THesis Guidelines & REquirements
What follows is information about the master’s thesis, candidacy for the Master of Fine Arts degree, and graduate commencement.
In addition to the thesis, students must complete the requisite coursework to be advanced to candidacy for the M.F.A. degree, and they must meet the deadlines to participate in commencement ceremonies.
English 290
During the spring semester of his or her second year, each MFA candidate is required to pursue a tutorial course of study under the direction of an assigned faculty writer in the student’s genre and a second reader. (In the fall semester, the thesis director may be considered an informal advisor, providing students with general guidance and helping them to create deadlines and a plan for revision.) Students meet with their advising professor three times during the semester to confer on the following aspects of the thesis: final revision and editing of individual pieces to be included in the manuscript, selection and arrangement of material, and coherence of the work as a whole. During the third meeting, the student takes an oral exam with the thesis director and second reader in order to assess his/her knowledge of contemporary literary aesthetics and how they relate to his/her work. Upon satisfactory completion of the thesis and the oral exam, the thesis director and the second reader approve the thesis.
English 290 is a non-unit course that carries a $75 fee, payable at registration for the spring term. Through this tutorial, the student performs the revision necessary to turn two years of writing into a coherent, complete, and polished book-length thesis: a collection of essays, poems, or short stories; a novel, a memoir, or other book length work of nonfiction.
The Thesis
* Parameters
The overall scope of the thesis will be arranged between the student and the thesis director, but minimum page limits have been set at 36 pages for poetry, 80 pages for fiction and nonfiction. The maximum page limit for all genres is 125 pages.
* Director and Second Reader
The thesis director is an assigned faculty writer in a student's genre. The second reader can be any faculty member in the MFA Program or the English Department or any visiting writer with whom a student has taken a course. No faculty member or visiting writer is obligated to be a second reader. Please ask your desired second reader if he or she is willing to be the second reader before putting his/her name on your second reader form. If a visiting writer has a question about his or her duties as second reader, please refer him/her to the Program Director.
* Sign-off sheet
Each completed thesis will be read and approved by the thesis director and an additional second reader from the MFA Program or English Department. Format and text of the sign-off sheet can be found by visiting the library’s thesis page of its website: http://library.stmarys-ca.edu/services/thesis.php. The sign-off sheet signifies the purpose and importance of the thesis as a tangible result of your work in the MFA Program. It is the student’s responsibility to have the sheet signed by the thesis director and second reader only; the Program Coordinator will secure all other signatures. If you like, you may download Word documents that contain correctly-formatted versions of the sign-off sheet, the title page, and the copyright page here, here, and here. Simply copy the text of these pages, paste it into your thesis, and change the relevant information (your name, the title, the date, etc.).
* Format
Theses must be turned in loose. You can put your thesis in a folder, in a box, or in any container that does not bind itself to the paper. For all other formatting issues, again, please refer to the website: http://library.stmarys-ca.edu/services/thesis.php.
* How to turn in completed thesis
Make sure your thesis is given directly (in hand) to the Program Coordinator. They will be kept by the Coordinator until the Trappist monks collect them for binding in the first week of June.
* Personal Copies
You are strongly encouraged to check out the bound theses from last year, on the second floor of the Saint Mary’s Library. If you’re interested, it’s possible to pay an estimated fee of $12 per copy to have bound copies for yourself. The monks do a better job of binding than most major publishers. Those who didn’t take advantage of this in years past are quite regretful about it. You can even choose the color of your binding. Please note that the fee covers binding only; if you want seven copies bound, you are responsible for eight copies of the manuscript. The MFA Program pays for the copy that is bound and cataloged in the college library.
* Petition for Candidacy
In order for the M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing to be granted, students are required to fill out a Petition for Candidacy form. This form must be turned in to the Program Coordinator no later than Thursday, May 14, 2009.
* Commencement
All graduate students across the college must pay a graduation fee of an estimated $150. Information about graduate commencement, such as invitations and cap and gowns, will be available during the spring semester.
Thesis Calendar:
What follows are important dates for the graduation and thesis requirements:
* Wednesday, March 11, 2009: Return second reader form to Program Coordinator
* Monday, April 6, 2009: Submit anthology bio and writing sample to Program Coordinator
* Thursday, May 14, 2009: Submit Petition for Candidacy form to MFA Office
* Thursday, May 21, 2009: Submit thesis sign-off page to MFA Office
* Sunday, May 24, 2009: Graduate Commencement
* Wednesday, May 27, 2009: Turn in final draft of thesis and personal copies for bindng.
