SIL Current Students and Faculty Information

This page provides information about degree and certificate programs in linguistics at UND, with a focus on information needed by students who are already in the programs and by the program's faculty.

General information

Making progress on the M.A. degree

  • MA progress checklist
  • Independent study approval form
  • Resources for academic writing (advanced course papers, topic proposals, and the thesis itself; see especially the "Thesis and advanced paper master checklist")
  • FAQ: writing an M.A. thesis in the SIL-UND program
  • Linguistics thesis templates for XLingPaper and Word/LibreOffice. (If you customize any of these templates for your own use, make a copy before you start making changes, so you don't lose track of instructions or other elements of the original.)
    • The XLingPaper templates are supported by the department in the sense that they are kept up-to-date, and there is training available as part of the Academic Writing course. There is a steep learning curve, but most people find that it is worth the effort in the long run. Technical support for XLingPaper is provided, however, by its developers, not by the linguistics program. To use them, you need to first download XLingPaper itself and the XMLMind editor on which it is based; see the XLingPaper website.
      • Standard version for XLingPaper: uses Charis SIL fonts with full Unicode support for phonetic characters and other linguistic symbols. Zip file containing necessary files. We assume that if you want to use XLingPaper, you know what to do with these files.
      • Alternate version for XLingPaper: uses Times New Roman fonts, which come standard with Windows and are more compact horizontally but don't provide as much support for linguistics as does Charis. Useful if you don't have much need for special characters and need a lot of characters per line in examples.
    • The Word/LibreOffice templates are no longer actively supported by the program, so may not be up-to-date with recent requirements. You're welcome to use them if you want, but you're responsible for figuring out how to use them and making your thesis fit all requirements. Rename the template from .doc to .dot or .dotx after download. Then open it, and it will make a copy of itself as a new document. (If you're skilled at designing Word styles and templates, and you come up with an improved version, please share it back to us.)
      • Standard version for Microsoft Word or OpenOffice: uses Charis SIL fonts with full Unicode support for phonetic characters and other linguistic symbols.
      • Alternate version for Microsoft Word or OpenOffice: uses Times New Roman fonts, which come standard with Windows and are more compact horizontally but don't provide as much support for linguistics as does Charis. Useful if you don't have much need for special characters and need a lot of characters per line in examples.
  • Linguistics style guides that may be helpful to you when writing course papers and the thesis (consult with your instructor or advisor about how closely you should follow these in particular cases):
  • “Before the defense” checklist
  • “After the defense” checklist
  • Thesis archiving and distribution consent form (submit this along with your thesis to the linguistics program director)

UND offices

Faculty sample letters, posters, forms, etc.

Other helpful links