Research Seminar

2018/2019

Academic Year

ENG

Instruction in English

10

ECTS credits

Delivered by:

Department of History

Type:

Compulsory course

When:

1 year, 1-4 module

Instructors

Bekasova, Aleksandra

Lajus, Julia

Chunikhin, Kirill

Course Syllabus

Abstract

This course aims at providing guidance in writing MA dissertations. The Research seminar elaborates on diversity of methodologies of possible usage and strengthens research skills. In the first year, this research seminar teaches students basic aspects of a historian’s craft. The course consists of five modules: 1) History in Practice: Research Skills; 2) Academic Rhetoric; 3) Oral History; 4) Visual Methods in History; 5) Crafting Research and Writing

Learning Objectives

• This module introduces students to leading research works in the field of history and to develop their ability to evaluate research performed by others. It helps students formulate their view on the thematic field in order to enable them to choose a topic of their research. It also enables students to gain research skills which include work with sources, reviewing academic literature, and interpretation of received results. And also it enables students to develop skills in presenting their research and its practical application while producing presentations, articles, taking part in conferences.
• This module introduces practice skills of academic writing to facilitate students’ effective communication within transnational academia. Exploring major writing conventions, at this seminar students train their skills of producing scholarly texts in English. A crucial goal of this course is to shift students from intuitive writing, commonly a disorderly technique of expressing thoughts in a language, to rationalized writing—a conscious procedure of creating academic knowledge within a language. Ultimately, a firm foundation for students to further evolve as authors is established
• provides an overview of oral history as an instrument for historical research. This part introduces practical skills of doing oral interviews, from the first stage of preparing for a talk to the last stage of transcribing. The students will learn about types and specifics of interviews, main steps of doing oral history, the roles that oral history sources play in historical research, as well as discuss the problems of historical memory and its importance for research.
• This module teaches perceiving the visual. Images are never silent, but we are often unaware of the language they are talking. Students will expand their literacy from the sphere of words to the sphere of images. What elements constitute an image? How do these elements relate to each other? How words and images cooperate / conflict within a work of visual art? How to understand what you see? Finally, how to work with visual sources within a research project in history?

Expected Learning Outcomes

• Able to make management decisions and ready to take responsibility for them
• Able to analyze, verify, evaluate the completeness of information in the course of professional activities, to add and synthesize missing information if necessary
• Able to organize and manage multilateral communication
• Able to perform professional activities, including research and development activities in the international environment
• Able to work with information: identify, evaluate and use information from a variety of sources for scientific and professional purposes (including with a systematic approach
• Is able to analyze historical sources, scientific texts and reports, to review scientific literature in Russian and foreign languages
• Is able to present historical information in a scientific and popular form
• Is able to create and edit scientific and popular texts, to present complex historical information in a publicly accessible form
• Is able to perform interdisciplinary interaction and cooperation with representatives of other fields of knowledge while solving research and applied tasks
• Is able to solve problems in the professional environment on the basis of analysis and synthesis
• Capable of conducting independent research, including problem analysis, setting goals and objectives, identifying the object and subject of research, choosing the mode and methods of research, and assessing its quality
• Is able to conduct independent fundamental and applied research using classical and modern methodology, analysis of problems, setting goals and objectives, selection of the object and subject of research, choice of research mode and methods, as well as assessment of its quality
• Is able to analyze and propose scientific interpretation of historical events in their interrelation in accordance with the requirements of modern historical science

Course Contents

• Introduction
• How to do research? Part 1. Research questions
• History and Policy
• How to do research? Part 2.
• Histories, stories, narratives
• History and other disciplines
• Historians’ skills
• Public history
• How to do research? Part 3. Historiography
• Presentations
• Introduction to Academic Writing
• How to Write a Sentence?
• What is an Argument?
• Metaphor
• Critical Thinking
• Academic Business: Proposal and Grant Writing
• Introduction to oral history

Assessment Elements

• class engagement and 3 tasks
• MA thesis proposal
• Participation in class discussions
• presentation MA thesis proposal and participation in the discussion
• Final essay

Interim Assessment

• Interim assessment (2 module)
  0.4 * class engagement and 3 tasks + 0.4 * MA thesis proposal + 0.2 * presentation MA thesis proposal and participation in the discussion
• Interim assessment (4 module)
  0.3 * Final essay + 0.5 * Interim assessment (2 module) + 0.2 * Participation in class discussions

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• Rafoth, B. (2015). Multilingual writers and writing centers. United States, North America: Colorado State University. Libraries. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsbas&AN=edsbas.82F6891C

Recommended Additional Bibliography

• ARMITAGE, D., & GULDI, J. (2015). AHR Exchange: The History Manifesto: A Reply to Deborah Cohen and Peter Mandler. American Historical Review, 120(2), 543–554. https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/120.2.543
• Carretero, M., Berger, S., & Grever, M. (2017). Palgrave Handbook of Research in Historical Culture and Education. [London]: Palgrave Macmillan. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1357585
• DeBlasio, D. M. (2009). Catching Stories : A Practical Guide to Oral History. Athens, Ohio: Swallow Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=818131