EXTRACT FROM POLITICS AND HISTORY DEGREE PROGRAMME HANDBOOK
2006-07
6.3 ESSAY AND DISSERTATION WRITING: SOME PRACTICAL TIPS
Note Taking: Books and Articles
 Everyone develops an individual method of taking notes, but some general
tips may be helpful. When you begin to use a book or article, note down
the particulars: the author’s name, title of book and the publication
details. As you make notes, write down, in the margin of your notepad,
the page number(s) relating to the material you are noting.
 When you come to write an essay using this material, you will need this
information to acknowledge your sources, and it will save you much time if
you need to go back to a book or article later, e.g. for revision purposes.
 It is always best to skim read the article or book chapter first. This allows
you to see what the author’s overall argument is and what (s)he is trying
to get across. It is only when you have grasped the author’s purpose that
you can assess the key points and and detail of the work. It is these that
you should then note down as you read carefully again from the
beginning.
 Try also to distinguish between established fact and hypothesis or
speculation. When you have identified the ‘facts’, you will be able to see
how different scholars use those ‘facts’ in their arguments and
interpretations. By taking notes in this sort of way, you will avoid
becoming bogged down in a mass of indiscriminate notes, and save
yourself a lot of time and frustration.
 As a general rule, your notes should be in your own words rather than
taking the form of a series of closely copied or paraphrased extracts from
the book or article concerned.
The Questions
 Usually, you will be asked to choose essay questions from lists provided by
your lecturers, although sometimes a question may be agreed mutually
between yourself and the lecturer in question. In any event, do not
hesitate to discuss the matter in person if you feel it would help you.
 Having decided upon the question, read it very carefully, thinking about
what sort of issues it raises and how you might best set about handling
them. In particular, it is important to look at how the question is phrased,
because different types of question require different kinds of argument.
 Remember that your answer will be assessed in relation to the exact
question set, so an understanding of the implications and significance of
the precise wording of the question will be crucial to the relevance and
quality of your answer. Again, if in doubt talk with your lecturer.
The Reading
 All essays are likely to require you to engage with different types of
source: books placing the subject in a broad context, monographs and
articles in scholarly journals focusing on a particular aspect of the subject,
and primary sources. Normally, you should work from the more general
to the more specialised, but sometimes pressure on library resources may
not allow it. To guard against that possibility, and to ensure that you
complete the reading for the essay, it is always sensible to organise your
reading well in advance of any deadline set for the handing in of the
essay.
 Remember that you can always ask for a library book to be recalled if it
has been issued to another reader.

Key books and articles are always in great demand. Try to co-operate
with others so that they may circulate as freely and speedily as possible to
the benefit of all.
Composition: Essay plans
Always plan your essay in some detail. Consider how you can best marshall and
deploy the material and ideas you have to hand to answer the exact question
before you in the most effective way. Decide, again with direct reference to the
question, what you must discuss, what you might discuss, and what requires no
discussion at all.
Information and Argument.
To be convincing, any argument must be informed. That does not mean
cramming every fact that you have gained from your reading into the body of the
essay, but it does mean that you need to support your arguments by showing the
reader the evidence upon which they are based.
You will, of course, need to exercise your own judgement about how much
evidence is necessary to support a particular point. Generally, one or two
examples are enough to underpin individual points, but where your argument is
contentious, or in cases where you are dealing with controversial interpretations
of other historians, more detailed explanation and substantiation will be needed.
Where appropriate, be critical of other scholars – yes, that includes your own
lecturers - or at least be sceptical towards them. Don’t be afraid to challenge
received wisdom with arguments of your own, providing you can back up those
arguments.
Relevance
No individual essay question is ever an invitation to write generally about and
around the subject. So always address directly the exact question asked, and
resist being diverted into peripheral topics. Remember, too, that virtually all
questions you will be writing about will require analytical treatment of the
subject.
You need to demonstrate your ability to work out a number of arguments,
organize them logically, and pursue them to a convincing conclusion. What you
will not be asked to do is to write a narrative. Some narrative is useful in
answering many essays, and you need, of course, to work out the narrative
sequence for yourself. But leave it in your notes.
Waffle is very common and is always very obvious. It can take a number of
forms, such as repeating the question, rephrasing the question, or repeating the
same point in different words.
Length
The length of an essay is no indication of its quality, and much depends on the
exact question and your style. However, an excessively long essay typically
indicates that the writer had not applied enough discrimination and historical
judgement, or simply could not see the wood for the trees when pen was put to
paper. A very short essay may indicate that the author had failed to grasp
certain key aspects of the question, or had failed to read crucial books or articles.
Normally you should aim at a length of between 1500 and 3000 words, but you
will find that different modules have different requirements in this regard. You
should read carefully the module literature that you are given, to check the
number of words required and the word limit.
You will be liable to be penalised (have marks deducted) if you overshoot the
word limit.
6.4 PRESENTATION OF WORK IN POLITICS
Politics requires you to follow certain guidelines on the proper style for written
work (including essays, projects and dissertations), detailed in the Politics Style
and Referencing Guide issued to all students, contained here, and also available
on the Politics Web site. You must use consistently the relevant guide for
the module.
Examples of written work
To help you with your writing the Library contains examples of marked work by
Politics students in previous years and you should consult these as a guide to
standards. This work is filed under Solutions at the Students Text Collection
Desk. Please ask for the work you require.
Please note the section on plagiarism below.
POLITICS STYLE GUIDE
[Please note, a revised version of the Politics Style Guide was still being
prepared when this Handbook went to press. You should call in at the Politics
Office to collect a copy of the updated version.]
WHAT IS REQUIRED IN AN ESSAY?
Politics essays are intended to provide an opportunity for students to write
analyses on important questions using a variety of source materials. They are
not editorials for recitation of your personal views on the subject. Rather, you
are given extensive reading lists that should be used to provide information and
arguments from which you will draw your own conclusions. Your conclusions
should be supported by evidence taken from the resources you have used, and
that evidence must be acknowledged with proper referencing (as explained
below). You are encouraged, of course, to use your own ideas and arguments as
well, but the point is to make arguments that are supported by evidence.
WHAT DO I DO, IN TECHNICAL TERMS?
Essay writing is a fundamental skill that can be learned. One reason you are at
university is to develop writing skills. Your writing, like most things, improves
with practice and with reading. Those who read little rarely write well. Style and
presentation are important. Good essays are not only a function of what you say,
but also how you say it. Tutors do not mark essays on whether they agree with
the views expressed in an essay, but on how well researched, documented,
reasoned, and formulated they are. Therefore, correct grammar, punctuation,
spelling, references, and a bibliography are not optional extras: they are essential
elements of a properly presented essay.
You must give yourself enough time to do research for an essay: often, serious
reading is required above and beyond your normal lecture and tutorial
preparation. After doing some reading and thinking about the subject, start by
constructing an outline which organises what you intend to do. It should include:
a concise and clear introduction; supporting points which provide the evidence
and demonstrate what you set out to do in the introduction; a conclusion which
sums up clearly how you demonstrated the argument which you presented in the
introduction. You should expect an essay to go through some drafts. You should
not submit a work that is obviously sloppy or prepared in haste.
BASIC POINTS ABOUT STYLE
Your writing style will improve with practice. Aim to write as directly as possible:
say what you mean as clearly and with as few words as possible. Here are some
basic points that will aid your writing style:
Essays should be typed or word-processed, leaving generous margins with
the text double spaced.
Pages must be numbered.
Direct quotations, whether they be one or two distinctive words from a
source, or a lengthy sentence, must be marked with quotation marks and
an endnote or citation indicating the source.
However, if direct quotations run for six or more lines of double
spaced text, they should be indented as a block quotation in a
hanging paragraph [like this one], with an endnote or citation at
the end of the last sentence [though none appears here]. When
direct quotations are indented in this manner, quotations marks are
not used at the beginning or end of the quote – the indentation
signifies instead that it is a quote.
Spell out all acronyms in full the first time you use them, including the
acronym in brackets. For example: International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA). Subsequent references can then use just the acronyms.
Identify your characters when you introduce them in an essay. Example:
Dean Rusk, U.S. Secretary of State,...
An essay must have references and a separate bibliography page at
the end (details of this requirement are set out in the section below).
USING INTERNET MATERIALS
The Internet, especially the World Wide Web (WWW), increasingly contains
documents and information that can be of use in researching and writing Politics
essays. However, the Internet also contains a lot of rubbish. The trick is to
distinguish between what is good and useful, and what is not.
To make this distinction, you need to use materials from the Internet as you
would materials from articles or books. You need to critically evaluate the
materials in terms of their argument, their evidence, their logic, and any
relationship between what is being argued and who is presenting the argument.
The fact that materials are on the Internet does not mean they are necessarily
accurate or legitimate. As with any research, you have to use your critical
reading skills to make that judgement yourself.
As one element in critically evaluating a WWW site, the Uniform Resource
Locator (URL) of the site provides important information. The URL is the
electronic address of a WWW site’s “server” (the computer on which it is located)
and usually the “home page” (the equivalent of a book’s title and contents
page).1 URLs generally follow a pattern:
If the home page has a different address from the server, you will see /home.html or /index.html
after the initial forward slash.
1
Beginning with http:// to indicate that this is an Internet site, they then
include www. to signify the World Wide Web (a very few sites will not
have this). 2
Next comes the name of the site, either as a complete title or a
recognisable acronym.
After that – and always separated by a period [.] with no spaces – comes
an abbreviation for the domain that designates the type of site – whether
it belongs to an institution, organisation or company.
Then there is a country code.
However, if the site is located in or run for an institution, organisation, or
company in the United States there is no country code. The Internet
originated in the US so the first sites on the Internet did not require a
country code.
But with the Internet’s recent expansion, codes for
countries other than the US have become essential. Note, though, that
country codes are absent also from the .org domain used by international
and non-governmental organisations around the world, and that
corporations outside the US are starting to use just the .com domain.
Finally, the address is often ended with a forward-slash [/], indicating that
there are other documents and sections on the site beyond the home
page.
The standard format of a basic URL can therefore be summarised as follows:
http://www.sitename.sitetype.country code (if applicable)/
Examples:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/
This is the home page for the President of the United States office
and residence, the White House.
Note the site name
[.whitehouse], the site type [.gov – meaning government] and,
being the US, the absence of a country code.
http://www.fco.gov.uk/
This is the home page for the British government’s Foreign and
Commonwealth Office. Note the site name [the acronym, .fco], the
site type [.gov – meaning government] and the country code [.uk].
http://www.icj-cij.org/
This is the home page of the International Court of Justice in the
Hague, Netherlands. Note the site name [the acronym – .icj-cij –
in its English and French versions], the site type [.org – meaning
organisation] and the absence a country code (regardless of their
location, international and non-government organisations often
omit this code).
http://www.oneworld.org/oxfam/
2
Http stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol.
This is the home page of the non-government organisation, Oxfam
UK and Ireland. This address indicates that its site is hosted by a
network organisation [oneworld.org] that provides Internet access
for organisations of this type. As a result, the URL for Oxfam is
longer and more detailed than those above.
http://www.amazon.com/
The home page of the American on-line book store, Amazon. We
know it is an American company because the URL ends with .com
and has no country code.
http://www.bookshop.co.uk/
This is the home page of Amazon.com’s British competitor, the
Internet Bookshop, signified as a UK company by .co.uk at the end
of the URL.
http://www.jhu.edu
This is the home page of Johns Hopkins University in the US. It is
recognisable as an American university site because the URL ends
with .edu and has no country code.
http://www.gsb.uct.ac.za/
This is the home page of the Graduate School of Business [.gsb] at
the University of Cape Town [.uct] in South Africa [.za]. The .ac
signifies an academic or university site outside of the US.
URL’s can be, and often are, much longer. The extra details that follow the above
basic URL, and separated by forward-slashes [/] indicate specific sections and/or
pages on a Web site.
These extra details are essential for proper referencing (see below). Just as
you must provide specific page numbers for referencing particular points or
quotations, so to you must provide specific URL addresses for the documents or
information you get from the Internet.
For example, the URL for this guide, on the WWW site of the Department of
Politics at the University of Newcastle, is:
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/~npol/styleguide/
The details of specific URL addresses can be seen in your Internet browser (e.g.
Netscape for Internet Explorer), at the top of the page you are viewing. If you
are making notes from a site you are viewing, be sure to write down these
details. When you print from the Internet, these details are often automatically
included in the print-out, along with the date and time you accessed the
information. Check if this is the case. The date and time are important details to
record for references because WWW sites are frequently up-dated, and the
information you obtained one day (even one hour) may have changed by the
next.
Details on how to properly reference Internet materials in your essays are given
in the following section.
REFERENCING
When you are writing essays, projects, or dissertations, you are not expected to
rely on original ideas or have some mystical, unmediated access to data. What
you are expected to do is to develop your own argument with reference to a
variety of sources.
In other words, you are expected to assemble ideas,
arguments, and evidence to make a case, which you then argue.
It is
absolutely essential, therefore, that you provide clear references to the
sources you use.
WARNING: FAILURE TO MEET THIS REQUIREMENT WILL COST YOU MARKS.
WRITTEN WORK THAT IS INSUFFICIENTLY OR IMPROPERLY REFERENCED WILL
HAVE UP TO TEN (10) MARKS DEDUCTED. This means, for example, that if your
work would have otherwise been marked as a 62, systematically insufficient or
improper referencing will result in that mark being automatically reduced to 52.
For lesser errors, between 1 and 10 marks will be deducted.
The essence of referencing is to provide your reader with a clear, concise guide
to the sources upon which you have drawn in developing your argument. This
means that any ideas, argument, information, or language (including
distinctive terms or full quotations) that you have drawn from a source must be
attributed to that source. In order to do this, you must indicate in the text – at
the point at which you have used an idea, argument, information, or language
from one of your sources – the source or sources on which you have drawn.
There are many formats for referencing the sources of your material. If you
look at the books and articles you are reading, you will notice numerous
variations in style. The Department of Politics, however, requires you to use the
politics style guide. NO OTHER STYLES ARE ACCEPTABLE.
If you have any questions about how to successfully reference your written
work you should consult your tutor or module leader. Remember – failure to
meet this requirement will result in the loss of marks detailed above.
REFERENCING– ENDNOTES/FOOTNOTES3
In order to use endnotes, you place a superscript number at the end of the
section (either a sentence or paragraph) containing whatever it is you are
referencing. All word-processors have the facility to do this technical function.
And remember – you have to reference ideas, argument, information or language
(including distinctive terms or full quotations) which is not your own.
At the end of your essay, on a separate page headed “Endnotes”, you place an
equivalent number, followed by the bibliographic information of your source,
including the page number(s) from which your information is drawn. The
page reference is absolutely essential. Again, all word-processors will generate
endnotes for you quickly and easily.
Although their primary purpose is to provide details of references, endnotes can
also be used to discuss points that, while relevant to the argument you are
making, are not central to the argument but might be worth exploring. If you
use endnotes for this purpose, be sure to ask yourself whether the information
you wish to convey is related to your argument, and whether it would be better
placed in the main part of the essay. If these explanatory endnotes contain
information that needs to be referenced, then bibliographic information should be
placed in the notes.
If you prefer, you may present notes as footnotes rather than endnotes, i.e.
notes that appear at the foot of the relevant page rather than at the end of your
essay.
3
This is a footnote. You get it by pressing ‘Ctrl’ + ‘Alt’ + ‘F’ at the same time. They are ‘smart’, i.e.,
they move around when your text does. The font size should be a little bit smaller than that of the
text.
Providing Bibliographic Information in the Notes
The bibliographic information allows the reader to find the source of the
information for which you are providing reference. There are, therefore, a
number of pieces of information with which the reader must be provided:
 the name of the author or authors
 the title of the article, chapter, book or other piece
 the name of the editor of the book, if it is an edited volume
 the title of the book, journal, newspaper, or electronic source
 the name of the site and the URL if it is an Internet source
 the edition, if there is more than one, and the volume, if there is
more than one
 page numbers
This information can be found mostly on the title page and the publication details
page near the front of articles and books, and on the home page of Internet sites.
Books
For a book by a single or multiple authors, provide the information in the
following style:
First-name Last-name [of the author or authors], Title of the book
underlined [Edition or Volume if required] (City of Publication: Name of
Publisher, Year of publication), page reference.
It is important that even the punctuation is consistent. All words, other
than prepositions (such as ‘of’, ‘the’ etc., unless they are at the beginning
of the title), should be in capital letters. Please follow the form carefully.
Examples:
Single Author
Andrew Linklater, The Transformation of Political Community: Ethical
Foundations of the Post-Westphalian Era (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998),
35-42.
Second Edition
Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument With Historical
Illustrations 2nd edition (New York: Basic Books, 1992), 1.
Multiple Authors
Stephen Gill and David Law, The Global Political Economy: Perspectives,
Problems and Policies (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988),
57.
Chapter in an edited volume
When you make reference to a work in an edited volume, it is essential to provide
the full details about the author and title or the essay or chapter, not just the
book in which it is found. Provide the information in the following style:
First-name Last-name [of the author or authors of the chapter], “Title of
the chapter or essay” in First-name Last name [of the editor or editors],
ed. [eds. for multiple editors], Title of the book underlined [Edition or
Volume if required] (City of Publication: Name of Publisher, Year of
publication), page reference.
You should notice that the part following the word ‘in’ is essentially the
same as that for a book, except that the authors are identified as editors
by the ‘ed.’ or ‘eds.’ following their names.
Examples:
Multiple authors, single editor
Robert Axelrod and Robert O. Keohane, “Achieving Cooperation Under
Anarchy: Strategies and Institutions” in David Baldwin, ed., Neorealism
and Neoliberalism: The Contemporary Debate (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1993), 87-90.
Single author, multiple editors
R.J. Vincent, “The Idea of Rights in International Ethics” in Terry Nardin
and David Mapel, eds., Traditions of International Ethics (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1992), 260.
Journal Articles
For journal articles, as with contributions to edited volumes, it is essential
to provide the name of the author and the title of the article, as well as
the information about the journal, with the titles in capital letters. You
must provide the information in the following form:
First-name Last-name [of the author or authors of the article], “Title of the
article” Title of the Journal underlined Volume (number) year of
publication,
page
reference.
Examples:
Single author
John MacMillan, “Democracies Don’t Fight: A Case of the Wrong Research
Agenda?” Review of International Studies 22 (3) 1996, 280-81.
Multiple authors
George W. Downs, David M. Rocke and Peter N. Barsoom, “Is the Good
News About Compliance Good News About Cooperation?” International
Organization 50 (3) 1996, 399-403.
Newspapers and Magazines
It is often necessary to make reference to newspapers and
Sometimes you will have authors’ names, and other times you will
article has a by-line (a sub-heading with the author’s name), please
author’s name, and always include the title of the article. Provide the
in the following form:
magazines.
not. If an
include the
information
First-name Last-name [if there is a by-line], “Title of the article” Title of
the Newspaper or Magazine underlined Date of Publication, page reference
(including section reference, if necessary)
Examples:
Tony Barber, “EU Tries to Broker Mostar Deal” The Independent 6 August
1996, 7.
Strobe Talbott, “Why NATO Should Grow” The New York Review of Books
10 August 1995, 30.
Internet Resources
Following on from the discussion on page 5, please use the following form for
WWW resources you use:
Last-name First-name [of the author of the page, if it is provided], “Title of
the article or page”, Title of the Web-Site underlined, (URL of the site,
date consulted).
Examples:
Jamie Gama, “Portugal and the transformed NATO” NATO Official Home
Page (http://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/9604-1.htm, July 26,
1996).
“United Nations in Brief” UN Information Services and other Related Links
(http://www.undcp.org/unbrief.htm, July 26, 1996).
For Internet resources other than Web pages, consult the sources listed at the
end.
Subsequent citations to the same source
The above details provide the way in which the full details must be set out the
first (or only) time you reference a particular source.
It is only necessary to provide the full details for a source once. After
the first note in which you refer to the source, you need only provide a brief
citation which will allow the reader to identify the source, and which will provide
the page references for your new reference to that source.
Subsequent references are easy. All you need to do is provide the last name of
the author or authors, a short title of the work (usually the section before the
colon in the full title), and the page references:
Here are the examples above given in subsequent reference form:
Linklater, The Transformation of Political Community, 35-42.
Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 1.
Gill and Law, The Global Political Economy, 57.
Axelrod and Keohane, “Achieving Cooperation Under Anarchy”, 87-90.
Vincent, “The Idea of Rights”, 260.
MacMillan, “Democracies Don’t Fight”, 280-81.
Downs, Rocke and Barsoom, “Good News”, 399-403.
Barber, “EU Tries to Broker Mostar Deal”, 7.
Talbott, “Why NATO Should Grow”, 30
Gama, “Portugal and the Transformed NATO”.
“United Nations in Brief”.
Do NOT use ibid., op cit., loc cit. or any of the other Latin derivatives that were
commonly used for this purpose.
Bibliographies
In addition to providing references in endnotes, you must provide a list of the
sources you used. This is a separate section at the end of an essay, project, or
dissertation called a bibliography. The bibliography includes not only those
sources you referenced in your endnotes, but other sources which you have read
and used in the preparation of your essay, but did not in the end use for a
specific idea or piece of information in the body of the essay.
In the bibliography you must list your sources alphabetically by author.
Again, you must provide this in a consistent, standard style.
There are three major differences between the style used for notes and that for
bibliographies:
1. Because entries are listed by author’s last name, that name comes first.
In the case of multiple authors, only the first author’s last name comes
first, the others remain with the first name first;
2. You are providing reference to the work as a whole, not to a particular
piece of information from that work, and so you do not provide a page
reference, except:
3. For articles that are taken from edited volumes or journals, you must
provide the page references for the whole article and not just the page(s)
your cited in the endnotes.
Here are the examples given above for references in endnotes, presented as they
should appear in your bibliography. Please pay careful attention to the changes
in organisation and punctuation:
Books
Linklater, Andrew. The Transformation of Political Community: Ethical
Foundations of the Post-Westphalian Era (Cambridge: Polity Press,
1998).
Walzer, Michael. Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument With Historical
Illustrations 2nd edition. (New York: Basic Books, 1992).
Chapter in an edited volume
Axelrod, Robert and Robert O. Keohane. “Achieving Cooperation Under
Anarchy: Strategies and Institutions.”
In David Baldwin, ed.
Neorealism and Neoliberalism: The Contemporary Debate. New
York: Columbia University Press, 1993, 85-115.
Vincent, R.J. “The Idea of Rights in International Ethics.” In Terry Nardin
and David Mapel, eds. Traditions of International Ethics Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1992, 250-69.
Journal Articles
MacMillan, John. “Democracies Don’t Fight: A Case of the Wrong Research
Agenda?” Review of International Studies 22 (3) 1996, 275-99.
Downs, George W., David M. Rocke and Peter N. Barsoom. “Is the Good
News About Compliance Good News About Cooperation?”
International Organization 50 (3) 1996, 279-406.
Newspapers and Magazines
Barber, Tony. “EU Tries to Broker Mostar Deal” The Independent 6 August
1996, 7.
Talbott, Strobe. “Why NATO Should Grow” The New York Review of Books
10 August 1995, 27-30.
Remick, David. “Letter From Chechnya: In Stalin’s Wake” The New Yorker
24 July 1995, 46-62.
Internet Resources
Gama, Jamie. “Portugal and the transformed NATO” NATO Official Home
Page http://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/9604-1.htm, July
26, 1996.
“United Nations in Brief” UN Information Services and other Related Links
http://www.undcp.org/unbrief.htm, July 26, 1996.
You must list in a bibliography only those things which you have cited or
consulted: do not list sources which other authors have cited if you have
not seen them – this is a form of plagiarism.4
4
And remember, a reference is the best defence against suspicions of plagiarism.
6.5 PRESENTATION OF WORK IN HISTORY
Essays and other pieces of submitted work (e.g. documentary commentaries)
should be clearly written, without excessive correction or alteration. All essays
(apart from Class Essays, that is, essays written in class) MUST be wordprocessed, and facilities are available throughout the campus. All essays (again
apart from class essays) MUST be fully referenced, using footnotes or endnotes,
MUST be paginated and MUST include a bibliography of all sources used. See
below for how to reference work in History.
Pay careful attention to the layout of essays. Leave generous margins for
comments, and ensure that your student number and degree programme, the
name of the lecturer in question, the title of the module, and the essay question
are clearly displayed on the top sheet. Write your student number on each sheet
of your work. Hand your essay, accompanied by a carefully filled in coversheet at
the School Office (see above, Assessed Work: Submission) where it will then be
date stamped and recorded as being received.
We attach considerable importance to accurate spelling, grammar and
punctuation, and clear and precise English. There are good reasons for this. At
best, poor written English will confuse and irritate the reader, and reduce the
force and impact of your arguments. At worst, it may not be possible to follow or
understand what you are trying to say at all. For these reasons alone it is
essential to check very carefully all spelling, grammar and punctuation before you
hand in your essay. Observe the style guide as set out below.
History Style Guide – how to present your bibliography and references in
your written work
It is important to present your work in a professional manner. The various subject
components of the School of Historical Studies have different expectations
regarding the presentation of written work: some prefer the Chicago Manual of
Style (foot or end notes) others the Harvard Style (reference in text). If in doubt,
ask the module leader concerned. Historians generally prefer the following
system, which you should use in your work for HIS modules. You should follow
this system exactly, using italic, brackets (), quotation marks ‘’, giving dates,
numbers, exactly when and as indicated in the examples. If you fail to reference
your work properly (i.e. as referenced here) you may find that marks are
deducted as a penalty for your failure to do this.
Presentation
 word process or type
 use A4 paper
 number each sheet
 specify the assessment title at the head of the first sheet
 leave margins of at least three centimetres on both sides
 indent first line of new paragraphs three spaces
 use one side of the paper only
 double space your text
 use 12 point Times Roman font
 put your student number on each sheet
References (Footnotes/Endnotes)



footnotes or endnotes must be used to reference your work, to identify
quotations and to indicate what sources you are depending on
correct referencing helps you avoid suspicions of plagiarism
numbers should be in (brackets) or superscript, and go outside the
punctuation
Examples of references:
(a)
Book:
R. I. Moore, The First European Revolution c. 970-1215, (Oxford:
Blackwell, 2000), p. 4.
(b)
Article from a book
Euan Cameron, 'One Reformation or Many: Protestant Identities in the
Later Reformation in Germany', in Tolerance and Intolerance in the
European Reformation, ed. O. P. Grell and R. W. Scribner (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 56.
(c)
Article from a journal
Patrick Salmon, 'Reluctant Engagement: Britain and Continental Europe,
1890-1939', Diplomacy and Statecraft 8 (1997), p. 56.
(d)
Consecutive citation of same work
Ibid., pp. 120-1.
(e)
Subsequent citation not consecutive
Salmon, 'Reluctant Engagement', p. 5; Moore, First European Revolution,
p. 5.
(f)
Web reference
Naomi Standen, 'Workshop 2: Religious contacts - Buddhism',
http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/naomi.standen/modasia/workshops/wkshp2.ht
m, 2
February 2001.
(g)
Newspaper or magazine reference
Martin Farr, 'After the Fox', Exeter Express & Echo, 9 May 1992, pp. 10-12
Bibliography
 A bibliography should list everything you have read in preparing the piece
of work
 Divide into two sections - primary sources (documents/texts of various
kinds produced in the period in question: diaries, letters, memoirs etc) and
secondary sources (texts/accounts by modern scholars written for
publication, e.g. textbooks, monographs, journal articles).
 Sources cited in references should also be listed in a bibliography at the
end of your work
 Unless the source has been read in its entirety, the sections which have
been read should be indicated, by page numbers or chapter numbers (eg,
pp 123-205, or chapters 5,9)
 Your sources should be listed in alphabetical order, by surname of author.
Examples of entries in a Bibliography
The entries in your Bibliography should take this format:
Article in journal
Berry, Helen, 'All Englands Rarityes Are Gathered Here': the world of the
Athenian Mercury (1691-1697)', Biblion, VII, No. 2 (Spring, 2000), pp. 2344.
Edited book
Kirk, Tim, and McElligott, Tony (eds.), Opposing Fascism: Community,
Authority and Resistance in Europe, (London: Cambridge University Press,
1999), (chapter three).
Single-author book
Redgate, A. E., The Armenians, (Oxford: Blackwells, 1998).
Single-author chapter in edited book
Saunders, David, 'Russia, the Balkans, and Ukraine in the 1870s', in
Russia and the Wider World in Historical Perspective: Essays for Paul
Dukes, ed. Cathryn Brennan and Murray Frame, (Basingstoke and London:
Macmillan, 2000).
Quotations
 Short quotations go in inverted commas ‘’.
 Quotations over one line
in length should be indented on both sides, single-spaced,
and lose their inverted commas. They may be in a smaller
font to the body of the text, and must be footnoted.
Punctuation
The rules governing punctuation are not especially hard to remember, and it is
mostly as easy to get them right as it is to get them wrong. For instance, a very
common weakness - not only in students' essays - is the failure to distinguish
between '... it's...' (with an apostrophe) and '... its...' (without an apostrophe),
yet the rule could not be easier: only write '... it's...' (with an apostrophe) when
you can substitute 'it is'. Poor punctuation not only spoils the effect of an
otherwise good essay; it can sometimes actually obscure the meaning of what
you wish to convey. Take the following sentence:
'The Communists said the Fascists would destroy the peace of Europe.'
Without changing any of the words, it is possible to make this sentence mean two
different things by different punctuation:
'The Communists, said the Fascists, would destroy the peace of Europe.
'The Communists said, "the Fascists would destroy the peace of Europe".'
Abbreviations
Abbreviations should be avoided in written work. It takes very little longer to
write 'for example' rather than 'e.g.', or 'that is' rather than 'i.e.', while 'etc.' is
sloppy. However, George V' is correct, rather than 'George the Fifth'.
6.6 Prizes
If you do particularly well during your degree, in your written work, in
examinations, or both, you may win a prize. They are awarded at the end of
each academic year.
As you can see, history is much more generous, if less selective.
History
The First Year Prize (£30) awarded to the student at stage one whose work shows
the greatest merit.
William Laurence Burn Prize (£100) awarded to the student in the second or
final year of his/her degree programme whose work shows the greatest merit.
The Catherine Mackichan Prize (£30) awarded for meritorious work by a
student in his/her final year, preferably in the field of medieval history.
The Joan Taylor Prize (£40) awarded for excellent performance in examinations
in modern history, preferably in the European field.
The Margaret Butler Prize (£100) awarded to the writer of the best dissertation
or piece of submitted work.
The Henry Croucher Memorial Prize in History (1) (£30) awarded for
meritorious work by a student in his/her final examinations in the field of
modern (post-1485) British history.
The Henry Croucher Memorial Prize in History (2) (£30) awarded for
meritorious work by a student in his/her final examinations in American
history.
The Henry Croucher Memorial Prize in History (3) (£30) awarded for
meritorious written work by a student, continuously assessed as part of his/her
final examinations in history.
Politics

The John Wiseman Prize (£100) is awarded to the best final honours
performance in Politics.
 The Trevelyan Exhibition Prize (£100) is awarded to the best Stage 1
performance in Politics.