The prospectus workshop will take place from Monday, 11 May to Wednesday, 13 May. Please reserve the full three days for this workshop! We will teach the course in two groups: see below.
*** We will start with an introductory meeting with both groups together on Monday, 11 May at 8.50 am to go through the workshop's setup together and discuss any questions you might have. The meeting will be held in person in room A211 (Van den Berg) and C207 (Al-Bagdadi). After the intro session, Profs. van den Berg and Al-Bagdadi will be available for further individual consultation. Please mark your calendars for the meeting! ***
The workshop meetings will take place in person only. For the written peer feedback on the prospectus, we will use TEAMS. This is how we’ll do it:
1) Upload your final and complete prospectus draft to CEU E-Learning (Moodle) by the 6th of May (scroll down to the “Assignment” function in the “General Information” section on Moodle and upload it there). Please submit your prospectus in WORD and name it as follows: YOURLASTNAME_prospectus. Please note that we cannot extend this deadline. You must submit the prospectus draft on time. (If you experience trouble uploading it, just send it to your group instructor).
2) We will create a forum on TEAMS for each Group and post the prospectus of each student there. We will also create a separate WORD document for each student on TEAMS: "YOURLASTNAME_worksheet". Thanks to TEAMS, we can all open and work with these documents simultaneously. This is what we ask you to do:
3) May 11: Carefully read every prospectus submitted by members of your Group and formulate three questions for each prospectus draft, referring to the strengths and weaknesses of the individual sections covered in the prospectus. Your questions might raise points of critique, suggest improvements, or simply ask for clarification. In any case, the questions should be formulated in a way that students can give a meaningful response (a ‘closed question’, that can be answered with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’, won’t do). Enter your three questions in the worksheet that goes with the prospectus. Make sure to put your name above the questions so that your fellow students will know who's asking. You have a whole day to work through 9 prospectus drafts and pose three questions for each. It is important that you finish this process by the end of the day.
4) May 12: Now return to your own prospectus and the accompanying worksheet. Read through all the questions you received from your peers and answer at least four of them. You’re welcome to respond to more than just four, but four is the minimum. Enter your answers directly into the worksheet. You must finish this process by the end of the day. Remember, a question is an invitation to improve your prospectus. Think through the feedback you received, reflect on how it can help you develop your research, and answer the question in this spirit.
5) On May 13, the two groups will re-convene separately for a one-day workshop in which we will discuss your prospectus drafts. The workshop will take place in person, 8.50-12.30 and 13.30-15.10 (including coffee breaks), in rooms C207 (Al-Bagdadi) & A211 (Van den Berg). We will devote 20 to 30 minutes of our time to each prospectus. Each student is expected to prepare a 5-minute, informal presentation responding to the questions that they received on their prospectus. Please also share with your group how you plan to incorporate the feedback to develop your prospectus. The workshop will serve to consider final revisions of your draft and make sure that, in the end, you submit a prospectus that captures what you want to do with your thesis, that you feel comfortable defending before the committee, and that you can always come back to as you keep developing your research.
Final prospectus submission deadline: 27 May 2026
Prospectus defenses: 3 June 2026
- Instructor: Karl Hall