HIS-30103 - Module Specification
School of Humanities
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Programme/Approved Electives for 2024/25

Available as a Free Standing Elective

Co-requisites

None

Prerequisites

None

Barred Combinations

None

Description for 2024/25

A dissertation is a piece of personal research, testing students' ability to ask interesting questions, find and assess evidence in the quest to answer them, and fit questions and answers together in an extended piece of written work. The finished piece should express students' final conclusions in a convincing and coherent way.
This dissertation module allows you to produce your own piece of independent historical research, guided by a supervisor who will be a world-leading expert in the field. The dissertation, of between 8,000 and 12,000 words, will normally be linked to a semester-one History programme elective but this is a matter for negotiation with your supervisor. The dissertation will allow you to engage in personalised research, into questions or source genres of interest to you. The very best dissertations are of publishable quality and are submissible to national prize competitions. Keele students have been successful in the past in the History Today competition, and the Maritime History competition. Successful completion of the dissertation will represent a substantial piece of final-year undergraduate work that will facilitate entry to a postgraduate course and/or demonstrate writing and research skills relevant to a number of different careers. It should also give you considerable satisfaction; the dissertation is often the History module that people enjoy the most during their three year degree programme.

To demonstrate the ability to formulate, execute, and complete an independent extended piece of research with appropriate supervision, exploring some historical or historiographical problem.

Intended Learning Outcomes

identify and critically analyse a range of primary sources appropriate to the topic: 1
formulate a question or series of questions to answer an historical problem: 1
relate the particular study to the wider field of scholarship: 1
plan and manage a substantial piece of research in a recognised area of historical scholarship: 1
produce an extended, structured piece of writing with appropriate scholarly apparatus: 1
place primary sources in their historiographical context: 1

Study hours

Active Learning 10 hours:
Workshops 6 hours
Presentation session 2 hours
Individual supervision 2 hours
Independent Study 290 hours:
Research 180 hours
Preparation for presentation 10 hours
Writing plan 30 hours
Writing dissertation 55 hours
Polishing &proof-reading 15 hours

School Rules

None

Description of Module Assessment