Dissertation, MSc by Research in Scottish History (P02142)

? Credit Points : 60 ? SCQF Level : 11 ? Acronym : HCA-P-HCL-P-DIS

Students will write a dissertation of 15,000 words on a subject agreed with their supervisors and related to courses taken in semesters 1 and 2 - namely Historical Context, Historiography, Primary Sources - and based on the Dissertation Preparation which is the final course in semester 2. The dissertation is an extended piece of scholarship in which a student is expected to formulate and sustain an argument and to engage critically and analytically with the literature in the field, building upon relevant concepts covered in the taught element of the degree and deploying a range of primary and secondary sources. Each student will be allocated two research supervisors from the start of the academic year.

Entry Requirements

none

Subject Areas

Home subject area

Postgraduate (School of History and Classics), (School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Schedule E)

Delivery Information

? Normal year taken : Postgraduate

? Delivery Period : To be arranged/Unknown

Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes

The Dissertation for the MSc by Research in Scottish History provides students with the ability:
- To formulate and implement a plan of research.
- To formulate hypotheses relating to the student's research subject and to test them by marshalling a range of primary and secondary evidence.
- To locate a specific thesis within its broader historiography.
- To reflect critically on the processes and methods involved in research and writing.
- To construct and pursue a coherent historical argument based on the hypotheses which have been formulated and tested by reference to primary and secondary source material.
- To locate an argument - whether verbal or written - within a broader intellectual context and to evaluate its implications from that more general perspective.
- To conceive and pursue to its conclusion a coherent argument founded on evidence provided by the sources at the student's disposal.
- To undertake a sustained independent research project, and to complete it within a strict time limit.
- To write clear, accurate, precise and concise prose.