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Research papers

RESEARCH CREDITS OF THE DOCTORAL PROGRAMME

("MULTILINGUAL COMMUNICATION", 2002-2004 AND SUBSEQUENT PROGRAMMES)

Distribution of credits

The 12 research credits that the student is required to complete are distributed into two 2-credit papers (or, exceptionally, one 4-credit paper) and one 8-credit paper.

2 + 2 (or 4): papers based on work done for 1st or 2nd year courses. The student may request for a paper submitted as a course requirement to count as 2 (or 4) research credits. Such a paper

· must include a research component;

· must be judged to satisfy research credits by the course teacher;

· is submitted on the same date as other course papers;

· also satisfies course requirements;

The course teacher writes a short report on these papers for the research and DEA committees.

8: research paper:

· either the development of a paper written for a 1st or 2nd year course or the doctoral dissertation project;

· supervised by the research tutor;

· presented at a public defense before a committee;

· the committee members write reports on the paper prior to the defense.

Student’s timetable

October of the second year: register for research credits

December of the second year:

· choose your research tutor;

· register your research paper (title, summary, tutor) in the DTF, with the tutor’s signature – the form that needs to be filed is available in the secretary’s office.

December of the third year: submit your research paper for the defense.

January-February of the third year:

· apply for the DEA;

· register your doctoral dissertation.

RESEARCH CREDITS OF THE DOCTORAL PROGRAMME: CRITERIA

Course papers (2 + 2 credits)

For a course paper to be deemed worthy of research credits it has to actually contain a research component; in other words, it has to show, in some way, the student’s ability to do research.

If it presents a state of the art, it must be complete and systematic. If it presents an analysis, it must be original and based on an explicit theory present in the bibliography. If it presents archive work or data collection, the resulting data must be unpublished and, in some sense, complete.

As a rule, course papers should only be awarded 2 research credits, and only exceptionally should they be awarded 4 credits.

Research paper proper (8 credits)

Research papers can be states of the art (complete and systematic), dissertation projects (presenting a rigorous organization and showing familiarity with the literature on the topic), or possible future dissertation chapters (an aspect of a larger question, with an original approach and explicitly supported by the literature on the particular aspect under study).

The general idea (and the difference with respect to the old “tesina”) is to focus and specialize, avoiding exhaustive or encyclopaedic treatments, which in this phase are unnecessary and tend to require much more time. To insist, it should be sufficient to show ability to do research.

Research papers read