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Thesis | Report

As you prepare for the culminating work of your CREEES MA degree, you may find the tips included here useful.

CREEES and Graduate School Resources

Before you register for your first thesis or report course, be sure to download and review the CREEES Thesis/Report Manual, which contains important information including preparation and timing suggestions, thesis requirements, and expectations of your supervising faculty.

Searching for a CREEES thesis or report faculty supervisor? Find out which faculty members are available to supervise a thesis or report (ie. act as first reader) on the Graduate Studies Committee GSC search page!

You should also review Graduate School requirements, deadlines and guidelines for thesis/report formatting, submission on the Graduate School's Theses & Dissertations webpage.

Of special interest should be the Deadlines and Submission Instructions, as well as the Formatting Guidelines for Digital Submissions.

Previous theses and reports written by CREEES MA students can be found here on Texas ScholarWorks, a searchable digital repository where all dissertations, theses and reports are published.

Step by step: Registering for Thesis/Report Courses and Grades

Be sure to turn in your Thesis/Report Reader form to your Graduate Coordinator as soon as possible, but no later than the end of the registration period in which you register for your first thesis (REE 698A) or report (REE 398R) course, as well as anytime there is a change to your faculty thesis readers.

Each semester that you register for a Thesis/Report course, you'll need to complete a Graduate Restricted Course Authorization Form with your supervising faculty, including specific dates of when project components are due for review, and turn it into the CREEES graduate coordinator, so that the appropriate Thesis/Report course is unrestricted for your UT EID to allow you to register for it, and so that your supervising faculty is entered into the grade reporting system for the course. NOTE: The graduate coordinator does not enroll you in the course, but only unrestricts the course for your to enroll in it during your next registration access period.

At the end of the semester in which you are enrolled in any Thesis/Report course, you may receive the following grades on your transcript:

  • CR = you've completed the course and submitted the necessary deliverable in time for faculty review and made all necessary edits as were required. For Thesis B/ Report, this is the grade needed to graduate.
  • * = you've made progress toward completing the project, but did not complete it, and should plan to re-enroll in the same course to complete the project in a following semester.
  • X = temporary incomplete, which means no grade was entered by your supervising faculty. Important: If your supervising faculty member does not update this grade by the grade reporting deadline of the following long semester, the X will turn to an I (permanent incomplete). You will not be able to graduate with a permanent incomplete for a course required for your degree!
  • NC = you have not completed the requirements for the course and will not enroll in the same course or complete the project in a following semester.

Before You Begin Your Research

If you plan to interview or survey individuals or groups of people for your project, you MUST first submit a detailed proposal to UT's Internal Review Board (IRB) and your proposal must be approved before you can conduct any research that involved human subjects. This process can be very time intensive, so be sure to plan any fieldwork trips accordingly. More information on how to submit an IRB proposal can be found on the Office of Research Support's IRB Application Process Guide webpage.