Erasmus Mundus Funding Category A deadline: 17 December 2010

Erasmus Mundus Funding Category B deadline: 29 April 2011

IMESS Bursary deadline: 29 April 2011

Non-scholarship deadline: 29 April 2011

Visiting Scholars deadline: 31 January 2011

 

 

 

IMESS Student Handbook

The IMESS Dissertation

The dissertation forms an essential part of your overall degree and much of the research training you undertake facilitates the production of a substantive research-based dissertation of 20-25,000 words. The dissertation is worth at least 30 ECTS of your second-year work (40 ECTS in Finland).  

Aims

The aims of the dissertation are:

- to provide you with an opportunity to pursue independent research on a subject of your choice;

- to enable you to test your analytical skills in producing a substantial piece of written work with a high level of analysis, judgement and clarity of expression;

- to allow you to undertake some original research or to investigate an original hypothesis

- to allow you to illustrate your achievements during the IMESS programme, including your knowledge of appropriate research methods and, if appropriate, language;

- to contribute at least 25% of the assessment for the IMESS degree;

- to prepare you for an MPhil/PhD or any research project that might follow in your future careers; and

- to provide you with experience of designing, managing and delivering a large year-long project

Objectives

You are expected:

- to choose an original research topic;

- to make an independent contribution on your chosen subject;

- to search for existing literature and/or data on the subject, including classic works, up-to-date publications, periodical and internet sources;

- to demonstrate knowledge of secondary sources on the subject and your ability to assess critically other authors’ views and to structure your own argument;

- to take into account historical background and theoretical frameworks, where appropriate;

- to identify, as appropriate, empirically testable hypotheses, research methods strategies, and analytical arguments;

- to demonstrate skills of critical thinking; and

- to develop your organisational, analytical and stylistic skills;

Topic, Proposal, Supervisor

The Track Tutors will hold a general meeting with their students at the end of the first term to explain the dissertation process. You must choose your dissertation topic (see below) in year one at UCL. The dissertation title should be formulated to delimit the topic clearly but without making it inflexible through excessive detail. On the basis of your methodological training in year one, you are required to produce a preliminary proposal, essential bibliography and one page statement on the purpose and focus of the dissertation and on the chosen methodology by the end of the second term of year one. When choosing a topic, you should bear in mind that your primary supervisor will be from one of the Central and East European partner universities. This preliminary proposal will be sent to the partner universities to enable them to find a suitable primary supervisor. Students will also be assigned a secondary supervisor at UCL SSEES and you should contact the nominated supervisor before mid-May to arrange one detailed supervision session. The aim of this session is to fine-tune the proposal, identify key research questions and obtain advice on preliminary readings. In term three you then submit a more detailed, revised proposal and present it to the other students on your track during end of term dissertation workshops. The revised proposals and PPT presentations will be sent to the partner universities. Track Tutors will oversee the dissertation proposals for the students on their respective tracks and liaise with the partner institutions through the Programme Director to co-ordinate dissertation supervision arrangements for year 2. All students should expect to be assigned a supervisor at the partner university before the start of the second year.

It is important that you start to gather materials in year one and/or during the summer before the second year. The range of resources available varies across the partner institutions so it is a good idea to gather materials from the UCL and SSEES libraries in advance. Ideally, you might also use the summer to begin work on the literature review or background analysis. This will enable you to make the most of the research opportunities in the second year where you will be able to devote more time to the empirical material, where appropriate. Note though that you will continue to have access to UCL's e-library while you are abroad.

Choosing a dissertation topic

There are few restrictions on the topic of the dissertation. Indeed, to large extent the choice of your research subject should be guided by your underlying academic interests. The only strict constraints are that it should be relevant to both the Central and East European region and to your study track. Ideally, your dissertation might be focused on economic, political or historical aspects of your year two country but this is not a requirement. Dissertations that draw on local materials include those that: undertake surveys and/or in-depth interviews; that exploit the materials in local archives; that rely on local media; that use local/regional statistics and so on. In addition, the specialisms of the IMESS partners vary across the consortium and will evolve over time, so you should check the latest information on the IMESS website as you formulate your topic.

In choosing your topic it may help to bear the following in mind:

• The title should be reasonably broad initially – there is plenty of time to make the specific question clearer as year 2 approaches.

• The dissertation should address a problem or question, and the problem you address should be related to your study track and to the CEE region.

• Most interesting research tends to start from problems, or from theory. Data gathering and analysis, choice of methodological approach, etc., tend to come later. Unless you start from problems or theory, there is a risk that your dissertation will evolve as rambling and descriptive and probably pointless.

• As your ideas develop, write down, in one or two sentences, what the problem or question is that you are trying to address. That is, write down what the point of your dissertation is.

• Read first: in formulating the proposal, you should do some general reading around the topic. This will enable you to start to identify more specific research aims or hypotheses. It is important that you have some understanding of the existing literature before you plan your own study in too much depth.

• Keep in mind that ultimately you should be working towards using the available sources (primary or secondary) in a novel way, to address a question that has not been directly addressed before. You therefore need to identify gaps in the literature or new ways of analysing/comparing the existing literature. For example, there may be lots of material on the politics of climate change in Estonia but a gap may exist for drawing together equivalent material on the Baltic region more generally.

• Identify a project that is feasible within the time and language constraints that you face. In particular, if your project will involve fieldwork, you will need to be very organised, and realistic about what you can achieve.

Researching the dissertation

Once you have chosen your topic, received feedback on it and had it approved, the next task is to research it thoroughly. This may involve primary data collection in the field; it may alternatively involve 'primary' data collection from sources available on the internet, or in archives, files or unpublished reports. In some cases, dissertations may be based solely on secondary sources.

There are a number of ways to go about researching the material you will require to write your dissertation, and these obviously vary from subject to subject and from study track to study track: However, there are some generic ‘rules’:

• Explore relevant libraries starting with those available in London.

• Explore relevant databases and become familiar with the sources that people working in your area are drawing on.

• You may use statistical or project databases, many of which are either publicly available via the internet, through the UCL library or on application to the body which keeps them. For example, there is a qualitative database of research findings from ESRC research projects held by the University of Essex; DFID maintains a database of project proposals that is fully searchable on the internet; you are introduced to diverse data sources through Advanced Quantitative Methods; SSEES has access to Datastream and so on.

• You may identify a time for conducting primary qualitative fieldwork, either in the summer before year 2 or during year 2. You should consult with your year 2 supervisor about this. Primary fieldwork requires very careful planning.

• You may be planning to use local archives. If so, then make sure you understand exactly what is accessible, how and when.

• Once you have researched your material, you will need to analyse it. You should relate the material you find back to the problem or theory that you started with (the ‘point of the dissertation’). Use tables, graphs, etc., to present data if appropriate. If you are doing econometric analysis, then you may place detailed output in an appendix but your main results (e.g. from regressions) should be presented in neat tabular form. Look how others in your field present similar work.

• In concluding, beware of 'over-interpreting' your findings. You should discuss the limitations, as well as the strengths, of your data and methods. Credit will be given for so doing.

• The final thing you should do is write a short introduction. This should motivate your research, briefly introduce your findings and provide a guide as to how the dissertation proceeds.

Supervision

Following the formulation of the proposal during year 1, the dissertation will be closely supervised during the second year by the most appropriate academic at the second year university. To make the most of this, you will need to arrive at meetings thoroughly prepared and aware of what you want from the meeting.

In the event of problems you should contact the year 2 coordinator in the first instance and, if problems persist, contact your track tutor or the programme director.

Assessment of Dissertations

The assessment of all dissertations will involve a UCL examiner. This will ensure consistency and integration of standards across the consortium. As with other year 2 courses, the regulations of the year 2 university you attend pertain. A selection of dissertations will be additionally examined by the appropriate IMESS External Examiner.

Examiners are looking for similar qualities in dissertations as in other pieces of work that you produce during the degree:

• Argument: presentation of a coherent argument, built around a clear specification of the subject area, and most specifically of the hypothesis, question or issue that you are addressing in your dissertation.

• Sources: Demonstration that you understand how to select and use appropriate sources. Sources should be critically evaluated as part of a clear and penetrating analysis and interpretation of different concepts, assumptions or arguments presented in secondary literature (the secondary literature should be compared or criticised, rather than reproduced). You are expected to understand and clearly state differences in perspectives and adopt a balanced and reasoned approach in discussing alternative perspectives.

• Empirical analysis: You should understand when quantitative analysis is appropriate and provide evidence of an ability to locate and analyse relevant quantitative data. Your analysis should be as robust and transparent as possible and should draw on the econometric skills learnt during the IMESS degree. You may be utilising a qualitative methodology. If so, you should demonstrate that you understand the appropriateness of the approach adopted and that you conduct and present the research as robustly and transparently as possible. In conducting empirical work, you should pay heed to ethical considerations (e.g. if conducting surveys, participant observation, indepth interviews, etc).

• Use of evidence: Whatever methodological approach you are adopting, you should demonstrate the ability to clearly and appropriately link the issues under investigation with the evidence employed and then to draw – only the appropriate, and often cautious – conclusions. This process may take the form of submitting hypotheses to empirical tests or the convincing marshalling of the gathered evidence around a clearly defined problem/issue.

• Originality: You should demonstrate originality in ideas and their implementation. This may, in practice, take the form of originality in examining and re-interpreting ideas but may also involve the gathering of original data or the use, in new ways, of existing data. Your dissertation must not simply duplicate work carried out already by others, whether or not this is widely available in published literature. Additionally, it is an equally grave offence to directly lift material from other assignments that you have written as part of this (or any other) degree.

• Presentation: You should present the thesis clearly and transparently using a consistent accepted style with a clear structure and an honesty and openness in the use of sources. Examiners will look for clarity of English and clarity of expression.

Dissertation Proposal Form:

All students should complete and submit the Dissertation Proposal form through the Moodle online submission tool by the end of the second term.

The IMESS Dissertation

UCL-SSEES

 

Dissertation Proposal

of

NAME

 

Proposed Title

 

PLUS

Essential Bibliography

AND

One-page statement

 

 

 

 

Date

 

 

 

Dissertation Submission

Check carefully that:

- Your title-page is formatted as indicated in this section below and includes:

Title (preferably a one-liner) and subtitle

The declaration of length of the dissertation (20,000 -25,000 words)

The declaration of authorship (see the IMESS handbook section on plagiarism)

Your name and student number

- Table of contents with page numbers (including subheadings)

- You start with an introduction that develops the title and explains the structure of the dissertation

- The text is printed out double spaced in 12 point format

- You finish with a conclusion that summarises your points and makes an assessment of their importance

- Your bibliography is presented in alphabetical order by surname and in the format as explained on the style sheet, section 14.8 below

- Quotations, footnotes and references are organised as required.

- An electronic copy of the dissertation must be submitted to Turn-it-in. Separate instructions will be provided.

 

The regulations of the partner university will apply with regards to deferrals, extensions, penalties for late submission and failure.

Dissertation defence

The oral defence of your dissertation will take place at the end of your second year according to the regulations of the IMESS partner university.

Deadlines

The Dissertation deadline varies according to the regulations of your second year university. The deadlines for 2009 are:

 

University	Dissertation Deadline
Charles University , Prague	21 May
Corvinus University , Budapest	24 April
Jagiellonian University , Krakow	31 May
University of Helsinki	1 May
University of Tartu	25 May

 

Please consult the style sheet for further advice.

 

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