The Undergraduate Final Year Dissertation allows you to improve your skills of data gathering, constructing an extended argument and presenting your findings through research work on a topic relating to French or Francophone society, culture, economy, politics or literature of particular interest to you. It is an extended piece of supervised academic writing IN FRENCH of 8,000 - 10,000 words, excluding synopsis, references/bibliography and appendices, on a topic that is workable within the time available, and is written during the Final Year. The topic area chosen may be related to an option course that currently studied or which has been studied in the second year. It may also relate to the year abroad project but it should not replicate work from any of these sources. If there is a comparative aspect, the French component should count for at least 50%. 50% of the module marks will be accorded to the assessment of written language skills.

·         Formulate a justifiable and practical research topic;

·         Apply different concepts, theories and methods to the question under study;

·         Undertake a thorough review of the relevant literature;

·         Acquire detailed knowledge about a particular area of French or Francophone society, culture, economy, politics or literature;

·         Use your initiative in the collection and presentation of material;

·         Present a clear, cogent argument and draw appropriate conclusions; and

·         Present the results of your research in the form of a sustained piece of academic writing.

·         Demonstrate accuracy, appropriateness and sophistication in the use of written French.

Students will be helped to identify a supervisor and supervisory topic from those available in any given year. A training session in the library on the use of research and IT resources for the dissertation will be provided during the first semester.

Regular meetings across both semesters will then focus in turn on agreeing a title, producing and abstract, writing a literature view, writing a plan of the dissertation, and drafting chapters with an emphasis on improving and extending written French expression.

Data gathering, reviewing existing literature, engaging critically with other published works, handling a variety of data sources, constructing an extended written argument, summarising opposing views, presenting arguments orally and in high-level written French.

Students may choose from a variety of topic areas dependent on staff availability in any one year. Indicative topics include:

-       Post-1945 French politics

-          Post-war French fiction and photography

-          French crime fiction

-          French culture and the Second World War

-          Adaptation into film, fiction, radio or television.

-          The French nineteenth-century novel.

-          French film of the 1930s

-          Francophone African fiction and film

-          French cinema/visual cultures

-          French Colonialism/Decolonisation

-          French industrial relations

-          French labour history

-          French International Relations

R. A Preece, Starting Research: an introduction to academic research and dissertation writing (Pinter, 1994)

André Barilari, Méthode pour la dissertation (Sedes, 1988)

MHRA Style Guide: a handbook for authors editors and writers of theses (MHRA, 2008)

Ray Irving and Cathy Smith, No Sweat: the indispensible guide to reports and dissertations (Institute of Management, (1998)

Maria Piantanida, The Qualitative Dissertation: a guide for students and faculty (Corwin Press, 1998)

Judith Meloy, Writing the Qualitative Dissertation: understanding by doing (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003)

Nicolas Walliman, Your Undergraduate Dissertation: the essential guide for success (Sage, 2004)