Graduate Handbook

II. GRADUATE PROGRAMS (cont.)

Requirements for Master's Degree in Political Science

The M.A. degree in Political Science is designed for those students who seek a terminal graduate degree or those who's career goals may include pursuing a Ph.D. degree either at WSU or at another academic institution. Individuals who are interested in applying to the Ph.D. program at WSU are required to do a preliminary dissertation prospectus to fulfill the M.A. essay requirement. (See pages 13-14 for the recommended specifications for the dissertation prospectus.) M.A. students must go through the regular application procedures to be considered for admission to our Ph.D. program. They also must successfully defend a preliminary dissertation prospectus.

Hours: 32 hours are required for the Master of Arts degree. Of those 32 hours:

27 hours shall be graded graduate credit course work;
24 hours shall be graded Political Science course work, no more than six hours of which shall be 300 or 400 level courses which provide graduate credit in their program statement to the graduate school;
Political Science 501 and 503;
a minimum of four hours shall be in Political Science 702;
Pol S 539 1 credit Pass/Fail Professionalization Practicum.

Note that students who plan on applying to the Ph.D. program should design, as much as possible, their coursework to fulfill requirements for the Ph.D. The M.A. candidate must be enrolled and in residence for a minimum of one academic year.

Statistics Course: Students who have not previously taken a course in statistics will be required to complete at least three semester hours in that field. Recommended courses include Soc 321, Soc 421, Psych 311, or their equivalent.

Master's Essay: Students are required to write a Master's Essay which will be developed in cooperation with the student's program committee. The work for this essay should be roughly equivalent to the work for a three credit graduate seminar. See pages 5-6 for the suggested guidelines for the M.A. essay.

Oral Exam: At least 15 working days prior to the examination date, the Master's candidate shall provide each member of the examining committee with a final draft of the Master's Essay. The oral examination will feature a defense of the Master's Essay and can also cover the entirety of the candidate's program.

Requirements for Master's Degree in Criminal Justice

The M.A. degree in Criminal Justice is designed for those students who seek a terminal graduate degree or those who's career goals may include pursuing a Ph.D. degree either at WSU or at another academic institution. M.A. students must go through the regular application procedures to be considered for admission to the Ph.D. program.

Hours: 32 hours are required for the Master of Arts degree.

Crm J 539: Professionalization Seminar (pass/fail 1 credit)
Crm J/PS 503: Research Design (3 credits)
Crm J 530: Criminal Justice: Processes and Institutions (3 credits)
Crm J 540: Seminar in Criminal Justice Research and Evaluation (3 credits)

Quantitative Methods (such as Soc 321; Soc 421; PS 504 or equivalent) (3 credits)

Select Two Courses in One of the Following Three Areas (6 credits):

Policing (such as Crm J 570)
Corrections (such as Crm J 541)
Courts (such as Crm J/PS 516)

Select One Political Science Course (3 credits)

Select One 500 level course in Deviance or Criminological Theory (3 credits)

Select any 500 Criminal Justice elective (3 credits)

Criminal Justice 702 (4 credits)

The M.A. candidate must be enrolled and in residence for a minimum of one academic year.

Master's Essay: Completion of a Master's Essay which will be developed in cooperation the student's committee. The work for this essay should be roughly equivalent to the work for a three credit graduate seminar. See pages 5-6 for the suggested guidelines for the M.A. essay.

Oral Exam: At least 15 working days prior to the examination date, the Master's candidate shall provide each member of the examining committee with a final draft of the Master's Essay. The oral examination will feature a defense of the Master's Essay and may also cover the entirety of the candidate's program.

Guidelines for the M.A. Essay

The Master's Essay has four goals and will be judged by how well they are achieved:

It shows an in-depth, detailed and nuanced understanding of a specific issue, topic or question in the field;
It shows an awareness of the theoretical issues and arguments raised and discussed in the literature on the subject;
The ideas, concepts and arguments advanced in the paper are expressed with precision and rigor;
The paper enlarges our understanding of the issue and topic.

The Master's Essay should strive to be equivalent in content, sophistication and technical expertise to a publishable paper in a respected scholarly journal. It can be on any subject in Political Science or Criminal Justice and there are no limitations or preferences for a particular theoretical or methodological approach. The Master's Essay should be approximately 40-50 pages in length. Feel free to ask faculty for sample essays.

Form
To achieve the goals, at the minimum, the Master's Essay needs to have a(n):

Introduction and Statement of the Problem: The Master's Essay needs to have a clearly and precisely stated question, thesis and argument. The first few pages should make it clear what the paper is about and how the subject will be approached and analyzed.
Literature Review: The Master's Essay needs to have an extensive literature review of the subject. The literature review shows that you have immersed yourself in the subject, have read extensively about it, and have drawn your ideas and concepts and arguments from a variety of sources.
The length of the literature review will vary by subject. If you do a theoretical Master's Essay or one based on secondary sources, then the review will have to be quite extensive since your argument refashions existing thoughts and theorizing. If you are doing an empirical project, the literature review needs to incorporate the important relevant thinking and studies which influence the design of your research, your hypothesizing and theory development, and the likely analysis of your data. The main purposes of the literature review is to show the reader that you know the subject and that you can place your thinking into ongoing theorizing and research in the subject area.
Discussion: This section states and justifies the body of your description, analysis, and argument in a precise, readable and rigorous manner.
Conclusion: The conclusion summarizes your argument and shows how your work enhances our theoretical understanding of the subject.

One way to judge how well you are doing is to think ahead to the oral defense of your Master's Essay. Ask yourself, suppose someone were to challenge this statement of mine, or objected to my argument, how would and how could I respond? One of the jobs of the committee is to pointout strengths and weaknesses of the Master's Essay before you get to the oral defense stage, so that you are prepared.

Process
Work on the M.A. essay should be roughly equivalent to the work for a 3 credit graduate seminar. Normally, the student works with the chair of her/his committee to produce a final draft. Only after the chair has approved the working draft may the student submit the essay to the other members of the committee, remembering that the other members must have the essay at least 15 work days prior to the defense date. All committee members must sign-off on the defense date. If these guidelines are not respected by the student, the other members of the committee are under no obligation to attend the defense date.

Also, students should check on the university established deadlines on when to file the degree application, schedule the final (oral) exam, and hold the final exam.

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