The seminar supports MA International Relations students in the process of conceiving, designing, and writing the thesis, complementing the input they receive from their supervisors. The thesis seminar consists of three workshops: In the first workshop students present their thesis topic and initial ideas about how to tackle it. The second workshop gives students an opportunity to present and discuss their fully elaborated research design, i.e. precise statements of their (final) research question, its (normative, scientific, or practical) relevance, its place in the literature, their working hypothesis (or hypotheses), the role of theory in their study, the methods they are employing and the reasons for choosing them, the data they are using, etc. Finally, the third workshop is devoted to discussing results of students’ investigation on the basis of a “writing sample”, i.e. a draft of the introduction or of a key chapter. In each workshop students receive feedback from the instructors and their fellow students helping them to identify problems in their arguments and possible solutions to these problems.

Credits

3 CP: three progress reports