Thesis Deadlines

Writing and defending a thesis is the culminating experience for Georgia State University students in the philosophy M.A. program. In their thesis, students develop a piece of their philosophical writing, creating multiple drafts in response to comments from a variety of philosophical viewpoints, and then orally defend their thesis.

As one of the central purposes of the thesis is to allow students the opportunity to revise and refine a piece of writing more than is possible with a paper written for a class, the thesis is not a work which is submitted for the first time immediately prior to the oral defense. In order for the thesis to serve its purpose and be a profitable experience for the student, multiple drafts of the thesis have to be circulated in a timely fashion. Therefore, the Department has developed the following minimum requirements for successfully completing the thesis. Students are strongly encouraged to write more drafts than required.

1. Before enrolling in Phil 8999, Thesis Research, a student must have the signatures of all members of the thesis committee on the appropriate form, and on the thesis prospectus.

2. A first draft of the whole thesis must be given to the thesis advisor by the date indicated below. The thesis advisor will then discuss with the student what revisions need to be made to this draft before it is ready to be distributed to the other members of the thesis committee. It may sometimes take several rounds of revisions before a thesis is ready to be distributed to the full committee.

3. With the advisor's approval, a draft of the thesis must be circulated to the thesis committee by the date indicated in the chart below.

4. After getting feedback from the full committee, the student will meet with the advisor to discuss what changes to make to the thesis. Again, it may sometimes take multiple drafts before the advisor decides that the final draft is ready to be distributed. At their discretion, other members of the committee may request to see a revised version of the thesis between the draft of the thesis first circulated to the full committee and the distribution of the version of the thesis to be defended.

5. The version of the thesis which a candidate will defend must be given to all members of the thesis committee by the date indicated below.

There are (somewhat confusingly) two sets of deadlines each semester. That is because Georgia State has two different sorts of deadlines. The first--which is what matters for most students--are the deadlines for completing all work within a semester so that the student is finished and need not register for any additional credit hours to graduate. The official graduation date will be in the subsequent semester, but the student will not need to register in that semester. The second set of deadlines are for officially graduating within a given semester. These latter set of deadlines will be about 3 weeks earlier.

I. Deadlines to complete work within a given semester.

  1. Draft to Thesis Advisor. The W deadline for that semester (generally halfway through the semester)
  2. Draft to Full Committee. 1 month prior to the defense
  3. Version to be Defended. 1 week prior to the defense
  4. Defense. Last day of classes
  5. Upload thesis. Prior to start of classes the subsequent semester
II. Deadlines to graduate within a given semester.

  1. Draft to Thesis Advisor. 2 months prior to the defense
  2. Draft to Full Committee. 1 month prior to the defense
  3. Version to be Defended. 1 week prior to the defense
  4. Defense. At least one week prior to the upload deadline
  5. Upload thesis. By the deadline set by College of Arts & Sciences (varies by semester, but about 2 weeks prior to the last day of classes)
Students should note that faculty may not be in town during the summer and therefore they may have to submit materials in advance of these deadlines.