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Master's Theses - English Language and Literature
Theses/dissertations from 2023 2023.
“Hideous things have happened here”: Rape myths, rape culture, and healing in adolescent literature , Holly J. Greca
Moments of excess: Type 1 diabetes and the myth of control in adolescent fiction for girls , Michelle E. LeGault
Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022
A sociophonetic analysis of female-sounding virtual assistants , Alyssa Allen
Vampire narratives: Looking at queer-centric experiences in comparison to hetero-centric norms in order to model a new queer vampiric experience , Marah Heikkila
Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021
Overhearers’ perceptions of familiarity between interlocutors in computer-mediated communication based on GIF usage , Alexa F. Druckmiller
Feminism by proxy: Jane Austen’s critique of patriarchal society in Pride and Prejudice and Emma , Alexis Miller
The memory of mythmaking: Transgenerational trauma and disability as a collective experience in Afrofuturist storytelling , Jessica Tapley
Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020
Body image/imagining bodies: Trauma, control, and healing in graphic memoirs about anorexia , Kristine M. Gatchel
Word-final /t/-release and linguistic style: An investigation of the speech of two Jewish women from metro Detroit , Janet Leppala
Hermione syndrome: Reexamining feminist sidekicks and power in 2000-2010 children’s and young adult fantasy literature , Josiah Pankiewicz
Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018
Fear and (non) fiction: Agrarian anxiety in “The Colour Out of Space” , Antonio Barroso
Sculpted from clay, shaped by power: Feminine narrative and agency in Wonder Woman , Mikala Carpenter
Players in a storm: Climate and political migrants in The Tempest and Othello , Darcie Rees
Reclaiming racial/ethnic identity vs. reconstructing Asian American masculinity in Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese , Hyun-Joo Yoo
Theses/Dissertations from 2017 2017
The organization of turn-taking in fieldwork settings: A case study , Amy Brunett
Exploring the political impact of literature and literary studies in American government , Taylor Dereadt
"We met in a bar by happenstance": Master narratives in couples stories , Brent A. Miller
Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016
What is the negro woman's story?: Negro Story Magazine and the dialogue of feminist voices , Maureen Convery
Illustrating adolescent awareness: Teaching historical injustices and promoting agency through picture books in secondary classrooms , Melissa Hoak
Phonemic inventory of the Shor language , Uliana Kazagasheva
Cannibalism in contact narratives and the evolution of the wendigo , Michelle Lietz
Parody and the pen: Pippi Longstocking, Harriet M. Welsch, and Flavia de Luce as disrupters of space, language, and the male gaze , Kelsey McLendon
Haec fortis sequitur illam indocti possident: A linguistic analysis of demonstratives in genres of early Latin fragments , Erica L. Meszaros
Tricking for change: Establishing the literary trickster in the western tradition , Christopher Michael Stuart
Because, x: A new construction of because in popular culture , Stephanie Walla
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Home > ACADEMIC-UNITS > College of Arts and Sciences > Department of English Language and Literature > ENGLISH_ETD
MA in English Theses
Theses/dissertations from 2018 2018.
Implementing Critical Analysis in the Classroom to Negate Southern Stereotypes in Multi-Media , Julie Broyhill
Fan Fiction in the English Language Arts Classroom , Kristen Finucan
Transferring the Mantle: The Voice of the Poet Prophet in the Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Emily Dickinson , Heidi Brown Hyde
The Effects of Social Media as Low-Stakes Writing Tasks , Roxanne Loving
Student and Teacher Perceptions of Multiliterate Assignments Utilizing 21st Century Skills , Jessica Kennedy Miller
The Storytellers’ Trauma: A Place to Call Home in Caribbean Literature , Ilari Pass
Post Title IX Representations of Professional Female Athletes , Emily Shaw
Theses/Dissertations from 2017 2017
“Not as She is” but as She is Expected to Be: Representations, Limitations, and Implications of the “Woman” and Womanhood in Selected Victorian Literature and Contemporary Chick Lit. , Amanda Ellen Bridgers
The Intrinsic Factors that Influence Successful College Writing , Kenneth Dean Carlstrom
"Where nature was most plain and pure": The Sacred Locus Amoenus and its Profane Threat in Andrew Marvell's Pastoral Poetry , James Brent King
Colorblind: How Cable News and the “Cult of Objectivity” Normalized Racism in Donald Trump’s Presidential Campaign , Amanda Leeann Shoaf
Gaming The Comic Book: Turning The Page on How Comics and Videogames Intersect as Interactive, Digital Experiences , Joseph Austin Thurmond
Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016
The Nature, Function, and Value of Emojis as Contemporary Tools of Digital Interpersonal Communication , Nicole L. Bliss-Carroll
Exile and Identity: Chaim Potok's Contribution to Jewish-American Literature , Sarah Anne Hamner
A Woman's Voice and Identity: Narrative Métissage as a Solution to Voicelessness in American Literature , Kali Lauren Oldacre
Pop, Hip Hop, and Empire, Study of a New Pedagogical Approach in a Developmental Reading and English Class , Karen Denise Taylor
Theses/Dissertations from 2015 2015
Abandoning the Shadows and Seizing the Stage: A Perspective on a Feminine Discourse of Resistance Theatre as Informed by the Work of Susanna Centlivre, Eliza Haywood, Frances Sheridan, Hannah Cowley, and the Sistren Theatre Collective , Brianna A. Bleymaier
Mexican Immigrants as "Other": An Interdisciplinary Analysis of U.S. Immigration Legislation and Political Cartoons , Olivia Teague Morgan
Theses/Dissertations from 2014 2014
"I Am a Living Enigma - And You Want To Know the Right Reading of Me": Gender Anxiety in Wilkie Collins's The Haunted Hotel and The Guilty River , Hannah Allford
Theses/Dissertations from 2013 2013
Gender Performance and the Reclamation of Masculinity in Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns , John William Salyers Jr.
Theses/Dissertations from 2012 2012
"That's a Lotta Faith We're Putting in a Word": Language, Religion, and Heteroglossia as Oppression and Resistance in Comtemporary British Dystopian Fiction , Haley Cassandra Gambrell
Theses/Dissertations from 2011 2011
Mirroring the Madness: Caribbean Female Development in the Works of Elizabeth Nunez , Lauren Delli Santi
"Atlas Shrugged" and third-wave feminism: An unlikely alliance , Paul McMahan
"Sit back down where you belong, in the corner of my bar with your high heels on": The use of cross-dressing in order to achieve female agency in Shakespeare's transvestite comedies , Heather Lynn Wright
Theses/Dissertations from 2010 2010
Between the Way to the Cross and Emmaus: Deconstructing Identity in the 325 CE Council of Nicaea and "The Shack" , Trevar Simmons
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Home > HFA > ENGLISH > ENG_DISS
English Department Dissertations Collection
Current students, please follow this link to submit your dissertation.
Dissertations from 2023 2023
In Search of Middle Paths: Buddhism, Fiction, and the Secular in Twentieth-Century South Asia , Crystal Baines, English
Save Our Children: Discourses of Queer Futurity in the United States and South Africa, 1977-2010 , Jude Hayward-Jansen, English
Epistemologies of the Unknowable in Nineteenth-Century U.S. Literature , Maria Ishikawa, English
Revenge of the Nerds: Tech Masculinity and Digital Hegemony , Benjamin M. Latini, English
The Diasporic Mindset and Narrative Intersections of British Identity in Transnational Fiction , Joseph A. Mason, English
A 19TH CENTURY ETHNOGRAPHIC EXHIBIT UN/CAGED: NARRATIVES OF INFORMAL EMPIRE, AFROLATINIDAD, AND CONTEMPORARY ARTISTIC (RE)FRAMINGS , Celine G. Nader, English
Dissertations from 2022 2022
Writing the Aftermath: Uncanny Spaces of the Postcolonial , Sohini Banerjee, English
Science Fiction’s Enactment of the Encouragement, Process, and End Result of Revolutionary Transformation , Katharine Blanchard, English
LITERARY NEGATION AND MATERIALISM IN CHAUCER , Michelle Brooks, English
TRANSNATIONAL POLITICAL AND LITERARY ENCOUNTERS: THE IDEA OF AMERÍKA IN ICELANDIC FICTION, 1920–1990 , Jodie Childers, English
When Choices Aren't Choices: Academic Literacy Normativities in the Age of Neoliberalism , Robin K. Garabedian, English
Redefining Gender Violence: Radical Feminist Visions in Contemporary Ethnic American Women’s Fiction and Women of Color Activism 1990-2010 , Hazel Gedikli, English
Stories Women Carry: Labor and Reproductive Imaginaries of South Asia and the Caribbean , Subhalakshmi Gooptu, English
The Critical Workshop: Writing Revision and Critical Pedagogy in the Middle School Classroom , Andrea R. Griswold, English
Racial Poetics: Early Modern Race and the Form of Comedy , Yunah Kae, English
At the Limits of Empathy: Political Conflict and its Aftermath in Postcolonial Fiction , Saumya Lal, English
The Burdens and Blessings of Responsibility: Duty and Community in Nineteenth- Century America , Leslie Leonard, English
No There There: New Jersey in Multiethnic Writing and Popular Culture Since 1990 , Shannon Mooney, English
Ownership and Writer Agency in Web 2.0 , Thomas Pickering, English
Combating Narratives: Soldiering in Twentieth-Century African American and Latinx Literature , Stacy Reardon, English
“IT DON’T ‘MEAN’ A THING”: TIME AND THE READER IN JAZZ FICTIONAL NARRATIVE , Damien C. Weaver, English
SATURNINE ECOLOGIES: ENVIRONMENTAL CATASTROPHE IN THE EARLY MODERN WORLD, 1542-1688 , John Yargo, English
Dissertations from 2021 2021
"On Neptunes Watry Realmes": Maritime Law and English Renaissance Literature , Hayley Cotter, English
Theater of Exchange: The Cosmopolitan Stage of Jacobean London , Liz Fox, English
“The Badge of All Our Tribe”: Contradictions of Jewish Representation on the English Renaissance Stage , Becky S. Friedman, English
On Being Dispersed: The Poetics of Dehiscence from "We the People" to Abolition , Sean A. Gordon, English
Echoing + Resistant Imagining: Filipino Student Writing Under American Colonial Rule , Florianne Jimenez, English
When Your Words Are Someone Else's Money: Rhetorical Circulation, Affect, and Late Capitalism , Kelin E. Loe, English
Indigenous Impositions in Contemporary Culture: Knotting Ontologies, Beading Aesthetics, and Braiding Temporalities , Darren Lone Fight, English
NEGRITUDE FEMINISMS: FRANCOPHONE BLACK WOMEN WRITERS AND ACTIVISTS IN FRANCE, MARTINIQUE, AND SENEGAL FROM THE 1920S TO THE 1980S , Korka Sall, English
Negotiating Space: Spatial Violation on the Early Modern Stage, 1587-1638 , Gregory W. Sargent, English
Stranger Compass of the Stage: Difference and Desire in Early Modern City Comedy , Catherine Tisdale, English
Dissertations from 2020 2020
AFFECTIVE HISTORIES OF SOUTHERN TRAUMA: SHAME, HEALING, AND VULNERABILITY IN US SOUTHERN WOMEN’S WRITING, 1975–2006 , Faune Albert, English
Materially Queer: Identity and Agency in Academic Writing , Joshua Barsczewski, English
ANGELS WHO STEPPED OUTSIDE THEIR HOUSES: “AMERICAN TRUE WOMANHOOD” AND NINETEENTH-CENTURY (TRANS)NATIONALISMS , Gayathri M. Hewagama, English
WRITING AGAINST HISTORY: FEMINIST BAROQUE NARRATIVES IN INTERWAR ATLANTIC MODERNISM , Annaliese Hoehling, English
Passing Literacies: Soviet Immigrant Elders and Intergenerational Language Practice , Jenny Krichevsky, English
Lisa Ben and Queer Rhetorical Reeducation in Post-war Los Angeles , Katelyn S. Litterer, English
Daring Depictions: An Analysis of Risks and Their Mediation in Representations of Black Suffering , Russell Nurick, English
From Page to Program: A Study of Stakeholders in Multimodal First-Year Composition Curriculum and Program Design , Rebecca Petitti, English
Forms of the Future: Indigeneity, Blackness, and the Visioning Work of Aesthetics in U.S. Poetry, 1822-1863 , Magdalena Zapędowska, English
Dissertations from 2019 2019
Black Men Who Betray Their Race: 20TH Century Literary Representations of the Black Male Race Traitor , Gregory Coleman, English
“The Worlding Game”: Queer Ecological Perspectives in Modern Fiction , Sarah D'Stair, English
Afrasian Imaginaries: Global Capitalism and Labor Migration in Indian Ocean Fictions, 1990 – 2015 , Neelofer Qadir, English
Divided Tongues: The Politics and Poetics of Food in Modern Anglophone Indian Fiction , Shakuntala Ray, English
Globalizing Nature on the Shakespearean Stage , William Steffen, English
Gilded Chains: Global Economies and Gendered Arts in US Fiction, 1865-1930 , Heather Wayne, English
“ÆTHELTHRYTH”: SHAPING A RELIGIOUS WOMAN IN TENTH-CENTURY WINCHESTER , Victoria Kent Worth, English
Dissertations from 2018 2018
Sex and Difference in the Jewish American Family: Incest Narratives in 1990s Literary and Pop Culture , Eli W. Bromberg, English
Rhetorical Investments: Writing, Technology, and the Emerging Logics of the Public Sphere , Dan Ehrenfeld, English
Kiskeyanas Valientes en Este Espacio: Dominican Women Writers and the Spaces of Contemporary American Literature , Isabel R. Espinal, English
“TO WEIGH THE WORLD ANEW”: POETICS, RHETORIC, AND SOCIAL STRUGGLE, FROM SIDNEY’S ARCADIA TO SHAKESPEARE’S THEATER , David Katz, English
CIVIC DOMESTICITY: RHETORIC, WOMEN, AND SPACE AT HULL HOUSE, 1889-1910 , Liane Malinowski, English
Charting the Terrain of Latina/o/x Theater in Chicago , Priscilla M. Page, English
The Politics of Feeling and the Work of Belonging in US Immigrant Fiction 1990 - 2015 , Lauren Silber, English
Turning Inside Out: Reading and Writing Godly Identity in Seventeenth-Century Narratives of Spiritual Experience , Meghan Conine Swavely, English
Dissertations from 2017 2017
Tragicomic Transpositions: The Influence of Spanish Prose Romance on the Development of Early Modern English Tragicomedy , Josefina Hardman, English
“The Blackness of Blackness”: Meta-Black Identity in 20th/21st Century African American Culture , Casey Hayman, English
Waiting for Now: Postcolonial Fiction and Colonial Time , Amanda Ruth Waugh Lagji, English
Latina Identities, Critical Literacies, and Academic Achievement in Community College , Morgan Lynn, English
Demanding Spaces: 1970s U.S. Women's Novels as Sites of Struggle , Kate Marantz, English
Novel Buildings: Architectural and Narrative Form in Victorian Fiction , Ashley R. Nadeau, English
CATCH FEELINGS: CLASS AFFECT AND PERFORMATIVITY IN TEACHING ASSOCIATES' NARRATIVES , Anna Rita Napoleone, English
Dialogue and "Dialect": Character Speech in American Fiction , Carly Overfelt, English
Materializing Transfer: Writing Dispositions in a Culture of Standardized Testing , Lisha Daniels Storey, English
Theatres of War: Performing Queer Nationalism in Modernist Narratives , Elise Swinford, English
Dissertations from 2016 2016
Multimodal Assessment in Action: What We Really Value in New Media Texts , Kathleen M. Baldwin, English
Addictive Reading: Nineteenth-Century Drug Literature's Possible Worlds , Adam Colman, English
"The Book Can't Teach You That": A Case Study of Place, Writing, and Tutors' Constructions of Writing Center Work , Christopher Joseph DiBiase, English
Protest Lyrics at Work: Labor Resistance Poetry of Depression-Era Autoworkers , Rebecca S. Griffin, English
From What Remains: The Politics of Aesthetic Mourning and the Poetics of Loss in Contemporary African American Culture , Kajsa K. Henry, English
Minor Subjects in America: Everyday Childhoods of the Long Nineteenth Century , Gina M. Ocasion, English
Enduring Affective Rhetorics: Transnational Feminist Action in Digital Spaces , Jessica Ouellette, English
The School Desk and the Writing Body , Marni M. Presnall, English
Sustainable Public Intellectualism: The Rhetorics of Student Scientist-Activists , Jesse Priest, English
Prosthetizing the Soul: Reading, Seeing, and Feeling in Seventeenth-Century Devotion , Katey E. Roden, English
Dissertations from 2015 2015
“As Child in Time”: Childhood, Temporality, and 19th Century U.S. Literary Imaginings of Democracy , Marissa Carrere, English
A National Style: A Critical Historiography of the Irish Short Story , Andrew Fox, English
Homosexuality is a Poem: How Gay Poets Remodeled the Lyric, Community and the Ideology of Sex to Theorize a Gay Poetic , Christopher M. Hennessy, English
Affecting Manhood: Masculinity, Effeminacy, and the Fop Figure in Early Modern English Drama , Jessica Landis, English
Who Do You Think You Are?: Recovering the Self in the Working Class Escape Narrative , Christine M. Maksimowicz, English
Metabolizing Capital: Writing, Information, and the Biophysical World , Christian J. Pulver, English
Audible Voice in Context , Airlie S. Rose, English
The Role of Online Reading and Writing in the Literacy Practices of First-Year Writing Students , Casey Burton Soto, English
Dissertations from 2014 2014
RESURRECTION: REPRESENTATIONS OF THE BLACK CHURCH IN CONTEMPORARY POPULAR CULTURE , Rachel J. Daniel, English
Seeing Blindness: The Visual and the Great War in Literary Modernism , Rachael Dworsky, English
HERE, THERE, AND IN BETWEEN: TRAVEL AS METAPHOR IN MIXED RACE NARRATIVES OF THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE , Colin Enriquez, English
Interactive Audience and the Internet , John R. Gallagher, English
Down from the Mountain and into the Mill: Literacy Sponsorship and Southern Appalachian Women in the New South , Emma M. Howes, English
Transnational Gestures: Rethinking Trauma in U.S. War Fiction , Ruth A.H. Lahti, English
"A More Natural Mother": Concepts of Maternity and Queenship in Early Modern England , Anne-Marie Kathleen Strohman, English
Dissertations from 2013 2013
Letters to a Dictionary: Competing Views of Language in the Reception of Webster's Third New International Dictionary , Anne Pence Bello, English
Staging the Depression: The Federal Theatre Project's Dramas of Poverty, 1935-1939 , Amy Brady, English
Our Story Has Not Been Told in any Moment: Radical Black Feminist Theatre From The Old Left to Black Power , Julie M Burrell, English
Writing for Social Action: Affect, Activism, and the Composition Classroom , Sarah Finn, English
Surviving Domestic Tensions: Existential Uncertainty in New World African Diasporic Women's Literature , Denia M Fraser, English
From Feathers to Fur: Theatrical Representations of Skin in the Medieval English Cycle Plays , Valerie Anne Gramling, English
The Reflexive Scaffold: Metatheatricality, Genre, and Cultural Performance in English Renaissance Drama , Nathaniel C. Leonard, English
The World Inscribed: Literary Form, Travel, and the Book in England, 1580-1660 , Philip S Palmer, English
Shakespearean Signifiers , Marie H Roche, English
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Home > College, Department, or Program > CALE > English > TESL Theses
Teaching English as a Second Language Masters Thesis Collection
Theses/dissertations from 2020 2020.
Teaching in hagwons in South Korea: a novice English teacher’s autoethnography , Brittany Courser
Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019
“Racism doesn’t exist anymore, so why are we talking about this?”: An action research proposal of culturally responsive teaching for critical literacy in democratic education , Natalie Marie Giles
Stylistic imitation as an English-teaching technique : pre-service teachers’ responses to training and practice , Min Yi Liang
Telling stories and contextualizing lived experiences in the Cuban heritage language and culture: an autoethnography about transculturation , Tatiana Senechal
“This is the oppressor’s language, yet I need it to talk to you”: a critical examination of translanguaging in Russian speakers at the university level , Nora Vralsted
Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018
Multimodal Approaches to Literacy and Teaching English as a Foreign Language at the University Level , Ghader Alahmadi
Educating Saudi Women through Communicative Language Teaching: A Bi-literacy Narrative and An Autoethnography of a Saudi English Teacher , Eiman Alamri
The value of journaling on multimodal materials: a literacy narrative and autoethnography of an experienced Saudi high school English teacher , Ibrahim Alamri
Strategic Contemplation as One Saudi Mother’s Way Of Reflecting on Her Children’s Learning Only English in the United States: An Autoethnography and Multiple Case Study of Multilingual Writers at the College Level , Razan Alansari
“If you wanted me to speak your language then you should have stayed in your country”: a critical ethnography of linguistic identity and resiliency in the life of an Afghan refugee , Logan M. Amstadter
Comparing literate and oral cultures with a view to improving understanding of students from oral traditions: an autoethnographic approach , Carol Lee Anderson
Practical recommendations for composition instructors based on a review of the literature surrounding ESL and identity , Patrick Cornwall
One size does not fit all: exploring online-language-learning challenges and benefits for advanced English Language Learners , Renee Kenney
Understanding the potential effects of trauma on refugees’ language learning processes , Charis E. Ketcham
Let's enjoy teaching life: an autoethnography of a novice ESL teacher's two years of teaching English in a private girls' secondary school in Japan , Danielle Nozaka
Developing an ESP curriculum on tourism and agribusiness for a rural school in Nicaragua: a retrospective diary , Stan Pichinevskiy
A Literacy Narrative of a Female Saudi English Teacher and A Qualitative Case Study: 12 Multilingual Writers Identify Challenges and Benefits of Daily Writing in a College Composition Class , Ghassoon Rezzig
Proposed: Technical Communicators Collaborating with Educators to Develop a Better EFL Curriculum for Ecuadorian Universities , Daniel Jack Williamson
Theses/Dissertations from 2017 2017
BELL HOOKS’ “ENACTMENT OF NON-DOMINATION” IN THE “PRACTICE OF SPEAKING IN A LOVING AND CARING MANNER”: AN AUTOETHNOGRAPHY OF A SAUDI “WIDOW’S SON” , Braik Aldoshan
WHEN SPIRITUALITY AND PEDAGOGY COLLIDE: ACKNOWLEDGING RELIGIOUS BELIEFS AND VALUES IN THE ESL CLASSROOM , Carli T. Cumpston
HERITAGE LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE: A MEXICAN AMERICAN MOTHER’S SUCCESS WITH RAISING BILINGUAL CHILDREN , Maria E. Estrada-Loehne
TEACHING THE BIOGRAPHY OF PEARL S. BUCK: DEVELOPING COLLABORATIVE READING STRATEGIES FOR MULTILINGUAL WRITERS , Nichole S. La Torre
An Autoethnography of a Novice ESL Teacher: Plato’s Cave and English Language Teaching in Japan , Kevin Lemberger
INQUIRY-BASED PHILOSOPHICAL DIALOGUE FOR ESL COLLEGE COMPOSITION AND FOR CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS , Aiko Nagabuchi
A TRIPLE CASE STUDY OF TWO SAUDI AND ONE ITALIAN LANGUAGE LEARNERS' SELF-PERCEPTIONS OF TARGET LANGUAGE (TL) SPEAKING PROFICIENCY , Jena M. Robinson
Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016
"I am from Epifania and Tomas": an autoethnography and bi-literacy narrative of a Mexican American orchard workers' daughter , Brenda Lorena Aguilar
Technology use in young English language learners: a survey of Saudi parents studying in the United States , Hamza Aljunaidalsayed
Bilingualism of Arab children in the U.S.: a survey of parents and teachers , Omnia Alofii
College-level ELLs in two English composition courses: the transition from ESL to the mainstream , Andrew J. Copley
Increasing multimedia literacy in composition for multilingual writers: a case study of art analysis , Sony Nicole De Paula
Multilingual writers' unintentional plagiarism: action research in college composition , Jacqueline D. Gullon
Games for vocabulary enrichment: teaching multilingual writers at the college level , Jennifer Hawkins
Identifying as author: exploring the pedagogical basis for assisting diverse students to discover their identities through creatively defined literacy narratives , Amber D. Pullen
Saltine box full of dreams: one Mexican immigrant woman's journey to academic success , Adriana C. Sanchez
Theses/Dissertations from 2015 2015
Teaching the biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder: fostering a media literacy approach for multilingual writers , Kelly G. Hansen
Implementing a modified intercultural competency curriculum in an integrated English 101 classroom , Kathryn C. Hedberg
"Don't wake me, my desk is far too comfortable": an autoethnography of a novice ESL teacher's first year of teaching in Japan , Delaney Holland
ESL ABE, VESL, and bell hooks' Democratic education: a case study of four experienced ESL instructors , Michael E. Johnson
Theses/Dissertations from 2014 2014
Using Media to Teach Grammar in Context and UNESCO Values: A Case Study of Two English Teachers and Students from Saudi Arabia , Sultan Albalawi
A Double Case Study of Latino College Presidents: What Younger Generations Can Learn From Them , Sara Aymerich Leiva
WRITTEN CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK IN THE L2 WRITING CLASSROOM , Daniel Ducken
Academic Reading and Writing at the College Level: Action Research in a Classroom of a homogeneous Group of Male Students from Saudi Arabia , Margaret Mount
Reflections on Teaching and Host Mothering Chinese Secondary Students: A Novice ESL Teacher’s Diary Study and Autoethnography , Diane Thames
Theses/Dissertations from 2013 2013
Peer editing in composition for multilingual writers at the college level , Benjamin J. Bertrand
Educating Ana: a retrospective diary study of pre-literate refugee students , Renee Black
Social pressure to speak English and the effect of English language learning for ESL composition students in higher education , Trevor Duston
Poetry in translation to teach ESL composition at the college level , Peter M. Lacey
Using media to teach a biography of Lincoln and Douglass: a case study of teaching ESL listening & viewing in college composition , Pui Hong Leung
Learning how to learn: teaching preliterate and nonliterate learners of English , Jennifer L. Semb
Non-cognitive factors in second language acquisition and language variety: a single case study of a Saudi male English for academic purposes student in the United States , Nicholas Stephens
Teaching English in the Philippines: a diary study of a novice ESL teacher , Jeffrey Lee Svoboda
ARABIC RHETORIC: MAIN IDEA, DEVELOPMENT, PARALLELISM, AND WORD REPETITION , Melissa Van De Wege
Theses/Dissertations from 2012 2012
Video games and interactive technology in the ESL classroom , Melody Anderson
English as a second language learners and spelling performance in university multilingual writers , Nada Yousef Asiri
The communal diary, "... " (Naljeogi), transformative education, and writing through migrations: a Korean novice ESL teacher's diary and autoethnography , S. (Sangho) Lee
The benefits of intercultural interactions: a position paper on the effects of study abroad and intercultural competence on pre-service and active teachers of ESL , Bergen Lorraine McCurdy
The development and analysis of the Global Citizen Award as a component of Asia University America Program at Eastern Washington University , Matthew Ged Miner
The benefits of art analysis in English 101: multilingual and American writers respond to artwork of their choice , Jennifer M. Ochs
A novice ESL teacher's experience of language learning in France: an autoethnographic study of anomie and the "Vulnerable Self" , Christopher Ryan
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How to Write a Master's Thesis: A Guide to Planning Your Thesis, Pursuing It, and Avoiding Pitfalls
#scribendiinc
Part 1: Initial Considerations
Who needs to write a master’s thesis.
Thesis writing is one of the more daunting challenges of higher education. That being said, not all master's students have to write a thesis. For example, fields that place a stronger emphasis on applied knowledge, such as nursing, business, and education, tend to have projects and exams to test students on the skills and abilities associated with those fields. Conversely, in disciplines that require in-depth research or highly polished creative abilities, students are usually expected to prove their understanding and independence with a thesis.
What's Your Goal?
Do you want to write a thesis? The process is a long one, often spanning years. It's best to know exactly what you want before you begin. Many people are motivated by career goals. For example, hiring managers may see a master's degree as proof that the candidate is an expert within their field and can lead, motivate, and demonstrate initiative for themselves and others. Others dream of earning their doctorate, and they see a master's degree as a stepping stone toward their Ph.D .
No matter what your desired goal is, you should have one before you start your thesis. With your goal in mind, your work will have a purpose, which will allow you to measure your progress more easily.
Major Types of Theses
Once you've carefully researched or even enrolled in a master's program—a feat that involves its own planning and resources —you should know if you are expected to produce a quantitative (which occurs in many math and science programs), qualitative (which occurs in many humanities programs), or creative (which occurs in many creative writing, music, or fine arts programs) thesis.
Time and Energy Considerations
Advanced degrees are notoriously time and energy consuming. If you have a job, thesis writing will become your second job. If you have a family, they will need to know that your thesis will take a great deal of your attention, energy, and focus.
Your studies should not consume you, but they also should not take a back seat to everything else. You will be expected to attend classes, conduct research, source relevant literature, and schedule meetings with various people as you pursue your master's, so it's important to let those you care about know what's going on.
As a general note, most master's programs expect students to finish within a two-year period but are willing to grant extra time if requested, especially if that time is needed to deal with unexpected life events (more on those later).
Part 2: Form an Initial Thesis Question, and Find a Supervisor
When to begin forming your initial thesis question.
Some fields, such as history, may require you to have already formed your thesis question and to have used it to create a statement of intent (outlining the nature of your research) prior to applying to a master’s program. Others may require this information only after you've been accepted. Most of the time, you will be expected to come up with your topic yourself. However, in some disciplines, your supervisor may assign a general research topic to you.
Overall, requirements vary immensely from program to program, so it's best to confirm the exact requirements of your specific program.
What to Say to Your Supervisor
You will have a supervisor during your master's studies. Have you identified who that person will be? If yes, have you introduced yourself via email or phone and obtained information on the processes and procedures that are in place for your master's program? Once you've established contact, request an in-person meeting with him or her, and take a page of questions along with you. Your questions might include:
- Is there a research subject you can recommend in my field?
- I would like to pursue [target research subject] for my thesis. Can you help me narrow my focus?
- Can you give me an example of a properly formatted thesis proposal for my program?
Don't Be Afraid to Ask for Help (to a Degree)
Procedures and expectations vary from program to program, and your supervisor is there to help remove doubt and provide encouragement so you can follow the right path when you embark on writing your thesis. Since your supervisor has almost certainly worked with other graduate students (and was one at some point), take advantage of their experience, and ask questions to put your mind at ease about how to write a master’s thesis.
That being said, do not rely too heavily on your supervisor. As a graduate student, you are also expected to be able to work independently. Proving your independent initiative and capacity is part of what will earn you your master's degree.
Part 3: Revise Your Thesis
Read everything you can get your hands on.
Whether you have a question or need to create one, your next step is simple and applies to all kinds of theses: read.
Seek Out Knowledge or Research Gaps
Read everything you can that relates to the question or the field you are studying. The only way you will be able to determine where you can go is to see where everyone else has been. After you have read some published material, you will start to spot gaps in current research or notice things that could be developed further with an alternative approach. Things that are known but not understood or understood but not explained clearly or consistently are great potential thesis subjects. Addressing something already known from a new perspective or with a different style could also be a potentially valuable project. Whichever way you choose to do it, keep in mind that your project should make a valuable contribution to your field.
Talk with Experts in Your Field (and Don't Be Afraid to Revise Your Thesis)
To help narrow down your thesis topic, talk to your supervisor. Your supervisor will have an idea of what is current in your field and what can be left alone because others are already working on it. Additionally, the school you are attending will have programs and faculty with particular areas of interest within your chosen field.
On a similar note, don't be surprised if your thesis question changes as you study. Other students and researchers are out there, and as they publish, what you are working on can change. You might also discover that your question is too vague, not substantial enough, or even no longer relevant. Do not lose heart! Take what you know and adjust the question to address these concerns as they arise. The freedom to adapt is part of the power you hold as a graduate student.
Part 4: Select a Proposal Committee
What proposal committees are and why they're useful.
When you have a solid question or set of questions, draft a proposal.
You'll need an original stance and a clear justification for asking, and answering, your thesis question. To ensure this, a committee will review your thesis proposal. Thankfully, that committee will consist of people assigned by your supervisor or department head or handpicked by you. These people will be experts who understand your field of study and will do everything in their power to ensure that you are pursuing something worthwhile. And yes, it is okay to put your supervisor on your committee. Some programs even require that your supervisor be on your committee.
Just remember that the committee will expect you to schedule meetings with them, present your proposal, respond to any questions they might have for you, and ultimately present your findings and thesis when all the work is done. Choose those who are willing to support you, give constructive feedback, and help address issues with your proposal. And don't forget to give your proposal a good, thorough edit and proofread before you present it.
How to Prepare for Committee Meetings
Be ready for committee meetings with synopses of your material for committee members, answers for expected questions, and a calm attitude. To prepare for those meetings, sit in on proposal and thesis defenses so you can watch how other graduate students handle them and see what your committee might ask of you. You can even hold rehearsals with friends and fellow students acting as your committee to help you build confidence for your presentation.
Part 5: Write Your Thesis
What to do once your proposal is approved.
After you have written your thesis proposal and received feedback from your committee, the fun part starts: doing the work. This is where you will take your proposal and carry it out. If you drafted a qualitative or quantitative proposal, your experimentation or will begin here. If you wrote a creative proposal, you will now start working on your material. Your proposal should be strong enough to give you direction when you perform your experiments, conduct interviews, or craft your work. Take note that you will have to check in with your supervisor from time to time to give progress updates.
Thesis Writing: It's Important to Pace Yourself and Take Breaks
Do not expect the work to go quickly. You will need to pace yourself and make sure you record your progress meticulously. You can always discard information you don't need, but you cannot go back and grab a crucial fact that you can't quite remember. When in doubt, write it down. When drawing from a source, always create a citation for the information to save your future self time and stress. In the same sense, you may also find journaling to be a helpful process.
Additionally, take breaks and allow yourself to step away from your thesis, even if you're having fun (and especially if you're not). Ideally, your proposal should have milestones in it— points where you can stop and assess what you've already completed and what's left to do. When you reach a milestone, celebrate. Take a day off and relax. Better yet, give yourself a week's vacation! The rest will help you regain your focus and ensure that you function at your best.
How to Become More Comfortable with Presenting Your Work
Once you start reaching your milestones, you should be able to start sharing what you have. Just about everyone in a graduate program has experience giving a presentation at the front of the class, attending a seminar, or watching an interview. If you haven't (or even if you have), look for conferences and clubs that will give you the opportunity to learn about presenting your work and become comfortable with the idea of public speaking. The more you practice talking about what you are studying, the more comfortable you'll be with the information, which will make your committee defenses and other official meetings easier.
Published authors can be called upon to present at conferences, and if your thesis is strong, you may receive an email or a phone call asking if you would share your findings onstage.
Presenting at conferences is also a great way to boost your CV and network within your field. Make presenting part of your education, and it will become something you look forward to instead of fear.
What to Do If Your Relationship with Your Supervisor Sours
A small aside: If it isn't already obvious, you will be communicating extensively with others as you pursue your thesis. That also means that others will need to communicate with you, and if you've been noticing things getting quiet, you will need to be the one to speak up. Your supervisor should speak to you at least once a term and preferably once a week in the more active parts of your research and writing. If you give written work to your supervisor, you should have feedback within three weeks.
If your supervisor does not provide feedback, frequently misses appointments, or is consistently discouraging of your work, contact your graduate program advisor and ask for a new supervisor. The relationship with your supervisor is crucial to your success, especially if she or he is on your committee, and while your supervisor does not have to be friendly, there should at least be professional respect between you.
What to Do If a Crisis Strikes
If something happens in your life that disrupts everything (e.g., emotional strain, the birth of a child, or the death of a family member), ask for help. You are a human being, and personal lives can and do change without warning. Do not wait until you are falling apart before asking for help, either. Learn what resources exist for crises before you have one, so you can head off trauma before it hits. That being said, if you get blindsided, don't refuse help. Seek it out, and take the time you need to recover. Your degree is supposed to help you become a stronger and smarter person, not break you.
Part 6: Polish and Defend Your Master's Thesis
How to write a master’s thesis: the final stages.
After your work is done and everything is written down, you will have to give your thesis a good, thorough polishing. This is where you will have to organize the information, draft it into a paper format with an abstract, and abbreviate things to help meet your word-count limit. This is also where your final editing and proofreading passes will occur, after which you will face your final hurdle: presenting your thesis defense to your committee. If they approve your thesis, then congratulations! You are now a master of your chosen field.
Conclusion and Parting Thoughts
Remember that you do not (and should not) have to learn how to write a master’s thesis on your own. Thesis writing is collaborative, as is practically any kind of research.
While you will be expected to develop your thesis using your own initiative, pursue it with your own ambition, and complete it with your own abilities, you will also be expected to use all available resources to do so. The purpose of a master's thesis is to help you develop your own independent abilities, ensuring that you can drive your own career forward without constantly looking to others to provide direction. Leaders get master's degrees. That's why many business professionals in leadership roles have graduate degree initials after their last names. If you already have the skills necessary to motivate yourself, lead others, and drive change, you may only need your master's as an acknowledgement of your abilities. If you do not, but you apply yourself carefully and thoroughly to the pursuit of your thesis, you should come away from your studies with those skills in place.
A final thought regarding collaboration: all theses have a section for acknowledgements. Be sure to say thank you to those who helped you become a master. One day, someone might be doing the same for you.
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Home > ARTSSCI > English > dissertations
English Dissertations and Theses
The English Department Dissertations and Theses Series is comprised of dissertations and thesis authored by Marquette University's English Department doctoral and master's students.
Theses/Dissertations from 2023 2023
Lifting the Postmodern Veil: Cosmopolitanism, Humanism, and Decolonization in Global Fictions of the 21st Century , Matthew Burchanoski
Gothic Transformations and Remediations in Cheap Nineteenth-Century Fiction , Wendy Fall
Milton’s Learning: Complementarity and Difference in Paradise Lost , Peter Spaulding
“The Development of the Conceptive Plot Through Early 19th-Century English Novels” , Jannea R. Thomason
Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022
Gonzo Eternal , John Francis Brick
Intertextuality and Sociopolitical Engagement in Contemporary Anglophone Women’s Writing , Jackielee Derks
Innovation, Genre, and Authenticity in the Nineteenth-Century Irish Novel , David Aiden Kenney II
Reluctant Sons: The Irish Matrilineal Tradition of Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, and Flann O’Brien , Jessie Wirkus Haynes
Britain's Extraterrestrial Empire: Colonial Ambition, Anxiety, and Ambivalence in Early Modern Literature , Mark Edward Wisniewski
Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021
Re-Reading the “Culture Clash”: Alternative Ways of Reading in Indian Horse , Hailey Whetten
Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020
When the Foreign Became Familiar: Modernism, Expatriation, and Spatial Identities in the Twentieth Century , Danielle Kristene Clapham
Reforming Victorian Sense/Abilities: Disabilities in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Social Problem Novels , Hunter Nicole Duncan
Genre and Loss: The Impossibility of Restoration in 20th Century Detective Fiction , Kathryn Hendrickson
A Productive Failure: Existentialism in Fin de Siècle England , Maxwell Patchet
Inquiry and Provocation: The Use of Ambiguity in Sixteenth-Century English Political Satire , Jason James Zirbel
Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019
No Home but the World: Forced Migration and Transnational Identity , Justice Hagan
The City As a Trap: 20th and 21st Century American Literature and the American Myth of Mobility , Andrew Joseph Hoffmann
The Fantastic and the First World War , Brian Kenna
Insane in the Brain, Blood, and Lungs: Gender-Specific Manifestations of Hysteria, Chlorosis, & Consumption in 19th-Century Literature , Anna P. Scanlon
Reading Multicultural Novels Melancholically: Racial Grief and Grievance in the Joy Luck Club, Beloved, and Anil's Ghost , Jennifer Arias Sweeney
Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018
The Ethos of Dissent: Epideictic Rhetoric and the Democratic Function of American Protest and Countercultural Literature , Jeffrey Lorino Jr
Literary Cosmopolitanisms of Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, and Arundhati Roy , Sunil Samuel Macwan
The View from Here: Toward a Sissy Critique , Tyler Monson
The Forbidden Zone Writers: Femininity and Anglophone Women War Writers of the Great War , Sareene Proodian
Theatrical Weddings and Pious Frauds: Performance and Law in Victorian Marriage Plots , Adrianne A. Wojcik
Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016
Changing the Victorian Habit Loop: The Body in the Poetry and Painting of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris , Bryan Gast
Gendering Scientific Discourse from 1790-1830: Erasmus Darwin, Thomas Beddoes, Maria Edgeworth, and Jane Marcet , Bridget E. Kapler
Discarding Dreams and Legends: The Short Fiction of Elizabeth Madox Roberts, Flannery O’Connor, Katherine Anne Porter, and Eudora Welty , Katy L. Leedy
Theses/Dissertations from 2015 2015
Saving the Grotesque: The Grotesque System of Liberation in British Modernism (1922-1932) , Matthew Henningsen
The Pulpit's Muse: Conversive Poetics in the American Renaissance , Michael William Keller
A Single Man of Good Fortune: Postmodern Identities and Consumerism in the New Novel of Manners , Bonnie McLean
Julian of Norwich: Voicing the Vernacular , Therese Elaine Novotny
Theses/Dissertations from 2014 2014
Homecomings: Victorian British Women Travel Writers And Revisions Of Domesticity , Emily Paige Blaser
From Pastorals to Paterson: Ecology in the Poetry and Poetics of William Carlos WIlliams , Daniel Edmund Burke
Argument in Poetry: (Re)Defining the Middle English Debate in Academic, Popular, and Physical Contexts , Kathleen R. Burt
Apocalyptic Mentalities in Late-Medieval England , Steven A. Hackbarth
The Creation of Heaven in the Middle Ages , William Storm
(re)making The Gentleman: Genteel Masculinities And The Country Estate In The Novels Of Charlotte Smith, Jane Austen, And Elizabeth Gaskell , Shaunna Kay Wilkinson
Theses/Dissertations from 2013 2013
Brides, Department Stores, Westerns, and Scrapbooks--The Everyday Lives of Teenage Girls in the 1940s , Carly Anger
Placed People: Rootedness in G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, and Wendell Berry , David Harden
Rhetorics Of Girlhood Trauma In Writing By Holly Goddard Jones, Joyce Carol Oates, Sandra Cisneros, And Jamaica Kincaid , Stephanie Marie Stella
Theses/Dissertations from 2012 2012
A Victorian Christmas in Hell: Yuletide Ghosts and Necessary Pleasures in the Age of Capital , Brandon Chitwood
"Be-Holde the First Acte of this Tragedy" : Generic Symbiosis and Cross-Pollination in Jacobean Drama and the Early Modern Prose Novella , Karen Ann Zyck Galbraith
Pamela: Or, Virtue Reworded: The Texts, Paratexts, and Revisions that Redefine Samuel Richardson's Pamela , Jarrod Hurlbert
Violence and Masculinity in American Fiction, 1950-1975 , Magdalen McKinley
Gender Politics in the Novels of Eliza Haywood , Susan Muse
Destabilizing Tradition: Gender, Sexuality, and Postnational Identity in Four Novels by Irish Women, 1960-2000 , Sarah Nestor
Truth Telling: Testimony and Evidence in the Novels of Elizabeth Gaskell , Rebecca Parker Fedewa
Spirit of the Psyche: Carl Jung's and Victor White's Influence on Flannery O'Connor's Fiction , Paul Wakeman
Theses/Dissertations from 2011 2011
Performing the Audience: Constructing Playgoing in Early Modern Drama , Eric Dunnum
Paule Marshall's Critique of Contemporary Neo-Imperialisms Through the Trope of Travel , Michelle Miesen Felix
Hermeneutics, Poetry, and Spenser: Augustinian Exegesis and the Renaissance Epic , Denna Iammarino-Falhamer
Encompassing the Intolerable: Laughter, Memory, and Inscription in the Fiction of John McGahern , John Keegan Malloy
Regional Consciousness in American Literature, 1860-1930 , Kelsey Louise Squire
The Ethics of Ekphrasis: The Turn to Responsible Rhetoric in Mid-Twentieth Century American Poetry , Joshua Scott Steffey
Theses/Dissertations from 2010 2010
Cognitive Architectures: Structures of Passion in Joanna Baillie's Dramas , Daniel James Bergen
On Trial: Restorative Justice in the Godwin-Wollstonecraft-Shelley Family Fictions , Colleen M. Fenno
Theses/Dissertations from 2009 2009
What's the point to eschatology : multiple religions and terminality in James Joyce's Finnegans wake , Martin R. Brick
Economizing Characters: Harriet Martineau and the Problems of Poverty in Victorian Literature, Culture and Law , Mary Colleen Willenbring
Submissions from 2008 2008
"An improbable fiction": The marriage of history and romance in Shakespeare's Henriad , Marcia Eppich-Harris
Bearing the Mark of the Social: Notes Towards a Cosmopolitan Bildungsroman , Megan M. Muthupandiyan
The Gothic Novel and the Invention of the Middle-Class Reader: Northanger Abbey As Case Study , Tenille Nowak
Not Just a Novel of Epic Proportions: Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man As Modern American Epic , Dana Edwards Prodoehl
Recovering the Radicals: Women Writers, Reform, and Nationalist Modes of Revolutionary Discourse , Mark J. Zunac
Theses/Dissertations from 2007 2007
"The Sweet and the Bitter": Death and Dying in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings , Amy M. Amendt-Raduege
The Games Men Play: Madness and Masculinity in Post-World War II American Fiction, 1946-1964 , Thomas P. Durkin
Denise Levertov: Through An Ecofeminist Lens , Katherine A. Hanson
The Wit of Wrestling: Devotional-Aesthetic Tradition in Christina Rossetti's Poetry , Maria M.E. Keaton
Genderless Bodies: Stigma and the Myth of Womanhood , Ellen M. Letizia
Envy and Jealousy in the Novels of the Brontës: A Synoptic Discernment , Margaret Ann McCann
Technologies of the Late Medieval Self: Ineffability, Distance, and Subjectivity in the Book of Margery Kempe , Crystal L. Mueller
"Finding-- a Map-- to That Place Called Home": The Journey from Silence to Recovery in Patrick McCabe's Carn and Breakfast on Pluto , Valerie A. Murrenus Pilmaier
Emily Dickinson's Ecocentric Pastoralism , Moon-ju Shin
The American Jeremiad in Civil War Literature , Jacob Hadley Stratman
Theses/Dissertations from 2006 2006
Literary Art in Times of Crisis: The Proto-Totalitarian Anxiety of Melville, James, and Twain , Matthew J. Darling
(Re) Writing Genre: Narrative Conventions and Race in the Novels of Toni Morrison , Jennifer Lee Jordan Heinert
"Amsolookly Kersse": Clothing in Finnegan's Wake , Catherine Simpson Kalish
"Do Your Will": Shakespeare's Use of the Rhetoric of Seduction in Four Plays , Jason James Nado
Woman in Emblem: Locating Authority in the Work and Identity of Katherine Philips (1632-1664) , Susan L. Stafinbil
When the Bough Breaks: Poetry on Abortion , Wendy A. Weaver
Theses/Dissertations from 2005 2005
Heroic Destruction: Shame and Guilt Cultures in Medieval Heroic Poetry , Karl E. Boehler
Poe and Early (Un)American Drama , Amy C. Branam
Grammars of Assent: Constructing Poetic Authority in An Age of Science , William Myles Carroll III
This Place is Not a Place: The Constructed Scene in the Works of Sir Walter Scott , Colin J. Marlaire
Cognitive Narratology: A Practical Approach to the Reader-Writer Relationship , Debra Ann Ripley
Theses/Dissertations from 2004 2004
Defoe and the Pirates: Function of Genre Conventions in Raiding Narratives , William J. Dezoma
Creative Discourse in the Eighteenth-Century Courtship Novel , Michelle Ruggaber Dougherty
Exclusionary Politics: Mourning and Modernism in the Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Amy Levy, and Charlotte Mew , Donna Decker Schuster
Theses/Dissertations from 2003 2003
Toward a Re-Formed Confession: Johann Gerhard's Sacred Meditations and "Repining Restlessnesse" in the Poetry of George Herbert , Erik P. Ankerberg
Idiographic Spaces: Representation, Ideology and Realism in the Postmodern British Novel , Gordon B. McConnell
Theses/Dissertations from 2002 2002
Reading into It: Wallace Stegner's Novelistic Sense of Time and Place , Colin C. Irvine
Brisbane and Beyond: Revising Social Capitalism in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America , Michael C. Mattek
Theses/Dissertations from 2001 2001
Christians and Mimics in W. B. Yeats' Collected Poems , Patrick Mulrooney
Renaissance Roles and the Process of Social Change , John Wieland
'Straunge Disguize': Allegory and Its Discontents in Spenser's Faerie Queene , Galina Ivanovna Yermolenko
Theses/Dissertations from 2000 2000
Reading American Women's Autobiography: Spheres of Identity, Spheres of Influence , Amy C. Getty
"Making Strange": The Art and Science of Selfhood in the Works of John Banville , Heather Maureen Moran
Writing Guadalupe: Mediacion and (mis)translation in borderland text(o)s , Jenny T Olin-Shanahan
Writing Guadalupe: Mediacion and (Mis)Translation in Borderland Text(o)s , Jenny T. Olin-Shanahan
Theses/Dissertations from 1999 1999
Setting the Word Against the Word: The Search for Self-Understanding in Richard II , Richard J. Erable
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While Sandel argues that pursuing perfection through genetic engineering would decrease our sense of humility, he claims that the sense of solidarity we would lose is also important.
This thesis summarizes several points in Sandel’s argument, but it does not make a claim about how we should understand his argument. A reader who read Sandel’s argument would not also need to read an essay based on this descriptive thesis.
Broad thesis (arguable, but difficult to support with evidence)
Michael Sandel’s arguments about genetic engineering do not take into consideration all the relevant issues.
This is an arguable claim because it would be possible to argue against it by saying that Michael Sandel’s arguments do take all of the relevant issues into consideration. But the claim is too broad. Because the thesis does not specify which “issues” it is focused on—or why it matters if they are considered—readers won’t know what the rest of the essay will argue, and the writer won’t know what to focus on. If there is a particular issue that Sandel does not address, then a more specific version of the thesis would include that issue—hand an explanation of why it is important.
Arguable thesis with analytical claim
While Sandel argues persuasively that our instinct to “remake” (54) ourselves into something ever more perfect is a problem, his belief that we can always draw a line between what is medically necessary and what makes us simply “better than well” (51) is less convincing.
This is an arguable analytical claim. To argue for this claim, the essay writer will need to show how evidence from the article itself points to this interpretation. It’s also a reasonable scope for a thesis because it can be supported with evidence available in the text and is neither too broad nor too narrow.
Arguable thesis with normative claim
Given Sandel’s argument against genetic enhancement, we should not allow parents to decide on using Human Growth Hormone for their children.
This thesis tells us what we should do about a particular issue discussed in Sandel’s article, but it does not tell us how we should understand Sandel’s argument.
Questions to ask about your thesis
- Is the thesis truly arguable? Does it speak to a genuine dilemma in the source, or would most readers automatically agree with it?
- Is the thesis too obvious? Again, would most or all readers agree with it without needing to see your argument?
- Is the thesis complex enough to require a whole essay's worth of argument?
- Is the thesis supportable with evidence from the text rather than with generalizations or outside research?
- Would anyone want to read a paper in which this thesis was developed? That is, can you explain what this paper is adding to our understanding of a problem, question, or topic?
- picture_as_pdf Thesis
Chapman University Digital Commons
Home > Dissertations and Theses > English (MA) Theses
English (MA) Theses
Below is a selection of dissertations from the English program in Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences that have been voluntarily included in Chapman University Digital Commons. Additional dissertations from years prior to 2019 are available through the Leatherby Libraries' print collection or in Proquest's Dissertations and Theses database.
Theses from 2024 2024
Interior Chinatown: Chinatown as a Performative Space , Audrey Fong
"Old Cod": The Power of Storytelling in Conor McPherson's The Weir , Sarah Johnson
The Beginning of the End: The Cultivation of Transchronological Perceptuality in Arcadia and “Story of Your Life” , Sawyer Kelly
“No One to Show Us the Way:” Assessing the Contemporary Relevance of the Gay Male Bildungsroman , Matthew Lemas
Posthumanism in Literature: Redefining Selfhood, Temporality, and Reality/ies through Fiction , Eileen Kelley Pierce
Catastrophic Progress: A Queer Materialist Analysis of the 2023 Trans/Bud Light Controversy , Brianna Radke
Banned Books and Educational Censorship: The Necessity of Keeping Queer Books in Schools , Rebecca Rhodes
The New Westward Expansion: Settler Colonialism and Gentrification in Paula Fox’s Desperate Characters and Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s Sabrina and Corina , Miranda Roberts
Navigating Identity Through Education in Literature and in the Classroom , Sofia Sakzlyan
Nobody Inside: Toni Morrison's "Recitatif": An Analysis on Whole/Incomplete Bodies, "The Maggie Thing"and Sick and Dancing Mothers , Emily Velasquez
Theses from 2023 2023
“Everything and Nothing”: Exhibiting Irishness at the Chicago World Fair of 1893 , Jessica Bocinski
Beyond Allegory: Postcolonial Debates in Science Fiction , Su Chen
Lovecraftian Queerness: Weird and Queer Temporalities in Lovecraft Country and Detransition, Baby , Eurydice Dye
The Dictator Novel in YA Latinx Fantasy , Catherine Gallegos
Humanization of the Refugee as the Modern Subject in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West , Ani Gazazyan
“Henrietta and Harriet:” Considering the Marginalized Best Friend in Burney’s Cecilia and Austen’s Emma , Elena Goodenberger
Rising Costs of Universities and the Impact on Teaching Effectiveness and Student Outcomes , Patrick Hanna
Failure Facing Pedagogy in First-Year Rhetoric and Composition Classrooms , Karuna Minh Hin
Steps Toward Healing from the Possessive Other: The Vital Role of Fantastical Literature in Trauma Theory , Rebekah Izard
Mirroring Financial Speculation and Late Capitalism Through Speculative Fiction: Worker Gullibility and Guilt as Re-imagination of Human Value , Ian Koh
Oceans of Literature - The Little Mermaid , Makena Metz
What Makes a Woman "Pious and Good": The Function of Several Grimm Brothers' Cautionary Fairy Tales , Hannah Montante
From the Master’s Maternity to Redemptive Nurturing: Liberating Motherhood in Toni Morrison’s Beloved and N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy , Isabelle Stillman
“Beauty and the Beast” and the Representation of the Female: How Fairy Tales Reinforce and Influence Our Current Understanding of Gender Roles , Elizabeth N. Tran
The Significance of Maintaining Character Integrity in Literary Retellings , Sara Turner
Mrs. Dalloway as a Window for Understanding Life , Kristen Venegas
The Domestic Worker in Latinx Fiction: The Discursive Formation of Latinidad , Constance von Igel de Mello
Dorian Gray: The Myth , Peggy Sue Wood
Theses from 2022 2022
Potential For a Pedagogical Level-Up: Teaching First-Year Composition Through Rhetoric of Gaming , Cayman Beeman
Personhood and Objecthood: Examining the Speaker’s Interiority and Double Consciousness in Citizen: An American Lyric , Winnie Chak
Innately American, Black America’s Inheritance: A Rhetorical Analysis of Black Death & Identity , Montéz Jennings
Examining Wonder Woman through a Feminist Voice: How Patty Jenkins’ 2017 Adaptation Upheaved her Creation, Representation, and 80 Year Legacy , Tatiana Madrid
“Strumpet,” “Huswife,” “Whore”: Centering Othello ’s Bianca , Phoebe Merten
Lack of Affirmative Consent: Trauma in Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Interpreter of Maladies” , Ansalee Morrison
Traumas and Recovery in Takaya Natsuki's Fruits Basket , Vesper North
Poverty, Social Isolation, Uselessness, and Loneliness: The Fears and Anxieties of 19th-Century British Governesses , Lydia Pejovic
Speaking Up For Generic Asians in Charles Yu’s Interior Chinatown , Orel Shilon
The Brain Scan as Ideograph , Paige Welsh
Changing the Definition of the Orient Through Hollywood , Amanda Yaghmai
Theses from 2021 2021
The Dystopian Impulse and Media Consumption: Redefining Utopia Via the Narrative Economics of the New Media Age , Turki Alghamdi
Collaborative Storytelling: Composition Pedagogy and Communal Benefits of Narrative Innovation , Aysel Atamdede
Feminist Rhetorics: Theory and Practice of Strategic Silence , Paolena Comouche
Surveillance: The Digital Dark Side , Brittyn Davis
Fanfiction As: Searching for Significance in the Academic Realm , Megan Friess
Realism & Language: How Luis Alberto Urrea Uses Bilingualism to Elevate His Works of Realism , Ashley Gomez
"A Mind of Metal and Wheels": Agrarian Ruralism in Joss Whedon's Firefly and J.R.R Tolkien's The Lord of The Rings , Christopher Hines
“Why Are We Still Reading About Rosa Parks?”: Essential Questions for Continuation Schools , Samantha Mbodwam
Decolonizing the Body , Daniel Miess
Black Panther Shatters Social Binaries to Explore Postcolonial Themes: How Ancestry, Identity, Revenge, and the Third Space Impact the Ability to Navigate Change and Create New Forms of Cultural Hybridity , Deborah Paquin
Anti-Racist Pedagogy: A Practical Means of Building Bonds Between Marginalized Students and Instructors in the Composition Classroom , Santa-Victoria Pérez
Fear Then and Now: The Vampire as a Reflection of Society , Mackenzie Phelps
Monstrous and Beautiful: Jungian Archetypes in Wilde’s Salomé , Nayana Rajnish
Journeying to a Third Space of Sovereignty: Explorations of Land, Cultural Hybridity, and Sovereignty in Ceremony and There There , Jillian Eve Sanchez
Through the Female Perspective: An Analysis of Male Characters in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey , Natalia Sanchez
The Tiered Workshop: The Effects of Using a Paced Workshop in a Composition Classroom , Madison Shockley
Aztlán Potentialities: Queer Male Chicanx Affect and Temporalities , Ethan Trejo
Partying Like It's 1925: A Comparison and Contrast of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Azuela's The Underdogs , Sarah N. Valadez
Theses from 2020 2020
Stephen Dedalus and the Mind as Hypertext in Ulysses , Ariel Banayan
Lessons from Hybridity: A Look into the Coupling of Image and Text in Karen Tei Yamashita’s Letters to Memory , Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric , and Ilya Kaminsky’s Deaf Republic , Elizabeth Chen
Dawn of the Undead Classroom: Pop-Culture in the First-Year Composition Classroom , Sierra A. Ellison
Moving Beyond Grades: A Shift in Assessing First-Year Composition , Matthew Goldman
Murmurs of Revolution: Mythical Subversion in Dostoevsky , Connor Guetersloh
The Fallen Woman: An Exploration of the Voiceless Women in Victorian England through Three Plays of Oscar Wilde , Marco Randazzo
The Ubume Challenge: A Digital Environmental Humanities Project , Sam Risak
Student Disposition Towards Discussing Race in the Classroom , Natalie Salagean
Trauma Begetting Trauma: Fukú, Masks, and Implicit Forgiveness in the Works of Junot Díaz , Jacob VanWormer
‘Amore Captus:’ Turning Bedtricks in the Arthurian Canon , Candice Yacono
Theses from 2019 2019
The Contradictory Faces of “Sisterhood”: A Case-Study on Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Its Theatrical Adaptation by James Willing and Leonard Rae, Gloria Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place, and Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies and Its Miniseries Adaptation on HBO , Lama Alsulaiman
Terrence McNally’s Universalizing Model: The Role of Disability in Andre’s Mother; Lips Together, Teeth Apart ; and Love! Valour! Compassion! , Alexa Burnstine
A Way to Persist: Storytelling and Its Effect on Trauma in Gábor Schein’s The Book of Mordechai and Lazarus , Duncan Capriotti
Language: A Bridge or Barrier to Social Groups , Adina Corke
Haole Like Me: Identity Construction and Politics in Hawaii , Savanah Janssen
Black Women’s Bodies as the Site of Malignity: Interrogating (Mis)representations of Black Women in 16th and 17th Century British Literature , Tonika Reed
The Efficacy of Varying Small Group Workshops in the Composition Classroom , Daniel Strasberger
Does Money Indeed Buy Happiness? “The Forms of Capital” in Fitzgerald’s Gatsby and Watts’ No One is Coming to Save Us , Allie Harrison Vernon
Theses from 2018 2018
Player-Response: On the Nature of Interactive Narratives as Literature , Lee Feldman
Theses from 2017 2017
The Rhetoric of Disability: an Analysis of the Language of University Disability Service Centers , Katie Ratermann
Theses from 2016 2016
The Ritualization of Violence in The Magic Toyshop , Victor Chalfant
Concrete Reality: The Posthuman Landscapes of J.G. Ballard , Mark Hausmann
Readers in Pursuit of Popular Justice: Unraveling Conflicting Frameworks in Lolita , Innesa Ranchpar
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MA Thesis Examples
Recent graduate theses.
The subjects of MA theses have included studies of individual poets or dramatists, novelists or autobiographers, as well as explorations of literary movements, themes or periods. Some of our more recent titles are:
“The Bottom and the Orchard: Where Space and Place are Created, Controlled, and Maintained in Sula and Recitatif ” (2024 Anyabwile)
“The Great (Genre) Escape” (2024 Perrin)
“Modality and Sociality in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford ” (2024 Perry)
“‘Don’t Question the Experts’: Autistic Autobiographies, Expert Paratexts, and Epistemic Injustice” (2024 Thompson)
“Preracial Panem: Understanding Racial Identity in Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games Trilogy and Prequel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes ” (2024 Wooten)
“Parts of the Story: An Illustrated Short Story Collection” (2023 Beal)
“‘What lady wouldn’t wish to join causes with women who stood up for other women?’: Heroines’ Rivalries and Friendships in Popular Romance Novels” (2023 Bradford)
“Breaking Away: Some Essays on Influence” (2023 Ferrer)
“Posting to Engage: A Study of the Effects of Recovery-Oriented Rhetoric on Community Building for Individuals with Eating Disorders and Associated Symptoms on Instagram” (2023 Horton)
“Being Born: A Memoir of Self-Making in Four Parts” (2023 Langford)
“‘Widen the Lens and See’: Poetry, Photography, and the Act of Witness in Muriel Rukeyser’s ‘The Book of the Dead'” (2023 Marlow)
“Engaging Secondary Students Through Secondary Worlds: An Approach to Teaching Tolkien at the High School Level” (2022 Casey)
“The Religious and the Secular Mythology in Idylls of the King ” (2022 Kirkendall)
“‘…A Hideous Monster’: Social Repression and Rebellion in Gregory Corso’s ‘The American Way'” (2022 LeBey)
“Individualism, Materialism, and Sacrifice in Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Nightingale and the Rose’ and Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Nightingale'” (2022 Nalbandian)
“Burying the Carnival” (2022 Overdurf)
“Attending to Time in Narratives of Enslavement: Temporal Alterities and Lived Experiences of Time in Toni Morrison’s Beloved ” (2021 Bischoff)
“‘Beasts who walk alone’: Narrating Queer Abjection in Djuna Barnes’s Nightwood and Jordy Rosenberg’s Confessions of the Fox ” (2021 McGuirk)
“Reach Out and Touch Faith: Haptic Reciprocity in Milton’s Paradise Lost ” (2021 Ricks)
“Gender Matters: Amante’s Gender Construction in Elizabeth Gaskell’s ‘The Grey Woman'” (2021 Willis)
“Braddon’s Body of Bigamy: A Corpus Stylistics Analysis” (2021 Waxman)
“‘Memory is all that Matters;’ Queer Latinx Temporality and the Memory-Making Process” (2020 Caicedo)
“Old Wives’ Tales: Mothers & Daughters, Wives & Witches (Stories)” (2020 Champagne)
“‘Numbed and Mortified’: Labor, Empathy, and Acquired Disability in King Lear and Titus Andronicus : (2020 Harrington)
“‘More Forms and Stranger’: Queer Feminism and the Aesthetic of Sapphic Camp (2020 Kennedy)
“A Discourse and Statistical Approach to Intersections of Gender and Race in Melville’s Typee ” (2020 Post)
“Prophetic Un-speaking: The Language of Inheritance and Original Sin in Paradise Lost and S alve Deus Rex Judaeorum ” (2019 Darrow)
“‘The Frame of her Eternal Dream’: From Thel to Dreamscapes of Influence” (2019 Gallo)
“‘The Murmure and the Cherles Rebellying’: Poetic and Economic Interpretations of the Great Revolt of 1381” (2019 Noell)
“Dialogic Convergences of Spatiality, Racial Identity, and the American Cultural Imagination” (2019 Humphrey)
“Troubling Vice: Stigma and Subjectivity in Shakespeare’s Ambitious Villains” (2019 Simonson)
“Beyond Mourning: Afro-Pessimism in Contemporary African American Fiction” (2018 Huggins)
“‘Harmonized by the earth’: Land, Landscape, and Place in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights ” (2018 Bevin)
“(Re)membering the Subject: Nomadic Becoming in Contemporary Chicano/a Literature” (2018 Voelkner)
“Werewolves: The Outsider on the Inside in Icelandic and French Medieval Literature” (2018 Modugno)
“Towards Self-Defined Expressions of Black Anger in Claudia Rankine’s Citizen and Percival Everett’s Erasure ” (2018 Razak)
“Echoes Inhabit the Garden: The Music of Poetry and Place in T.S. Eliot” (2018 Goldsmith)
“‘Is this what motherhood is?’: Ambivalent Representations of Motherhood in Black Women’s Novels, 1953-2011” (2018 Gotfredson)
“Movements of Hunters and Pilgrims: Forms of Motion and Thought in Moby-Dick , The Confidence Man , and Clarel ” (2018 Marcy)
“Speaking of the Body: The Maternal Body, Race, and Language in the Plays of Cherrie Moraga, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Tony Kushner” (2018 King)
“Passing as Jewish: The Material Consequences of Race and the Property of Whiteness in Late Twentieth-Century Passing Novels” (2017 Mullis)
“Eliot through Tolkien: Estrangement, Verse Drama, and the Christian Path in the Modern Era” (2017 Reynolds)
“Aesthetics, Politics, and the Urban Space in Postcolonial British Literature” (2017 Rahmat)
“Models of Claim, Resistance, and Activism in the Novels of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Hays, and Frances Burney” (2017 Smith)
“English Literature’s Father of Authorial Androgyny: The Innovative Perspective of Chaucer and the Wife of Bath” (2017 Ingold)
“’Verbal Hygiene’ on the Radio: An Exploration into Perceptions of Female Voices on Public Radio and How They Reflect Language and Gender Ideologies within American Culture” (2017 Barrett)
“Divided Bodies: Nation Formation and the Literary Marketplace in Salman Rushdie’s Shame and Bapsi Sidhwa’s Cracking India” (2016 Mellon)
“Metaformal Trends in Contemporary American Poetry” (2016 Muller)
“Power Through Privilege: Surveying Perspectives on the Humanities in Higher Education in the Contemporary American Campus Novel” (2016 Klein)
“‘I always cure you when I come’: The Caregiver Figure in the Novels of Jane Austen” (2016 McKenzie)
“English Imperial Selfhood and Semiperipheral Witchcraft in The Faerie Queene, Daemonologie, and The Tempest” (2016 Davis)
“With Slabs, Bones, and Poles: De/Constructing Narratives of Hurricane Katrina in Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones , Natasha Trethewey’s Beyond Katrina , and Selah Saterstrom’s Slab” (2016 Lang)
“The Ghost of That Ineluctable Past”: Trauma and Memory in John Banville’s Frames Trilogy” (2016 Berry)
“Breaking Through Walls and Pages: Female Reading and Education in the 18th Century British Novel” (2015 Majewski)
“The Economics of Gender Relations in London City Comedy” (2015 Weisse)
“Objects, People, and Landscapes of Terror: Considering the Sublime through the Gothic Mode in Late 19th Century Novels” (2015 Porter)
“Placing the Body: A Study of Postcolonialism and Environment in the Works of Jamaica Kincaid” (2015 Hutcherson)
“Wandering Bodies: The Disruption of Identities in Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy and Edwidge Danticat’s The Farming of Bones ” (2015 Martin)
“Mythogenesis as a Reconfiguration of Space in an ‘Alternate World’: The Legacy of Origin and Diaspora in Experimental Writing” (2015 Pittenger)
“Cunning Authors and Bad Readers: Gendered Authorship in ‘Love in Excess'” (2015 Bruening)
“‘The Thing Became Real’: New Materialisms and Race in the Fiction of Nella Larsen” (2015 Parkinson)
“‘Projections of the Not-Me’: Redemptive Possibilities of the Gothic within Wuthering Heights and Beloved” (2015 Glasser)
“Distortions, Collections, and Mobility: South Asian Poets and the Space for Female Subjectivity” (2015 Wilkey)
“From Text to Tech: Theorizing Changing Experimental Narrative Structures” (2015 Ortega)
“A Moral Being in an Aesthetic World: Being in the Early Novels of Kurt Vonnegut” (2015 Hubbard)
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Digital Commons @ USF > College of Arts and Sciences > English > Theses and Dissertations
English Theses and Dissertations
Theses/dissertations from 2023 2023.
Of Mētis and Cuttlefish: Employing Collective Mētis as a Theoretical Framework for Marginalized Communities , Justiss Wilder Burry
What on earth are we doing (?): A Field-Wide Exploration of Design Courses in TPC , Jessica L. Griffith
Organizations Ensuring Resilience: A Case Study of Cortez, Florida , Karla Ariel Maddox
Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022
Using Movie Clips to Understand Vivid-Phrasal Idioms’ Meanings , Rasha Salem S. Alghamdi
An Exercise in Exceptions: Personhood, Divergency, and Ableism in the STAR TREK Franchise , Jessica A. Blackman
Vulnerable Resistance in Victorian Women’s Writing , Stephanie A. Harper
Curricular Assemblages: Understanding Student Writing Knowledge (Re)circulation Across Genres , Adam Phillips
PAD Beyond the Classroom: Integrating PAD in the Scrum Workplace , Jade S. Weiss
Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021
Social Cues in Animated Pedagogical Agents for Second Language Learners: the Application of The Embodiment Principle in Video Design , Sahar M. Alyahya
A Field-Wide Examination of Cross-Listed Courses in Technical Professional Communication , Carolyn M. Gubala
Labor-Based Grading Contracts in the Multilingual FYC Classroom: Unpacking the Variables , Kara Kristina Larson
Land Goddesses, Divine Pigs, and Royal Tricksters: Subversive Mythologies and Imperialist Land Ownership Dispossession in Twentieth Century Irish and American Literature , Elizabeth Ricketts
Oppression, Resistance, and Empowerment: The Power Dynamics of Naming and Un-naming in African American Literature, 1794 to 2019 , Melissa "Maggie" Romigh
Generic Expectations in First Year Writing: Teaching Metadiscoursal Reflection and Revision Strategies for Increased Generic Uptake of Academic Writing , Kaelah Rose Scheff
Reframing the Gothic: Race, Gender, & Disability in Multiethnic Literature , Ashely B. Tisdale
Intersections of Race and Place in Short Fiction by New Orleans Gens de Couleur Libres , Adrienne D. Vivian
Mental Illness Diagnosis and the Construction of Stigma , Katie Lynn Walkup
Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020
Rhetorical Roundhouse Kicks: Tae Kwon Do Pumsae Practice and Non-Western Embodied Topoi , Spencer Todd Bennington
9/11 Then and Now: How the Performance of Memorial Rhetoric by Presidents Changes to Construct Heroes , Kristen M. Grafton
Kinesthetically Speaking: Human and Animal Communication in British Literature of the Long Eighteenth Century , Dana Jolene Laitinen
Exploring Refugee Students’ Second Language (L2) Motivational Selves through Digital Visual Representations , Nhu Le
Glamour in Contemporary American Cinema , Shauna A. Maragh
Instrumentalization Theory: An Analytical Heuristic for a Heightened Social Awareness of Machine Learning Algorithms in Social Media , Andrew R. Miller
Intercessory Power: A Literary Analysis of Ethics and Care in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon , Alice Walker’s Meridian , and Toni Cade Bambara’s Those Bones Are Not My Child , Kelly Mills
The Power of Non-Compliant Logos: A New Materialist Approach to Comic Studies , Stephanie N. Phillips
Female Identity and Sexuality in Contemporary Indonesian Novels , Zita Rarastesa
"The Fiery Furnaces of Hell": Rhetorical Dynamism in Youngstown, OH , Joshua M. Rea
“We developed solidarity”: Family, Race, Identity, and Space-Time in Recent Multiethnic U.S. American Fiction , Kimber L. Wiggs
Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019
Remembrance of a Wound: Ethical Mourning in the Works of Ana Menéndez, Elías Miguel Muñoz, and Junot Díaz , José Aparicio
Taking an “Ecological Turn” in the Evaluation of Rhetorical Interventions , Peter Cannon
New GTA’s and the Pre-Semester Orientation: The Need for Informed Refinement , Jessica L. Griffith
Reading Rape and Answering with Empathy: A New Approach to Sexual Assault Education for College Students , Brianna Jerman
The Karoo , The Veld , and the Co-Op: The Farm as Microcosm and Place for Change in Schreiner, Lessing, and Head , Elana D. Karshmer
"The weak are meat, and the strong do eat"; Representations of the Slaughterhouse in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature , Stephanie Lance
Language of Carnival: How Language and the Carnivalesque Challenge Hegemony , Yulia O. Nekrashevich
Queer Authority in Old and Middle English Literature , Elan J. Pavlinich
Because My Garmin Told Me To: A New Materialist Study of Agency and Wearable Technology , Michael Repici
No One Wants to Read What You Write: A Contextualized Analysis of Service Course Assignments , Tanya P. Zarlengo
Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018
Beauty and the Beasts: Making Places with Literary Animals of Florida , Haili A. Alcorn
The Medievalizing Process: Religious Medievalism in Romantic and Victorian Literature , Timothy M. Curran
Seeing Trauma: The Known and the Hidden in Nineteenth-Century Literature , Alisa M. DeBorde
Analysis of User Interfaces in the Sharing Economy , Taylor B. Johnson
Border-Crossing Travels Across Literary Worlds: My Shamanic Conscientization , Scott Neumeister
The Spectacle of The Bomb: Rhetorical Analysis of Risk of The Nevada Test Site in Technical Communication, Popular Press, and Pop Culture , Tiffany Wilgar
Theses/Dissertations from 2017 2017
Traveling Women and Consuming Place in Eighteenth-Century Travel Letters and Journals , Cassie Patricia Childs
“The Nations of the Field and Wood”: The Uncertain Ontology of Animals in Eighteenth-Century British Literature , J. Kevin Jordan
Modern Mythologies: The Epic Imagination in Contemporary Indian Literature , Sucheta Kanjilal
Science in the Sun: How Science is Performed as a Spatial Practice , Natalie Kass
Body as Text: Physiognomy on the Early English Stage , Curtis Le Van
Tensions Between Democracy and Expertise in the Florida Keys , Elizabeth A. Loyer
Institutional Review Boards and Writing Studies Research: A Justice-Oriented Study , Johanna Phelps-Hillen
The Spirit of Friendship: Girlfriends in Contemporary African American Literature , Tangela La'Chelle Serls
Aphra Behn on the Contemporary Stage: Behn's Feminist Legacy and Woman-Directed Revivals of The Rover , Nicole Elizabeth Stodard
(Age)ncy in Composition Studies , Alaina Tackitt
Constructing Health Narratives: Patient Feedback in Online Communities , Katie Lynn Walkup
Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016
Rupturing the World of Elite Athletics: A Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis of the Suspension of the 2011 IAAF Regulations on Hyperandrogenism , Ella Browning
Shaping Climate Citizenship: The Ethics of Inclusion in Climate Change Communication and Policy , Lauren E. Cagle
Drop, Cover, and Hold On: Analyzing FEMA's Risk Communication through Visual Rhetoric , Samantha Jo Cosgrove
Material Expertise: Applying Object-oriented Rhetoric in Marine Policy , Zachary Parke Dixon
The Non-Identical Anglophone Bildungsroman : From the Categorical to the De-Centering Literary Subject in the Black Atlantic , Jarad Heath Fennell
Instattack: Instagram and Visual Ad Hominem Political Arguments , Sophia Evangeline Gourgiotis
Hospitable Climates: Representations of the West Indies in Eighteenth-Century British Literature , Marisa Carmen Iglesias
Chosen Champions: Medieval and Early Modern Heroes as Postcolonial Reactions to Tensions between England and Europe , Jessica Trant Labossiere
Science, Policy, and Decision Making: A Case Study of Deliberative Rhetoric and Policymaking for Coastal Adaptation in Southeast Florida , Karen Patricia Langbehn
A New Materialist Approach to Visual Rhetoric in PhotoShopBattles , Jonathan Paul Ray
Tracing the Material: Spaces and Objects in British and Irish Modernist Novels , Mary Allison Wise
Theses/Dissertations from 2015 2015
Representations of Gatsby: Ninety Years of Retrospective , Christine Anne Auger
Robust, Low Power, Discrete Gate Sizing , Anthony Joseph Casagrande
Wrestling with Angels: Postsecular Contemporary American Poetry , Paul T. Corrigan
#networkedglobe: Making the Connection between Social Media and Intercultural Technical Communication , Laura Anne Ewing
Evidence of Things Not Seen: A Semi-Automated Descriptive Phrase and Frame Analysis of Texts about the Herbicide Agent Orange , Sarah Beth Hopton
'She Shall Not Be Moved': Black Women's Spiritual Practice in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, Beloved, Paradise, and Home , Rondrea Danielle Mathis
Relational Agency, Networked Technology, and the Social Media Aftermath of the Boston Marathon Bombing , Megan M. Mcintyre
Now, We Hear Through a Voice Darkly: New Media and Narratology in Cinematic Art , James Anthony Ricci
Navigating Collective Activity Systems: An Approach Towards Rhetorical Inquiry , Katherine Jesse Royce
Women's Narratives of Confinement: Domestic Chores as Threads of Resistance and Healing , Jacqueline Marie Smith
Domestic Spaces in Transition: Modern Representations of Dwelling in the Texts of Elizabeth Bowen , Shannon Tivnan
Theses/Dissertations from 2014 2014
Paradise Always Already Lost: Myth, Memory, and Matter in English Literature , Elizabeth Stuart Angello
Overcoming the 5th-Century BCE Epistemological Tragedy: A Productive Reading of Protagoras of Abdera , Ryan Alan Blank
Acts of Rebellion: The Rhetoric of Rogue Cinema , Adam Breckenridge
Material and Textual Spaces in the Poetry of Montagu, Leapor, Barbauld, and Robinson , Jessica Lauren Cook
Decolonizing Shakespeare: Race, Gender, and Colonialism in Three Adaptations of Three Plays by William Shakespeare , Angela Eward-Mangione
Risk of Compliance: Tracing Safety and Efficacy in Mef-Lariam's Licensure , Julie Marie Gerdes
Beyond Performance: Rhetoric, Collective Memory, and the Motive of Imprinting Identity , Brenda M. Grau
Subversive Beauty - Victorian Bodies of Expression , Lisa Michelle Hoffman-Reyes
Integrating Reading and Writing For Florida's ESOL Program , George Douglas Mcarthur
Responsibility and Responsiveness in the Novels of Ann Radcliffe and Mary Shelley , Katherine Marie McGee
Ghosts, Orphans, and Outlaws: History, Family, and the Law in Toni Morrison's Fiction , Jessica Mckee
The "Defective" Generation: Disability in Modernist Literature , Deborah Susan Mcleod
Science Fiction/Fantasy and the Representation of Ethnic Futurity , Joy Ann Sanchez-Taylor
Hermes, Technical Communicator of the Gods: The Theory, Design, and Creation of a Persuasive Game for Technical Communication , Eric Walsh
Theses/Dissertations from 2013 2013
Rhetorical Spirits: Spirituality as Rhetorical Device in New Age Womanist of Color Texts , Ronisha Witlee Browdy
Disciplinarity, Crisis, and Opportunity in Technical Communication , Jason Robert Carabelli
The Terror of Possibility: A Re-evaluation and Reconception of the Sublime Aesthetic , Kurt Fawver
Unbearable Weight, Unbearable Witness: The (Im)possibility of Witnessing Eating Disorders in Cyberspace , Kristen Nicole Gay
the post- 9/11 aesthetic: repositioning the zombie film in the horror genre , Alan Edward Green, Jr.
An(other) Rhetoric: Rhetoric, Ethics, and the Rhetorical Tradition , Kathleen Sandell Hardesty
Mapping Dissertation Genre Ecology , Kate Lisbeth Pantelides
Dead Man's Switch: Disaster Rhetorics in a Posthuman Age , Daniel Patrick Richards
"Of That Transfigured World" : Realism and Fantasy in Victorian Literature , Benjamin Jude Wright
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English Department
Quicklinks und sprachwechsel, main navigation, master thesis (30 ects).
Some information is available on the website of the Faculty of Arts . Below, you find the most important guidelines for Master Theses at the English Department. However, we strongly encourage you to read the Faculty guidelines as well.
Template Cover Master Thesis (English) (DOCX, 56 KB)
You may also wish to consult the section on extending deadlines (only possible in cases of force majeure) .
Whom Can You Choose as Your Supervisor?
- The Master Thesis is usually supervised by a professor .
- Other members of staff holding a PhD degree are also allowed to supervise Master Theses. Note, however, that they are not obliged to do so.
- To find out what types of topics individual instructors may be interested in supervising , you can consult their homepages. You can find links to all instructors' homepages on the UZH English Department's Staff List .
When to Contact Potential Supervisors?
Make sure to contact a potential supervisor prior to booking the Master Thesis online - ideally at the end of the preceding semester, but no later than:
- August 5 if wishing to book the two-semester module in the fall semester;
- January 5 if wishing to book the two-semester module in the spring semester.
When and How Do I Book the Master Thesis?
- The Master Thesis must be booked online , during the module booking period .
By When Do I Need to Submit?
- December 1 (for the fall semester);
- June 1 (for the spring semester).
Template Cover Master Thesis (German) (DOCX, 56 KB)
- Note that your supervisor may ask you to submit the Master Thesis earlier than this (e.g. mid-November for the fall semester).
How Long Should the Master Thesis Be?
Usually, the Master Thesis is between c. 20,000 and 30,000 words (not counting the bibliography). Note, however, that supervisors may accept theses that are shorter or longer. In other words, if in doubt, discuss the question of length with your supervisor.
Please also consult the following documents:
- Linguistics: Manual for Writers of Papers in English Linguistics
- Literature: Literature Guide
How Much Supervision? And What If I Don't Hear Back?
You are expected to conduct most of your research for the Master Thesis independently. However, supervisors will of course be happy to provide a certain level of guidance.
- At the start of the supervision process, you should discuss the mode of supervision with your supervisor (e.g. Will there be regular meetings? How often are you allowed/supposed to contact your supervisor?)
- Should you encounter any major problems, then please make sure to get in touch with your supervisor as early as possible!
Usually, supervisors at the UZH English Department will try to respond to your queries within 48 hours (working days, i.e. not counting weekends).
Should you not not hear back from your supervisor within three to four working days, then please send them a short reminder.
If you still do not hear back from your supervisor after your second message (within three to four working days), you should contact the advisor of studies at [email protected] .
Organizing the Master Thesis: Two Examples
The Master Thesis is, usually, a two-semester module. Accordingly, the following examples cover the two most common cases.
- ideally contact your supervisor at the end of the fall semester in the previous year, but no later than January 5, to find out whether they are willing to supervise your topic;
- book the Master Thesis during the module booking period of the spring semester (end of January/early February);
- submit the Master Thesis no later than on December 1 (or earlier, if your supervisor has given you an earlier submission date).
- ideally contact your supervisor at the end of the spring semester in the previous year, but no later than August 5, to find out whether they are willing to supervise your topic;
- book the Master Thesis during the module booking period of the fall semester (end of August/early September);
- submit the Master Thesis no later than on June 1 (or earlier, if your supervisor has given you an earlier submission date).
If you would like to submit your Master Thesis at the end of the first semester, then the corresponding deadlines would apply (i.e. June 1 for the spring and December 1 for the fall semester).
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Recent Submissions
Unpacking the history of middle chinese *ɣu- in the yue dialects in guangdong: a dialect geographical analysis , perception and production of singular they in british english , cross-dialect variation in dinka tonal morphology , morphophonological interactions in shilluk: an investigation into the tone system and suffixation patterns in the gar dialect , vowel duration in the standard english of scotland , linguicide or linguistic suicide: a case study of indigenous minority languages in france , combining translation into the second language and second language learning : an integrated computational approach , post-critical period age of arrival and its relationship to ultimate attainment in a second language , hci for development: does sense of agency affect the adoption of a mobile health insurance service in tanzania , language policy and planning in xinjiang uygur autonomous region of china , comparable structural priming from comprehension and production: evidence against error-based learning of syntactic structure , developing educational games for teaching children with special educational needs , variation in the speech of university students from edinburgh: the cases of /x/ and // , a diachronic constructional investigation into the adverse avertive schema in chinese , onset consonants and the perceptions of tone and voicing in thai , simulating the interaction between mindreading and language in development and evolution , in task-oriented dyadic dialogue, how do non-native speakers of english align with each other in terms of lexical choices , native english speakers' music ability and their perception and production of l2 mandarin tones , a study of cmc language switching in china , the cognitive processes involved with hitting a fastball and why the baseball axiom "keeping your eye on the ball" is an exercise in futility .
Open Access Theses and Dissertations
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OATD.org aims to be the best possible resource for finding open access graduate theses and dissertations published around the world. Metadata (information about the theses) comes from over 1100 colleges, universities, and research institutions . OATD currently indexes 7,241,108 theses and dissertations.
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ELT master's dissertations
Every year the British Council partners with UK universities to find ELT master's dissertations with potential for impact on policy and practice. The scheme, where universities submit one dissertation from their ELT master's programmes and then judge them along with a panel of British Council experts, is designed to recognise and celebrate the brightest minds in ELT at master's level.
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Historical MA English Theses
Baumann, Natalie
Necro-rhetoical Constructions of the Migrant: An Image of Death on the Border Presented: Spring 2020 (Chair: Maureen Goggin)
Gladstone, Chenay
Determing the Veracity of 911 Homicide Calls in the Metro Phoenix Area Using COPS Scale and Concordance Presented: Spring 2020 (Chair: Elly van Gelderen)
Kellogg, Jackson
A Rhythmic Analysis of Scottish Gaelic Using Durational Metrics Presented: Spring 2020 (Chair: Kathryn Pruitt)
Miller, Samantha
What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank: Re-forming Holocaust Memory Through the Fictional Narratives of Cynthia Ozick, Philip Roth, and Nathan Englander Presented: Spring 2020 (Chair: Brian Goodman)
Winemiller, Carolena
The L2 Classroom as a Crossroads: Merging Creative Pedagogy and Second Language Instruction Presented: Spring 2020 (Chair: Aya Matsuda)
Almatard, Abdulmajeed
Developing an Evaluation Checklist to Identity in ESOL Textbooks Presented: Fall 2019 (Chair: Mark James)
Attwood, James
The State of Critical Theory in Fantastic Literature Presented: Spring 2019 (Chair: Robert Bjork)
Burns, Kate
The New Human Condition: Climate, Migration, Literature, and the Future Presented: Spring 2019 (Chair: Joni Adamson)
Dillard, Shericka
Towards Indigeneity in Linguistics: Designing a Self Assessment Tool Which Seeks to Better Equip Linguistics Students for Collaboration with Indigenous Communities Presented: Fall 2019 (Chair: Elly van Gelderen)
Jin, Seonghan
Teaching English as an International Language in the Military Context: Incorporaing TEIL into the English Curriculum of the Korean Military Academy Presented: Spring 2019 (Chair: Aya Matsuda)
Lundwall, Rachel
A Selection of Sacred Hymns: Singing Women into Citizenship in Zion Presented: Spring 2019 (Chair: Maureen Goggin)
Patchin, Colleen
Exercise Design and Vocabulary Learning in Tutorial Call: The Effects of Image Features and Combinations on Attention to Written Forms Presented: Summer 2019 (Chair: Bryan Smith)
Perry, Mabry
The Use of Definite Articles in Romance Languages: Diffusion or Independent Development Presented: Spring 2019 (Chair: Elly van Gelderen)
Rincon, Samantha
A Lesson Before Dying or A Lesson Before Living? How Nine Page Chapter Ernest Gaines' 'A Lesson Before Dying Connected the Lines Between Life, Death, and Everything in Between Presented: Spring 2019 (Chair: Keith Miller)
Willson, Jacob
The Syntax and Lexical Semantics of Cognate Object Constructions Presented: Summer 2019 (Chair: Elly van Gelderen)
Alzubaidi, Noor
Saudi Mothers' Attitudes Towards Their Children's Bilingual Language Practice in the US Presented: Spring 2018 (Chair: Karen Adams)
Powell, John
Instructors' Views Towards the Second Language Acquisition of Spanish Subjunctive Presented: Spring 2018 (Chair: Elly van Gelderen)
Romero Pino, Blanca
Doralzuelan: An Emerging Identity of the Venezuelan Immigrant in the Southern Forida Presented: Summer 2018 (Chair: Karen Adams)
Baugh, Victoria
Mixed Race Heroines in Early Nineteenth Century Literature: A Look at Jane Austen and Her Contemporaries Presented: Fall 2017 (Chair: Devoney Looser)
Cox, Timothy
The Effect of YPAR on Student Self Efficacy and Engagement in a Suburban Junior High School Presented: Fall 2017 (Chair: Patricia Boyd)
Peterson, Justin Bruce
Syntactic Cartography as a Forensic Linguistics Tool: A Retrospective Analysis of Prepositional Phrases in Two Appellate Court Cases Presented: Spring 2017 (Chair: Elly van Gelderen)
Wolfe, Andrew
Auxiliary to T Movement: Evidence from Adverbs Presented: Spring 2017 (Chair: Elly van Gelderen)
Hickman, Paris Attitudes Toward English Word Usage in American English Speakers of Different Varieties Presented: Spring 2016 (Chair: Robert Bjork)
Wauneka, Devennie "The Story Must be Told As It Is" - Colonial Spiritual Self-Identification and Resistance in Leslie Marmon Silko and Luci Tapahonso Presented: Fall 2016 (Chair: Joni Adamson)
Fulton, Holly Presenting ASU's Ethos: Old Main as a Seat of Argument Presented: Spring 2014 (Chair: Kathleen Lamp)
Garib, Ali A VOT Measurement of the Mispronunciation of /p/ and /b/ in Word-Initial Positions by Libyan Speakers of English Presented: Fall 2014 (chair: Kathryn Pruitt)
Gersten, Olivia "Tell it right": Bidialectal Practices in the Secondary EnglishClassroom" Presented: Fall 2014 (co-chairs: Karen Adams and Matthew Prior)
Kilduff, Josiah Reporting Live From Edge City: The Dynamic 'Statuspheres' of Tom Wolfe's America Presented: Spring 2014 (Chair: Simon Ortiz)
Lemman, Krista Colored Green: Reading Fortune in Three of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales Presented: Spring 2014 (Chair: Robert Sturges)
Loewenhagen, Angela Negation Particles and Historical Linguistics: What Part of "Not" Do You Not Understand? Presented: Spring 2014 (Chair: Elly van Gelderen)
Nunn, Theda Discourse Markers as Predictors of Success for the TOEFL Presented: Spring 2014 (Chair: Claire Renaud)
Turney, Brittany The Gyant's Giant Meaning: An Application of Monster Theory to Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene Presented: Spring 2014 (Chair: Cora Fox)
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Applying For a Master’s Degree in Germany
Master’s programs in Germany offer a diverse range of options, with many taught in English. They are known for their affordability, top-notch curricula, hands-on learning, and excellent career prospects. So, it’s no wonder that master’s degrees are the go-to choice for international students in Germany. During the 2021/2022 period, 42.6% of them (148,901 students) were enrolled in master’s programs.
But don’t let the application process hold you back – we’re here to guide you through the steps and set you on the path to success in Deutschland!
Here are the main steps to apply for a master’s degree in Germany:
Research and Choose a Master’s Program
Check admission requirements.
- Gather Documents and Meet All Requirements
Secure Funding
Submit your application, wait for the admission letter, get health insurance, apply for the german student visa.
When it comes to pursuing a master’s degree in Germany, the initial step is all about research and making an informed choice. Start by assessing your career goals and pinpoint the field of study that aligns with your aspirations. Look into the curriculum to ensure it covers the subjects that pique your interest.
Language matters too — many programs are available in English, but if you’re proficient in German, it opens up more options. When it comes to costs, most programs are quite affordable or even tuition-free, but be sure to check tuition fees just in case.
To aid your search, German study program databases and university websites offer detailed program information and application guidelines. Take your time to explore and find the program that’s the perfect fit for your educational journey.
Study at GISMA University of Applied Sciences
Be one step ahead with a globally recognised college in Germany!
> Check out our list of over 9,000 master’s study programs in Germany.
Once you’ve picked a couple of programs that pique your interest and align with your study goals, it’s time to check if you meet their admission requirements or can meet them by the application deadline.
While each program may have its unique requirements, let’s explore some of the most common admission criteria for master’s programs in Germany:
- Bachelor’s degree. You have graduated or will graduate from a program equivalent to a German bachelor’s degree, often in a related field to the master’s program you’re applying for.
- Transcripts and diplomas . Submit transcripts and copies of your academic diplomas from previous educational institutions.
- Subject-specific knowledge . Some programs may require you to have gained specific subject knowledge or credits during your prior education. Business schools and MBA programs may require a particular score from recognized tests, like GMAT or GRE.
- Language proficiency. Demonstrate proficiency in the language of instruction, which is typically English or German. Proof of language proficiency is often required through standardized tests like IELTS, TOEFL, TestDaF, or DSH.
- Curriculum vitae (CV) or resume . Provide a comprehensive CV or resume detailing your academic and professional background.
- Statement of purpose & letters of recommendation. Some universities may request a Statement of Purpose (SOP), which details your motivations and goals, along with one to two letters of recommendation from professors or professionals.
> Visit our full guide of admission requirements for master’s programs in Germany for more details.
Gather Documents and Ensure You Meet All Requirements
After reviewing admission requirements and selecting your program(s), it’s time to start gathering what you need for your application, including transcripts, motivation letter, etc.
This is also an ideal time to confirm that you meet your university’s language proficiency requirements. Depending on your program’s language (English or German), you may take a standardized language test or provide alternative proof. Consider language courses if improvement is needed.
According to the German government’s regulations, international students planning to study in Germany must demonstrate financial resources of at least €11,208 per year (equivalent to €934 per month) to qualify for a student visa and pursue a master’s degree in the country.
This financial requirement may seem daunting for many students, so it’s crucial to address this well in advance of the official application period at your preferred German university. You can meet this requirement in various ways:
- Having €11,208 deposited in a German blocked account .
- Your parents can provide documentation of their income and financial resources.
- Someone with permanent residence in Germany can guarantee to the Alien Registration Office that they will financially support you.
- Present a scholarship awarding certificate specifying the financial amount or coverage granted to you.
Important Tip: To Maximize Your Chances of Getting Your German Student Visa You Should Use a Blocked Account as Proof of Financial Resources.
A blocked account is a special type of bank account , to prove you have enough funds to live in Germany for one year.
As of 2022, as a foreigner in Germany you need a minimum of €934 euros per month for living expenses. So, you are required to have a total of €11,208 in your bank account before you apply for a German internship visa.
Click here to learn more about the German Blocked Account
Planning ahead is important before your preferred German university’s application deadline, as this amount may be substantial for most students. Usually, four to six months prior should provide enough time to save money and explore scholarship and loan options.
Now is the exciting time to send in your application! Most universities have their own application portals where you’ll need to create an account, or they might use uni-assist for handling applications.
Make sure to read and follow all the instructions on the master’s program website, and be sure to submit all the required documents. It’s crucial to respect the application deadlines; your application won’t be processed if you miss the deadline.
Once your application is submitted, the next step is simply waiting for the university’s decision. While you wait, you might want to brush up on your language skills or start looking into the specific visa and travel requirements for Germany. It’s also a good time to explore accommodation options.
The university will notify you via email about the status of your application, and if you’re accepted, they’ll include the next steps you should follow.
Health insurance is a must for all international students in Germany. You can kickstart this process after receiving your admission letter or once you arrive in Germany.
If your home country has an agreement with Germany, you can often use your current health insurance, typically with a European Health Insurance Card (EHIC). In some cases, private health insurance from other countries may also be accepted.
Alternatively, you can choose to obtain insurance through a provider in Germany, with student packages usually priced around €120 per month, depending on your age and the provider.
Most international students in Germany prefer to get health insured with DR-WALTER .
EDUCARE24 by DR-WALTER is suitable for the following groups of people:
- Foreign exchange students, language students and students participating in university preparatory courses (Studienkolleg)
- University students
- Participants in exchange programmes (e.g. ERASMUS, DAAD, SOKRATES)
- Accompanying family members
Still have questions about health insurance? Learn more about health insurance in Germany from experts.
Get DR-WALTER insurance online within a few minutes
With a few exceptions, the majority of international students planning to study in Germany require a student visa. Our German student visa guide covers everything you need to know about this process, from requirements to the application process, fees, and more.
To kickstart the process, set up a visa interview at the German Embassy or Consulate in your home country, ideally about three months before your planned start of studies.
During the interview, provide all the required documents like proof of admission, language proficiency, financial means, and health insurance. Be ready for potential requests for more documents during the interview, and make sure your passport stays valid for your entire stay.
Arrive in Germany and Attend Orientation
Once your German student visa is sorted, it’s time to get on that plane and arrive in Germany. After settling in, make use of the pre-semester orientation sessions at German universities. Some things addressed through the orientation or to over on your own include:
- You’ll complete the enrollment process , which involves registering for your courses, receiving your class schedule, and learning about academic requirements.
- Getting your student ID . You’ll be issued a student identification card, often referred to as a “Studierendenausweis” in German.
- Residence registration. Once you’re in Germany, you will have to register your residence. This is a mandatory process that involves obtaining a “Meldebescheinigung” from the Resident’s Registration Office (Einwohnermeldeamt).
- Opening a local bank account. Orientation often provides guidance on opening a bank account in Germany.
- Campus tour. You’ll explore the campus to discover its facilities, libraries, and labs.
- Language courses. Some universities offer language courses or resources to help international students improve their German language skills if necessary.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) & Additional Information
Below, you’ll find answers to common questions and additional information to support you on your path to pursuing a master’s degree in Germany:
Which Universities Offer Master’s Degree Programs in Germany?
The higher education system in Germany includes public universities, funded and regulated by the state, and private universities established by independent entities.
While private universities may have higher fees, they are valuable for specialized courses not available at public institutions. Public universities in Germany have their own degree programs, assessments, and entry requirements, with state oversight to ensure the quality and accreditation of courses.
Germany has four main types of higher education institutions that offer master’s degree programs:
- Research Universities. These publicly administered institutions offer Master’s and PhD programs, focusing on various academic disciplines.
- Technical Universities. A subgroup of research universities, they specialize in science, technology, and engineering fields.
- Universities of Applied Sciences. These institutions concentrate on engineering, business, and social sciences, often partnering with professional organizations.
- Colleges of Art, Film, and Music. These institutions provide instruction in creative fields and can be part of research universities or universities of applied sciences.
What Are the Types of Master’s Degrees in Germany?
In Germany, you can pursue various types of Master’s degrees. Some of the most common include:
- Master of Arts (MA). Awarded in humanities, social sciences, and arts-related fields.
- Master of Science (MSc) . Awarded in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines.
- Master of Business Administration (MBA). Focuses on management and business administration topics.
- Master of Education (M.Ed.). For degrees for high school teacher positions.
What Are Consecutive and Non-consecutive Master’s Degrees?
Consecutive master’s Degrees in Germany follow a logical progression from a related bachelor’s degree and build upon the same academic field. They provide in-depth knowledge and specialization within the same subject area.
Non-consecutive master’s Degrees, on the other hand, don’t necessarily need a bachelor’s degree in the same field. Students with diverse academic backgrounds can go for non-consecutive master’s programs, which often focus on broader skills and interdisciplinary knowledge. These programs may include extra coursework to bridge any knowledge gaps.
How Long Is a Master’s Degree in Germany?
A master’s degree in Germany typically lasts for one to two years, depending on the specific program and the number of semesters required. Each academic year consists of two semesters, and the program may also include a final project or dissertation conducted in collaboration with a mentor.
How Many ECTS Credits Is a German Master’s Degree Worth?
Master’s programs in Germany typically consist of 120 ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System) credits. However, the exact number of credits may vary depending on the university and the specific program.
What is Numerus Clausus?
Numerus Clausus (NC) in German master’s programs is a restricted admission system where limited spots are available, and selection is based on factors like academic performance and qualifications. It controls program capacity to prevent overcrowding. Applicants compete for admission based on their qualifications, and requirements vary by program.
When Are Application Deadlines for Master’s Degrees in Germany?
There are two semesters in German universities; the winter semester and the summer semester. Application deadlines for master’s programs vary depending on the university, however, the most common dates are:
- For courses starting on the winter semester: July 15th
- For courses starting on the summer semester: January 15th
Can I Apply for a Master’s in Germany Before I Get My Undergraduate Degree?
Yes, it’s common for students to apply during the final year of their bachelor’s degree. However, you must provide proof of your current academic progress and an expected graduation date as part of your application.
What Are the Language Requirements for Master’s Degrees in Germany?
If your courses are in German, you’ll need to prove your proficiency through tests like TestDaf or DSH. A lower level of proficiency may be accepted if you continue taking language courses upon arriving in Germany or during the early stages of your Master’s program. However, language requirements for master’s programs in Germany can vary depending on the university and program
If you choose English-taught programs, no German language tests are required. Non-native English speakers may need to take English language tests like TOEFL, IELTS, and PTE. If you’ve completed your undergraduate studies in English, you typically won’t need English language tests.
To discover programs in your preferred language, explore our tool and select the program language from the options on the left.
How Much Does a Master’s Degree Cost in Germany?
In most public universities in Germany, semester fees for master’s programs typically range from €100 to €350 per semester, with some exceptions. Some specialized graduate programs may have tuition fees, and the federal states of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria may charge tuition fees for non-EU international students.
Private universities set their own tuition fees, and the cost of master’s degrees can vary significantly, especially for programs like MBAs. At private universities in Germany, tuition fees can range from approximately €5,000 to €20,000 per year or more, depending on the institution and program.
To find out more about the costs of studying in Germany, visit our extensive guide .
Can I Work While Studying for a Master’s Degree in Germany?
Yes, students of all nationalities can work while studying for a master’s degree in Germany.
- EU, EEA, Swiss, and Norwegian students can work up to 20 hours per week. They can exceed this number, however they will have to pay social security contributions.
- Non-EU students can work up to 120 full days or 240 half days per year, but they face restrictions on self-employment and freelancing.
- Academic assistants have no limitations on workdays but are required to inform the foreigners’ office.
> Read more about working while studying in Germany .
What Is the Master’s Thesis Process Like in Germany?
In your final year of a master’s program in Germany, you’ll work on your thesis project, guided by a professor. The goal is to showcase your ability to tackle a subject-related issue independently using research methods.
You can usually write your thesis in German or English and may even complete it externally, like at a company or another research institute. Universities often set page limits, usually between 50 to 100 pages, and impose deadlines, typically around six months from the project start.
The thesis defense involves submitting your work and presenting your research methods and findings.
Study Visa Requirements for a Master’s Degree in Germany
Make sure you collect on time all the documents you typically need in order to apply for a German Student Visa .
For detailed information about Germany Visa requirements, go to www.germany-visa.org/student-visa/
What Are the Career Prospects With a German Master’s Degree?
With a German master’s degree, you’ll have excellent career prospects, especially in STEM fields . EU/EEA graduates can work immediately after graduation, while non-EU/EEA graduates can extend their residence permits for up to 18 months to find field-related jobs.
You can also pursue academic careers, and highly skilled non-EU graduates can apply for an EU Blue Card to work and stay in Germany. Plus, your German degree is globally recognized, offering international career opportunities in multinational companies and organizations.
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COMMENTS
Theses/Dissertations from 2018. PDF. Multimodal Approaches to Literacy and Teaching English as a Foreign Language at the University Level, Ghader Alahmadi. PDF. Educating Saudi Women through Communicative Language Teaching: A Bi-literacy Narrative and An Autoethnography of a Saudi English Teacher, Eiman Alamri. PDF.
Theses/Dissertations from 2022 PDF. A sociophonetic analysis of female-sounding virtual assistants, Alyssa Allen. PDF. Vampire narratives: Looking at queer-centric experiences in comparison to hetero-centric norms in order to model a new queer vampiric experience, Marah Heikkila. Theses/Dissertations from 2021 PDF
Theses/Dissertations from 2015. PDF. Abandoning the Shadows and Seizing the Stage: A Perspective on a Feminine Discourse of Resistance Theatre as Informed by the Work of Susanna Centlivre, Eliza Haywood, Frances Sheridan, Hannah Cowley, and the Sistren Theatre Collective, Brianna A. Bleymaier. PDF.
Revised on April 16, 2024. A thesis is a type of research paper based on your original research. It is usually submitted as the final step of a master's program or a capstone to a bachelor's degree. Writing a thesis can be a daunting experience. Other than a dissertation, it is one of the longest pieces of writing students typically complete.
Prize-Winning Thesis and Dissertation Examples. Published on September 9, 2022 by Tegan George.Revised on July 18, 2023. It can be difficult to know where to start when writing your thesis or dissertation.One way to come up with some ideas or maybe even combat writer's block is to check out previous work done by other students on a similar thesis or dissertation topic to yours.
April 15 (for theses beginning in the fall semester) November 10 (for theses beginning in the spring semester) D. Registering for Thesis Credits (ENG 590) 1. English Masters Thesis Registration Form Upon approval of your thesis application, complete the English Masters Thesis Registration Form.
Dissertations from 2022. Writing the Aftermath: Uncanny Spaces of the Postcolonial, Sohini Banerjee, English. Science Fiction's Enactment of the Encouragement, Process, and End Result of Revolutionary Transformation, Katharine Blanchard, English. LITERARY NEGATION AND MATERIALISM IN CHAUCER, Michelle Brooks, English.
Teaching English in the Philippines: a diary study of a novice ESL teacher, Jeffrey Lee Svoboda. PDF. ARABIC RHETORIC: MAIN IDEA, DEVELOPMENT, PARALLELISM, AND WORD REPETITION, Melissa Van De Wege. Theses/Dissertations from 2012 PDF. Video games and interactive technology in the ESL classroom, Melody Anderson
The purpose of a master's thesis is to help you develop your own independent abilities, ensuring that you can drive your own career forward without constantly looking to others to provide direction. ... A Scribendi in-house editor, Anthony is happily putting his BA in English from Western University to good use with thoughtful feedback and ...
Theses/Dissertations from 2019. PDF. No Home but the World: Forced Migration and Transnational Identity, Justice Hagan. PDF. The City As a Trap: 20th and 21st Century American Literature and the American Myth of Mobility, Andrew Joseph Hoffmann. PDF. The Fantastic and the First World War, Brian Kenna. PDF.
Thesis. Your thesis is the central claim in your essay—your main insight or idea about your source or topic. Your thesis should appear early in an academic essay, followed by a logically constructed argument that supports this central claim. A strong thesis is arguable, which means a thoughtful reader could disagree with it and therefore ...
Dissertation & Thesis Outline | Example & Free Templates. Published on June 7, 2022 by Tegan George.Revised on November 21, 2023. A thesis or dissertation outline is one of the most critical early steps in your writing process.It helps you to lay out and organize your ideas and can provide you with a roadmap for deciding the specifics of your dissertation topic and showcasing its relevance to ...
English (MA) Theses. Below is a selection of dissertations from the English program in Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences that have been voluntarily included in Chapman University Digital Commons. Additional dissertations from years prior to 2019 are available through the Leatherby Libraries' print collection or in ...
Graduate, Masters Theses: Rachel Elizabeth Schirra. "Attitudes Toward Korean-Accented and Korean American English." MA Thesis. U of Washington, 2012. Graduate, Masters Theses: English, Korean, Language Attitudes: Anthony M. Wong. "Interface Between the Cluster Controller and the Pixel Processor of the Proteus System." MS Thesis. U of Washington ...
Recent Graduate Theses. The subjects of MA theses have included studies of individual poets or dramatists, novelists or autobiographers, as well as explorations of literary movements, themes or periods. Some of our more recent titles are: "The Bottom and the Orchard: Where Space and Place are Created, Controlled, and Maintained in Sula and ...
Theses/Dissertations from 2021. PDF. Social Cues in Animated Pedagogical Agents for Second Language Learners: the Application of The Embodiment Principle in Video Design, Sahar M. Alyahya. PDF. A Field-Wide Examination of Cross-Listed Courses in Technical Professional Communication, Carolyn M. Gubala. PDF.
Master Thesis. graded. Language of Instruction. English. Some information is available on the website of the Faculty of Arts. Below, you find the most important guidelines for Master Theses at the English Department. However, we strongly encourage you to read the Faculty guidelines as well. Template Cover Master Thesis (English) (DOCX, 56 KB)
Browse By. This collection contains a selection of recent Masters theses from the department of Linguistics and English Language. Please note that only the Title and Abstract will be available for dissertations from the current academic year. All other content from previous years is available on an Open Access basis.
Step 1 - Understand your research questions. The first step in the reading phase of your master's thesis is knowing what research questions you are trying to answer. Hopefully you have identified these questions with your supervisor before you started to work on your thesis.
Advanced research and scholarship. Theses and dissertations, free to find, free to use. October 3, 2022. OATD is dealing with a number of misbehaved crawlers and robots, and is currently taking some steps to minimize their impact on the system. This may require you to click through some security screen.
ELT master's dissertations. Every year the British Council partners with UK universities to find ELT master's dissertations with potential for impact on policy and practice. The scheme, where universities submit one dissertation from their ELT master's programmes and then judge them along with a panel of British Council experts, is designed to ...
To help guide your reader, end your introduction with an outline of the structure of the thesis or dissertation to follow. Share a brief summary of each chapter, clearly showing how each contributes to your central aims. However, be careful to keep this overview concise: 1-2 sentences should be enough. Note.
Presented: Fall 2019 (Chair: Elly van Gelderen) Jin, Seonghan. Teaching English as an International Language in the Military Context: Incorporaing TEIL into the English Curriculum of the Korean Military Academy. Presented: Spring 2019 (Chair: Aya Matsuda) Lundwall, Rachel. A Selection of Sacred Hymns: Singing Women into Citizenship in Zion.
Master's programs in Germany offer a diverse range of options, with many taught in English. They are known for their affordability, top-notch curricula, hands-on learning, and excellent career prospects. So, it's no wonder that master's degrees are the go-to choice for international students in Germany. During the 2021/2022 period, 42.6% of them (148,901 students) were […]
Students who are completing a dissertation, thesis, or report are invited to join the Graduate School to learn about the resources available to them to assist in scheduling their defense, formatting their documents, and submitting their documents. In one afternoon, you can learn everything you need to be successful and complete your degree in a . . .
Step 2 - Submitting the Master Thesis Form. Before you can submit your Master's Thesis (see step 3) you have to submit the Master Thesis Form using the application. Important information: ›The system will close at midnight, please start in time. Technical or internet problems cannot be accepted as an excuse for not submitting before the ...