English – Master of Arts

Admission Requirements

Conditional

1. *General admission to graduate study (for criteria, refer to "Admission to Graduate Study").
2. Completion of an undergraduate major or minor in English or equivalent, minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0 on all undergraduate English courses above the freshman level, to have included 12 credits of upper division English and American literature is strongly recommended. 

*Students who meet the requirement for admission to graduate study will be conditionally admitted.

Unconditional

1. If, after completing 12 credit hours in English, which must include a required major author course, students must achieve an MSU GPA of 3.5 or higher, with no grade lower than "B," status will change from conditional to unconditional admission. Students who fail to maintain a 3.5 GPA or fail to take a major author course during their first 12 hours may gain unconditional admission by achieving a minimum score of 146 on the verbal section and 140 quantitative section of the GRE.

Program Competencies

All students are expected to demonstrate:

1. Mastery of research methods.
2. Mastery of major periods in British and American literature.
3. Command of literary terminology.
4. Ability to write about literary texts at a sophisticated level from a definable critical approach.
5. Command of linguistic techniques.
6. Mastery of the conventions of the critical essay.

Assessment

1. Satisfactory performance on the M.A. in English examination.
2. Assessment of final literature papers for graduating students.
3. Results of Major Author objective test.
4. Assessment of linguistics projects to analyze human language using linguistic techniques.

Requirements for the Degree

1. Satisfy general degree requirements.
2. Maintain a 3.0 GPA in all English courses; a maximum of two "C" grades will be accepted for credit toward the degree. No student with a current GPA below 3.0 may sit for the M.A. in English Exit examination.
3. Satisfactory performance on the M.A. in English examination. (No student may take the exam more than twice.)
4. A minimum of 30 graduate credit hours. The 30 graduate credit hours in English are to include the following minimum requirements: three hours in a major author course, three hours in writing, three hours in linguistics, and 21 hours in English electives, with at least three hours in British and three hours in American literature. Only three hours of ENG 676 - Directed Study may count toward the completion of the M.A. in English.

Program Requirements

Core Requirements

Major Author - Choose three hours from list below:

Writing - Choose three hours from list below:

Linguistics - Choose three hours from list below:

American Literature - Choose three hours from list below:

British Literature - Choose three hours from list below:

English Electives