British Politics in Uncertain Times
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NOWmasterAssessment1adviceBPUT.pptxBritish Politics in Uncertain Times Assessment 1 advice
The assessment brief is:
How should we study contemporary British political history?
You should write 1500 words (+/- 10%). The word count does not include the reference list.
You should mainly focus on the material from the first weeks on the module:
Below is a list of the historiographical approaches we covered in the first weeks on the module, from which you can choose:
Social history
Marxist history
Whig history
Microhistory
Cultural history
Postmodernism
Where to get resources:
Reading list – this is helpful and you should use it, but you can use your own sources too.
One search. Google scholar. Jstor.
Issues to cover
What is contemporary political history – what do we mean by “political” and “contemporary”?
What period of history should we cover and how do we choose when to start and why? Why do we have to make choices?
What is historiography? Taking different historiographical approaches, and look in more detail at a couple.
Interpretation versus description. Historicism versus presentism. (See Tosh, J 2009).
Historical narrative and historical causality.
Issues to cover
What is contemporary political history – what do we mean by “political” and “contemporary”?
What period of history should we cover and how do we choose when to start and why? Why do we have to make choices?
What is historiography? Taking different historiographical approaches, and look in more detail at a couple.
Interpretation versus description. Historicism versus presentism. (See Tosh, J 2009).
Historical narrative and historical causality.
Historical sources.
You can, but you don’t have to, use one of the case studies we have already looked at to illustrate a point – but overall the assessment is theoretical not empirical.
Some general writing advice
Give a clear introduction to the argument. Giving some clear opening sentences as to the topic. Give the outline of the argument in the introduction. State your conclusion in the introduction.
The best essays have clear paragraphs devoted to a single aim. Weak essays tend to jump around within paragraphs making the argument harder to follow. Weak essays are imbalanced. Too long on one thing. People often have one good section that is researched. But others where they know a lot less.
No new information should be introduced in the conclusion. You should recap your argument. You can give a balanced and nuanced conclusion or argue for one particular approach to studying contemporary British political history.
Today’s artist was Chris Ofili (1968-)
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