Notes on the supervision of theses

1. Supervision of theses

If you are planning to have your thesis (BA or MA) supervised by me, please note the following points:

• The research question and the topic of your thesis should lie within the profile of the professorship. Only under this condition a competent initial supervision of your work is guaranteed.
• You should have successfully completed at least one of the courses I offer with a written assignment. This ensures that you are familiar with the requirements I set for a scientific paper.
• Finally, the topic should be discussed with me in my office hours before registering your thesis. For this purpose, it is essential that you have sent me an exposé of your research project at least one week before the consultation hour. You can find out what such an exposé should look like in the guidelines available here.
  
  

  As it is part of a normal research process that you revise your exposé again after the first feedback before the final registration for the thesis, be sure to plan the time necessary for this. A period of about 6 weeks between the first discussion of your exposé and the registration deadline may also help you to find another first examiner if it turns out that it does not make sense for me to take over the initial supervision.

2. Guidebooks and writing aids

There is a wide range of guides to writing academic papers. The following titles have stood the test of time:

• Eco, Umberto: Wie man eine wissenschaftliche Abschlussarbeit schreibt, Stuttgart: UTB 2010 (13. Auflage).
• Kruse, Otto: Keine Angst vorm leeren Blatt. Ohne Schreibblockaden durchs Studium, Frankfurt a.M.: Campus 2007 (12. Auflage).

In addition, countless blogs now deal with the practice of academic writing. The Mind your Writing blog by the Swiss writing consultant Christian Wymann, for example, is instructive. The blog Research as Second Language by Thomas Basbøll is more for advanced readers, but well worth reading.