Information for current Honours students

1. Deadline

1.1 The deadline for submission of thesis will be 4pm on Friday of Week 11, Semester 2. Extensions may be granted only on medical or compassionate grounds when approved documentation is provided. Any extension may result in graduation being delayed. The oral defence will take place after the thesis has been submitted and examined. Typically, this will occur in the exam period of the submitting semester.

2. Marking Procedures

2.1 Each Honours thesis will be marked by two examiners according to the approved criteria. One of these examiners will normally be an internal examiner, the second may be an internal or an external examiner (an external examiner being external to the School or to the University). Theses should be submitted to the Honours coordinator r via the designated link on Blackboard and by email to slc.honours@uq.edu.au.

2.2 Once the two examiners’ reports have been received with their corresponding grades and weighted percentage scores, the Honours coordinator will instigate the process required to arrive at the final mark.

2.2.1 If the two examiners award the thesis the same grade, the program coordinator in consultation with colleagues (and where possible the examiner(s) and advisor(s)) will approve this grade as the final grade and an average of the two weighted percentage scores given will be calculated.

2.2.2 If the two examiners award the thesis two different grades one mark apart from each other (e.g. a 6 and a 7), the program coordinator in consultation with colleagues (and where possible the examiner(s) and advisor(s)) will decide which grade to award to the thesis. In general, it would be normal for the grade given to correspond to the grade arrived at by the calculation of the average of the weighted percentage marks given (e.g. one examiner gives a score of 88 and a grade of 7, the other a grade of 79 and a grade of 6, so the average percentage is 83.5 and therefore the final grade a 6). HOWEVER, it will be possible for the thesis to be awarded either the higher or lower of the two grades even if this does not accord with the above method if, after a meeting of the program coordinator, the two examiners and the advisor and during which all reports are carefully considered, it is decided that there are valid reasons why this grade is more appropriate (in which case a new percentage will need to be provided also).

2.2.3 If the two examiners award the thesis two different grades two marks apart from each other (e.g. a 5 and a 7), the program coordinator in consultation with colleagues (and where possible the examiner(s) and advisor(s)) will decide the final grade to be awarded to the thesis. In general, it would be normal for the final grade given to be the grade in between the two grades suggested by the examiners (e.g. a 5 and a 7 would give a final grade of 6) but a different final grade may be arrived at if the average of the weighted percentage scores indicates a different result to this OR if, after a meeting of the program coordinator, the two examiners and the advisor and during which all reports are carefully considered, it is decided to award the thesis with the higher or lower of the two grades (in which case a new percentage will need to be provided also).

2.2.4 If the two examiners award the thesis with two different grades three marks apart from each other (e.g. a 4 and a 7), the thesis will be marked by a third examiner. Once this third mark has been received, the three reports and corresponding grades and weighted percentages will be circulated to all three examiners and the advisor by the Honours coordinator. The Honours coordinator will then schedule a meeting to take place between the three examiners (if an examiner from outside the University has been used, he or she should be represented by a proxy – who could be the Honours coordinator), the Honours coordinator, the program coordinator and other members of the program as deemed appropriate by the program coordinator in order to arrive at the final mark to be awarded. In general, it would be expected that the third examiner’s grade would be closer to one of the original two grades than the other; this third grade, then, will then often prove crucial for the decision regarding the final grade and weighted percentage. However, this final decision is the sole decision of the three examiners and must be arrived at after the careful consideration of all of the reports. Comments from the advisor and others present at the meeting should only be taken into consideration for the award of the final mark if they contribute new material information not taken into account by the examiners in their deliberations

2.3 Once a final grade and weighted percentage have been awarded and if the Oral Defence hurdle has been passed, the Honours coordinator will submit the final grade and percentage.

3. Marking Criteria

3.1 An Honours thesis is a substantial project which should demonstrate understanding of research processes and scholarly conventions. In scope, the thesis does not necessarily make a new contribution, but should be an independent and valuable contribution to the field of study.

3.2 Pass/Fail Oral Defence Hurdle

Students are required to participate in an oral defence to assess whether they have attained the required learning outcomes of the thesis. The hurdle is in place to ensure academic integrity and to safeguard the value of the Honours qualification.

The oral defence will take place in-person (face to face) and students will be advised of the time and location in advance. The oral defence will be conducted by two qualified academics including at least one panel member who has read the thesis and has relevant expertise in the discipline.

The oral defence will be marked on a pass/fail basis and be assessed against the following criteria: 

• Demonstrated ability to articulate the rationale underpinning the choice of central research question/s, the identification of a key gap in knowledge that the thesis addresses, and the devising of the central hypothesis. 
• Demonstrated ability to justify the thesis structure. 
• Demonstrated ability to explain and justify the methodology/ies used. 
• Demonstrated mastery of knowledge, analysis and findings presented in the thesis. 
• Ability to satisfactorily respond to spontaneous and pertinent questions in the oral defence. 

The format of the oral defence will include a brief thesis overview by the student followed by a Question-and-Answer session in response to unseen questions. As passing the Oral Defence is a hurdle to pass the Thesis course, failure of the Oral Defence will result in a maximum grade of 3 for the course and the student will be required to re-enrol in the Thesis course with a new thesis topic

3.3 Class of Honours

Specific requirements apply to the awarding of honours in this program:

The class of honours is calculated on the basis of the grade point average of the results obtained by a student in the first attempt at all courses that contribute to the program. Refer to Bachelor Honours Degrees Procedures for more information.

• Honours assessment sheet, thesis requirements, marking criteria & grade descriptors - general (PDF, 111KB)
• Honours assessment sheet, thesis requirements, marking criteria & grade descriptors - translation (PDF, 78KB)

Your thesis must include certain information and content to be considered for marking.  There is a degree of choice about the order for certain entries, but generally speaking the following is a checklist (italicised items are optional) and standard guide for submission.  Check with your supervisor if you are unsure about anything.

Checklist:

• Title Page with all the necessary information (see below)
• Table of Contents
• Statement of Sources (see wording below)
• Acknowledgements (if any)
• List of Illustrations (if any)
• List of Tables (if any)
• Abbreviations (if any)
• Abstract (see below)
• Introduction (minimum 12 point font)
• Chapters  (minimum 12 point font)
• Conclusion (minimum 12 point font)
• Appendix (if any, see below)
• List of Works Consulted

Standard Guide

Word Length

Your thesis should be:

• 15,000-20,000 words (English)
• 12,000-16,000 words (Spanish/French/German/Indonesian/Russian)
• 10,000-17,000 words (Korean)
• 20,000-32,500 characters (Chinese)
• 30,000-40,000 characters (Japanese)

Quotes and back matter (e.g., bibliography and appendices) are extra to this word limit. For all Languages other than English, a case can be made for the thesis to be written in English if there are compelling reasons for doing so.  In this case, the word limit for an English language thesis will apply.

Title Page

Your title page should contain the following information:

• [Title of thesis]
• [Your Name]
• This statement: "A dissertation presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honours in [Subject Area]"
• Supervised by [Supervisor's Title and Name]
• University of Queensland, [Year]
• ©2015 [Author]
  Not to be reproduced in any way except for the purposes of research or study as permitted by the Copyright Act 1968

Table of Contents

Your table of contents should list everything contained within your submission, and the relevant page numbers for each should also be included.

Statement of Sources

"The work presented in this thesis is, to the best of my knowledge and belief original, except as acknowledged in the text, and has not been submitted either in whole or in part, for a degree at this or any other university." [Student to sign and print name]

Abstract

Include a 300 word abstract.

Appendices

If you have appendices (supporting materials, interview transcripts, diagrams, etc), title your appendices and provide them in the same order as listed on your contents page.

Submission

Students should submit an ELECTRONIC copy to the Honours coordinator via email (slc.honours@uq.edu.au) and Blackboard Turnitin.

An electronic copy of the thesis should be emailed to the Honours coordinator and uploaded to a designated Turnitin folder on Blackboard before the deadline. It must be submitted as a single file in either Word or PDF format. 

Deadline: The submission deadline for the thesis is 4pm on Friday of week 11 of Semester 2. The Oral Defence is to take place during the End-of-semester EXAM PERIOD of the semester in which the thesis is due to be submitted.