Module MELA3141: Cross-School Dissertation in English

Department: Modern Language and Cultures

MELA3141: Cross-School Dissertation in English

Prerequisites

• Core Language Level 2 modules in each of the two languages AND relevant second-year or final-year options in the languages other than Interpreting and other language-related modules. This is to ensure that your dissertation is adequately supported in terms of background knowledge and/or suitable critical and theoretical approaches.

Corequisites

• Core Language Level 3 module with or without the Year Abroad in at least one of the two languages AND relevant second-year or final-year options in the languages other than Interpreting and other language-related modules. This is to ensure that your dissertation is adequately supported in terms of background knowledge and/or suitable critical and theoretical approaches.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• Students from any eligible programme may write only one individual department or cross-School dissertation. Students may write a dissertation treating subject matter from up to two languages. Level 2 and 3 Interpreting modules and other language-related modules are excluded from the range of eligible subject matter. Students taking three languages at Level 3 are excluded from writing a dissertation. Students may also take the Translation Theory (MELA3111) module.

Aims

• To provide those students who have opted for greater depth by studying one or two languages the opportunity to gain in-depth knowledge of one aspect of their studies by researching and writing in English an extensive piece of work in an area in which two partner departments can offer research supervision.
• To provide experience in planning, documenting and writing an extended piece of work (8000 words). It will also increase students’ facility in expressing themselves at a suitable academic level in English and in presenting and referencing their work according to the conventions of academic writing. It will provide invaluable practice for those students wishing to progress to postgraduate study.
• To develop independent learning, a genuine commitment to research, the ability to organise and manage a longer project, and to write fluently and accurately.

Content

• The dissertation involves researching and writing an extended piece of work in English on a subject in which two partner departments can offer research supervision. Students will thus be working closely with experts in the field.
• In order to be accepted onto the dissertation module, students will have to demonstrate their preparedness by having done a relevant module at level 2, and by registering for a relevant module at level 3, although the dissertation is not in principle tied to a particular moudle. This is to ensure that their dissertation is adequately supported in terms of background knowledge and/or suitable critical and theoretical approaches. Its precise contents are to be determined by negotiation with their supervisors, subject to approval by LTC.
• Preparation for the dissertation will begin at the end of the second year, when students should approach the relevant Heads of Department, who will direct them to appropriate supervisors. Supervisors will suggest possible subjects, and a preliminary bibliography, so that students can pursue a guided course of reading during their year abroad.
• In the light of their reading and discussion with their supervisors when students return to Durham in their final year, their subject will be defined and the dissertation title approved by the Board of Studies early in the Michaelmas term. Students will work independently, with some further advice from their supervisors, and will submit their dissertation by the last day of the Epiphany term.

Learning Outcomes

• By the end of the module, the student will have greatly enhanced interdisciplinary and/or cross-cultural knowledge of a specialised subject. S/he will be familiar with both primary and secondary sources in two languages and cultures, and with the wider debates surrounding the texts, films, or other artefacts that form the main subject of the dissertation.

• The student will have further developed their ability to express complex ideas in a suitable register in English.

• The student will have acquired skill and practice in researching a subject using primary and secondary sources, planning a coherent argument with the evidence to support it, presenting these arguments clearly and cogently in a sustained piece of writing, conforming to the norms of academic referencing.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• The topic of the dissertation will be chosen in conjunction with the student’s supervisors, and s/he will follow an agreed programme of reading.
• There will be a lead supervisor, chosen by agreement.
• Students will be given two seminars on research skills, and will have an additional six individual supervisions divided by agreement between each supervisor over the course of the academic year, written records of which will be kept by the supervisor concerned.
• By the end of the second week of the Michaelmas term, students must submit to their supervisors a title, together with a programme of study for the dissertation. Failure to meet this deadline will result in students being required to drop the dissertation module at this point and to take an alternative module.
• By the end of Teaching week 6, students should submit in English a 300-word outline plan of the dissertation to their supervisors. By the first Friday of the Epiphany term, they should submit in English a 1000-word extract to their supervisors. The supervisors will comment in writing on both plan and extract, and these will be discussed in tutorials and further advice will be given.
• Assessment of the dissertation will evaluate students’ ability to assimilate, understand and analyse critically the primary and secondary material associated with their dissertation topic, also their ability to present a sustained argument with suitable evidence, and to express themselves fluently and accurately in English, paying due attention to the relevant conventions of academic writing. Students will also be expected to produce a full and proper bibliography.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

300-word summary in English to be submitted by the end of Michaelmas term; 1000-word extract in English to be submitted during Epiphany term.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University