An Introduction to the History Dissertation

1. An Introduction to the History Dissertation

2. Essentials • Compulsory for all History single-honours final-year students • Optional for all joint-honours final-year students • Weighted at 30 CATS • Must be linked to one of your final-year modules: Special Subject; Advanced Option; or Historiography • Supervised by tutor for this subject • 9,000 words in length

3. What is a Dissertation? • The move from reading to doing history • Your opportunity to undertake a substantial original piece of work; to make a contribution to existing knowledge and understanding • A piece of work that will test you in a way that no other has • A piece of work that you can be proud of: something to sit in your bookshelf for years to come • Will often involve substantial body of original research involving primary sources (though may offer an original analysis of an issue within historiography)

4. What Qualities Will You Need to Demonstrate? • Independence, initiative, imagination • Ability to manage and plan your time • Effective use of supervision: listening; asking good questions • An ability to undertake original analysis of sources • An understanding of what makes a good research question • The ability to write engagingly and convincingly over 9,000 words

5. Why is the Warwick Dissertation Linked to a Final-Year Module? • Provides you with an advanced background understanding as a platform, enabling you to achieve a higher standard in the dissertation • Provides you with weekly contact with your supervisor and with other students writing related dissertations

6. When do you need to decide which module to link with? • Draft titles and brief descriptions of the dissertation topic (including identification of the linked module) must be submitted by the end of the autumn term. • Each module with have a dissertation code, and the last time for any changes to this is at the start of the spring term • However, it will be to your advantage to decide earlier if you can • An initial module registration will be made at the start of the autumn term

7. What to do now? • This is the first year that we are having a meeting on the dissertation before Year 3 • The aim is to get you thinking earlier • Look at module webpage and reading lists for potential topics and reading • You are encouraged to contact your potential supervisors this term in person or via email; they may also contact you • It is very early to fix on a dissertation topic, but you can use the summer for preliminary background reading • Some people may have good ideas already. If so, discuss these with your potential supervisors. There may even be the opportunity to begin original research over the summer

8. Finding a topic • Which module do I want to link with? • Addressing a question • Narrowing down this question: eg not ‘Why was Margaret Thatcher elected in 1979’, but ‘What was the importance of … in the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979?’ • Relation to existing literature: is there scope for an original approach in terms of question, sources, or method? • Is this question researchable (do sources exist)?

9. Example of topics this year for ‘Britain in the 1970s’ • Sit-Com and masculinity • Racism in the police • The rise of multi-culturalism in education • Significance of Margaret Thatcher’s ‘swamping speech’ • Student unrest at Warwick in early 70s • Punk in Bristol

10. Detailed example from ‘Britain in the 1970s’ • ‘Villa 21: Locating David Cooper’s Anti-Hospital’ • Narrow focus: one (brief) ward on hospital • Never been written about in detail before, though noted as significant in literature • Existence of local and oral sources • Underlying questions of why / what it means • What actually went on (detective work) • Locating this in psychiatric history • Locating this in relation to social change and politics (counter-culture) • How does this case study challenge historiography?

11. Autumn Term in Year 3 • A new series of lectures in Weeks 1-5 to help equip you for the challenges of the dissertation • Getting to grips with the new modules • Discussion with potential supervisors about topics, sources, questions • Reading • Exploration of potential sources • Submission of dissertation form by Week 10

12. Spring Term and Beyond • Further reading and research • Meetings with supervisor • Writing: decisions on structure (chapters); drafts; importance of professional presentation • Dissertation workshops in Special Subject groups; opportunities to present in other seminars • Submission of final dissertation normally in Week 2 of Summer term

13. Early tips • A longer piece of work doesn’t mean a broader piece of work: originality may benefit from narrow focus • But work also needs to have a strong understanding of broader relevance to field, and to explain this • Importance of an argument • Discovery of interesting sources (at Warwick and well beyond) • 30 CATS means you should give this as much time as any other module; getting going over summer will help • This is normally the highlight of students’ time at Warwick: enjoy it; show what you can do • It’s also the type of work where you can show the qualities demanded of 1st class work; and the qualities that impress employers