Department of Education, Unit Catalogue 2007/08 |
ED60297 Reading paper |
| Level: Doctoral |
| Modular: no specific semester |
| Assessment: CW 100% |
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If your background and experience are considered appropriate, one of your two non-core units can be taken as a reading paper. In a reading paper you can negotiate with a unit tutor to write an 8000 word critical review of a series of papers or other documents that have contemporary relevance in the field. The precise focus of the assignment will be negotiated with your tutor. Together, you will agree which papers you will focus on and the purpose and scope of the assignment.
Studying by means of a reading paper entails going back to sources upon which the original authors drew, to the sources of those sources, and further back where appropriate, and also to other relevant sets of ideas which you consider crucial to your arguments. In this way, a reading paper entails a full exploration of the ideas within the series of documents you have chosen; the result is likely to be in the form of a critical essay which maps the field and, as such, will be of interest to the wider community of scholars. Only one of the two non-core units can be taken as a reading paper, and the approval of the Director of Studies for Research Students is needed for a unit to be studied in this way. The Director of Studies will need to be satisfied: * that your learning context will allow you to work in an appropriate fashion with your tutor - this will relate, inter alia, to ease of communication between you; * that you are able to access appropriate academic literature (i.e. through a university library); and * that your background and experience equip you to study in this way - this will relate, inter alia, to your experience and capabilities in writing of this kind. The criteria for the assessment of a reading paper are the same as those for assignments written following study of a unit in the conventional mode. PLEASE NOTE THAT THE READING PAPER AND PILOT RESEARCH ENQUIRY ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE AND ONLY ONE CAN BE OFFERED AS ONE OF THE FOUR STUDY UNITS. |