Requirements & Expectations
postgraduate Online Course Part I: Study Skills
Postgraduate Requirements
For each MA module (with the exception of the FX Emerging Church Pioneering Project MEC3) you are required to attend an intensive week and subsequently submit a written assignment.
Assignments
Unless otherwise indicated, each assignment is 6,000 words including footnotes but excluding bibliography, abstract, contents page and appendices. An accurate word count including footnotes must be given on the submission sheet. It is extremely important to adhere to the word limit. You will be penalised for failing to do so. If a word limit of 6,000 words is given, this means it must be at least 5,400 words without footnotes and no more than 6,600 words including footnotes. Similarly, a word limit of 4,000 means you have +/- 10% including footnotes on this number.
Help on how to plan, structure and write your MA assignment can be found here.
Presubmission draft
You are encouraged to submit a draft of your first assignment by email to the MA Programme Leader approximately three weeks before the deadline (i.e. ideally around week seven of the 10 weeks normally available to write each assignment). Your draft will be marked in a general way and returned to you promptly to help you see where you are working at postgraduate level and where your paper may need more attention.
Submission of assignments
One electronic copy of each assignment with a completed header sheet is to be sent to the Postgraduate Administrator on or before the advertised deadline. You are strongly advised to keep a copy yourself! The assignment and header are to be emailed as separate attachments using Word or Open Office. The assignment and header attachments must both be named with the student’s anonymous marking code and unit number. Please note: It is important that your assignment remains completely anonymous, so do not include your name on any attachments. These should be identifiable by your marking code and the unit number only.
Each assignment should be accompanied by an abstract of 200 words or less. This is a summary of the argument of the assignment and not an introduction. In addition to the header sheet, a title page that also contains the student’s anonymous marking code is required.
Please note that you are strongly advised to presubmit your first assignment to ensure it is of sufficient standard (see above). Presubmissions go to the MA Programme Leader who will read through your work and offer general comments.
academic style
Detailed notes about academic style (in a downloadable document in pdf format) are found here. It is essential that you familiarise yourself with the academic conventions required. Failure to do so will result in lower marks being attained. It is also recommended that you study the marking criteria carefully. These are found in the current Postgraduate handbook.
