Academic Work

Relevant information on academic work including plagiarism and the process of degree theses at the Institute of Linguistics are listed here.

Documents on Studying

For academic linguistic work during studies, such as writing term papers or giving presentations, certain formal and content-related guidelines are specified, which the linguistics students of the ISW must follow. These also apply to the writing of theses, such as the bachelor and master thesis. The document "Guidelines for writing scientific papers" in Linguistics collects all requirements for the structure and formal aspects of written papers and presentations, as well as information on BA and MA theses and their defense.

Plagiarism

In science, the unmarked paraphrasing of a text or the adoption of an argument or data without citing the source is considered plagiarism. Both the complete adoption of a text or individual text sections (e.g. from printed publications such as newspapers, magazines or books or from the Internet) and the use of other people's ideas, argumentations or facts without citing the source are penalized. This applies to written work as well as to presentations and other forms of performance assessment.

Plagiarism results in a grade of 1. In addition, lecturers are obliged to immediately report the persons concerned to the Executive Director of the Institute of Linguistics; the Institute's secretariat keeps a list of plagiarism cases. The Executive Director decides whether the case is to be reported to the Dean's Office in accordance with Article 4 paragraph 3 of the "Richtlinien der Universitätsleitung betreffend das Vorgehen bei Plagiaten" of 28 August 2007 and 3 July 2012.

Procedure for final thesis

The following list gives an idea of the process for final theses using a bachelor’s thesis as an example. Deviations are possible depending on the agreement or arrangement with the supervisor.

1. Discussion by the student of three proposed topics and a tentative research question and short bibliography.
2. Personal discussion of the suggestions with the supervisor and choice of topic.
3. The student draws up a tentative table of contents and a detailed bibliography.
4. Sending an interim version of the written thesis (approx. half-time, usually after 1-2 months), with written (or possibly verbal) feedback from the supervisor.
5. Submission of the thesis, scheduling of the defence (at least 2 weeks after submission).
6. Defense, grading and debriefing.
7. (Return of annotated version(s))
8. Preparation of written report by the supervisor and assessor
9. Submission of final (possibly revised) thesis for collection of final theses in B173, incl. declaration of academic integrity.
10. Entry of the grade into the CTS (Core Teaching System)

The same basic procedure applies to master’s theses, albeit with additional requirements imposed by the faculty.