Admission requirements
Students must have passed:
All first year courses (propedeuse)
10 EC in BA2 seminars
BA2 Texts IIb
BA2 Production IIb
BA2 Production IIc (or BA2 Study Abroad)
In addition students must have fulfilled the participation element of a BA3 seminar in the first semester.
Description
This course is designed to assist students in the production of their BA thesis, and to improve students’ related capacities in the reading, analysis, and discussion of Japanese language texts. It is conducted in weekly sessions, with an even distribution of academic content and language portions in terms of time, weight, and assessments.
The seminar is divided in two, with the “content” portion taught by an instructor from the two clusters and the language portion taught by instructor(s) from the language section. Having already identified a BA thesis topic and conducted preliminary research in the autumn, students are required to complete the bulk of their BA thesis research (including locating and reading at least one Japanese language source) and post an outline of their BA thesis before the first class meeting.
The first two meetings (1-2) are “content” sessions devoted to discussion and mutual feedback on these outlines (students are required to post feedback on one another’s work on Brightspace);
the subsequent three sessions (3-5) are “language” sessions in which students will work on creating a wiki article related to their thesis;
in sessions 6-7 (“content”) they will make work-in-progress presentations and give/receive mutual feedback on draft thesis chapter(s) submitted on Brightspace before session 6, which include a literature review;
in sessions 8-10 (“language”) they will conduct a discussion on each wiki article and take part in a vocabulary quiz;
the final two sessions (11-12), which take place after the submission of their BA thesis first draft, are devoted to mutual discussion and feedback on these drafts (including Brightspace posts).
Course objectives
“Content” Component
- The completion of a successful BA thesis on the basis of instruction on effective writing strategies, discussion and making of outlines, chapters, and a complete thesis rough draft in a logical order, and the giving and receiving of constructive peer feedback.
“Language” Component
Learning vocabulary and academic expressions on a topic related to each student’s thesis.
Participating in Q&A activities on academic topics.
Commenting on short academic texts in Japanese.
Writing a summary of thesis in Japanese.
Timetable
The timetables are available through My Timetable.
Mode of instruction
Seminar
Assessment method
Assessment
Grading in all BA3 Afstudeerseminars is divided 50/50 between the “content” component and the “language” component.
“Content” Component
Participation: 50% (incl. attendance, in-class presentations, in-class participation)
Written Assignments: 50% (incl. thesis outline, literature review)
“Language” Component
Written Assignments: 60%
Vocabulary Quiz 20%
Oral Presentation 20%
Weighing
The final grade is calculated as ‘weighted average’ (‘gewogen gemiddelde’), and not based on passing all the components. Please, note that the participation rule applies to both components of this course. Student who miss more than 30% of classes without any proof of extenuating circumastances will automatically fail this seminar.
Resit
Students who end up with an average grade of both components which falls lower than 6 can submit an abstract of their thesis in Japanese of 2000-2500 characters. This will be counted as a resit of the entire course and will be graded following the same “language” and “content” component division as the course (50%/50%).
It is possible for students to submit this abstract until December 10, which is the deadline of re-submitting their theses (if they failed to meet the June 1 deadline).
In order to be eligible for the resit, students must have a written statement from their thesis supervisor stating that the student made a serious effort at the graduation seminar.
** Inspection and feedback**
How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.
Reading list
To be announced in class.
Registration
Enrolment through My Studymap is mandatory.
Contact
For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.
For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office: Vrieshof
Remarks
The specific themes of each year are shared through Brightspace.
The graduation seminars are thematically organized. Students write their thesis within a specific theme and are enrolled based on their assigned thesis supervisor.