Module Catalogue 2024/25

Pre Requisite Comment

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Co Requisite Comment

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Aims

This module prepares students to undertake their MA dissertation in History by providing them with a supportive, participatory, and example-driven set of teaching and learning activities that speak to the process of pursuing original research into a diverse set of topics. The final assessment for HIS8098 is a dissertation proposal, a plan that students can use to inform their ultimate dissertation research and writing.

Outline Of Syllabus

The module covers topics such as:
How to locate a range of both physical and digital primary and secondary material that is the basis of all research;
How to analyse critically this material;
How to formulate a research question at PG level;
How to approach the issue of ethics in historical research;
How to raise the approach to writing from UG to PG work, and why referencing is crucial at PG level;
A range of discrete research topics, teaching for which is led by the researchers themselves, as a means of introducing students to a variety of topics in European, British, American (and others year on year).

Intended Knowledge Outcomes

By the end of the module students should:
Have a clear idea of whether their intended dissertation research is feasible in terms of primary and secondary material;
Understand whether it is likely to involve any ethical considerations;
Have begun some preliminary archival (in person or online) research, and constructed the outlines of a Bibliography;
And be aware of the limitations of a MA dissertation in terms of length and appropriate research, specifically how it differs from either a long essay or a monograph.

Intended Skill Outcomes

The module will help students improve their ability to:
Identify and analyse the historiographical literature (secondary sources) on the topic they propose to study;
Analyse and begin to select appropriate primary material;
Devise an appropriate methodology;
Begin to draft an effective argument;
And be aware of how the final dissertation should be presented.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

The teaching programme has been designed to impart a range of skills and practical knowledge that all students require at postgraduate level, both in terms of general research skills and those specific to the MA dissertation. The approach combines library and archival workshops and lectures and individual, academic-led seminars and workshops that focus on discrete research topics/publications. The latter covers a selection of historical topics, geographical areas, and periods. Each has been designed to highlight a different approach to the research topic in question in order that students may have access to as broad a range of skills, material, and approaches as possible over the course of the two semesters.

There will be introductory lectures from the module leader and the library team and a seminar on possible dissertation topics. The structure will broadly be that a preparation week, during which students will complete assigned tasks and/or subject specific reading, will be followed by the seminar or workshop on that subject. These research-focussed seminars and workshops are interspersed throughout the year by lectures and library-led skills sessions. In semester 2, as the dissertation research proposal becomes due, there will be an intensified series of referencing and writing skills sessions followed by a period allocated to writing the proposal that will be supported by drop-in sessions with the module leader.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

This module aims primarily to prepare students to design and undertake a dissertation. The summative assessment, a dissertation proposal, allows them apply the knowledge and skills they have acquired during this module to outline how they plan to do this. Students then benefit from the feedback they receive on their proposal at the end of this module supports their ongoing dissertation research.

A formative dissertation proposal outline encourages students to address all the important components of the proposal at an early stage, and to get feedback and support on their ideas.

General Notes

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