Written - Cop Dissertation lecture - organising research project

Notes

richard.miles@leeds-art.ac.uk

• Book in the library on critical thinking skills or doing your research project - tells you how to write one
• 40 credits (400 hours of study)
• 6,900 words (990 with 10% bracket) alongside practical work
• 2.5 hours individual support (5 1/2 hour tutorials)
• come prepared, send work in advance
• DEADLINE 14TH JAN 4PM - 15 weeks time
• try have a draft submitted by christmas

Planning project

• write down questions, what do you want to ask, what do you wanna investigate, why are you doing this
• consider each on their merits and focus on two (primary and secondary)
• write an A4 'first thoughts sheet' for each
• whats the purpose of the study? is it achievable? is it researchable? e/g interviewing brands
• working title

Chose an appropriate title - An answerable thesis

• might be a title and a subtitle e.g gender biased advertisement - does bla la
• make notes of key questions that your research raises as you go along
• max 20 word title
• discuss with tutor on first tutorial
• can be changed before deadline

Project outline

• consider timings
• deadline 15 weeks - what will you do
• factor in project plan to have  a draft by xmas
• consider work/holidays/life in plan
• think about your title and then the different component parts that need researching 
• introduction comes last
• do i need to go on a visit, contact an artist, interview etc
• Do i need to read before anything else?
• factor it into a project outline
• manage practical alongside that
• do you write or make first
• factor in tutorials as targets in plan

Turnitin draft submission

• need to have submitted something into turnitin by 11th december

Literature search

• what books, videos, websites are out there
• who are the specialists
• put an end point in plan where you stop reading and start doing
• 100 hours reading - which writers/websites are most important - who is everyone mentioning?
• 5 books that are major
• 10 books that are helpful
• 20 books that can be skimmed through to support etc
• find key texts
• use online journals - www.jstor.org
• bring all of this to tutorials
• secondary sources - criticism of text ( triangulation )

References

• complete a bibliography at the START of a project 
• harvard referencing
• include name, forename, date, place, publisher, page 
• - Miles, R. (2015) 'Dissertation,' Leeds, LCA publishing.

Structure

• Use chapters
• each chapter evidence a different theoretical/methodological approach
• conclusion draws chapters together
• formal intro - aims, approaches
• move from general to specific

Module Overview

• Go to cop on estudio, module overview. Tells you what weeks tutorials are on and what you're expected to do week to week

Ethical approval

• Before you involve anyone in interviews etc check with tutors for how ethical it is

Research approaches 

• Survey
• data collect/market research
• interviews
• reflective journal
• action research
• participant observation .... which ones most useful to me?

Get more marks with primary research!