(§) When a Master thesis is graded the examiner committee is sent a
document called important_info.pdf containing grading
criteria to consider. This document
is quite informative and it is publicly available, though perhaps not
easily so (until now).
If you look through this document you’ll see that your thesis will be graded on criteria such as theoretical insight, goal description, critical reflection, structure/language, etc. You’ll also see that on some of these points your supervisor (presumably me) has a say in the grade. These points are in a sense evaluated during your master’s. The examiner-evaluated criteria are based on your thesis itself. You’ll see that there are far more of these examiner-evaluated criteria.
The last couple of pages in important_info provide a
description of what goes into the evaluation of, for example, critical
reflection, and could serve as a useful checklist for you to consider
when doing your work and writing your thesis. For example you could ask
yourself “do I demonstrate a reasonable understanding of the value of
the results?”.
(§) Writing is important. This is true for many parts of life, for example a job application is usually a written document that some kind of assessing committee will look at and decide if you’re worth interviewing. For the thesis specifically it doesn’t matter if your work is technically or scientifically brilliant if you cannot communicate that clearly through your written thesis.
You can get a good grade with unimpressive work and good writing but you cannot get a good grade with bad writing. This is perhaps unfortunate, but it is also true.
(§) There is a latex template for theses written at UiT here. I suggest you use it; I’m not sure where the templates are for word or whatever else.
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