The Master Thesis
Students should begin to think about potential thesis topics as early as possible. They may begin working on the thesis once the title has been agreed on at the Midterm Meeting. All students will be assigned a supervisor and an external examiner to grade the thesis. The supervisor will be a member of staff at the third term university who is available to guide the students in writing their thesis. Moreover, most third term universities offer thesis seminars in which the students are required to present their ideas for the thesis and to discuss them with their fellow students. The names and contact details of the external examiners will be published in due course.
It is important to point out the relative weight of the thesis. Each of the markers can award a maximum of 30 points, which means that the thesis counts as much as six term exams. The procedure for evaluating the thesis is detailed in §11 of the programme regulations.
Before you start working on the thesis, please read thoroughly the Thesis Guidelines. This manual is full of essential information for writing the thesis, such as contents, structure, and submission rules.
The thesis submission deadline for the academic year 2009/2010 is August 9th.
Each year, the author of the best thesis is awarded a cash prize. Several of the best theses will be proposed for publication in the German Working Papers in Law and Economics. A collection of the best theses from recent years can also be downloaded from the Thesis Archive.
It has unfortunately become necessary to issue a very severe warning against the offence of plagiarism in the thesis. Please see the EMLE Board Decision on Plagiarism.
