Aims

Researching History will build on the Stage 1 modules Evidence & Argument and Historical Sources & Methods, allowing students to develop and practice their research skills by undertaking an extended independent essay, on a topic of their choosing. Since no two fields of history present precisely the same research challenges, this topic must be distinct from those studied in the Stage 1 modules – that is, dealing with a different country or region in a similar time period, or the same country/region in a different time period (or both) – in order to broaden students’ experience.

The module will also encourage student to think about employment, and give them chance to prepare an appropriate CV and job application responding to a specific advertisement.

Outline Of Syllabus

Skills lecture materials will focus on the research process and constructing arguments bridging primary and secondary research.

Special sessions with the Robinson Library will be geared towards developing information literacy, notably how to search effectively and how to use the databases, special collections, and other repositories (both online and physical) to which the University has access.

The Careers service will offer tailored sessions on transferrable skills and employability for History students.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

LECTURE MATERIALS enable students to gain a wider sense of historical argument and debate and how such debates operate, which also allows them to develop comparisons between different historiographical debates.

SEMINARS permit close assistance with individual projects and assessments with peer review, close discussion of similar issues, and modelling.

WORKSHOPS: Workshops will focus on the key practical skills associated with the study of History, including: note-taking, academic reading, summarising, writing bibliographies, essay planning and writing, document analysis.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The formative source analysis is intended to ensure that students have gained skills in identifying primary sources for research and executing basis analysis of them. The extended essay will give students the chance to demonstrate the effectiveness of their independent research and their skills in planning and executing a project. As it will be the first time that students bring together their skills of gathering and analysing primary and secondary material in a sustained way, it will be valuable practice for the dissertation, which forms a major part of their final year. To emphasise that producing a research essay is a cumulative, iterative process, there will be a summative outline version which will be assessed mid-semester before the final version is due at the end of the semester. The focus is on uniting different layers of analysis into one essay, so additional assessment would be counterproductive to this end goal of producing a mini-dissertation.

Study-abroad, non-Erasmus exchange and Loyola students spending semester 1 only are required to finish their assessment while in Newcastle. Where an exam is present, an alternative form of assessment will be set and where coursework is present, an alternative deadline will be set. Details of the alternative assessment will be provided by the module leader.