My idea of a presentation is that you present your term paper and the reading you have evaluated in this context in the seminar and have a conversation about it with me and the other seminar participants. You should therefore be able to speak uninterruptedly on your topic for about half an hour, but on the other hand, you should also be prepared for the fact that your ongoing presentation may be regularly interrupted by questions, comments and discussions. Do not take this as a sign that things are "going badly". For me, a presentation is a qualified contribution to the seminar and not a mere lecture. Please do not forget to present your topic in such a way that fellow students also have a chance to understand it. Always regard your seminar session as a consultation session in front of an audience, where you can get hints on what could or should be improved in your term paper. Therefore, please make notes on the points of criticism and suggestions. As soon as possible after the presentation and under the impression of this discussion, you should revise your paper and try to implement these suggestions.

The Preparation Process

After we have agreed on a topic, your first step is to search for literature. A sensible literature base is the foundation of every successful seminar paper and a successful presentation and I am of course happy to help with the research. However, on the other hand, the literature search is a central learning goal of your studies and I would therefore like to help you with it, but not replace the entire research. I would therefore ask you to read my style sheet first.

It already contains some central tips on literature research, which I would ask you to take to heart. As much as I am willing to help you and answer your questions, I will be displeased if you ask me things that I have already covered in detail in the said stylesheet.

The next step is to start your own research. Be sure to also use the internet to find references to usable PRINTED literature!

Then create a list of the literature that you have found yourself and that you would use as a basis for your work. Please make sure that this list already fully complies with the formal requirements of my style sheet! Send this list to me as an e-mail attachment in Word (better: RTF) format or pasted directly into the mail text, so that I can comment directly on individual titles if necessary. I will then comment on, shorten and add to your list or consult my own bibliography database for you; in emergencies I have sometimes even scanned and sent whole articles ...

My willingness to help is directly proportional to your willingness to research independently and, if necessary, to identify and obtain literature that is more difficult to access. If you think that you have not found anything suitable at all in your research, then please at least describe to me in detail how you proceeded in your search and where you have already searched everywhere. Be sure to ask the library staff as well!

If you independently find relevant (and new!) literature on your topic that I did not already know, I am impressed and already clearly inclined to give a better censoring. Perhaps you should also know that I ALWAYS look at the bibliography first when correcting. If it is thin, poorly selected or does not meet the most basic standards of form and care, experience has shown that little can be expected from the rest. If you find interesting literature that I don't know myself, I might ask you for a counter-favour later :-) I am also always grateful for scanned articles!

Once we have agreed on a literature base, you can start sourcing and evaluating. When you have more or less finished sifting through your literature, you should come up with a preliminary outline, which you also send to me. When we have also agreed on this, you can start with the actual work.

The length of a main seminar paper should be around 15 pages and the bibliography should not be significantly less than 15 titles. While too many written pages can have a grade-reducing effect, the same does not apply to the pages read ;-)

A week before the presentation, I would like to have a draft of your handout or slides in order to be able to clarify any problems in advance. This will help you feel more confident about your presentation.

Of course, all these steps are optional for you. Just by taking the style sheet to heart, you will be well prepared. I have already given many good grades for papers and assignments that were not written under the close supervision described above, and I am pleased that I had so little work to do and that the result was still so good. On the other hand, however, my experience is that all the papers graded "unsatisfactory" were those whose authors had waived supervision.

Seminar Papers

Many students are not sure what is actually expected of them in an academic term paper. When reading into their topic, they increasingly have the feeling that everything imaginable on the subject has already been written by professionals anyway and that they therefore cannot possibly make their own contribution to it. On the other hand, a mere summary of what they have read somehow seems too little. So what do we expect from you?

General Expectations

I expect you (e.g.):

• that you first find out what has already been published on the agreed topic (literature research);
• that you select 10-20 particularly important or particularly usable titles from the usually unmanageable mass of publications and that you draw up a list of the underlying literature base;
• that you place the agreed topic in a broader problem context and inform yourself about the terminology commonly used in linguistics (example: If you are writing on the imperfect in Spanish, it would be a good idea, as an introduction, to do some general research on the concepts of "tense" and "mode" - including in non-Hispanic, general linguistic sources);
• that you identify which descriptive problems are discussed in connection with your topic and which theories are proposed to solve them;
• that you present, where possible, representatives of different opinions or theories on the basis of well-selected characteristic texts and elaborate their differences;
• that you discuss and justify which of the theories convince or do not convince you.

As you can see, almost the entire thesis is based on summarising the texts of the specialist literature and also citing them in the case of particularly important or characteristic formulations. Ideally, at least in the core part of your work, each presentation should be based on at least two sources in order to ensure the necessary balance and to avoid turning your work into a series of slavish excerpts.

In principle, everything you write must be substantiated, i.e. it must be comprehensible to the reader where this information comes from. This text form of summarising, quoting, discussing and proving is ultimately what makes your work scientific and is regulated in detail by formalisms. Learning the formalisms and producing the said type of text fluently and with stylistic confidence is a central learning objective of academic university studies. Experience has shown that these techniques are assumed everywhere at German universities in a more or less strict interpretation, but unfortunately they are only taught in exceptional cases.

The "style sheet": Your set of rules for the formal aspects of the term paper

In order not to leave you alone with this problem on the one hand, but on the other hand not to have to explain the same thing over and over again, I have prepared a detailed "stylesheet" in which you will find information on literature research and on the content, formal and typographical design of a scientific paper.

This style sheet is based on years of experience in correcting student papers. You should read it through in its entirety before you even begin to research the literature. It is best to mark any references that surprise you and that you would probably have violated without my advice. When you have finished your work, you should go through the style sheet again and make sure that you have followed everything. I am happy to help you with any doubts you may have and you should not be afraid to contact me with detailed questions - but only if you have first made sure that the question in question is definitely not already addressed and answered in the stylesheet. My extensive willingness to help is based on the assumption that you will first exhaust all obvious resources before asking me. So download the stylesheet at this address:

STYLE SHEET

Also bear in mind that this text is revised again and again and check now and then whether you are still using the latest version.

I have divided the notes of the style sheet into §§ to make my work easier. So I will refer to the paragraphs when advising you (and afterwards when correcting you) and assume that you will then read them in the stylesheet. So, for example, if I object to an underlined heading, I simply write "§ 3.1" next to it, which means: "Here, § 3.1. of the style sheet has been violated. Please read this paragraph again and correct the error on this basis!"

The Work Stages

Search for Literature

After we have agreed on a topic, your first step is the literature search. A sensible literature base is the foundation of every successful academic paper and I am of course happy to help with the research. However, on the other hand, the literature search is a central learning goal of your studies and I would therefore like to help you with it, but not replace the entire research. I would therefore ask you to read my style sheet first. It already contains some central tips on literature research, which I would ask you to take to heart. As much as I am willing to help you and answer your questions, I will be displeased if you ask me things that I have already covered in detail in the said stylesheet.

The next step is to start your own research. Be sure to also use the internet to find references to usable PRINTED literature!

Then create a list of the literature that you have found yourself and that you would use as a basis for your work. Please make sure that this list already fully complies with the formal requirements of my style sheet! Send this list to me as an e-mail attachment in Word (better: RTF) format or pasted directly into the mail text, so that I can comment directly on individual titles if necessary. I will then comment on, shorten and add to your list or consult my own bibliography database for you; in emergencies I have sometimes even scanned and sent whole articles ...

My willingness to help is directly proportional to your willingness to research independently and, if necessary, to identify and obtain literature that is more difficult to access. If you think that you have not found anything suitable at all in your research, then please at least describe to me in detail how you proceeded in your search and where you have already searched everywhere. Be sure to ask the library staff as well!

If you independently find relevant (and new!) literature on your topic that I did not already know, I am impressed and already clearly inclined to give a better censoring. Perhaps you should also know that I ALWAYS look at the bibliography first when correcting. If it is thin, poorly selected or does not meet the most basic standards of form and care, experience shows that little can be expected from the rest. If you find interesting literature that I don't know myself, I might ask you for a counter-favour later :-) I am also always grateful for scanned articles!

Attention: Even if you think you can start with the actual writing of the paper late in the semester or even during the holidays, you should start with the literature research and acquisition immediately. It is a lengthy process and interlibrary loans can take time.

Structure

Once we have agreed on a literature base, you can start sourcing and evaluating it. When you have more or less finished reviewing your literature, you should come up with a preliminary outline, which you also send to me. When we have also agreed on this. You can start with the actual work.

If, after reviewing the agreed reading, you also want to agree on the rough structure of your work with me, you are welcome to do so.

Of course, all these steps are optional for you. Just by taking the style sheet to heart, you will be well prepared. I have already awarded many good grades for papers and assignments that were not written under the close supervision described above, and I am then pleased that I had so little work to do and that the result still turned out so well. On the other hand, my experience is that all papers graded "unsatisfactory" were those whose authors had waived supervision!

Composing

Once we have agreed on the bibliographical core and, if necessary, on the structure of your paper, my supervision basically ends and you work on your own from that moment on. Of course, I will still be available to answer your questions at any time.

In general, you should write your paper as if it were to be submitted for publication in a relevant journal. In addition to my style sheet, it is certainly helpful to develop a feeling for the style and presentation of scientific papers by always reading them from the point of view that you should learn the style used there yourself.

When the work is finished, you should have it proofread by others wherever possible to eliminate spelling and stylistic inconsistencies and to check whether the structure and presentation seem comprehensible to an outsider. This applies all the more if your mother tongue is not German!

Type of submission and deadline

Please submit your term paper in three formats:

• as a printout in my post office box or private mailbox (please use loose sheets, only held together with a staple at the corner; plastic binders etc. must otherwise be removed beforehand and disposed of afterwards)
• as an electronic version in the word processing format you use
• as a PDF document.

Send the two electronic versions as an email attachment to my office address. Only the date of this email is decisive for meeting the deadline. However, I will not start correcting the paper until I have received the printout; i.e. if you forget to hand in the printed version, I will probably forget to correct it as well.

On the cover sheet, in addition to the usual data, please also explicitly state which module achievement you are aiming for with your work and how many ECTS points should be achieved with it.

The submission deadlines for term papers are uniformly regulated in Romance Studies:

• Deadline for the winter semester: 15 March
• Deadline for the summer semester: 31 August

Please notify us in good time if it becomes apparent that you might miss these deadlines!

Final Thesis

In Master's, Master's, Bachelor's and admission theses, candidates should basically prove the same thing: that they have learned during their studies to grasp a complex scientific subject area through independent literature research, to summarise the most important facts and debates of this subject area in a relevant manner and to condense this into a self-contained overview presentation of their own. This should correspond to the conventions of the subject in terms of style, typography and formalities. When you write for me, these somewhat abstract "conventions" are concretised in the guidelines of my style sheet.

The assessment of the work is based on how you achieve these goals. An independent scientific achievement in the sense of a new theory, discovery or empirical study is not envisaged in this type of work, and the absence of such an achievement is not an obstacle to the award of the top mark. On the other hand, it is of course not "forbidden" either, but rather a clear positive point in the assessment.

In addition to the above-mentioned task of an annotated and, if necessary, also assessed research overview on a given topic area, you can, after consultation, also add your own empirical component, which I would like to expressly encourage you to do.

Preparation

First, however, we have to agree on a suitable topic. In principle, I do not assign topics, but expect one or more topic suggestions from you, which should result from your studies or from any other kind of previous work, but without taking up the topic of an already written term paper (or a presentation). Please let me know your suggestions for topics as soon as possible.

It is indispensable for me and at least useful for you that we can assess each other as well as possible as Romance scholars. For you, this means that you should take a look at my profile (and, if necessary, try to compare it with your own). For me, on the other hand, it means that I need a complete list of all the linguistics courses you have taken in order to get a picture of your course of study and level of knowledge. If you have also taken linguistics outside of Romance Studies, be sure to list these courses as well. In addition to the title of the seminar, I also need the semester, the lecturer and, if applicable, your own contribution (title of your paper or term paper, etc.).

Selection of the Topic

We will then decide together on the final topic of your paper. I expect you (e.g.):

• that you first find out what has already been published on the agreed topic (literature search);
• that you select 10-20 especially important or particularly usable titles from the usually unmanageable mass of publications and that you draw up a list of the underlying literature base;
• that you place the agreed topic in a broader problem context and inform yourself about the terminology commonly used in linguistics (example: If you are writing on the imperfect in Spanish, it would be a good idea, as an introduction, to do some general research on the concepts of "tense" and "mode" - including in non-Hispanic, general linguistic sources);
• that you identify which descriptive problems are discussed in connection with your topic and which theories are proposed to solve them;
• that you present, where possible, representatives of different opinions or theories on the basis of well-selected characteristic texts and elaborate their differences;
• that you discuss and justify which of the theories do not convince you.

As you can see, almost the entire paper is based on summarising the texts of the specialist literature and also citing particularly important or characteristic formulations. In principle, everything you write must be substantiated, i.e. it must be comprehensible to the reader where this information comes from. This text form of summarising, quoting, discussing and proving is ultimately what makes your work scientific, and it is regulated in detail by formalisms. Learning the formalisms and producing this type of text in a fluent and stylistically confident manner is a central learning objective of academic university studies. Experience has shown that these techniques are assumed everywhere at German universities in a more or less strict interpretation, but unfortunately they are only taught in exceptional cases.

The "style sheet": Your set of rules for the formal aspects of the term paper

In order not to leave you alone with this problem on the one hand, but on the other hand not to have to explain the same thing over and over again, I have prepared a detailed "stylesheet" in which you will find information on literature research and on the content, formal and typographical design of a scientific paper.

This style sheet is based on years of experience in correcting student papers. You should read it through in its entirety before you even begin to research the literature. It is best to mark any references that surprise you and that you would probably have violated without my advice. When you have finished your work, you should go through the style sheet again and make sure that you have followed everything. I am happy to help you with any doubts you may have and you should not be afraid to contact me with detailed questions - but only if you have first made sure that the question in question is definitely not already addressed and answered in the stylesheet. My extensive willingness to help is based on the assumption that you will first exhaust all obvious resources before asking me. So download the stylesheet at this address:

STYLE SHEET

Also bear in mind that this text is revised again and again and check now and then whether you are still using the latest version.

I have divided the notes of the style sheet into §§ to make my work easier. So I will refer to the paragraphs when advising you (and afterwards when correcting you) and assume that you will then read them in the stylesheet. So, for example, if I object to an underlined heading, I simply write "§ 3.1" next to it, which means: "Here, § 3.1. of the style sheet has been violated. Please read this paragraph again and correct the error on this basis!"

The Work Stages

Search for Literature

After we have agreed on a topic, your first step is the literature search. A sensible literature base is the foundation of every successful academic paper and I am of course happy to help with the research. However, on the other hand, the literature search is a central learning goal of your studies and I would therefore like to help you with it, but not replace the entire research. I would therefore ask you to read my style sheet first. It already contains some central tips on literature research, which I would ask you to take to heart. As much as I am willing to help you and answer your questions, I will be displeased if you ask me things that I have already covered in detail in the said stylesheet.

The next step is to start your own research. Be sure to also use the internet to find references to usable PRINTED literature!

Then create a list of the literature that you have found yourself and that you would use as a basis for your work. Please make sure that this list already fully complies with the formal requirements of my style sheet! Send this list to me as an e-mail attachment in Word (better: RTF) format or pasted directly into the mail text, so that I can comment directly on individual titles if necessary. I will then comment on, shorten and add to your list or consult my own bibliography database for you; in emergencies I have sometimes even scanned and sent whole articles ...

My willingness to help is directly proportional to your willingness to research independently and, if necessary, to identify and obtain literature that is more difficult to access. If you think that you have not found anything suitable at all in your research, then please at least describe to me in detail how you proceeded in your search and where you have already searched everywhere. Be sure to ask the library staff as well!

If you independently find relevant (and new!) literature on your topic that I did not already know, I am impressed and already clearly inclined to give a better censoring. Perhaps you should also know that I ALWAYS look at the bibliography first when correcting. If it is thin, poorly selected or does not meet the most basic standards of form and care, experience shows that little can be expected from the rest. If you find interesting literature that I don't know myself, I might ask you for a counter-favour later :-) I am also always grateful for scanned articles!

Attention: Even if you think you can start with the actual writing of the paper late in the semester or even during the holidays, you should start with the literature research and acquisition immediately. It is a lengthy process and interlibrary loans can take time.

Structure

Once we have agreed on a literature base, you can start sourcing and evaluating it. When you have more or less finished reviewing your literature, you should come up with a preliminary outline, which you also send to me. When we have also agreed on this. You can start with the actual work.

If, after reviewing the agreed reading, you also want to agree on the rough structure of your work with me, you are welcome to do so.

Of course, all these steps are optional for you. Just by taking the style sheet to heart, you will be well prepared. I have already awarded many good grades for papers and assignments that were not written under the close supervision described above, and I am then pleased that I had so little work to do and that the result still turned out so well. On the other hand, my experience is that all papers graded "unsatisfactory" were those whose authors had waived supervision!

Composing

Once we have agreed on the bibliographical core and, if necessary, on the structure of your paper, my supervision basically ends and you work on your own from that moment on. Of course, I will still be available to answer your questions at any time.

In general, you should write your paper as if it were to be submitted for publication in a relevant journal. In addition to my style sheet, it is certainly helpful to develop a feeling for the style and presentation of scientific papers by always reading them from the point of view that you should learn the style used there yourself.

When the work is finished, you should have it proofread by others wherever possible to eliminate spelling and stylistic inconsistencies and to check whether the structure and presentation seem comprehensible to an outsider. This applies all the more if your mother tongue is not German!

The Nature of the Written Exam in the State Examination

Linguistics, Not School Grammar

To achieve a good mark, it is not enough to limit oneself to a purely formal working through of the questions. The questions merely provide a framework within which candidates can demonstrate their linguistic expertise. They are expected to include as many linguistically relevant observations as possible in their answers. The quality of an answer is therefore not calculated mechanically according to the number of correct observations, but above all according to whether you know how to use them for your linguistic analysis and whether they go beyond the level of a linguistic-practical discourse in technical-terminological terms.

Structured Answers, Not Collections of Facts

Each individual answer should ideally form a self-contained discussion. The problem at stake should be formulated using linguistic terminology. The theoretical terminological tools that will be used for analysis should be mentioned. This could be followed by comments on what has been written about it in the literature. Finally, these elements should be used to analyse the text in question. The answer should conclude with a summary of the results.

A well-structured answer must be limited to the essentials and only answer what was asked. To grasp the linguistic core of a question is an important aspect of linguistic expertise, which is to be demonstrated in this exam. If the essentials are mixed with correct but irrelevant explanations, this worsens the overall impression.

Analysis, No Theory Presentations

The essence of the linguistic examination in the state examination is text work, not the explicit reproduction of theoretical knowledge. The candidates should therefore work on the analysis tasks for the text and use the theoretical descriptive tools of linguistics in a meaningful way and not, as is often observed, deliver an overview paper on a linguistic theory, which they then merely illustrate with examples from the text.

Every bit of expertise that is recognisably used to answer the task earns positive points. Any piece of knowledge that is simply referred to but not used in the analysis should be avoided.
In the introduction to each answer, candidates should show how they linguistically classify the problem to be analysed; they should possibly indicate which authors or theories in the research literature they base their answer on. Extra points are awarded if alternatives are mentioned here and either both are considered in the analysis, or the decision for one of these alternatives is justified. In this form, the development of theoretical knowledge also earns extra points.

On the other hand, it is unnecessary to define again verbosely what is presupposed to be known (phoneme, cohesion ...) or to recount whole memorised articles including the research report. Everything that is not recognisably included in the analysis is deleted and not assessed.

Linguistics, not Language Practice

There is a principle among Bavarian state examination examiners that a halfway correct description of facts at the analytical and terminological level of a learner's grammar or a practical language exercise should not be sufficient for an in-depth linguistic examination. Since practical linguistic knowledge is already examined elsewhere, familiarity with the descriptive tools of linguistics is a central assessment criterion here. The candidate's obligation is therefore to use as much scientific terminology and theory correctly as possible and to demonstrate familiarity with the relevant linguistic approaches to description and explanation. What is written in the learner grammars is assumed to be known, but does not yet qualify for an above-average mark.

Discussions, not Lists

Where a tabular response is not explicitly required, responses should take the form of a formulated discussion and show an argumentation conducted in complete sentences. Within such a discussion, annotated tables are of course an acceptable form of presentation. If a question is processed as a whole as a tabular list of key points without formulated, truthful sentences, this leads to a clear devaluation of this question, in special cases even to the assessment as "not answered".

Commitment to IPA

IPA is the only transcription system worldwide and across languages. In teaching, it is taught and it is also part of the expected linguistic expertise that you can convert deviant, outdated and regional transcription systems into IPA. In exam exams, therefore, any deviation from IPA is considered an error. One consequence of this principle is that, for example, [rr] as a notation of the Spanish multivibrant is counted as an error just as [r] for the monovibrant.