Formatting Requirements

MA theses should be between 20,000 and 25,000 words in length (excluding abstract, contents, bibliography, and appendices). Footnotes and appendices may be included where relevant but should not be used as a way of circumventing the word limit.

The MA thesis must be paginated, word processed in a standard font (i.e., Times New Roman, Helvetica/Ariel or equivalent), point 12 font size, and with either 1.5 or 2 line spacing.

The MA thesis cover page template should be inserted at the front.

Each chapter of the thesis should begin on a new page (insert page breaks to separate each section).

In addition, the thesis should include a 200–250 word abstract and table of contents before the main text, and a properly referenced bibliography at the end. Appendices are optional and should only be used to provide additional information (e.g., historical timeline) or research materials (e.g., list of interview questions, confirmation of ethical approval) that are directly relevant to the thesis.

All MA theses submitted must include an author’s declaration and a Non-exclusive Licence (also in the cover page template file – N.B. pay attention to the comments in the file in how to fill these in) included at the very end of the thesis granting permission to the University of Tartu to publish the thesis in the DSpace electronic library.

The use of original language sources in the MA thesis – in so far as they are applicable to the research topic – is strongly encouraged and will be taken into account when determining the final mark. All quotations should be translated into English in the body text of the thesis but it is recommended to put the text in the original language in the footnotes. When transliterating text from a non-Latin alphabet, you are recommended to use one of the standard systems (e.g., Library of Congress or BGN/PCGN).