Bc. / Mgr.

Theses General Points

Basic requirements
for Bc. thesis
- show knowledge and orientation in a particular field based on study of sources
- it is a test of ability to work with information
o to gather and sort information, to evaluate its importance and relevance, to
evaluate its reliability or unreliability (bias), to evaluate its significance
o to interpret its significance, to understand the information in context
o to summarize it, develop it further, build on it, disagree with it, use it as
evidence
- length: between 54,000 and 72,000 characters including spaces (= the main text, not
counting any appendixes, bibliography, contents etc.)
- what a BP is not: a compilation without commentary, a collection of unsupported
personal opinions being enthusiastic about a subject is not enough
for Mgr. thesis
- show knowledge and orientation in a particular field
- carry out your own original research: ask and answer research questions
- length: roughly 60-70 pages (= the main text, not counting any appendices,
bibliography, contents etc.)

Typical structure
for Bc. thesis
Cover
Title page in English and Czech
Abstracts in English and Czech
Table of contents
List of abbreviations and symbols (if necessary)
1) introduction: say what the thesis aims to do (careful an aim is not write about xy
but rather to assess, analyze, determine, evaluate, interpret ...), what problems you will
deal with; a brief description of individual chapters; methods
2) main text (the structure depends a lot on the topic, and will consist of several parts)
3) conclusion demonstrate that you achieved your aims
4) bibliography (Works Cited)
5) appendices (if needed)
for Mgr. thesis
Cover
Title page in English and Czech
Abstracts in English and Czech
Table of contents
List of abbreviations and symbols (if necessary)
1) introduction: say what the thesis aims to do, what problems you will deal with; a brief
description of individual chapters; methods
2) background (theoretical part) outline the particular field of study, give an overview
of relevant secondary literature (what do we know already? describe what others have

3)
4)

5)
6)
7)

written and what they have found out, including where their opinions or approaches
differ, etc.), define your terms and situate your work in its theoretical context
in some types of thesis, describe your aims and methods (what research questions do
you want to answer, why, and how? what is your raw material?)
report on your analysis, never forgetting your research questions (aims) and never
forgetting to relate your analytical findings to the secondary literature you have
outlined in the background part
conclusion: do not introduce any new information re-visit your research questions
and summarize your answers
bibliography (Works Cited)
appendices (if needed)

The writing process

This might seem obvious, but it is very important to do the groundwork thoroughly that is
the first three points on this list.
1) The first thing you need to do is define your aims. Write them down on paper. Your
goals need to be absolutely clear one of the most frequent criticisms of theses is a
lack of clarity in what the authors aims are. Then, specify how you are going to
achieve your aims. What materials are you going to use? Why these materials and not
other materials? What methods are you going to use? Why are these methods more
suitable than other methods that you could have used?
2) Orient yourself thoroughly in your chosen field of study read secondary literature. It
will help at this stage to make detailed notes on the secondary literature; these notes
can then be turned into part of the introductory section to your thesis.
- You should aim to use mainly printed sources, rather than internet sources.
This is because printed sources are more reliable they have to go through a
review process before they are published, whereas any fool can put some
nonsense on the internet.
- When using internet sources, give preference to non-anonymous sources e.g.
articles by a particular person. (Many academic articles are available on the
internet.) If the author is identified in your source, find out who he/she is. This
will tell you whether he/she can be trusted.
- Anonymous sources can be of use if they are produced by organizations and
institutions. Be very careful when dealing with Wikipedia. This is a source of
common belief , and it cannot be considered reliable. Do not use it as a direct
source; do not cite it and do not list it in your bibliography. However,
Wikipedia can be useful for orienting yourself in a particular subject; also,
many Wikipedia pages have bibliographies which point you to relevant
literature.
- Part of your orientation in your chosen field of study should involve
orientation in the terminology used in the particular field. Draw up your own
glossary to help you. Dont think that you can invent your own terminology
that will cause problems.
- When writing the introductory section to your thesis, be careful not to base one
section on just one source.
3) If your thesis involves analyzing linguistic materials (a corpus), gather your materials
at the same time as reading the secondary literature.
4) Do the analysis (and take detailed notes of what you discover).
5) Write it up. Leave yourself enough time! It is essential to choose a suitable style. You
will be familiar with the suitable style from your reading of academic secondary
literature. Avoid writing in a personal, subjective, impressionistic style. Write
objectively and concretely, and do not express opinions unless you can support them
with evidence.

Citing sources
- Why you do it? To make it clear what your sources are, whose ideas you are quoting,
to distinguish between your own ideas and the ideas of others.
- You can use direct word-for-word citation (using inverted commas) or paraphrase.
- If something is a widely known and generally accepted fact (e.g. Paris is the capital of
France), there is no need to cite sources. You should use direct citations or paraphrases
if you are referring to something which is not widely known, or which has recently
been found out, or somebodys ideas, opinions or research results.
- It is not acceptable to use sources of common belief Wikipedia as authoritative
information, because there is no guarantee of reliability.
- Citation format (according to APA or MLA style sheets):
- in-text citation (direct quotation OR paraphrase): author, year, page number/s
(no year in MLA)
- if you are referring to a whole work (not just some detailed part of a work),
then page numbers are not necessary
- bibliography (at the end of your thesis)
-

Plagiarism (copying other peoples texts without acknowledging their authorship) is

intellectual theft and will result in failure. The same applies if you make some slight
changes to somebody elses text a paraphase is not just changing a couple of words,
its an expression of ideas in your own words. For a reviewer, it is usually very
obvious where somebody has plagiarized a text because the style changes.

The defence process

1) You submit the thesis
2) It is reviewed by an opponent; the supervisor of a Bc. thesis writes a short statement
only (Mgr. diploma theses are also reviewed by the supervisor)
3) You get the review(s)
4) You prepare a defence: you must prepare properly, which means you must be able to
answer ALL of the objections raised by the opponent/supervisor
5) You should prepare thoroughly, that means in writing this shows you take the
defence seriously
6) At the defence: First you briefly (3-5 minutes) summarize what you have written
about. Then the two reviews are read out or summarized. Then you have an
opportunity to answer the objections or questions raised in the reviews. The committee
will generally not interrupt, apart from when they want you to move on. Then, there
will be a space for discussion. If the committee members feel that you have not
adequately responded to the objections or questions raised in the reviews, they will ask
you supplementary questions.

Checklist
(Depending on the type of thesis, not all of these points will be equally relevant. Nevertheless,
they are all worth thinking about.)
1) What are the aims of the thesis? What are the research questions that you want to
answer? Have you set out your aims clearly at the start of the thesis?
2) What has been written about your chosen topic already? Have you clearly summarized
the major works of secondary literature? Have you omitted any important secondary
literature? If so, have you justified your choice?
3) What are the key concepts you are working with? Have you defined them precisely?
Where do your definitions come from? Why have you defined the terms/concepts as
you have?
4) Have you defined your methods clearly and in enough detail? Are your methods the
best way of achieving your aims? What other options did you have, but reject? Why
did you reject the other options? What objections could be raised against your choice
and use of methods? (Not exact, balance between quantitative and qualitative methods,
lack of comparison, incomplete, etc.) Have you answered those potential objections?
5) Have you defined your materials clearly and in enough detail? Are your materials
suitable for achieving your aims? What other options did you have, but reject? Why
did you reject the other options? What objections could be raised against your choice
and use of materials? (Too much, too little, not enough variety, too much variety,
source of materials, etc.) Have you answered those potential objections?
6) Are all of your opinions backed up by evidence? Dont say anything unless you can
back it up with evidence.
7) Is the structure of your thesis clear and logical? Does each chapter have a clear
introduction setting out the aims of the chapter, and a clear conclusion recapitulating
what you have covered in the chapter?
8) Throughout the thesis, have you always kept your aims in mind? Are you always
sticking to your research questions, or do you digress from your main aims? If so,
why?
9) At the end of the thesis, have you written a proper conclusion? In other words, have
you revisited all of your aims (research questions) and summarized the answers that
you have already presented in the text? (Do not introduce any new information in the
conclusion.)
10) Have you checked the language properly? Spelling, grammar ...
11) Have you cited your sources accurately, clearly and correctly (during the text, and in
the bibliography at the end)?

Frequent objections by opponents

1) The thesis does not keep to its set topic
2) The thesis does not set out its aims clearly
3) The theoretical part is not sufficiently connected to the practical part it is not
clear what the purpose of the theoretical part is, it just fills up space, it has no clear
relevance to the authors research or to the topic of the thesis
4) The thesis does not clearly distinguish between the authors own thoughts and the
thoughts of others (secondary literature citations, paraphrases)
5) The thesis is not solidly anchored in theory, it does not refer to previous work carried
out in its field

6) The thesis relies too much on one or two sources

7) Each chapter or sub-chapter is based on one source, and no other sources are cited
e.g. chapter 2.3 only contains citations from Smith, chapter 2.4 only contains citations
from Johnson, etc.
8) The sources are inadequate or unreliable (e.g. Wikipedia)
9) The thesis does not cite its sources correctly; there are passages taken directly from the
internet with no acknowledgement or only slightly changed. This is plagiarism and
your thesis will fail
10) The author often presents his/her subjective views only, and does not back up these
opinions with clear and objective reasons
11) The author uses terms without defining them properly (e.g. with reference to
secondary literature, how other authors have used the terms), the author uses strange
and idiosyncratic terminology when standard accepted terminology exists
12) The author does not revisit his/her aims (research questions) and assess (e.g. in the
conclusions of each section, chapter, or in the final conclusion) what the answers to
those research questions are
13) The language of the thesis is of poor quality typing errors, spelling errors,
grammatical errors, too personal or subjective style, primitive style (It is absolutely
bad translation.)
14) The author does not build paragraphs properly. A paragraph cannot consist of one
sentence only
15) In some paragraphs the author launches straight into citation without any previous text
16) The thesis is too short or too long