Planning your thesis

Your thesis may be a vehicle for working out plans for future research or a free-standing project. The primary aim of the thesis should be the theoretical analysis of ethnographic material; it may also be a new synthesis of data, and/ or new interpretation of existing material. You will be expected to demonstrate that you can produce a coherent anthropological argument based upon a secure knowledge of a set of substantive materials, and will be expected to place your research findings within the existing literature on the subject. Training will be directed to the research procedures necessary to produce an analytical work to professional standard.

The thesis needs careful planning with your supervisor. As a rough guide, we suggest the following timetable:

  1. After the first four weeks of the Michaelmas term, you should begin to choose a subject area and topic in consultation with your supervisor
  2. during the Christmas vacation, you should try to do the bulk of the necessary reading, and begin a rough outline of the questions you hope to address and how
  3. You should discuss the subject and title of your thesis with your supervisor at the beginning of the Lent term. You must submit the title of your thesis to the Graduate Admissions Administrator by the fourth week of the Lent term for approval by the Degree Committee. At the same time, you must formally register for the two written examination papers you intend to sit. The title of your thesis will be passed to the Degree Committee for approval.

Thesis deadlines

There are two dates when MPhil theses may be submitted: 18 May and 31 August. Several considerations concerning thesis deadlines may affect how and when you plan to write and submit your thesis.

Lectures and seminars end at the division of the Easter term, leaving about two weeks for revision before the examinations, which begin around the end of May. If you submit your thesis by the division of the Easter term, it can be read and marked at the same time as your exams. In that case, you will know your result soon after the middle of June. You may need to know your results early in the summer because you are applying for grants or for further courses which have early deadlines and which require a firm MPhil result before the application can be judged. If this is likely to be the case, you should plan to complete your thesis by the early date.

Even if you choose to submit your thesis at the later date, you will still need to plan it well in advance during the Lent and Easter terms while your supervisor is still around. To ensure that the content and approach of your thesis will be acceptable, you must also submit a (one page) précis of your intended thesis, which summarises its theme, argument and structure, to the Administration Office by the division of the Easter term. The Division cannot guarantee any supervision after the end of the Easter term.

Theses that are submitted after the first deadline will not normally be examined until just before the beginning of the following Michaelmas term, in late September, which means that you will not know your results until early October.

When submitting you must take the two copies of your thesis to the Administration Office. Please note that this must be done in person. Others cannot submit your thesis for you.

Oral examination

An oral examination or viva on your thesis and any other aspect of assessment will not be held automatically, but the Division reserves the right to call you for one. This might be because there are particular questions that we wish to follow up, because there is a danger of your failing, or because we wish to decide about a borderline between a pass and a high pass mark.

The aim of the oral is to allow you to expand on, defend or explain some aspect of your assessed work. However, this raises a possible problem of timing. Those who submit a thesis before the division of the Easter term would, if necessary, be called for an oral during the period of written examinations.

Theses submitted after the division of the Easter term will not be examined until the following September. If a candidate were asked to come to an oral at that point, it would be held as early as feasible in middle to late September or early in the new Michaelmas term. Some candidates may find it difficult to remain in or return to Cambridge for this purpose; you should therefore think very carefully before deciding to opt for the later submission date.