word limit for m phil thesis

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MPhil students are required to submit two essays and a dissertation. Each of them must be on a topic approved by the Degree Committee that falls within one of the specified subject areas . The essays should be on topics from two different subject areas.

You are encouraged to explore a range of different topics, balancing them so that they are both relevant to your interests and also span the subject of History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine.

You are permitted to write your dissertation in the same general area as one of your essays, but the dissertation and essay must address different questions, and the dissertation must show evidence of a substantial new research effort. Any use of the essay in the dissertation has to be appropriately referenced, just like any other primary or secondary source, as if the essay were written by a different person.

Similarly, if an essay or dissertation builds on previously examined, graded or published work it is essential that this is clearly identified in the text and is appropriately referenced, as if it were written by a different person. The assessors should be in no doubt as to what work you have completed in your current degree course and it is this that will be assessed.

Finding a supervisor

The Department publishes a list of members of the Department and associates who are willing to supervise MPhil essays and dissertations, together with the topics on which they are prepared to supervise. You are not permitted to work with the same supervisor for more than two pieces of coursework.

Dissertation and essay supervisors

Your supervisors will see you on a very regular basis, but it is up to you to schedule those meetings according to your needs. As a rule of thumb, you can expect the following supervisions:

• 3 for each essay;
• 4 for the dissertation.

If you would like to work with an external supervisor – someone who is not a member of the Department – you must obtain permission from the MPhil Manager.

Topic forms

Online topic forms for the essays and dissertation will be available on Moodle .

You should complete each form by stating the topic of the essay or dissertation, selecting one of the ten subject areas , and entering the name of your supervisor.

The deadline for completing each form is shown on key dates and deadlines .

Changing the topic, subject area or supervisor

Once the Degree Committee has approved the topic, subject area and supervisor for an essay or dissertation, you must apply for permission if you want to change any of them. Permission is not automatically granted. See key dates and deadlines for the last dates for changing topics.

To change the topic, subject area or supervisor, you should complete the request form . The request must be approved by the MPhil Manager.

The University and the Department of History and Philosophy of Science take plagiarism very seriously. Please read our advice about what plagiarism is and how to avoid it.

Plagiarism guidelines

The Department uses the text-matching software Turnitin UK to blanket screen all student work submitted in Moodle.

Use of Turnitin UK

Referencing

For guidance about using correct and consistent referencing, see this page:

Human participants

If you are planning to collect data from human participants, or use data collected from human participants, you will need to plan well in advance to ensure that you have obtained ethical approval before starting work on your project and have given consideration to how you are going to handle the information you collect.

Working with human participants: ethical approval and data protection

Examined work should be uploaded to the 'HPS MPhil Coursework' site on Moodle before 12noon on the day of the deadline. Paper copies are not required.

Please note:

• The work should have numbered pages, footnotes and a bibliography.
• You cannot upload more than one file for each submission.
• The following file formats are accepted: DOC, DOCX, PDF, RTF.

The essays and dissertation will be marked anonymously, so it is important that your name does not appear anywhere on them.

Please give the following information on the first page:

• Subject area (the same as the one you selected on your topic form)

You are advised to check your email the day after you have submitted to ensure there are no queries about your work.

The Senior Examiner will advise the Examiners' Meeting of any late submissions and, unless there are exceptional circumstances, this will normally entail the cumulative loss of marks for each day's lateness beyond the published deadline: i.e. within one day, one mark will be deducted; within two days, two additional marks will be deducted (making three marks in total); within three days, an additional three marks will be deducted (making six marks in total), etc. Given that problems can and do occur (such as computers crashing), students are advised that their work should be ready almost a week in advance of the formal deadline.

Please note that the Department will retain a copy of your dissertation and essays and may make them available to future students unless you make a written request to the contrary to the Departmental Administrator.

All requests for an extension to the submission date for coursework must have a good reason and must be supported by a College Tutor and Course Manager. You are advised to discuss potential extension requests with the Course Manager before submitting a formal application.

Where an extension is granted, the deadline is 12noon on the new date.

For an extension of up to seven days the student should complete the coursework extension self-certification form .

For an extension longer than seven days the student should download and complete the extension form . The form must then be signed by the College Tutor and the Course Manager.

Students are reminded that extensions are not cost free : they reduce the amount of time you can devote to subsequent pieces of work, limit opportunities for you to receive feedback and participate in other aspects of the course, and may delay the approval of your degree. A granted extension does not mean that your supervisor will be available beyond term time.

The word limit is:

• 5,000 words for Essay 1
• 8,000 words for Essay 2
• 12,000 words for the Dissertation

This includes footnotes but excludes the bibliography and prefatory matter.

Figures may be included in the work and should contribute to the argument. They should be captioned only so as to specify the source; such captions are excluded from the word count. Formulae may be used where appropriate and are also excluded from the word count.

The word limit is strictly enforced. Each piece of work will be inspected to ensure that the word limit has been respected. If work is over the limit, the candidate will be asked to revise the work so that it does conform to the word limit. Given that the inspection will take place at the time of the deadline, the rule governing penalties for late submission will be applied (i.e. if the revised work is submitted within one day, one mark will be deducted; within two days, two marks will be deducted, etc).

The Department uses Microsoft Word to check word counts. If you use coding software, such as LaTeX, you should be aware that this software may give a different word count. You may find it helpful to use TeXcount , an online tool that analyses LaTeX code to provide an accurate count of words, formulae, captions and footnotes. If using software other than Microsoft Word you should submit a screenshot to demonstrate the word count from the software used.

Policy on data, editions, translations and bibliographies

An essay or dissertation should be self-contained, including or citing all information needed for an examiner to follow its argument.

The word limit normally includes text and footnotes but not the bibliography. However, in certain cases permission may be obtained for materials relevant to the argument of the essay or dissertation to be submitted for the information of the examiners in the form of an appendix, with such materials excluded from the word count. Materials falling into this category may include primary source materials (texts and images) that are not readily accessible, transcriptions, translations, questionnaire responses, statistical tables, formal proofs, technical descriptions of objects, analytical bibliographies and other data produced by the candidate that they wish to make accessible.

Conversely, material contributing to the word count should normally consist of the candidate's own discussion and analysis of such materials. Exceptionally, when a critical edition or translation, a formal proof, an analytical bibliography, or a technical description of objects and their provenances is based on substantial original scholarship and cannot be easily separated from the argument of an essay or dissertation, permission may be obtained for it to be included within the body of the essay or dissertation, hence contributing to the word count. No more than one third of an essay or dissertation should consist of such material.

Applications for such permissions should be sought, in consultation with the supervisor, from the Senior Examiner via the MPhil Managers.

Feedback to MPhil students

During the course of their studies, students receive feedback in person from their supervisors, and from the Course Manager, as well as from termly online supervision reports. Essay 1 is examined prior to the end of the Michaelmas Term in order to provide students with early feedback on their performance so they can gauge the level of achievement which the course requires, and so they have reliable pointers as to future applications for the PhD, whose deadlines are often early in the academic year. Essay 2 is examined at the start of Easter Term, and feedback is given on this shortly afterwards together with a provisional overall mark for the essay component of the course.

After each Board of Examiners meeting, the MPhil Managers meet with students, report the provisional agreed class and provide copies of the non-confidential parts of the reports. At these meetings the work is discussed and assessors' remarks are put in context for future work. Students may contact their supervisor after this meeting if they want to discuss the reports in more detail.

Marks are subject to moderation up until the final Board of Examiners meeting, and require approval by the Degree Committee in late June. At the end of the course a transcript with details of individual marks will be available on CamSIS.

Feedback on the overall performance of each year is provided by Senior and External Examiners' Reports which are submitted at the end of the year. Students may find it useful to see examiners' comments on the previous year's work, particularly mark distributions and recommendations.

Request form (for changing the topic, subject area or supervisor, or adding an appendix)

Extension form (for requesting a deadline extension of more than seven days)

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1. Thesis preparation

• Information and services
• Higher Degree by Research
• Preparing for the Thesis Examination Process
• Formatting your thesis
• Alternate thesis formats
• Including publications in your thesis
• Language and writing
• Preliminary pages
• Plagiarism and iThenticate
• Nominating thesis examiners
• Requesting a confidential examination
• Resources and training

2. Formatting your thesis

Your thesis must comply with the formatting requirements outlined in the Higher Degree by Research Thesis Examination Procedures:

• Procedures with Oral Examination
• Procedures without Oral Examination

The most appropriate referencing style will depend on your discipline and your advisory team will be able to provide advice on disciplinary norms.

It's important to adhere to the word limit when writing your thesis. Your thesis must not exceed:

• 80,000 words for a  PhD
• 40,000 words for an  MPhil .

The word limit:

• includes the preliminary pages
• includes  all footnotes and appendices
• includes  all in-text referencing, but
• does not include  your bibliography/reference list.

Permission to exceed the word limit

If your thesis is more than 10% over the word limit, you can request special consideration by emailing the Dean of the Graduate School at  [email protected] .

In your email, explain why you need to exceed the maximum word limit. You should also ask your principal advisor and Director of Higher Degree Research (DHDR) to write a letter supporting your request. Attach their letters to your email.

• Art history thesis by exhibition format
• Creative writing MPhil thesis format
• Creative writing PhD thesis format
• Music thesis format
• 2. Thesis submission
• 3. Thesis examination
• 4. Award of degree
• Thesis submission date and scholarship extension

Need assistance?

Chat to the Graduate School Team

Engineering Division: Resources and Services: Theses

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Theses/Dissertations

It is strongly recommended that you look at examples of previous theses/dissertations not only from The UWI but from counterpart researchers all over the world.

Examination of these works will give you an idea the most recent research done in your area, provide insights into the typical structure of the document, how to approach a literature review, and reveal the various methodologies used in relevant subject research.

Useful Links

• Managing Information for Research by Shamin Renwick Last Updated May 9, 2024 454 views this year
• Guide to the Research Process by Petra Pierre-Robertson Last Updated May 9, 2024 372 views this year
• Literature Review
• Evaluation of Websites
• Turnitin - Student Quick Start Guide
• Using Turnitin on Myelearning
• Turnitin FAQs

UWI Thesis Guides

The University of the West Indies (UWI) has specific guidelines for the writing of theses, dissertations, research papers/projects and casebooks. This  Guide  provides detailed instructions related to formatting your thesis and is used by the Librarians to scrutinize your thesis/report.

The University of the West Indies, since 2008 has allowed submission of a Manuscript-Based thesis for MPhil, PhD and DBA programmes. Please note that Manuscript-Based thesis is NOT mandatory. It is only an alternative option and students can continue to choose writing a full thesis in the traditional format for submission to examination. The  Guidelines for Manuscript-Based Theses (October 2021) provides detailed instructions related to formatting Manuscript-Based theses and is used by the Librarians to scrutinize your thesis.

Want to Learn More?

Students can visit the Graduate Studies and Research webpage for additional information or email [email protected] 

Thesis Template

This template is recommended, but not mandatory, for UWI STA postgraduates, e.g. MSc, MPhil and PhD candidates, using The  Chicago Manual of Style (17th ed.) (CMOS) author-date system , and submitting theses in a traditional format, with either numbered headings or unnumbered headings.

The templates are compatible with versions of Microsoft Word 2010 and onwards.

If using numbered headings use:

• Thesis Template CMOS Author-Date Traditional Numbered   Last modified 31 July 2023

If using unnumbered headings use:

• Thesis Template CMOS Author-Date Traditional Unnumbered   Last modified 31 July 2023

Supporting Documents

• Guidelines to the UWI STA Thesis Template   Last modified 31 July 2023
• Tips for Formatting UWI STA Thesis Using Microsoft Word

Thesis Checking & Binding

Thesis Checking

The Librarians of the Campus Libraries are available for advice on the technical requirements of the thesis (layout, arrangement of works etc.).   The candidate must ensure that the work complies with the  Thesis Guide  and the  recommended style manual .  For additional information and guidance throughout the process, please contact your  Faculty Liaison Librarian .

Thesis Binding

After the award of the degree has been approved by The University, the Library's Bindery can  bind a personal copy of your thesis at a cost .

This collection contains 3,866 abstracts of postgraduate theses held in the West Indiana Collection at the Alma  Jordan Library.

UWI Full Text Theses

Browse / search full-text theses and dissertations from the UWI. Note: This collection currently represents a  small percentage of the theses and dissertations that have been submitted to the UWI.

Subscription Databases

Theses on the Open Web

Ask a Librarian (Online Contact Form)

The staff of the Engineering Division of the Alma Jordan Library are ready to help you get the materials you need!

As always, you can contact:

-  Adnan Maharaj  - Library Attendant

-  Teriq Thomas  - Library Assistant II 

-  Randy Siew - Faculty Liaison Librarian - Engineering 

📧  [email protected]

☎  (868) 662-2002 ext. 82244

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• Last Updated: May 9, 2024 2:44 PM
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