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Teaching
| One to one supervision | During research, the candidate will work closely with a Supervisor who is a specialist in their research area. The Supervisor does not lay down a topic for research but offers advice and help regarding the choice of a topic. They will help the candidate draw up a plan and a timetable for the thesis and will give them detailed feedback on their written work. The Cambridge French Section offers supervision in an exceptionally broad range of areas and there is usually more than one specialist in any given area. Members of the Section are specialists in areas of French-language literature, film, history, philosophy and culture from the Middle Ages to the present day. In addition to your Supervisor, you will normally also be able to draw on the help and support of another member of the academic staff, your advisor, who may or may not be a specialist in your area, but who will be able to give general academic advice and support. Students might reasonably expect to see their Supervisor fortnightly or at least three times a term. Supervisors normally take care to provide written comments on written work and to give constructive criticism, but students should not expect actual marks. There is no need for written work to be provided for every meeting; general discussion and planning are vital, too. The length of a supervision can vary, depending on the stage a student is at and on the nature of the written work, if any, to be discussed. As a rule, however, such meetings last between 30 and 60 minutes. Generally, a student can expect 10-12 hours of supervisions over the course of each academic year. For part-time students, this is 6-7 hours. The University of Cambridge publishes an annual Code of Practice which sets out the University’s expectations regarding supervision. |
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| Seminars & classes | Students are encouraged to attend regularly the French postgraduate research seminars and the French research seminars in their area (the areas are: Medieval, Early Modern, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth and Twenty-First Century, and Linguistics). These seminars usually meet two to four times a term. |
| Lectures | Attending lectures is optional, but students are encouraged to take advantage of lectures offered across the University that are relevant to their research. |
Feedback
Feedback on progress is provided through regular meetings with the Supervisor. Termly supervision reports are written and made available to the student online. Once a year during the first three years and once a term after that, the student has a more formal review meeting in which other academic colleagues are involved.
Assessment
Thesis / Dissertation
The thesis typically has a limit of 80,000 words (including footnotes and appendices but excluding the bibliography). The thesis should represent a significant contribution to learning through the discovery of new knowledge, through the connection of previously unrelated facts, and/or through the development of a new theory. In writing the thesis, the candidate is expected to consider previously published work on the subject. The thesis should be clearly and accurately written, paying due attention to English style and grammar. Candidates for the PhD in Cambridge are guided by a Supervisor, and they will also discuss their work with other experts in their field.
Following submission of the thesis, an oral (viva) examination is held, involving two examiners appointed by the Degree Committee of the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics, at least one of whom is normally external to Cambridge.
Other
Regular interviews constitute a system for the formal monitoring of student progress towards the PhD by the Degree Committee.
Postgraduate students are admitted in the first instance for a probationary period during which they are not registered as a candidate for the PhD degree. At the registration interview in the third term (or fifth term for part-time candidates), formal registration as a candidate for the PhD is formally considered. Satisfactory progress is a condition for being registered as a doctoral student. In preparation for the review, students submit a plan of the thesis, an account of research undertaken over the past year and forward planning, and a piece of written work (e.g., a draft chapter or preparatory study of some aspect of the research topic) of 10,000 words.