Final Year’s History Dissertation Writing Guide

Instructions

• 1

  Pre-Writing Stage

  
  This stage of writing a History dissertation deals with: choosing the right topic, consultations, proper planning/timing, and sourcing for material. These are briefly discussed thus:
  
  Choosing the Right Topic
  
  To properly deal with a final-year History dissertation, it is important to prepare fully for the challenges you might face during the research period.
  
  A 9,000+ words essay is not at all a joke, particularly when dealing with History. So you need to take your time to brainstorm on the topic you believe you can independently handle in the field of History.
  
  You can even prepare up to five topics – to ease your final selection of the most suitable one. Choosing the right topic requires brainstorming on unveiled (in this case) a yet-to-be-discovered or incompletely discovered historical event or concept.
  
  Consultations
  
  As a final-year student of History, you are expected to consult some of your tutors or even course-mates for advice. Officially, you need to choose a supervisor who is going to guide you on the best way(s) to provide a fruitful research outcome. The first thing you should do is to discuss in details your suggested topics, and see how best you can brainstorm together to come up with the most appropriate topic. In fact, you might even need to blend two or more of your suggested topics to frame your final research topic.
  
  Proper planning/Timing
  
  Since dissertations are independent academic work, you are expected to devise your own plan for research, and to ensure you do not leave writing to the last minute. This is where a timetable of work will be useful. In fact in most cases, the school provides deadlines for submitting the dissertation, and expects you to request meetings or take advice from your supervisor. You are also required to keep a record of your supervisions, etcetera.
  
  Sourcing for Materials
  
  There are two major ways of sourcing for History materials – Primary and Secondary Sources. Your dissertation supervisor should be able to help you with this, once you have decided on a suitable topic and approach. You need to bear in mind that both primary and secondary materials are likely to be involved.
  
  Primary sources might include: newspapers, memoirs, correspondence (published and unpublished), Parliamentary Papers, archival records relating to organizations and institutions, literary texts (such as novels and plays), early modern political and religious tracts, contemporary medical texts, or oral and visual source materials (interviews, photographs, paintings etc.).
  
  Secondary sources are published (academic) works – articles in journals, essays in edited collections, research monographs and so on. It is important to note here that the historiography of your topic is likely to be a significant part of the dissertation and this will come from the secondary literature.
• 2

  Writing Stage

  
  A History dissertation requires framing a question-like topic planned to be comprehensively and convincingly answered for your readers to digest in your long essay. This is called a hypothesis. Effective organization of the long essay makes it a true dissertation. Hence, a History dissertation is expected to follow the following structures.
  
  Coverpage
  
  Attestations: this is where faculty officials including your supervisor append their signatures to show that you truly carried out the research work and that you are qualified to be awarded the degree of your pursuit.
  
  Acknowledgements: is where the researcher appreciates the help, support and supervision he/she received.
  
  Table of Contents: presents a skeletal structure of your dissertation.
  
  Abstract: This is where you present an overview of your research work.
  
  Introduction: identifies where the main lines of historiographical debate and division lie, or which makes clear what it is about the topic that you are (or are not) going to address.
  
  The Introductory paragraph is expected to be as brief as possible. What’s important is getting the tone right and creating interest in your reader for what follows.
  
  Methods: deals with the approaches the researcher plans to use to carry out his research findings.
  
  Hypothesis: refers to the predictive outcome of the research planned to later discover at the end of the research.
  
  Literature Reviews: deals with the consideration of related text(s) or/and other works of researchers discovered to be incomplete by the researcher.
  
  Data Analysis and Results/Findings: is where the hypotheses are proven right or wrong.
  
  Recommendations: A way forward is suggesting for a lasting or sustainable outcome.
  
  Conclusion: an overview of the research activities, findings and solutions. 
• 3

  Post-Writing Stage

  
  This is called presentation or defense stage. This is where the researcher is expected to present and defend his findings in his research work orally before some faculty members.
  
  Your supervisor and other faculty members, when assessing your presentation, consider the following: Length of your dissertation, page layout, text structure, required elements for title page, binding, submission, referencing; originality, and avoidance of plagiarism.
• 4

  General Tips for Writing a History Dissertation

  
  When writing a history dissertation you should think like an academic historian, to experience the pleasure of finding something out for yourself, and to have the satisfaction of presenting a well-researched, thoughtfully written and convincingly argued piece of work.
  
  If you encounter any challenge along the line, do not hesitate to contact your Supervisor. Note, however, that your supervisor is there only to guide you; not to help you produce the final draft.
  
  Ask yourself this question: What can I say that is new about a given topic? Originality in history dissertation really denotes one or two things – or both. It could mean opening up a new line of enquiry that no-one else seems to have thought of or going back to the existing historiography and giving it a new twist.
  
  Your ability to reinterpret the existing material, to point out its flaws and limitations, and present rationally and visibly a new case, in this case, is very vital.