MS Completion Milestones
Dr. Laurie Williams
Here are
some milestones for completion of a MS thesis with me as your advisor. It is important for you to stick to this schedule
to have a high-quality thesis and to create some valuable research to
contribute.
In the
below chart, time T is the semester in which you would like to graduate. T-1 is one semester before you would like to
graduate and so forth.
You must
complete these milestones on schedule.
You cannot advance to T-1 until all your T-2 milestones are complete and
approved. As a result, your graduation
may be pushed out a semester if you do not complete your milestones on
time.
Semester |
Activities |
T-3 or
earlier |
We need
to work together in some capacity.
This may be because you are a student in a class I teach, or we have
an independent study project that we work on together. At the end of this we can mutually decide
whether or not we feel we can have a productive research relationship. I will not sign any plan of work to be your
advisor before the completion of this activity. |
T-2 |
1. You complete a topic selection paper. This paper is approximately four pages and
consists of the following section: a. Problem, hypothesis,
or question b. Importance of
research (why it is worthy of research) c. Theory base for
research (more important for PhD) d. Significant prior
research e. Possible research
approach or methodology (alternatives) f.
Potential outcomes of research and importance of each 2. Once the advisor and
the student agree that the above template is completed for a "good"
research topic, this is expanded somewhat, 10 pages max. At
this point, we choose your committee members and schedule a meeting with
the whole committee to explain the research plans to the
faculty. However, the
meeting should help smooth out expectations for all committee members. We don’t want any surprises at the last
minute that you haven’t met your committee’s expectations. 3. Write your
background section for your thesis paper. |
T-1 |
1. Complete all research activities (now you
have your project done, but have not written it up yet). 2. Your table of contents, background, and
all introductory chapters should all be written and reviewed by
me. |
T |
1. Write a journal
paper (or possibly a conference paper if timing allows) with me based on your
research results (prior to the completion of the thesis document). This collaborative activity will set the
expectations for the thesis document.
(The thesis will be an expanded version of the paper.) 2. Write your
thesis. We can work on it in bits and
pieces throughout the semester.
However, you must give it to me in its entirety 3 weeks before your
defense date. That allows us two weeks for finalizing the whole document
prior to giving it to your committee.
You committee will take the final week to read it. 3. Defend your thesis. 4. Revise your thesis
and obtain approval from the thesis editor. |