All second year students following BA courses in Art History or joint degrees with Art History are required to work on an independent research project in their final year. This capstone project is designed by the student and must be approved and then supervised by a member of teaching staff. Please note that the process for the 30-credit dissertation capstone is selective. Applications will be judged on merit. Approval is not guaranteed and in the case of an unsuccessful proposal students will be required to choose a back-up module. Students can take EITHER AR383-6-AU, AR383-6- SP, or AR382-6-FY. Students CANNOT take more than ONE dissertation module as an undergraduate.

There are normally four meetings with the supervisor over the autumn and spring terms of the final year. The supervisor will oversee your work in the sense of making suggestions as to the shape of the dissertation and reading drafts.

The dissertation should be 10,000 words long (plus or minus 10%). It must be word-processed and conform to the 'Guidelines for the Writing of Dissertations and Research Papers' (see Appendix C of the SPAH undergraduate handbook) and submitted to FASer by 26 April, 2018 at 10am. Two copies of the dissertation should be handed in to Sarah Mumford in the School Office by 12.00 noon on Friday 27 April 2018. No extensions will be granted. The dissertation will be independently marked by two markers and moderated by the External Examiner. Your dissertation should show that you have an all-round grasp of your subject and can present your material clearly, succinctly and in the most appropriate sequence. The examiners will not look for original research but for evidence of a serious engagement with your topic, a mastery of the information currently available and a personal point of view.

Aims:

The aims of this module are:

to allow third/final year students to conceive, develop and complete an extended piece of written work based primarily on their own independent research into a topic which they have chosen themselves.