Module overview
Provide you with the opportunity to make your own contribution to historical understanding, by presenting a coherent, detailed and sustained argument at length on a historical topic.
Provide a supervisory framework which furnishes an appropriate level of guidance with regard to source materials, theoretical perspectives, organization and composition whilst encouraging you to develop your own ideas and organize your project independently.
Augment and refine the practical skills of historical study as well as key skills useful to you in life outside university.
Aims and Objectives
Learning Outcomes
Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- coherently integrate theoretical and historiographical perspectives with detailed empirical research
- locate and identify relevant primary and secondary source materials
- interrogate the validity of existing historiographical perspectives and/or theoretical models through your own in-depth historical research
- synthesize and integrate the analysis of primary sources and secondary texts into a coherent, sustained and convincing dissertation argument
- conceptualize a feasible and intellectually adventurous research project as well a programme of study to bring it to fruition
- develop a historical argument from the study of primary sources and critical evaluation of secondary historical texts
- critically evaluate a wide range of both primary source materials and arguments contained in secondary historical texts, and propose new hypotheses on the basis of these evaluations
- conduct historical research through the study of primary sources
Transferable and Generic Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- develop and manage a practical programme of study to bring your chosen research project to fruition
- identify a significant research question and a practical means of addressing it
- communicate a coherent, sustained and convincing argument over 15,000 words
- demonstrate the capacity for self-directed problem-solving, independent working and autonomous time- management
- locate relevant source materials to permit a convincing response to be made to the research question
Knowledge and Understanding
Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:
- the subject chosen for your dissertation, including principal primary source materials and relevant scholarly literature
- the processes by which understanding is achieved and new ideas advanced within the historical discipline
- the means by which empirical research and a response to historiographical and theoretical debates can be integrated to produce an original scholarly argument
Syllabus
You will complete a 15,000-word dissertation on a subject of your choice, subject to available supervisory expertise. This dissertation may follow on from (but not replicate) work completed in other elements of the programme, but this is not a requirement. You will be allocated an appropriate supervisor, and develop the project under his or her initial guidance. The bulk of the work, however, is done independently. Samples of written work and a full draft of the dissertation may be submitted for comment to the supervisor
Learning and Teaching
Teaching and learning methods
Teaching methods include
- tutorials with supervisor
- feedback on written work
Learning activities include
- tutorial discussion with supervisor
- conceptualization of dissertation project
- research for and organization and composition of dissertation
Type | Hours |
---|---|
Independent Study | 740 |
Teaching | 10 |
Total study time | 750 |
Resources & Reading list
Textbooks
Roy Preece (1994). Starting Research: an Introduction to Academic Research and Dissertation Writing. London.
James E. Mauch & Jack W. Birch (1993). Guide to the Successful Thesis and Dissertation: A Handbook for Students and Faculty. New York.
Liz Hampson (1994). How's your Dissertation Going?: Students share the Rough Reality of Dissertation and Project. Lancaster.
Charles R. Doty (1997). Guide to Dissertation Proposal Preparation & Dissertation Preparation. New Jersey.
Fred Pyrczak (1999). Completing Your Thesis or Dissertation: Professors Share Their Techniques and Strategies. Los Angeles.
Derek Swetnam (1997). Writing Your Dissertation: How to Plan, Prepare and Present Your Work Successfully. Oxford.
Assessment
Assessment strategy
- informal feedback is provided on sample of written work and draft dissertation
The dissertation is the most substantial element of independent study within the degree programme. Coming at the end of your studies, it allows you to put into practice and to integrate virtually all the skills you have been developing over the course of the programme, and to do so in particular with a degree of autonomy which tests the depth of your understanding of the practices by which scholarly understanding is advanced and your own intellectual independence.
Summative
This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.
Method | Percentage contribution |
---|---|
Dissertation | 100% |
Referral
This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.
Method | Percentage contribution |
---|---|
Coursework | 100% |
Repeat Information
Repeat type: Internal & External