passes without revisions needed, then the thesis has been completed and may be submitted in its current form. If the candidate passes with revisions, then the first reader will meet with the candidate and indicate what revisions are necessary. The committee may request that all readers see the revisions before final approval, or they may have the first reader validate that the revisions are adequate. If the candidate fails, the candidate will be terminated from the program and will not receive the degree.

The long paper is a work that explores existing research and reorganizes, synthesizes, and/or provides a new insight or perspective on that research. For example, it could be a study such as a review article, a "state of the art" article, or a survey article that describes and interprets trends in a research topic. The LP is not a simple summary of the literature of a certain topic but must include the innovative views described above. The LP requires two readers, and the defense may be public but need not be.

The development of teaching materials can fulfill the thesis/LP requirement. These will normally fall into the LP option, except for materials that require the analysis of primary data for their development.

The Research Component of Your MA Degree

A. How to Get an Early Start

It is not a good idea to wait until you have taken all the required courses to sit down and try to think of a topic for your long paper/thesis.

Here are some steps you can take that should help you define a topic early on:

• In every course you take, be on the lookout for topics of potential interest to you—topics the teacher mentions as in need of investigation, topics you have written a paper on that could be pursued further, and/or topics that connect with the areas of your personal interest covered in other courses.
  
• If you have some idea of the broader area you would like to work on but you have not identified a topic, talk to the teacher(s) in that area. Find out what kinds of research they are doing and what kinds of papers have recently been written by our students in that area. Look at some LP proposals from the recent past (available in the main office).
• If you are interested in applied linguistics or sociolinguistics, you must take LING 2144 Research Methods in Applied Linguistics and Sociolinguistics. This is NOT a seminar; rather, it is a course in social science methodology that is essential for anyone planning to do research in either of these areas. The course can be taken concurrently with the first stages of proposal writing.

B. Long Paper Procedures and Deadlines

One requirement for the MA degree in linguistics is the long paper, which is, essentially, an MA thesis. (The differences are that for an LP there is no defense, there are two readers instead of three, and one does not have to abide by the School of Arts and Sciences regulations concerning deadlines and fees.) Students have the option of preparing a formal MA thesis instead of a long paper.

The purpose of this requirement is to have the students demonstrate the ability to do independent research that reflects an understanding of theoretical issues and analytical methodology in linguistics. A typical long paper is about 20–100 pages long (this can vary substantially depending on the topic area; see the guidelines for the various subdisciplines).

• The first steps: Choose an advisor ("first reader" for the LP), and then select a topic for your research in consultation with your advisor. Your advisor/first reader will help you choose the other reader(s). Both/all readers must be members of the department's faculty; where appropriate, students may petition to have a third/fourth reader from outside the department.
• The prospectus: Next, prepare a written long paper prospectus of three to five pages (no longer—see under C below for detailed information about preparing the proposal). When all your readers have approved the proposal, schedule a time for your prospectus meeting. You must put a copy of the written proposal in each reader's mailbox two days before the scheduled presentation. At the prospectus meeting, you will be asked to give a summary of your planned research in five to seven minutes. Your committee (and possibly others attending) will ask you questions about your proposal, usually for 15–20 minutes.
• Deadline for prospectus approval: The proposal must be approved during the term before the term in which you want to graduate, unless special permission is granted to have the prospectus presentation in the term of graduation.
• Registration for graduation: In order to graduate, students must register for graduation; registration is free. Get an application-for-graduation form from the School of Arts and Sciences graduate dean's office (910 Cathedral of Learning), and make sure you don't miss the deadline, which is fairly early in the term.
• Pre-first draft: A complete draft of the long paper must be given to the first reader, in plenty of time (say, two weeks) to get feedback on it and revise it before the official first draft is given to the other readers. Under no circumstances should students give a draft to non-first readers before all grammatical, stylistic, and formatting flaws have been corrected, as well as obvious problems with the content and organization of the paper. Students are welcome to get advice from their other readers throughout the project and go over particular sections with other readers, but it is the first reader's job to ensure that mechanical and major substantive problems have been dealt with before the other readers are asked to read the paper.
  
  Beware: Some faculty members will not be available to read long paper drafts at all during the summer, and others will only read final drafts. It is vital for you to check with the readers in advance to make sure that you will be giving them drafts at a time when they are available to read them.
• First draft: A complete first draft of the long paper, including a 100-word abstract, footnotes, and references (following the style sheet—see guidelines for subdisciplines) must be given to the readers by the end of the 11th week of the term in which the student plans to graduate. This deadline will not be waived under any circumstances.
• Final draft: The final draft of the long paper must be in the readers' hands by the end of the 14th week of the term of graduation. With the final draft, give each reader a filled-out approval form (you get these from the department secretary); if the paper is acceptable, the reader is to sign the form and return it to the secretary.
• Evaluation: The finished paper is evaluated by your official readers. In case of divergence of opinion between/among the readers (this has never happened yet!), the entire faculty will read the paper and decide whether or not to accept it.

C. Long Paper Proposals

Purpose of the Proposal Meeting

There are several reasons for an oral presentation of a formal proposal such as the one required for all MA students in the department. First, the proposal will guide the student's research, much as a recipe guides a cook. Working out a proposal carefully with a faculty member should protect the student from wrong turns, dead ends, wasted time, and impossible undertakings. Second, the proposal serves as a contract between the student and the readers. A student who completes the long paper project according to the proposal that the readers approved cannot be faulted later for procedural problems, methods of data analysis, or other matters that are laid out in the proposal. Third, scrutiny of the proposal serves as a form of quality control, both of the student's work and of the soundness of the readers' advice. Fourth, the give-and-take during the question period gives the student valuable experience in scholarly debate. A well-prepared student should be able to answer questions about the proposed research.

Finding a Topic

It isn't always easy to come up with the ideal LP topic, but you can get help in various ways. First, of course, you need to think about your interests so you can follow their lead. For certain common kinds of LPs, there are specific courses you could take: If you want to work on a materials project, you should first take the materials development course; if you want to do experimental research on language learning, you should take research methods in applied linguistics, and so on. You can aim at finishing one of these courses with proposal in hand and/or with a pilot study for your LP research. Another potential source of LP topics is term papers written for courses. A very good term paper may be expandable into a long paper.

If you know the general area you want to work in but have not narrowed your focus to a particular topic, you might ask a relevant faculty member to give you an independent study (not directed study) course in the area. Your goal in that course will be to read as much as you can, narrow your interest to a specific topic, and write your proposal by the end of the term. The graduate advisor also may be able to help you find a topic and an advisor.

If you find a particular faculty member's research interesting, you might ask that faculty member if he or she has any project ideas lying around waiting to be explored. Some faculty members won't volunteer such suggestions for fear of seeming to pressure the student, but if you ask directly, you might get an excellent LP topic. (And the faculty member will find out more about a topic he or she is interested in, so there will be mutual benefit and a more collegial working relationship than for most LP research.)

Form of Proposal

The departmental staff has a file of LP proposals. (The first reader is responsible for filing a copy with the main office after approval of the proposal.) Be sure to read some old proposals before beginning to write your own. The format of the proposal varies according to the type of project (see guidelines for subdisciplines), but there are some constants:

A. Length

Your LP proposal should be three to five pages long, not counting the list of references. If you need to include extra material, such as a large amount of data or a sample lesson, put it in the appendix at the end of the proposal.

B. Description of the Project

What is the topic you plan to investigate in your LP? That is, what do you want to know? What information are you looking for? If your project is of the materials type, what is the purpose of your materials? If your project is experimental, what is the goal of the experiment(s)? Why is there a need for such a project? If your paper is a replication of another scholar's study, why is the study worth replicating?

C. Review of the Literature

To show that your project will be an original contribution and that it arises (or departs) from prior research, you need to survey the scholarly literature on your topic. The goal of the literature review is not simply to show that you have read relevant things but rather to link your study to existing knowledge and highlight the particular gap in previous research that your project is designed to fill. Depending on the nature of your topic, the literature review may or may not be a separate section of your proposal; if, for instance, you justify your methodological procedures by reference to the literature, those sources will be mentioned in your methodology section.

D. Methodology

You must say exactly how you plan to conduct your research. If it is an experimental study, for instance, what experiments will you run, and how? How will you analyze your data? If it is a descriptive study of part of the structure of some language, what kind(s) of data will you collect, how will you collect it, who will you collect it from, and how will you go about analyzing it once you have it? Wherever possible, all methodological decisions should have a rationale and be grounded in the literature.

E. List of References

The LP proposal should include a list of references, formatted according to the appropriate style sheet (see guidelines for subdisciplines). The list need not include every single source you will consult for your LP, but it must be substantial enough to convince the faculty that you are thoroughly prepared to undertake the project.

F. Guidelines for Subdisciplines

For more specific suggestions about preparing LP proposals, see the following set of guidelines for LPs in particular areas/subdisciplines of linguistics.