MAsupervisionarrangements
Students should note that an MA dissertation is designed to be "an independent piece of research focusing on the selection and analysis of a topic, design of the research, its execution and presentation as a dissertation" (Hart, 2005, p. 5). Because an MA dissertation is designed to test your ability to do independent research, you are expected to work largely on your own, with your supervisor providing general guidance (but not e.g. designing test materials for you, or writing or re‐writing parts of your dissertation, or proof‐reading it for you). General supervision guidelines are outlined in the MA handbook but some of the most important points are: 
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In the departmental workload model, it is assumed that staff will spend around 15 working hours on each dissertation they supervise. How this time is spent will vary from one member of staff to another but a typical pattern might be that 4 hours are spend on individual face‐to‐face supervision, 9 hours reading and commenting on draft material produced by the student, and 2 hours marking the final dissertation. How supervision time is spent and how supervision is organized will also depend on the supervision system adopted. Currently, staff operate one of two systems of supervision: either exclusively one‐to‐one supervision OR a combination of individual with group supervision. The majority of supervision will take place in the third term. Your supervisor will not normally read any given draft section of your dissertation more than once, and cannot be expected to proof‐read or ghost‐write the final version. Individual members of staff have their own code of conduct with respect to MA supervision; please consult the Departmental webpages and/or staff private webpages. You can also contact individual members of staff to inquire about MA supervision arrangements. For further details and information, please consult your MA dissertation handbook. *********************************************** If you are doing an MA in Applied Linguistics or TEFL/ELT you will be able to opt for an alternative mode of supervision which primarily consists of compulsory group (seminar type) supervision led by a group of academic staff including your supervisor, but also includes individual supervision as outlined below. Whilst the amount of supervision received will be equivalent to what all other MA students receive, by taking this option you will also benefit from collective discussion and feedback. Supervision will consist of SIX supervisory meetings as follows: Meeting 1 (end of Spring term): Individual meeting with your supervisor to discuss your final Research Proposal and if relevant revise/refine your research questions. If required you will also receive advice on initial readings for the literature review and agree on a plan of work for the Easter break. 1 Meeting 2 (week 31): Seminar. Group session for students to present oral summaries of their literature review drafts, research questions and hypotheses as relevant, and receive feedback and advice from their supervisor and other members of the group. Meeting 3 (week 32): Drop in advice surgery. Students are offered advice on Methodology. Meeting 4 (week 35): Drop in advice surgery. Students are offered advice on Data analysis. Meeting 5 (week 38): Seminar. Group session for students to give an initial presentation of their findings and conclusions drawn from them, and receive feedback and advice from their supervisor and other members of the group. Meeting 6 (week 41) (July): Mini conference. 15‐minute conference style presentation by students of the work they will be reporting in the dissertation. Please note that after each seminar your supervisor will give you written feedback as appropriate; therefore, you can only expect your supervisor to read and comment on a sample (e.g., a draft chapter) of your written work. This will have to be submitted to him/her by week 39. This year, the following members of staff will be offering this type of supervision: Dr. Adela Gánem‐
Gutiérrez, Prof. Florence Myles, Dr. Bojana Petric, Dr. Karen Roehr‐Brackin, Prof. Monika Schmid, Dr. Sophia Skoufaki. 2