This document contains information about Dissertations, and covers the Year
Abroad (Compulsory) Dissertation and the Optional Dissertation. A
separate page covers the Translation
Project.
Please note that the word length for the compulsory Year Abroad Project is 7,000-8,000 words for the Dissertation, or 6,000-7,000 words for the Translation Project; and there is a limit on the permissible number of supervisions. For full information, see below under Dissertations and workload, and also see the web version of the Faculty Guidelines on Dissertations, and the definitive Notice in the Reporter of 7th June 2000. The Optional Dissertation limit is 8,000-10,000.
The Year Abroad Project is a compulsory requirement of your course, and the majority of students choose to undertake a Dissertation for that Project. Many students also decide to write an Optional Dissertation as a replacement for one of their Part II Papers in the final year. The writing of a dissertation is a valuable academic exercise in its own right, and also has the advantage of easing the examination pressure on you, since it provides an alternative, "course-work-based" form of assessment. The following information is intended to guide you through your choice of a dissertation topic.
A good dissertation requires dedication, time and effort spent during
your Year Abroad (or final year in the case of an Optional Dissertation).
The deadline for submission of the Year Abroad Dissertation has been brought
forward to the second Friday of Full Michaelmas Term following your
Year Abroad (Friday 15th October 2004 for Finalists in 2004-05, and Friday 14th
October 2005 for Finalists in 2005-06).
A dissertation is essentially a piece of original research, and should have
a length of between 7,000 and 8,000 words (except that an Optional
Dissertation undertaken in the Final Year is slightly longer: 8,000 to
10,000 words). The Dissertation will be written and researched entirely
by yourself, and will have little input from teaching staff other than
advice on the appropriateness of your project, technicalities, and
bibliography. You are allowed four such 'technical' supervisions in
all, usually one giving preparatory advice at the end of your second year,
and three 'distance supervisions' during your Year Abroad (i.e., you send
work in by post or e-mail). You should NOT expect your supervisor to read
"the final draft" of your dissertation just prior to submission (in fact
the Faculty Guidelines now stipulate that supervisors are not allowed to
comment on the final draft or to give supervision in the Michaelmas Term of
final year), so ensure you clear up any points of confusion you have about
layout and format of bibliography well in advance.
You can, if you wish, write two dissertations. While most students undertake a dissertation for the Year Abroad Project, you also have the choice of writing a further one in place of one of your Part II scheduled papers. These two types of dissertation are known as the Year Abroad Dissertation (sometimes also referred to as the Compulsory Dissertation) and the Optional Dissertation: the latter allows you to maximize the amount of course work in your final year. Specific requirements of the two types of dissertation are colour-coded in this document.
Your Year Abroad Dissertation must be submitted by the second Friday of the Full Michaelmas Term of your final year (18 October 2002; 17 October 2003).
Any optional extra dissertation, must be submitted by the Monday of the last week of Full Lent Term before your final examinations (14 March 2005; 13 March 2006) -- i.e., the majority of the work will be undertaken during your final year. You will need to submit your title for any Optional Dissertation by the third Friday of the Full Michaelmas Term of your final year (22 October 2004; 21 October 2005).
Doing an optional dissertation as well as a year abroad one can be an excellent way of including a large amount of 'course work' in your final degree result, but, needless to say, it is hard work and should not be undertaken lightly. It is ideal for those to whom research comes 'naturally' (and could be an advantage for anyone wishing to go on to do research at postgraduate level, whether it is a taught M.Phil. or, in the long run, a Ph.D.), but you should consider carefully whether you are likely to get a better result via examination or via dissertation. If you know that you have difficulty accommodating your thinking to the timed examination format, you may see the writing of a second dissertation simply as a very good way of including an element of 'course-work' (work not done under the duress of examinations) in your final degree result, and some people may find it appealing for this reason alone. If you do, that in itself may be a good reason, but do think carefully, and be aware that it is not a 'soft option' by any means.
It makes sense to offer a dissertation in an area you are familiar with from your Part IB papers (e.g., Part IB topics in Spanish American Culture as a basis for a dissertation dealing with Latin American cinema), but there are no formal restrictions except that a dissertation must be on a topic "of a type taught and examined in any of the Part II scheduled papers". This means that "The Economics of Rainforest Logging in Brazil" is not a permissible topic, whereas "Deforestation as Cultural Loss in Guatemalan Testimonial Narrative" would be. If you are interested in a historically based dissertation (e.g. "The Institutionalization of 'Revolution' in Twentieth-Century Mexican Politics"), most departments would be able to accommodate you, since history is part of Part II Literature papers; however, you should be aware that you need the agreement of a supervisor for the topic your are planning to cover -- if there is no-one with the expertise to supervise your work, your topic may not be permitted. If you are considering offering a dissertation on an area you have little advance knowledge of (e.g., one you have no background knowledge of from Part IB papers), you must talk it over very carefully with a supervisor.
You should also be aware that the Year Abroad Dissertation cannot substantially overlap with material that you might use in an examination paper: for example, if you were to write your dissertation on "The Theme of Solitude in Three Latin American Novelists (Juan Rulfo, Gabriel García Márquez, and Marcelo Chiriboga)", you would not be allowed to answer on those novelists in the Part II Latin American Literature paper.
The optional dissertation is somewhat different, since it replaces a paper you might otherwise take (and be eligible to take) at Part II, and so must be deemed to be within the scope of a particular Part II paper.
Choosing a research project for your dissertation demands great care and
thought, and should be done, at least in outline, by the start of the Easter
Term of your second year -- you must notify the Faculty of your
supervisor, the subject area of your dissertation, and provide a 50-word
abstract, by the Division of Easter Term (Monday 17 May 2004). You will
need to check out the viability of your project as soon as teaching is over
in the Lent Term. You will also need to get cracking on some basic research
so as to have material to take away with you for your Year Abroad as soon as
your exams are over in those long hazy summer days of May week . . . The
timetable for application for an optional dissertation is different:
although you should think about and discuss it with a potential supervisor
at the same time as your obligatory dissertation, your application form is
to be submitted by the third Friday of Michaelmas Term of your final year
(see dates above).
Initially, think through those areas you studied for Part IB and identify
those you found most interesting or exciting. There may also be areas you
did not study, but would have if you had had more time. Since a dissertation
must be original work it is best not to choose a heavily studied
author or topic unless you have a particular new perspective to throw on
that area and are prepared to read masses of secondary literature.
'Originality' at this level does not mean 'amazingly new original
theoretical groundbreaking insights'. It means simply 'your own ideas'.
When choosing a project, think creatively, too -- while most dissertations are on single authors, a more interesting approach might be to take a particular topic or subject area and think about it in a comparative way, i.e., compare the approach of two or more different writers/artists/film-makers. You may even write a dissertation comparing national literatures, since the Faculty has a number of Part II comparative papers. You may wish to write on authors or artists that are not actually on any of the papers available for examination purposes -- for example, students of Latin American Literature regularly offer dissertations on writers they have come across in their studies (or during their Year Abroad) who may not be on the list of prescribed authors. If you are thinking of such a move, which can be very exciting, then you will need to do a fair amount of research around the particular author(s) before offering your subject for approval.
In all cases, it is essential that you discuss your proposed topic with a supervisor, and you will need his/her signature on the Faculty dissertation form. Make an appointment to see a potential supervisor as soon as possible at the end of the Lent Term or the beginning of the Easter Term.
Your supervisor will provide you with individual guidance on how to approach the researching and writing of a dissertation. Having identified an area of interest, you should head off to the University Library and spend a day or two hunting around for books and articles on the topic/author you are interested in, to get a feel for what has already been written and what the major concerns are in that area. As mentioned earlier, your dissertation should be original, but you must also take account of previously written 'secondary literature' and refer to (some of) it in your dissertation. Start with the computer terminals (you can search by subject as well as author), but don't forget the old catalogue which contains all books up to 1976/77. For articles in reviews and academic journals, use the CD-ROM machines in the Catalogue Room: you will find a variety of databases, in particular one called MLA (Modern Languages Association of America), which is also available on the Internet. You can enter the name of an author, or even a subject, and it will give you a long list of articles that have been published recently on that author. Of those, it is likely that we will only have a small proportion in the Library, so don't be shocked by the length of the lists it can throw up. There are also some Internet Resources available for research: click here to go to the guide for Graduate Students and see under 'Internet' (printed version: at the end of this booklet).
While doing this, as mentioned above, it is essential that you contact a supervisor to discuss your intended project and outline it with her/him. S/he will be able to give you further advice about your project, or put you in touch with someone who can give you advice. In any case s/he will be able to suggest a particular approach, and may know of interesting books you could look at. Your supervisor will also need to sign your dissertation application form.
Once you have done this, try to gather as much material as possible to
take with you on your Year Abroad: photocopy or take notes from articles in
the University Library, photocopy or take notes from essays in books in your
College Library or Faculty Library, and always note down full
bibliographical details of any books/articles you are consulting, as you
will need them later for your bibliography: author, title, editor,
publisher, date of publication, page numbers consulted. There is nothing
more frustrating than spending days hunting for a book which you found
useful but whose title you cannot remember, or even worse, just to find the
date of publication for your bibliography. You may find it cheaper to buy
primary books in the country you are going to for your Year Abroad, but do
not assume that any bookshop in some obscure French town is going to have
the latest work by a sophisticated Paraguayan author such as Augusto Roa
Bastos.
Back to Dissertation Contents
You must work on your dissertation during your Year Abroad and keep in contact with your supervisor, preferably by e-mail, but otherwise by post. DID YOU KNOW: you can still use your Cambridge e-mail account while abroad -- all you have to do is visit webmail.hermes.cam.ac.uk , and log in with your Hermes username and password. There are some other ways, too -- for more information, see in this Handbook under Year Abroad.
You should aim to have a first draft of your dissertation written by the end of your residence abroad. You will then have the summer to polish it off in readiness for submission at the beginning of the Michaelmas Term of your final year. It is too late to start thinking about writing your dissertation when you arrive back in England from your Year Abroad.
We hope the above does not sound daunting: it should be exciting! Please
do not hesitate to get in touch with a supervisor to discuss things further,
and whatever you decide to do, have a profitable Year Abroad.