A question for people who have experience with Masters programs in languages and literature. How long does your program require the MA dissertation to be?
I’m asking because back at McGill we were expected to produce between 80 and 90 pages. But I’ve just heard of a place that only asks for 10,000 words. To me, 10,000 words make a regular final essay, not a dissertation.
What’s your experience?
Our MA dissertations are 15,000 words, not counting footnotes and bibliographies. Our regular MA essays are 4000-5000 words.
LikeLike
I am always suspicious of length restrictions for anything. Some profound topics can be covered brilliantly in 5000 words. Others may require 100000 words. My own Ph. D. dissertation was 45 pages long. I know of another mathematics dissertation that was 1200 pages long.
LikeLike
We are in literature, though. Our work isn’t only about the ideas. We need to be able to produce beautiful writing in our language. Knowing how to a lengthy piece is one of the skills we are testing for.
LikeLike
Well I didn’t do a seperate MA and we don’t have graduate students at my school. But that strike me as a it short. Our undergraduate thesis requirement is only a bit shorter than this MA requirement: 60,000 – 75,000 words (20-25 pages) and sometimes we talk of increasing it. I would think a MA should be at least twice that. I’m not great with word counts but I would think an MA should be about 50- 75 pages?
LikeLike
“I’m not great with word counts but I would think an MA should be about 50- 75 pages?”
LikeLike
“An additional goal of this paper is to subvert its own underlying metaphor by using a stochastic method by which the content of this paper may be adapted to any length between 50 to 75 pages through the use of linguistic curve-fitting algorithms and load-bearing verbal structures …”
Engineers, I’ll be here all week, enjoy the cheese plate. 🙂
LikeLike
My undergraduate Computer Science thesis was around 50 pages after appendices, table of contents, bibliography etc. Although it is true that quantity does not imply quality, some concepts require a lengthy analysis to demonstrate a rigorous understanding.
LikeLike
Sorry, I meant before appendices etc. It has been a long day for me.
LikeLike
My department (I’m in German) doesn’t have an official minimum, but they are typically 60-100 pages. The longest I can remember was about 120.
LikeLike
That sounds reasonable.
LikeLike
A conservative literary critic and college professor
Clarissa's Blog 
Leave a comment