Thesis and Defence

Thesis Format

The Graduate Affairs Committee has compiled detailed descriptions of both a Monograph and Integrated Article Format thesis. Please be sure to review this document when starting to prepare for your research / thesis writing.

MA/ MSc Committee and Examination Board

The Department encourages a close working relationship between students and their Thesis Supervision Committee.  There are advantages to having a Thesis Supervision Committee member also serve on Thesis Examination Board.  The supervisor does NOT examine the thesis, but a Supervision Committee member may examine it (see note on "significant involvement" below). The Supervision Committee and Examination Board are initiated by the candidate in collaboration with the supervisor.

MA/ MSc Thesis Supervision Committee (n=2)
Supervisor
Faculty Member 2 *

*Faculty member 2 typically comes from UWO Geography, but other faculty may serve if eligible. Up to 3 faculty members may serve on the Thesis Supervisory Committee, but most typically just have the supervisor and one other member.

MA/ MSc Thesis Examination Board (n=4) see also SGPS regulations
Supervisor (comments, but does not examine)
Program Examiner #1 (Faculty Member 2 *#
Program Examiner #2 (Faculty Member 3 *#)
University Examiner (Faculty Member outside of home program [typically from UWO])
Oral Chair ^

*# Faculty members 2 and 3 must come from UWO Geography.
No more than one Thesis Examiner from Geography ("Program Examiner") may be from the candidate's Thesis Supervisory Committee. All thesis examiners must not have had "significant" involvement in the development of the thesis. This is why the supervisor does not examine the thesis. Examples of "significant involvement" are if: a) the Thesis Supervision Committee member has read/edited more than 50% of the thesis; b) the Thesis Supervision Committee member is a co-author on a manuscript that will be published from the thesis.
^The oral defence is chaired by a non-voting, Thesis Examination Chair arranged by Geography.