2011/12 Director of Final Year Studies (including Dissertations Coordinator) Professor David Hardiman Email: D.Hardiman@warwick.ac.uk Office: Humanities Building H308

 
A dissertation is compulsory for all History single honours students and an option for all joint degree students. The dissertation is weighted at 30 CATS and must be based on a final year History or CAS module that the student is enrolled on, either an Advanced Option, Special Subject or Historiography. The dissertation length is 9,000 words, excluding footnotes and bibliography, and may be exceeded by up to ten percent (i.e. an additional 900 words) without incurring any penalty. The penalty for any further overshoot is a deduction of 1 mark for each 100 words, or part thereof, over 9,900 words.

This module will allow students to undertake a substantive piece of historical research and produce an article-length essay at the end of it. It gives students the opportunity to work in a way similar to an academic historian: identifying a suitable research topic; mastering the relevant historiography; immersing themselves in a wide variety of primary sources, where appropriate; and being able to sustain a coherent and logical argument. As a final year module it will encourage students to put the training received in their earlier years of study to practical use.

Each student will receive regular personal guidance from a supervisor throughout the dissertation process, which will include bibliographical advice and comments on one-page dissertation outlines. In addition, the Dissertations Coordinator will be available for general guidance and queries. As an exception, students on the "Renaissance and Modern" stream of History single honours who spend their first term of their final year in Venice will have one of the Venice Tutors designated as their Dissertations Coordinator.

Please ensure that you read the guidance on how to research and write your dissertation before you start.

The schedule for determining and communicating your dissertation topic and the module upon which it is based is as follows:

1. Students will be asked by the end of the Autumn term (term one) to complete a preliminary online statementof:
   • (a) the current History module in connection with which they intend to research and write their dissertation
   • (b) their intended dissertation topic and supervisor
2. Venice stream students will be asked to make their dissertation choices (module, topic, supervisor) by the end of week 3 of the Spring term (term two).
3. Dissertation will need to be submitted to Paula Keeble by the Wednesday of week 2 of the Summer term (term three). They should be anonymised, with only the student number on the title page. They do not have to be bound - though they should be presented in a neat fashion.
4. You should remember that late submission will be penalised. The rule is as follows: 'Where an extension has not been granted, or where an extension request did not reach the Director of Undergraduate Studies before the deadline for the assessed work, such assessed essays handed in late will be subject to a penalty of 5 percentage marks per working day'.