*Q. "When is the essay due?" A. Check the departmental guidelines and your personal profile on Tabula. It is your responsibilty to know the deadline, I will not be remininding you about this, as different students taking this course have different deadlines.

*Q. "What if I need an extension?" A. I do not have authority to approve extension requests, so you cannot email me and ask for an extension. An extension request must be submitted through Tabula in advance of the deadline: https://tabula.warwick.ac.uk/coursework/. Full details about extension requests are available on the depatmental guidelines pages here.

Extensions for summative assessed work may only be granted for serious medical issues (supported with documentation), or for severely difficult personal circumstances. Computer failure is not a valid reason for an extension.

*Q. "How do I submit the essay?" A. Follow the departmental guidlines available here. You will need to submit an electronic copy on Tabula, the coursework management system. You will also need to provide a hardcopy of the essay, which needs to be submitted to the Undergraduate History Office in H3.42. All essays must include a title page and should not include your name - only your student number.

"Q. " Where do I find a question?" A., Mark and I are keen to encourage you to develop a question centred on a topic/subject you are interested in exploring. This makes a much stronger essay. I am happy to offer guidance and to propose questions, but I will need to know what aspects of the topic you are interested in exploring before being able to make suggestions. ALL questions must be approved by either me or Mark before submission.

* Q. "Is the 4,500 word limit the maximum, or can I go 10% over?" A. 4,500 is the maximum length it can be. Essays over the word limit will have 1 mark deducted for every 50 words over. Footnotes and the bibliography do not count in the word count."

* Q. "Can my long-essay be on the same question / topic as a short essay or the summer exam?" A. The long-essay can be on the same topic as a formative (short) essay, but NOT the same topic or question for the exam. The departmental guidelines note that: 'No material presented in ANY summative essay may be re-used, either in an examination answer or in a summative essay for another module or in a summative essay/dissertation in a module taken in a subsequent year.'

* Q. "How should I present the long-essay?" It should conform to the regulations set out in the departmental style guide (penalties may be applied if it is not presented correctly).

In terms of general presentation, there is no set rule. As a marker, I generally like to see an extended introductory section (not just 1 paragraph), which introduces key ideas/themes/historiographical debates and then uses the rest of the essay to focus in on a narrower perspective. Long-essays work well as three sub-sections, preferably divided with sub-headings, but continuous prose also works. This should be followed by a conclusion, about 10% the length of the essay.

* Q. "What if I am having trouble accessing library resources over the Easter vacation" A. The Bibliography of British and Irish History is a really good resource for searching for journal articles and book chapters not on the reading list that may also be useful. It contains bibliographic information on historical writing dealing with the British Isles and British Empire for all periods.

You can also look for books with similar titles on the library shelves and use the photocopiers in the library to scan book chapters, which are then emailed to you. Because of the memory of the machines, I would recommend scanning no more than one chapter per email, so that it sends.

If you are planning to go home for Easter and are able to access another university library, then that could be an option. For those who live in London, Oxford or Cambridge, I would suggest trying to make use of the British Library, the Bodleian Library (Oxford) or the Cambridge University Library.

*Q. "How many sources/texts/books should I cite in my essay?" There is no set rule - use your initiative. I would recommend 6-10 sources (secondary and primary) for a 2,000 word essay, so I'd suggest aiming for around 20 for 4,500 words.

*Q. "How many primary sources should I cite in my essay?" There is no rule for this. You could engage with a source or image in a lot of depth, or you could just provide one quote from a source. The point of the long essay is that it feels as though you are providing an interesting and, where possible, original take on a question.

*Q. "Where do I find primary sources for my essay?" You will need to take your own initiative with this, although the databases and resources provided for the seminar pages for each weeks, should provide a good starting point. For my British Problem module I teach, I have provided links to a number of electronic primary source databases on the module website,m which you can access here. You will need to explore these through keyword searches. You can also look in the library for relevant primary source collections available as edited books and consult with the subject librarians for support. It is not acceptable to take a primary source from the secondary literature and cite it as your own - this will be noticed.

* Q "I'm referencing an image in my essay, should I include the image?" A. "Yes, include a copy of the image wherever possible. Refer to the image in your essay as (Figure 1) and then include the image underneath the paragraph you cite it with the reference as follows.

'This can be seen in the Ditchley portrait of Elizabeth I (Figure 1), where ... [end of paragraph]'

Figure 1. Queen Elizabeth I (The Ditchley Portrait) by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger (c.1592)

© National Portrait Gallery, London [http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw02079/Queen-Elizabeth-I-The-Ditchley-portrait]

* Q. "How do I cite primary materials in my essay". It depends on the type of source you are referencing and where you sourced it:

In a printed volume of edited primary materials:

Author if known, 'Title of extract', in author ed./eds., Collection title (place of publication, date of publication), pp. xx

e.g. 'The Petition of Right', in J. P. Kenyon, The Stuart Constitution (2nd ed., London, 1986), pp. 18-20.

A book/pamhplet/tract cited on Historical texts or Early English Books Online

Author, if known, Title of Text (place of publication, date of publication), p. x [consulted at: http://www. ... ]

Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queen (London, 1758-59), p. 4 [consulted at: https://data.historicaltexts.jisc.ac.uk/view?pubId=ecco-0106400101&terms=edmund%20spenser%20ireland]

Sometimes a page number will not be used, especiallly for prefatory material. In those cases write: unpaginated, p. x/or image x. Arrive at that page number by citing what you think the modern page number would be,or the number of the image on the viewer.

A primary resource on a website (where you can't view the original document)

Author, if known, Title of the text (date of original publication), Title of collection, date page was created, if known. URL (date you saw the page),

e.g. The Solemn League and Covenant (1643), Constitution Society. http://www.constitution.org/eng/conpur058.htm (16 March 2016).

A letter or other manuscript document on an online database, e.g. state papers online

Collection, document reference (if known), author of letter to recipient of letter, date letter was sent, folio/page numbers if known [consulted at: http://www. ... ]

e.g. State Papers Online, SP 84/53 f.232a, Queen Elizabeth to the States General, undated, ff. 232a [consulted at: http://0-go.galegroup.com.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/mss/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=DA-ASC-SORT&prodId=SPOL&tabID=T001&subjectParam=&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchId=R1&searchType=BasicSearchForm&subjectAction=&bucketSubId=&inPS=true&userGroupName=warwick&sgCurrentPosition=&docId=GALE|MC4320981298&contentSet=GALE|MC4320981298&currentPosition=1&viewtype=Manuscript]