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GRADUATE SCHOOL DISSERTATION INFORMATIONSample Title PageDissertation Instructions (Handout) Copyright Declarations Bangor University Dissertation Submission Form MHGS Dissertation Submission Form DissertationsAs well as the four modules, our taught master’s courses both require a 20,000 word dissertation (please note that in this case, the 20,000 words is the upper limit, and you should not exceed this total wordcount for the main body of your work). The wordcount does not include genuine footnotes, bibliography and the additional material required which is listed below. A dissertation is an extended study of a particular issue of concern or interest to the academic discipline which should be a significant contribution to knowledge, though a master’s dissertation is neither required nor expected to be original, groundbreaking research.There are no classes or lectures for your dissertation as such, and it is your responsibility to select your own topic of study. However, the nature of such extended writing means that you will need a supervising tutor to guide you through the process and challenge your thinking and argumentation. All our module tutors and some additional members of college faculty are available to supervise students, subject to workload and approval by the Graduate School. The Graduate School office monitors and may limit the number of dissertations each lecturer is able to supervise to assist in the management of their workload, and does not guarantee that your preferred supervisor will be available to you. Supervision allocations will take place after the end of the lecture period and you will be informed as soon as possible if your first preference supervisor is unavailable for you. In that event, the Graduate School will discuss an alternative with you. If you do not hear from us by the end of October you can presume all is well. You should send your supervisor a detailed proposed outline of your thesis by around January of your second year. By the time you have received your essay grades in the early Summer, you should be well under way with your research and writing, and need to be sending early drafts of your work to your supervisor for their review by the Autumn. Only your final draft needs to be submitted to the Graduate School. If you wish your supervisor to review a full first draft of the dissertation, you must submit this draft before 31 January so that they will have time to read it and suggest any changes for you before the final submission deadline. Dissertations are due for formal submission before 15 April in your third year of studies. We strongly recommend that you get a full first draft to your supervisor before submitting your work formally, and you will need to do that before 31 January if you are going to be able to submit on time. Please note that only the final draft of your dissertation needs to be submitted to the Graduate School – the first draft should be sent directly to your supervisor. Your dissertation should contain the following material, which should all be included in the same electronic file and printed document, in this order: 1. A title page, which should contain: the title of the dissertation, your own full name, the degree for which the dissertation is being submitted, the institution where you have studied (i.e., Mattersey Hall in association with the University of Wales, Bangor), the name of your supervisor, and a word count. A sample title page is available for download from the top of this page). 2. The copyright declarations (available for download from the top of this page) indicating that the text is your own work and that you give consent for the work to be photocopied and for interlibrary loan. You may type your name into this form instead of signing it manually. This must be included in the body of the dissertation. 3. An abstract (or summary of the contents of your dissertation) of up to 300 words, which should be kept on a separate page, but must also be contained within the body of the dissertation 4. Any acknowledgements which you feel are appropriate 5. A table of contents 6. The main body of the dissertation, divided into chapters 7. A bibliography 8. Any appendices you consider necessary Please do not submit your dissertation on the submission form you used for your essays, but just as a standard document. Remember all your pages must be numbered consecutively and, again, all the above information must be included in both the electronic and the printed copies of the dissertation that you submit to us. You may have more than one appendix. Your word count should not include the appendices, bibliography, the table of contents, the abstract, declarations or genuine footnotes. Please remember, that 20,000 words is the maximum allowable wordcount and must not be exceeded. To facilitate quick and cost-effective binding of all our dissertations and ultimately to save you time and money, we have adopted the following procedure for dissertation submission. Please be careful to follow these instructions to the letter. We will be unable to accept any dissertations that are not submitted in accordance with these instructions and will return them to you for revision.< Please download (from the top of this page), complete and return the ‘UWB Dissertation Submission Form’ to us when you submit your dissertation (though not until you submit the final draft). Unfortunately, it requires a signature and must at present be submitted in hard copy. Please post it back to us at the Graduate School, therefore. The University will not accept your dissertation if they have not received your form first and you will not be able to graduate. When formally submitting the final draft of your dissertation, you need to post a printed copy to the Graduate School, in a secure form of temporary binding (i.e., preferably spiral bound or in a plastic slide binder – but not in a folder and certainly not ‘loose leaf’), and enclose with these printed copies your dissertation submission fee of £100, and your completed ‘MHGS Dissertation Submission Form’ (also available for download at the link above). You must also email an electronic copy of the file to us at the email address graduateschool@matterseyhall.co.uk. The electronic copy must match your hard copy precisely and must be a single Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat file, saved with your surname as part of the filename so we can identify the author easily. You need to embed any non-standard fonts into the document – ensuring that the file will print properly is your responsibility. Since the bound copies of your dissertation will be printed directly from this file, it is essential that you provide us with the correct and final file. Please contact us at graduateschool@matterseyhall.co.uk if you have any questions on this, and we look forward to receiving your work. Deadlines for 2008-09 Academic Year: Saturday 31 January 2009 Draft dissertations to be sent to tutors Tuesday 15 April 2009 Final dissertations due for submission May 2009 Marking and moderation Early June 2009 Work submitted to External Examiner Late June 2009 Examination Board 20 June 2009 Graduation at Mattersey Hall Please note these are final submission deadlines – if you wish to submit a draft dissertation for your tutor’s advice and guidance it should be submitted before 31 January, directly to your tutor (do not send draft dissertations to the Graduate School please). Because of university rules part time students may not submit your final dissertation before 1 April in your third year of study. Please note we cannot allow any extension of these submission deadlines. |