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Practical Work
CRG's emphasis on Excellence, Ease, and Efficiency demands that CRG schools should both teach as well as train students. As part of practical training, students are required to work on various teaching, preaching, and writing projects. Information about projects assigned is send along with the admission-notice.
- The writing-project assigned usually (but not always) involve developing one or more correspondence courses. This helps the students to put into practice the knowledge gained during their studies. It also helps CRG schools to assess the competence of students in communicating spiritual subjects.
- The students should check how many courses they have been asked to develop, think of subject on which they can write authoritatively, and make a list of topics on which they would like to write. The list should always have more subjects than the number of topics on which they have to work. They should then send this list to the Mentor who will approve some of these topics. All students should do this within the first six months of starting their studies.
- Students should visit www.Apologeticscourses.com to see the model of courses. They should also ensure that they do not duplicate topics that are already posted at this site. Of course, if they can develop a more advanced course on a pre-existing course, that is allowed. We wish to have Introductory, Intermediate, and Advanced level courses on all topics. The method of developing and submitting the courses is given in another section of this Handbook.
Thesis and Writing Projects
Every student who opts for the normal track of text-based study plus Thesis needs to submit an acceptable Thesis towards the end of the course. The Thesis will usually be assessed by two experts in the subject, but would be sent to three examiners in exceptional cases.
- If at least two out of three examiners approve the work, the Thesis is accepted. Else it is returned for revision. However if two out of three reject the work, the Thesis is not accepted and the student will have to write a new Thesis.
- Asking students to revise the Thesis is a common practice because CRG schools have a high standard of expectation from the students. In keeping with these standards, the Thesis is always examined by independent experts, and not by any of the Faculty who had a mentoring relationship with the student.
- In the rare event that a Thesis is rejected for the award of a degree, the student is given a new guide and Mentor. A warning is issued to the Mentor under whom the earlier work was done because it is the responsibility of the Mentor to the guide and supervise the research so as to produce a Thesis of acceptable quality. A Thesis of unacceptable quality is seen by CRG as a failure on the part of both the student as well as the Mentor.
- If two works produced by two different students within a span of three years under the same Mentor fail to qualify, that Faculty member is asked to cease from Mentoring for two years. He needs to spend these two years in studying and orienting himself in the areas of his specialization.
Thesis: Research And Presentation
Though the student submits the final copy of the Thesis only towards the second half of his studies, he should begin the work not later than three months after the studies begin. He can spend about two months to familiarize himself with the CRG academic culture, and then chose three to five topics for the possible Thesis.
- The Thesis needs to be an original work of study or research, not used before for obtaining a degree. The work might have been done earlier, but no degree should have been granted for this work. Nor should it have been part of a study program for which the student has been granted credit. In other words, if a work has ever been used to earn academic credit, it cannot be used again to gain academic credit with a CRG school.
- Seminal works presented as part of Masters degree can, however, be expanded into complete Thesis. In many non-western countries [such as in India] the student needs to enroll for a course intermediate between the masters and doctoral programs, these degree are usually designated by the abbreviation MPhil or Masters of Philosophy.
- In countries where the degree of MPhil is required before a person can join a doctoral program, the student presents a seminal work or thesis at the MPhil level, and then expands it to a full thesis for his doctoral work. The same facility is available in CRG schools.
- While a complete work for which a person has received academic credit cannot be resubmitted for additional credit, seminal works presented for masters degree can be expanded into complete thesis with the approval of the academic council.
- In routine cases, such as in the case of MPhil candidates who join doctoral programs, the mentor is empowered to approve such topic for research.
Once the Mentor or the Academic council approves a subject for research, the student should begin his work, more information about the process of research, presentation of the thesis etc. are given in the handbook related o research and thesis.
CRG will require three bound copies of the thesis to be sent. Full details and guidelines about where and how to send them can be obtained by contacting the Office. You should keep in mind that the final copy of the thesis needs to be sent to the school in hard-bound format. Electronic copy of the Thesis is not accepted for grading or for the award of degrees.
Once a thesis reaches a CRG related school, it takes anywhere from 1 to 3 months for the examiners to send us their comments.
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