Requirements for the Master's Degree

Revised Requirements for the Master's Degree for Students Entering in the Fall of 2007

Courses:

The M.A. in English requires thirty semester hours of graduate work (nine courses plus a thesis or thesis option registration for 3 hours credit).  Degree candidates are required to complete the following courses:

ENGL 606 (Rhetoical Theory and Practice). Students not planning to teach must request a waiver of this requirement (3 hours)

ENGL 992 (Thesis Option) or ENGL 993 (Master's Thesis) (3 hours)

An English language course: one of the following:  613, 719, 814, 720, or with the permission of the Director of Graduate Studies:  a class in linguistics, theory of the language, or philosophy of language (3 hours)

Two ProSeminars taken in the first three semesters of the program (6 hours)

Two distribution courses. With the year 1800 as a chronological dividing line, students whose area of interest falls primarily on one side of 1800 will take two courses on the other side of the chronological divide.  A ProSeminar that fits this description can fulfill both the ProSeminar requirement and the distribution requirement at one time. (Up to 6 hours)

Three to five additional courses in an area or areas of interest to the student, which may include literary theory, genre studies, etc. (9 - 15 hours)


 TOTAL: 30 hours Three courses per semester constitute a normal graduate load for full-time graduate students who are not working. The Writing Program generally requires that students teaching two courses register for no more than six credit hours in that semester, and students teaching one course register for no more than nine. Unless students are enrolled in 992, 993, or 994, if they are taking only 6 hours because they are teaching two courses, they must fill out a WAIVER OF HOURS FORM, to be considered by the Graduate School as a full-time student.  Course choices should be made with the aim of deepening and expanding knowledge of English and American literature.

If a student wishes to take a minor outside the Department during the M.A. (normally nine semester hours, or three courses), the program outlined must be approved by the student's advisor and the Director of Graduate Studies.

Portfolio of two research papers:

During the first year of the program, students must write at least two 18-25-page research papers (these can come from ProSeminars or from other courses).  Students will submit two of these (with instructors’ comments on them)--the ones they judge to represent their strongest work in the program--to the Director of Graduate Studies at the end of their second semester in the program to be placed in their files.  One of these papers will be revised over the summer to become the student’s thesis option. 

Thesis Option or Thesis:

Every M.A. student who elects to write the thesis option must enroll in English 992 for three credits; any who elect to write a thesis must enroll in English 993 for three credits.  Normally, students will choose the thesis option.  If you have specific reasons for preferring to write a thesis, you should discuss your plan with your thesis advisor and get the approval of the Director of Graduate Studies. Because tuition for twelve hours and nine hours is the same, it is usually financially advantageous to register for 993 or 992 for three credits when taking three additional regular courses.  In some cases, it makes sense to register for only 993 or 992, which confers full-time registration by itself.  Be sure to register for your advisor’s section of 993 or 992.

The thesis option should represent the results of an independent research project of value to the student and the scholarly community and should reveal the student's command of the appropriate bibliography and research methods.  The model for the thesis option is the professional journal essay, usually 20-30 pages in length.  In developing the topic of a thesis option, the student should consult the scholarship to make sure no one has dealt with that topic exhaustively and discuss the project with a member of the graduate faculty who specializes in the field of the topic.  The student should decide on a director by the end of the second semester of graduate work, so that from then on (until the student chooses a dissertation director), the thesis option director may advise the student about courses and research.

Students must submit their completed thesis options to their thesis advisors and the Director of Graduate Studies by the last Friday in August at the beginning of their second year in the M.A. program.  By an early fall deadline (see Calendar of deadlines) the thesis advisor will either approve the thesis option essay or return it with suggestions for revision.  If the thesis advisor requires revision, the revised thesis option will be due to the advisor and the Director of Graduate Studies by the first day of classes in January.

Preparation of the thesis manuscript: Because a thesis (rather than a thesis option) must be submitted to the Graduate School, it must follow strict specifications in formatting.  Any student submitting a thesis must be sure to look at information on electronic theses and dissertation submission and on paper submission (The Guide to Theses and Dissertations).  The thesis must be read and approved by the director and a second reader, in its draft form, before final printing.  After final printing but before photocopying, the thesis should be submitted to the Graduate Studies Office for the approval and the signature of the Director of Graduate Studies, who is a third reader.  Placement of notes (footnotes/endnotes) will be decided by the thesis director in consultation with the student.  The deadlines for submitting a thesis to the Graduate School and for applying for candidacy and a degree are inflexible. Graduation checklists are available in the Graduate Studies Office.  Before presenting a thesis (as opposed to thesis option) to the Department or registering for more than thirty hours, a student must satisfy the foreign language requirement. 

The thesis option (or thesis) must be filed in the Graduate School before an M.A. student will be considered for admission to the doctoral program. 

Oral defense of the thesis option:

In the course of writing the thesis option, the student (in consultation with his/.her advisor) should identify and meet with a second faculty member who will serve as a reader.  In anticipation of the oral defense of the thesis option paper, the student will submit copies of the thesis option to his/her advisor and reader at the end of the summer.  In the fall semester, at a mutually convenient time, the advisor, reader, and student will meet for an hour to discuss the paper.  The student will submit the following form once the meeting time has been determined [thesis option defense form].  In this conversation, the student will be assessed in terms of his or her ability to talk intelligently about both the content and the methodological approach presented in the paper.  The oral examination should be scheduled no later than mid-October (check the current calendar of deadlines to ascertain the last day of scheduling).  Any student failing the exam will not be asked to rewrite the paper, but to re-take the oral examination.  (In the rare case of a thesis, the student will take a comparable oral examination on the thesis.)  

Residence Credit Requirement:

“Masters’ candidates are required to complete a minimum residence credit of two full semesters, either by full-time registration, or by part-time registration over a large number of semesters.  The residence credit hour requirement requires UNC-Chapel Hill registration (i.e., transferred credit will not be included in the residence credit calculation), although not necessarily physical presence on campus (the student may be doing field research, for example).”  Please see The Graduate School Handbook for more information.

Transfer of Credit:

A maximum of six semester hours of graduate credit may be transferred from another accredited institution, or may be awarded for graduate courses taken at this institution before admission to the Graduate School.  Grades earned on transferred work must be equivalent to B or better.  Transferred credit will be accepted by the Graduate School only upon recommendation by the student's major department.  Transfer credit does not reduce minimum residence credit requirements for a master's degree.  According to Graduate School regulations, courses taken at foreign universities transfer only in exceptional cases.

To receive transfer credit a student must submit a written request to the Dean of Enrolled Students of the Graduate School.  The student should include course number and title, semester and year taken, final grade, and institution where the course was taken.  An official transcript must be on file with the Graduate School reflecting satisfactory completion of course work.  The student should meet with the Director of Graduate Studies and request that the English Department support the request.  The Director of Graduate Studies may then submit the Department's recommendation to the Graduate School.  The student will receive written notice from the Graduate School, approving or denying transfer credit.

Demonstration of Proficiency in One Foreign Language:

The English Department considers a reading knowledge of foreign languages essential to the educational and professional aims of its degree programs.  M.A. candidates must show proficiency in one foreign language and Ph.D. candidates in two.  (The language used to satisfy M.A. requirements counts as one of the two required for the Ph.D.)  The Department recommends Latin, French, German, Italian, or Spanish, with the choice to be made on the basis of scholarly appropriateness and in consultation with the Director of Graduate Studies or a faculty advisor.  The use of other languages to fulfill the requirement must be approved by the Director of Graduate Studies. 

Ways to satisfy this requirement are:

Students whose native tongue is not English may use English to fulfill the foreign language proficiency requirement. 

The foreign language requirement must be satisfied by the semester in which a student intends to earn each degree.

Application for Candidacy:

Early in the semester in which the candidate expects to complete the degree, an application to graduate must be submitted and approved by the Director of Graduate Studies, and then submitted to the Graduate School.  The Application to Graduate must be submitted no later than the deadlines posted on the Academic & Deadline calendar.  Please note if you do not graduate in the semester you expected to, you must submit another application for graduation in a future semester.

Time Limit:

Under normal circumstances, the M.A. can be earned in three or four semesters.  Graduate School regulations allow five calendar years from the date of first registration for completion.

Proceeding Beyond the Master's Degree:

Students must apply to proceed beyond the master's degree.  Forms are available in the Graduate Studies Office (and may be posted on our web site).  The Graduate Advisory Committee judges a student's suitability for the doctoral program on the basis of coursework and grades, teachers' evaluations, the portfolio of two papers, evaluations of the thesis option (or thesis), and performance on the oral defense of the thesis option.  The Graduate Advisory Committee evaluates petitions to proceed only after all M.A. degree requirements, including the thesis option or thesis, have been fulfilled.  When a student is given permission to proceed beyond the master’s, the student must register for doctoral studies in the following regular semester (fall or spring).  Leaves of Absence are not permitted between degrees.  For students whose native language is not English, a terminal master's program with a concentration in American literature is available with the approval of the Director of Graduate Studies.