The Master's Essay: Guidelines and Helpful Hints

Purpose

All students in the Master of Arts in English program are required to complete a Master’s Essay in the semester in which they plan to graduate. The essay provides a final opportunity to develop an area of expertise and to refine writing, revising, and editing abilities.

Guidelines         

• Students should seek an advisor one full semester before they write their Master’s Essay
• Current MLA documentation style is to be used
• The Master’s Essay counts for 3 credits toward the MA degree
• The Master’s Essay is graded either “Satisfactory” or “Revise”

Length 

Approximately 18-22 pages, double-spaced, including notes and bibliography.

Choosing a Topic

The Master’s Essay is designed to refine your skill in substantially re-thinking and re-envisioning a previously considered idea. Ideally, the topic should evolve from a paper already written for a graduate course (it need not be the final or major paper for the course). The best essays inevitably result from getting started early.

Essay Advisor

Once you have determined your topic, you should approach a faculty member whom you would like to have as your advisor for the project. The advisor must have expertise in the subject and should ideally be someone who has taught you in a graduate course.  When a faculty member agrees to supervise your essay, establish together how often you will meet and when drafts of your work will be completed for review (consult the fall 2009 semester timeline or the spring 2010 semester timeline for fixed deadlines) and fill out a Master's Essay Proposal Form. The essay advisor will read the primary text(s), recommend secondary materials, and offer feedback and guidance during the writing process.

Registration

The Master's Essay is its own course and has its own registration. The first date on the upcoming semester timeline is your first step in registering for this course. Please email the program coordinator with your intention to enroll. You will be provisionally enrolled until your Master's Essay Proposal Form has been approved by both your advisor and the program director. 

The Review Committee 

In consultation with your advisor, choose a secondary reader--a person generally familiar with the subject area of the essay. The third reader can be completely outside the area.  These readers, together with your essay advisor, form the Review Committee that will read the essay and participate in the conversation you will hold upon completion of the project.

Drafting the Essay

Working closely with your advisor, rethink and reshape your original paper, adding to or extending your ideas into new areas, deleting or altering material in order to reflect the depth of your current research. In short, while your Master’s Essay evolves from the “germ” of your original class paper, it should finally be a substantial revision of that paper, a new entity. You should take your paper through several drafts before completing the final version. Try to make sure that your secondary reader receives drafts and consults with you during the writing process.

The Master’s Essay Review

Approximately ninety minutes in length, the Essay Review is an extensive discussion between you and your committee members about the essay’s strengths and weaknesses, the revision process, and the essay’s relation to your curriculum and future interests or plans.

Master’s Essay Evaluation

As the culminating project for an advanced degree in English, the Master’s Essay is evaluated according to the following criteria:

• Originality, intelligence, and depth of thought
• Careful synthesis and use of secondary sources to refine the argument
• Clear, logical, and effective organization of ideas
• Smooth, efficient, graceful, error-free prose

A completed Master’s Essay Review Results form, and three final copies of the Master's Essay--one paper copy and two hard bound copies--must be submitted to the graduate English program coordinator before the degree is officially conferred. 

Guidelines for Formatting and Binding the Master's Essay

Click here for information.

Master’s Essay Presentations

At the end of each semester, students writing the Master’s Essay speak about their experiences during the writing process at a special event that is open to interested students and faculty, family and friends. These presentations have been a celebration of the work as well as an opportunity for current students to get helpful insights as they look ahead to writing their own essays. 

Helpful Hints from Students Who Have “Been There!”

Talk to other students. At the beginning of the process, put yourself in touch with other students who are working on their essays. The writing process can be slow, frustrating, and solitary! Since writing the essay does not include the consistent interaction and discussion with others that a classroom setting provides, you may find it helpful to set up informal meetings with other writers. Get together once a week, or every other week, and share your topics, methods of research, thesis development, troubles and roadblocks, breakthroughs and discoveries. Although your papers may differ widely in content, you may find new avenues in your writing by sharing your ideas out loud. It also helps to know that other writers have bad days, good days, setbacks, and leaps of progress – just like you!

Begin early. Try to have your thesis nearly formulated by the 3rd week in the semester, but if you do find yourself behind schedule, DON’T PANIC! Allow yourself a day, or even a week, away from the library or the computer. Talk over your mind-blocks with your advisor and discuss your ideas to help pinpoint what you really want to write about. Don’t be afraid to ask your advisor, another faculty member, or a friend to hear you out! Editorial comments on your drafts are helpful, but discussing your ideas in the abstract can also help to narrow and refine your pursuits. “Talking out” your ideas  before you begin to write and at points along the way can help push your creative thinking into new areas. A wild thought that you initially think is just free-association or a “literary stretch,” if backed up confidently and effectively in your writing, can mean the difference between a good paper and an original paper.

Re-read and review. In preparation for the Essay Review, re-read your own introduction. Recall why you chose the subject you did--what was the first “spark of interest” that led you to your topic? Be ready to state your thesis, intentions, and main arguments in a few sentences. Be ready to talk about the process you went through in researching and writing your topic. How does your subject relate to the courses you have taken, your Master’s Degree Program as a whole, and the studies or work you plan to pursue in the future?

Think discussion, not defense.  Think of the Review as a discussion of your paper, rather than a defense of its argument. You may find yourself defending certain points, but you will undoubtedly be prepared to do so if you are well-versed in not only what you wrote, but what you decided not to write. Go over your early notes, and be ready to discuss avenues from your research you did not pursue. Consider your paper in its larger spectrum of related literature, criticism, and theory. Note places in your essay where you made a strong assertion and be prepared to rephrase the argument. Be aware of contradictions or statements that go “against tradition,” and be prepared to explain them.