Bachelor's Thesis

The Bachelor’s thesis is the final independent project of the Bachelor’s program in Computational Linguistics and Language Technology. You will investigate a topic in computational linguistics or language technology and document your work in a scientific thesis. The Bachelor’s thesis is worth 15 ECTS credits.

This page summarizes the department’s requirements and procedures. Faculty-wide regulations, deadlines, and administrative information are available on the website of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Information on booking the Bachelor's thesis module can be found here.

You may start your Bachelor's thesis once you have successfully completed all compulsory modules of the Bachelor's program.

The Bachelor's thesis is completed as a dedicated one-semester module worth 15 ECTS credits. Before booking the module, you must agree with your supervisor on a thesis topic and the semester in which you will write your Bachelor's thesis.

The completed thesis must be submitted by December 1 (Fall semester) or June 1 (Spring semester). Missing the submission deadline counts as a failed attempt.

Please also consult the Faculty's regulations and deadlines.

We recommend that you start thinking about a possible topic or research area and looking for a supervisor in the semester before you plan to write your Bachelor's thesis. Consult the department's research pages to find researchers working in areas that interest you and contact potential supervisors with your ideas.

Towards the end of each semester, the department organizes a Bachelor and Master Projects Info Event. Researchers present possible thesis topics and projects for the following semester and are available to discuss them with interested students. We strongly recommend attending the event if you are planning to write your Bachelor's thesis in the following semester.

If you cannot attend the event, or would like to explore possible topics in advance, you can consult the slides from the most recent Projects Info Event and our list of Open Topics for Theses and Projects.

Your Bachelor's thesis is supervised by a member of the Department of Computational Linguistics. This may be a professor, lecturer, postdoctoral researcher, or doctoral researcher.

Supervision depends on the availability of suitable supervisors. The topic is agreed jointly by you and your supervisor and is recorded on the Departmental Topic Registration Form. Both research-oriented and programming-oriented Bachelor's theses are possible.

The Bachelor's thesis demonstrates your ability to investigate a scientifically relevant problem in computational linguistics or language technology and to present your work according to academic standards. You are expected to review and discuss the current state of research relevant to your topic. Original scientific contributions are welcome but are not required.

Once you and your supervisor have agreed on a thesis topic and it has been approved by the department, complete the Departmental Topic Registration Form. The form records the provisional title of the thesis, a brief description of the project, your supervisor, and the agreed submission deadline.

The completed form becomes the department’s official record of your thesis topic and submission deadline. It reserves the topic for you and confirms that you will complete the thesis within the agreed period.

You must also book the Bachelor's Thesis module during the regular module booking period. After the booking period, the Office of Student Affairs will contact you by email concerning the provisional title of your thesis.

The Bachelor's thesis is an individual piece of work; group work is not permitted. Programming-oriented theses are typically 20–30 pages long, while theoretically oriented theses are usually 40–50 pages. The exact expectations are determined by your supervisor.

To ensure a consistent layout and formatting, all Bachelor's theses must be written in LaTeX using the department's official template. The template is available as an Overleaf project. The accompanying README.md file explains how to use the template.

If your thesis includes program code, corpora, datasets, or other digital material, prepare these as separate electronic files or make them available through a version-controlled repository (e.g., GitHub or GitLab). Include sufficient documentation (e.g., a README.md) to enable your supervisor to reproduce your work and evaluate your results. Any repository used for the thesis must remain accessible until the assessment has been completed.

Before submitting your thesis, please ensure that the PDF meets the following requirements:

• Paper size: A4 (210 × 297 mm).
• Figures should be of sufficient quality to remain clearly legible.
• The PDF must not be password-protected or otherwise restricted.

You must submit your completed thesis electronically to your supervisor by December 1 (Fall semester) or June 1 (Spring semester). Missing the submission deadline counts as a failed attempt.

Submit any program code, corpora, datasets, or other digital material that forms part of your thesis together with your thesis or provide your supervisor with access to the corresponding repository. Your supervisor may additionally request a printed copy of the thesis.

After the submission deadline, the Office of Student Affairs will contact you by email and ask you to confirm the definitive title of your thesis. Please complete and submit the form provided in that email.

Please also consult the Faculty's regulations.

Your Bachelor’s thesis is evaluated by your supervisor, who prepares a written assessment and assigns the final grade. The evaluation considers the scientific quality of the work, the presentation, and the extent to which the agreed objectives have been achieved.

Your Bachelor's thesis must comply with the applicable rules on academic integrity, plagiarism, copyright, and the use of generative AI. Please consult our Academic Integrity page for the relevant rules, guidelines, and documents.

The Departmental Topic Registration Form includes declarations concerning academic integrity, plagiarism, copyright, and rights of use. Please read these declarations carefully before signing the form.