MA Dissertation (HI961)
What is a dissertation?
The dissertation is a piece of academic writing about 15,000 words long - roughly the length of two academic articles or book chapters - and you will need to identify a topic which can be dealt with within that length whilst showing originality. It is not a book, nor an essay. You should view it mainly as an opportunity to develop research techniques and methodologies and to present the research in an appropriate format.
A dissertation is normally expected to show a measure of originality. It may be helpful to think of originality as residing either in a source-base (when a dissertation is based on the analysis of a set of usually primary sources which have not been analysed from a particular angle before), or in treatment (when you are offering a novel view of historiographical problems and topics), or in writing (the ‘voice’ will be your own - and total unoriginality, i.e. plagiarism, is obviously to be avoided). Your supervisor will be able to give you guidance on the originality of your work at all levels, but it is something you will want to think about from the very beginning.
Your Supervisor
You will be assigned a supervisor to support you with your dissertation. They will be able to help you firm up your topic and give guidance on the research and writing processes.
INFO ON MEETINGS AND MONITORING POINTS
You will have the opportunity to nominate a preferred supervisor (WHEN). Before this, we encourage you to review our staff pages and speak to potential supervisors to ask if they are willing, in principle, to serve as your dissertation supervisor.
(INSERT BUTTON - SUPERVISOR REQUEST FORM)
Your Topic
It's helpful to start the MA with a general idea of your dissertation topic. There is plenty of time during the course to work on this.
In your first supervision, you should talk over possible topics and angles on those topics. Before this meeting, you should conduct a brief library search to see if anything has been directly published on your topic already.
Your supervisor will help you to focus your topic and point you in the direction of relevant literature and sources.
Formatting
Dissertations should be submitted in electronic copy as a .pdf, .doc or .docx via Tabula, as with every other assessment. No hard copy is required. The following guidelines are recommended as good practice.
- The first page of your dissertation must be your cover sheet with your title and student ID displayed clearly
- There should be a 4cm (1½-inch) margin at the left-hand side of the page, and an adequate margin on the other three edges.
- The text of your dissertation should be double-spaced. The footnotes (or endnotes) should, however, be single-spaced.
- Except for the very first paragraph under a new heading, the first line of every paragraph should be indented. You do not need to add extra spacing between paragraphs: the indentation alone tells the reader that you have begun a new paragraph.
- Number each page of your dissertation.
- The dissertation must be anonymous; the cover sheet should only have your student ID number as a means to identify you.
- Your student ID must be displayed as a header/footer on each page of the dissertation.
- The first page of your dissertation should be your cover sheet with your title and student ID clearly displayed.
Penalties apply for exceeding the word count, late submissions and plagiarism. Please follow the
assessment guidelines as for any other submission.
| Included in word count | Not included in word count | |
|---|---|---|
| Titles and subtitles in the text | Bibliography | |
| Abstract | Title pages | |
| Contents | Footnotes | |
| Appendices | ||
| Image captions |
Submission
Completing a Draft
Unlike previously assessed coursework, it is expected that your supervisor will read a draft of your research work in advance and offer editorial support.
Supervisors can be expected to read an outline of your dissertation (perhaps taken from your draft introduction) and one draft of each chapter, provided this material is submitted to the supervisor by 31 July, or another date agreed between you and your supervisor.
The supervisor does not read the final draft of the dissertation. Any material submitted after this date will not be read, nor should you ask your supervisor to read multiple drafts of the same chapter.
You may not be able to meet your supervisor in person over the summer break, but you can expect them to respond to a reasonable number of email queries.
Support
Completing a large research project can feel overwhelming. You will receive support throughout the MA including supervision meetings, writing workshops and the opportunity to write and receive feedback on a dissertation proposal.
Normal policies around extensions and mitigation apply to the dissertation.