Master of Arts in English

Requirements for Admission

  1. General admission to graduate study.
  2. Completion of an undergraduate major or minor in English.
  3. A minimum GPA of 3.0 on all undergraduate English courses above the freshman level, to have included 12 credits of upper division English and American literature courses.
  4. A minimum score of 400 on the verbal and 400 on the quantitative sections of the GRE.

Requirements for the Degree

  1. Satisfy general degree requirements.
  2. Maintain a 3.0 GPA in all English courses; a maximum of two "Cs" will be accepted for credit toward the degree. No student with a current GPA below 3.0 may sit for the MA in English Exit Examination.
  3. ENG 603 - Bibliography.
  4. Satisfactory performance on the M.A. in English examination. (No student may take the exam more than twice.)
  5. A minimum of 33 graduate hours, with at least 27 hours in English and no more than six hours in one other field. The 27 graduate hours in English are to include the following minimum requirements: three hours in writing, three hours in linguistics, and 12 hours in literature, with at least three hours in British and three hours in American literature. Only three hours of ENG 676 may count toward the completion of the M.A. program in English.
  6. Thesis option: in place of two elective graduate courses, students may complete a thesis (six hours) and an oral defense.

Competencies for the Master of Arts in English

All students are expected to demonstrate:

  1. Mastery of research methods and library resources essential to graduate study of literature.
  2. Working knowledge of major periods in American and British literature, as well as major authors and works in those periods.
  3. Command of literary terminology.
  4. Ability to analyze literary texts at a sophisticated level, employing a range of critical approaches.
  5. Working knowledge of linguistic techniques for the investigation, description, and analysis of human language and its use.
  6. Mastery of the conventions of the critical essay.
  7. Ability to produce coherent and polished written discourse adapted to a specific purpose.
  8. Ability to produce proposals for one or more authentic audiences.

Assessments for the Master of Arts in English

  1. M.A. Exam (to demonstrate competencies 2, 3, 4, 7).
  2. Embedded Course Documents (for example, seminar papers, class presentations, and research proposals and reports).
  3. (Optional) Thesis and Oral Defense
    • Creative Thesis
    • Critical Thesis

Exit Examination Information

The M.A. in English exam is a three-hour essay exam offered twice yearly, once in April and once in July. No student may take the examination more than twice.

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Department of English