Year 3: The Scholar
ST305 Independent Specialism
The module where you choose. Six workshops take you from a question of your own, through finding and judging sources, choosing methods, handling copyright and verification, to a 4,000-word independent study. The lessons teach the craft; the subject is yours. This is the rehearsal for the dissertation.
Introduction
Every module so far has told you what to read. This one asks what you want to know. The independent specialism is a 4,000-word study on a question you choose within the degree's field: Swamp Thing, Gothic horror, the monstrous, or the places they meet. It might be a character the course skipped (Abby Arcane across forty years; Tefé; Woodrue's three versions), a form (the horror anthology; the Vertigo trade paperback; painted comics), a comparison (Swamp Thing and Man-Thing, if you can source the second; the Parliament and the Ents), a reception history (how British readers found Moore's run; what the fanzines said), or something this course did not think of.
The six workshops are craft. Week 1 turns an interest into a question. Week 2 finds and judges sources, and builds the annotated bibliography that is Assignment 1. Week 3 chooses methods: close reading, formal analysis, publication history, reception, comparison. Week 4 handles the rules that govern this degree's research: copyright, verification, and the difference between what you have seen and what you have heard. Week 5 drafts; Week 6 revises. The texts are the research handbooks that university students use, chosen because they are honest about how research actually goes.
Two rules stand above the others. Nothing is cited that you have not seen. Nothing is written by anyone but you.
Learning objectives
- Turn an interest into a researchable question with a defined scope.
- Find, evaluate and annotate sources appropriate to a question in comics and horror studies.
- Choose and justify research methods for a study of comics.
- Apply the degree's rules on copyright, verification and citation to your own research.
- Plan, draft and revise a 4,000-word independent study.
- Reflect on your own research process as preparation for the dissertation.
Lessons
Unit 1: Workshop 1: From interest to question
Topic, question, problem.
Unit 2: Workshop 2: Sources
Finding, judging, annotating.
Unit 3: Workshop 3: Methods
How to study a comic.
Unit 4: Workshop 4: The rules
Copyright, verification, citation.
Unit 5: Workshop 5: Drafting
From plan to first draft.
Unit 6: Workshop 6: Revising
From draft to submission.
Core texts
-
Required The Craft of Research Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph M. Williams, Joseph Bizup and William T. FitzGerald
Weeks 1 and 5.
-
Throughout.
-
Weeks 2 and 4.
-
Required MHRA Style Guide: A Handbook for Authors, Editors, and Writers of Theses Modern Humanities Research Association, edited by Chloe Paver
Week 4 and every citation.
-
Every publication fact.
Secondary reading
-
Recommended "They Say / I Say": The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein
Week 5.
-
Week 2 exercise.
-
Week 2 exercise.
Assessment
Two assessed pieces. The first is a proposal with an annotated bibliography. The second is the 4,000-word independent study. Both are marked against the same rubric as the rest of the degree, with the research criteria weighted more heavily.
ST305-A1: Proposal and annotated bibliography
Propose your independent study: the question, the problem it answers, its scope (texts, period, method), and an annotated bibliography of at least eight sources you have seen, in MHRA style, with every publication fact checked.
- Length
- 1500 words (1200 to 1800)
- Sources
- Research assignment, minimum 4 secondary sources. At least eight sources seen and annotated, at least four secondary and two scholarly, MHRA style, facts checked.
ST305-A2: The independent study
Write the study you proposed: a 4,000-word argument answering your question from evidence, placed in the field, meeting the strongest objection, using at least eight credible secondary sources, every one seen, in MHRA style.
- Length
- 4000 words (3600 to 4400)
- Sources
- Research assignment, minimum 8 secondary sources. Research assignment. At least eight credible secondary sources, all seen; MHRA with page numbers; no reproduced images.
Source requirements
Assignment 1 requires at least eight sources found and annotated by you, of which at least four are secondary and at least two are scholarly. Assignment 2 is a research assignment with at least eight credible secondary sources; every source cited must have been seen; sources marked as requiring verification may not be cited until verified.