Department Of Sociology Final Year Dissertation Guidelines 2011-2012 Sociology; Sociology, Culture and Media; Media Studies; Criminology and Sociology; Applied Psychology and Sociology
Ethical and Safety Considerations
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- Bu səhifədəki naviqasiya:
- Acquiring NHS approval is lengthy and is very rarely possible in the time frame available for an undergraduate dissertation.
- 12. Writing up the Dissertation
- You must retain the data collected for your dissertation and be able to produce it if requested.
- 14. The Marking Process
- Harvard Convention
- Victoria Alexander
- Rachel Cohen
- Nigel Gilbert
- Paul Johnson
- Jo Moran-Ellis
- Cornel Sandvoss
- Appendix E Details of Interim Assignments Dissertation Proposal Assignment A detailed proposal for the dissertation research is due week 3 of Semester 1 (18
- If your dissertation involves human participants
- Title and Research Questions (up to 250 words)
- Research Design (up to 1,000 words)
- Ethics, Safety and Research Integrity (up to 1,000 words) Informed consent
- Assess potential risks of the research Consider whether your research involves any foreseeable risks for you
- Anonymity confidentiality issues
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10. Ethical and Safety Considerations Your research should be conducted in accordance with ethical principles. Research with certain subjects, on certain topics and using certain methodologies raise ethical issues and may require a decision from the faculty ethics committee. The research proposal submitted in week 3 will include consideration of any ethical issues raised by the project and will allow your supervisor to evaluate whether your project needs to be considered by the Faculty ethics committee. If this is the case, the work done for the proposal will make completion of the faculty ethics form relatively straightforward. Comprehensive advice is available at http://www2.surrey.ac.uk/fahs/staffandstudents/ethicalprocedures/ You, along with your supervisor, have a responsibility to:
Ethical opinion for research will be required where:
It is less likely that ethical approval will be required where:
Should you and your supervisor decide that ethical approval is required the forms that you need to fill in along with instructions about the information that you need to provide are available at: http://www2.surrey.ac.uk/fahs/staffandstudents/ethicalprocedures/ . Please ensure that you provide all documentation that you are asked to. Failure to do so will result in a delay to your application. Note that the process of gaining ethical approval from the committee can take up to four working weeks. The ethics committee will contact you within that time and either give a favourable opinion; require some adjustments; or, pass your proposal onto the University of Surrey ethics committee if necessary. Please note that there are certain circumstances where additional ethical approval and clearance is required: National Health Service (NHS) based research: Research with current patients and users of the National Health Service along with their relatives or carers requires ethical approval from NHS research ethics committees. This is required before you submit to the faculty ethics committee. Acquiring NHS approval is lengthy and is very rarely possible in the time frame available for an undergraduate dissertation. If you are thinking of conducting research in this area refer to:http://www.nres.npsa.nhs.uk/applications/booking-and-submitting-your-application/how-to-book/ http://www.corec.org.uk/ Research with children and vulnerable adults: If you are planning to carry out research on children and/or vulnerable adults you are likely to need to complete a Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check. If you think that this might apply to your research, inform your supervisor as early as possible and contact Rob Meadows (r.meadows@surrey.ac.uk) for further details. CRB application forms can be obtained from the Faculty HR office 02AD04 (Rebecca Varcoe or Leonie Burton) It is important that you consider your own safety when carrying out research., If you intend to carry out research which may pose risks to personal safety, it is imperative that you discuss the matter in advance with your dissertation supervisor. This is to allow you and your supervisor to discuss how you may anticipate, avoid or deal with any possible risks in the proposed research or method of data collection. She or he will keep a written record of the discussion. You may be reassured to know, however, that there have been no incidents relating to the personal safety of students undertaking undergraduate dissertations. 11. Plagiarism If it appears that you have presented the work of others as your own, this constitutes plagiarism and is therefore a form of academic misconduct. Further information about what constitutes plagiarism are available athttp://www.surrey.ac.uk/sociology/currentstudents/undergraduates/. Details of the departmental procedure for dealing with cases of plagiarism can also be found at http://www.surrey.ac.uk/sociology/currentstudents/undergraduates/ There are very strict penalties for those students found to have plagiarized. 12. Writing up the Dissertation The dissertation report must describe fully the work that was undertaken, associated methodological issues and the overall significance of your research. It should be between 8,000 and 12,000 words long. The upper word limit is strict -- you may not exceed 12,000 words. The word count includes tables, quotes and citations, but does NOT include title page, acknowledgments, contents and abstract, the bibliography and appendices. YOU ARE REQUIRED TO DECLARE THE WORD COUNT WHEN YOU SUBMIT THE DISSERTATION. There are few hard-and-fast rules about the structure of the report, which will depend upon the kind of research undertaken. Normally, however, we would expect to see something like the following: Title page in standard format (see Appendix A) Acknowledgements (optional). It is courteous to thank people for any special help you have been given. Acknowledgements are usually placed at the beginning of the dissertation after the title page and before the contents page, but may be placed at the end. A table of contents. A brief abstract of 200-300 words setting out the nature of the project, main findings and conclusions. An introduction which sets out the general topic that you researched, the specific questions that you addressed, and why these are interesting and important from a sociological, criminological or media studies point of view. A review of relevant research literature undertaken by other researchers which informs the theoretical and empirical questions underpinning your own research. While you should show that you know what others have written on the topic, do not simply summarise other research or string together a number of unrelated summaries. Instead, write a critical review of the literature which explains why the pieces you review are important and how they inform your own project. A discussion of methodology (or statement of approach in the case of a theoretical dissertation) and the methods adopted. Since one of the aims of the dissertation is to allow you to demonstrate that you are able to apply research techniques appropriately, this should be a little more in-depth than you might find in academic research papers. Explain which method or methods you adopted, why these were appropriate, what the possible limitations of your methods were, what kind of problems emerged in the course of the research and how you analysed the data. A presentation and analysis of the results. The form of these will obviously depend upon the kind of research you undertook. Whatever method you used, however, you need to make sure that the assertions you make in your analysis and discussion can be justified in relation to your research findings. To do so, you will need to provide the appropriate evidence (tables, quotations etc.) in the text. A conclusion in which you draw together the different parts of the dissertation. Here you should connect your own empirical research back to issues or concepts you considered at the beginning of the dissertation and to the literature you reviewed. In some cases, you may discuss literature not included in the literature review, if this helps you to analyse or discuss your findings. In the conclusion you may wish to suggest the overall implications of your study for sociology, criminology or media studies, to speculate beyond the findings in your own study, and perhaps to highlight some questions for further research or areas of uncertainty raised by your project. A reference list which provides full citations for all of the sources (public documents, scholarly literature, internet resources etc.) that you have mentioned in the text. It is vital to make sure that you do this properly (see Appendix B for advice on referencing). Do not include works that you read but did not cite in the dissertation. Where relevant, your dissertation will include appendices. Copies of cover letters, interview schedules or questionnaires should be presented in an appendix. You may also include some statistical tables not analysed in the text. Visual data is often included in an appendix. In general, try to keep these to a minimum. You should not feel the need to include absolutely every bit of data you have in the written report; for instance, interview transcripts are considered raw data and are not customarily included in an appendix. Part of the skill of doing the report lies in choosing to present the appropriate findings. You should make sure that any really important pieces of information are in the main text, and not in appendices.
Please note that dissertations are subject to normal late penalties. Any dissertation submitted after the deadline will be subject to the deduction of 10 percentage marks for each part or full weekday that it is submitted late, for up to 3 working days. Failure to submit by the 3rd working day after the deadline shall be considered as non-submission, resulting in 0%. See course handbook for full details of the penalties system and mitigating circumstances. 14. The Marking Process The dissertation will be first marked independently by a member of the teaching staff, and second marked by your supervisor. It may also be moderated by an external examiner. Details of the grade descriptors used in marking dissertations are available in Appendix F. When a dissertation :
examiners will refer the dissertation to the dissertation co-ordinator. The dissertation co-ordinator will then take the following action:
You will not receive your mark until after the exam board in June. A dissertation report agreed by both markers will be available for collection on graduation day. Appendix A: Title Page The title page of the dissertation should indicate the following information: TITLE OF REPORT Report presented by A N Other For the Degree of Bachelor of Science in Sociology (OR) Sociology, Culture and Media (OR) Criminology and Sociology (OR) Applied Psychology and Sociology (OR) For the Degree of Bachelor of Art in Media Studies DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF SURREY Month, Year Word count Appendix B Style and Referencing The first goal of writing is clarity. Your readers must be able to grasp what you are trying to say, and you accomplish this through clear writing. If you writing is muddled, your reader is likely to assume that your thoughts are muddled, too. A sloppy manuscript may give the appearance of sloppy work in general and your mark could suffer as a result. Make sure that it is well written, with good spelling, grammar and punctuation throughout. PROOF-READ YOUR WORK AND USE A SPELL CHECKER, not US English. Be mindful that a word may be correctly spelt, but incorrectly placed: to/too/two or there/their/they’re for example. Some basic stylistic conventions are as follows: Use bias-free and gender-neutral terms.
Avoid using jargon and define any specialist terms you use. Do not use big words just for the sake of it. Shorter words are often just as good, or better. More important, do not use big words (or any words) incorrectly; if unsure, check in the dictionary or use a different word. Choose active voice over passive voice. Do not use contractions (use "cannot" instead of "can't", "does not" instead of "doesn't" etc.) except where quoting direct speech. Do not begin sentences with a numeric, for example Three blind mice, not 3 blind mice. Indent all quotes from informants as separate paragraphs in the text, and indicate the informant by name, pseudonym, or interview number. Tables and figures should be numbered, titled and clearly presented. Abbreviations and codes used in the tables should be made clear, perhaps in a key at the bottom of the table. Only include tables that are mentioned and discussed in the text. If the table is based on data other than your own, provide the source of the table or the data at the bottom of the table. The referencing protocol at the University of Surrey is the Harvard Convention, or Author Date It is very important that you provide proper citations in the text and a full set of references at the end of your dissertation. References should be given as a name/date reference in the text - eg Smith (1998) - and then a full reference in the bibliography. Where there is more than one publication by the same author in a given year use an alphabetic suffix in the text and references, eg Smith (1998a), Smith (1998b). Indent long quotations from published sources as separate paragraphs in the text (without quotation marks), and give a reference, including page numbers. Short quotations should be enclosed in quotation marks, and include a reference with page number. Full references should take the following form: Book: Calhoun, C. (1995) Critical Social Theory, Oxford: Blackwell. Book chapter: Wallman, S. (1986) 'Ethnicity and the boundary process in context' in Rex, J. & Mason, D. (eds) Theories of Race and Ethnic Relations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Journal article: Halpern, D. (1993) 'Minorities and mental health', Social Science and Medicine, Vol.26, No.5, pp. 597-607. Official report: Office for Population Censuses and Surveys (1981) General Household Survey 1980 Series GHS no.10, London: HMSO. Unless very short, quotations from other authors should be indented, single-spaced, in the text. All quotations must have a name/date and page reference, eg (Smith, 1998, p.20).
Please note that academic staff may be on sabbatical leave during the year, the Dissertation Co-ordinator will allocate supervision amongst lecturers currently teaching Victoria Alexander Sociology of art and culture; sociology of organizations. Sara Arber Sociology of ageing; sociology of gender; women’s employment; secondary analysis of data sets Ian Brunton-Smith Crime and criminal justice; fear of crime; survey methodology and analysis Karen Bullock Crime; criminal justice; policing Kate Burningham Sociology of the Environment; qualitative research Rachel Cohen Sociology of work; employment and organizations; sociology of the household; body and beauty; comparative historical sociology. Geoff Cooper Sociology of science; qualitative research; theoretical sociology Carrie Dunn Fandom, sport, feminism and the consumption of popular culture Sarah Earthy Sociology of health and illness; social policy Jane Fielding Secondary analysis of data sets; computing applications in social research Nigel Gilbert Computational approaches to sociology; analysis of secondary data sets; sociology of the environment Nicola Green Science & technology; media & new media; body politics, popular culture; gender Christine Hine Technologies; Sociology of the Internet and new media; ethnography; science & technology studies Paul Hodkinson Sociology of Media & New Media; Popular Culture & Consumer Culture Paul Johnson Deviance; Emotions; Identity; Sexuality; Surveillance Daniel McCarthy Youth justice; punishment and social control; policing and social theory. Keith Macdonald Historical sociology; sociology of organizations and professions; documentary research Jo Moran-Ellis Sociology of childhood; sociology of violence against women and children Hugh Ortega Breton Cultural trends; Social & cultural theory; risk; emotions; terrorism; politics of representation; therapeutic culture; political communication. Lynn Prince-Cooke Gender (quantitative analysis of work, housework, child care); social inequality; international comparisons; social policy; historical sociology Cornel Sandvoss Sociology of Media and Culture; Popular Communication; Audience Studies; Globalisation Katharine Tyler Race & Ethnicity Michael Williams Political sociology; contemporary British politics Appendix D Some Useful References Asa Berger, A. (2000/2011) Media and Communication Research Methods: An Introduction to Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches
O’Leary, Z (2004) The Essential Guide to Doing Research London: Sage Robson, C. (1993) Real World Research Oxford: Blackwell Smith, K., Todd, M, & Waldman, J. (2009) Doing your undergraduate social science dissertation London: Routledge Stokes J (2003) How to do media and cultural studies London: Sage
Your proposal should include the following elements: Title and Research Questions (up to 250 words)
Background/Conceptual basis (up to 500 words)
Research Design (up to 1,000 words)
Ethics, Safety and Research Integrity (up to 1,000 words)
Explain how you will achieve informed consent. Prepare an informed consent form and attach it as an appendix (do not include this in your word count): See: http://www2.surrey.ac.uk/fahs/staffandstudents/ethicalprocedures/documents/ for example consent forms that you can base your form on.
Consider whether your research involves any foreseeable risks for you and assess the likelihood of these risks being realised as high, medium or low. Think about how these risks might be mitigated. Consider whether your research involves any foreseeable risks for participants and/or organisations involved in your research and Assess the likelihood of these risks being realised as high, medium or low. How might any risks be mitigated? Are there ways in which participants or organisations might benefit from participation in the research?
The Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences guidelines on ethical procedures include links to some useful documents that you can draw on to inform your proposal with regard to safe and ethical research practice. http://www2.surrey.ac.uk/fahs/staffandstudents/ethicalprocedures/documents/. The following websites also provide useful guidelines on ethical and safe research practice:
http://www.the-sra.org.uk/documents/pdfs/ethics03.pdf
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