Theses

If you would like to write your Bachelor's or Master's thesis at the professorship, you can get information here in advance. We supervise theses that fit thematically to our modules or main research topics. You can contact us with or without your own topic idea. Just contact the corresponding lecturer in the course or write an email to Jasmin.Godemann or Juliane.Yildiz. We will then make an appointment for an initial discussion in which we will talk about your or our ideas.

The research question

The starting point for the final paper is a research question that arises from your studies and the research field of the department. It is expected that the thesis contains a theoretical as well as an empirical part, i.e. that you also carry out a data collection in order to gain new insights.

For planning your thesis, the following timeline serves as a rough guide:
- 4-6 weeks: Determination of the research question, drafting of the exposé with subsequent registration of the thesis
- 6 months: Preparation and final submission of the thesis
- 4 weeks after submission: Defending the thesis

The first step for the thesis at the Department of Communication and Counseling are thorough preliminary considerations. You are expected to write an exposé prior to registration. As soon as the research question of the thesis has been agreed upon with the supervisor, you should start writing the exposé.

It is recommended to read literature on scientific writing. There you will find general and helpful hints on how to formulate the research question, how to structure a thesis, important hints on time management, the writing process, citation methods and much more. 

Please keep in mind that the preparation of an exposé already requires an intensive introduction to the topic. About 4-6 weeks are needed to create a complete exposé after the initial topic idea. After consultation with the supervisor, the exposé is often revised again to integrate the feedback received. The purpose of writing an exposé is to check the feasibility of your idea and to make sure that you have defined a scientific question, a logical structure and a clear methodological approach when registering for the bachelor's or master's thesis, which will enable you to successfully work on the topic.

Registration

The thesis will be registered as soon as the exposé has been completed by you and finally discussed with the supervisors. If you have any questions about the thesis, please have a look at our FAQs (currently only available in german), where you will find answers to recurring questions.

Please include a declaration of independence with any written work you submit to us!

Notes on the oral defense

After we have read your thesis, we will arrange an appointment with you for the oral defense of your thesis. For this purpose, you should prepare a 15-minute presentation (e.g. with PowerPoint or similar), which once again addresses the central points of your thesis. This will be followed by a discussion with the examiners. Before the defense, send us an abstract of your work by email (secretariat). In it, the core of your work should be presented in three to four sentences. Following your defense, the abstract will be published on the homepage under "Completed Theses" ("Abgeschlossene Arbeiten").