The Master's Thesis is an extended piece of original academic writing, with which you are expected to complete your studies. There are several steps to follow in preparing, registering and completing a thesis, which we have outlined below.

Steps to follow

1. Determine your thesis topic and tentative research questions

You have some flexibility in your choice of thesis topic. Generally, a thesis topic that falls into any of the main subject areas of the programme will be acceptable, although individual thesis proposals are subject to approval of the programme director once you have discussed the topic with your potential thesis supervisor.

2. Find Your Thesis Supervisor

Although the final thesis must be your own work, you will be assigned an academic worker who will advise and guide you in your research, especially in the early stages of the thesis. This is your thesis supervisor.  You are encouraged to identify and propose a potential advisor from amongst the regular teachers of the programme/institute, according to your research interests. The choice of a thesis advisor is, however, subject to the approval of the programme director.

3. Submit a Thesis Project

You have to submit an outline of your proposed thesis no later than 12 months before you intend to graduate. The exact dates are specified in the academic calendar for the particular year. This outline is the so-called thesis project. Generally, it is about 2-4 pages in length, and it must include:

• The proposed title of your thesis
• The name of your supervisor
• A short outline of your proposed line of argument (including potential chapters) and the methodology you plan to use
• A bibliography of your main sources, related to both the content and the methodology of the thesis

At this early stage, we do not expect you to go into any particular detail, but the text should be sufficiently well developed that we can tell what your main topic will be, how you plan to structure the text, and what sources you plan to use.

The thesis project is subject to approval of the programme director, who may ask you to revise your project if he/she thinks this is necessary. It is therefore advisable to secure the approval of the programme director before you start writing in earnest.

MA Thesis Project template is available here.

4. Submit and Complete your Thesis

The thesis itself must be submitted in the final semester of your studies, generally a few weeks before the date of your last exam. The exact deadlines for submitting your thesis project and your final thesis will vary slightly from year to year, but you will always find them in the current academic calendar of the university.

As a rough guide, the basic timeline is as follows, but please remember to check for specific deadlines:

• If you plan to graduate in the summer (June): submit the project in May/June of the year before you intend to graduate. Submit the final thesis in April.
• If you plan to graduate in the autumn (September): submit the project in August/September of the year before you intend to graduate. Submit the final thesis in July.
• If you plan to graduate in the spring (February): submit the project in January/February of the year before you intend to graduate. Submit the final thesis in January.

Formal Requirements of the Thesis

When preparing your thesis, please remember that:

Your thesis is an original piece of academic writing and must meet all the usual standards of an academic text (bibliography, attribution of sources, etc).

The minimum extent of the master's thesis written in English is 15,000 words, excluding abstract, appendices, and a list of literature. This corresponds to the Dean's Measure of the minimum extent of 50 standard pages (90,000 characters with spaces). Pages should be numbered.

Please find the Master’s Thesis Template here. Follow the related Dean’s Measure with further specifications here.

Please don't get confused about the terms Conclusion and Summary. The conclusion is a crucial part of the main text of the thesis, and it is written in the same language as the main text of the thesis. The summary is a brief final description of the thesis (max one page). The summary should be written in Czech if the thesis is written in English.

Every student must upload an electronic version of the thesis in SIS, through the interface at https://is.cuni.cz/studium/ in the module ‘Thesis (Selection of subject)’, solely in PDF/A format, version 1.3 or higher.

Content of the thesis

Every thesis must contain the following (in this order):

1. Title page in standard format
2. Declaration that the thesis is your own work dated by yourself
3. Abstract summarising the contents of the thesis, five keywords
4. Table of Contents
5. The main text of the thesis itself including conclusion
6. Summary (a brief description of the paper as a whole, max one page)
7. Full bibliography and citations

For detailed information about the formal requirements please ask your thesis supervisor.