module specification

This module focuses on the production of either a practice-based project or an academic dissertation. It provides students with the opportunity to produce a substantial piece of work that integrates subjects and approaches studied on the programme, or alternatively to specialise in one area of the curriculum. Students will devise, plan, research, draft and bring to final form a dissertation or a practice-based project plus reflective commentary. The emphasis throughout will be on the student’s ability to study independently under supervision.

Aims:

• You will enhance your communication skills through an extended piece of creative, creative nonfiction or professional writing; or an audio-visual or digital production appropriate to the multi-media modes of current practice; or through individual research and writing of a scholarly or journalistic nature.

• You will develop a reflexive and value-led awareness of the creative, theoretical and/or technical processes required to engage in the planning, research and production of a substantial project or dissertation relating to the creative, digital or professional writing area.

• You will engage in a process of sustained independent enquiry and innovation appropriate to a Masters level award.

• You will refine your reflexive understanding of and ability to articulate the value and ethical basis of your own creative, professional or scholarly practice, as demonstrated by your project/dissertation.

Students should have passed the programme’s four core modules and two optional modules
Available for Study Abroad? NO

The approach to and content of the MA Creative, Digital and Professional Writing Project/ Dissertation module enables students to develop an area of interest that has emerged through their study of creative, digital and professional writing, bringing together technical proficiency, critical perspective and knowledge acquired on the course. Students will undertake an extensive piece of independent, original, practice-based or written research, leading to the production of either a digital/audio-visual project or journalism portfolio or extended piece of creative writing, creative nonfiction or professional writing or written dissertation, appropriate to a Masters level award.

The form of the project is not fixed: the choice of topic, scope, genre, approach and medium will be developed in discussions between the student and their supervisor. It is subject to agreement by the supervisor, on the basis of a satisfactory proposal by the student. For example, it may take the form of a novella or collection of short stories; an extended piece of creative nonfiction or professional writing; a portfolio of themed, extended journalistic writing; or an audio, visual, digital or audio-visual item appropriate to the modes of production of current practice. In each case this will be accompanied by a substantial, analytic, critically-informed commentary. Alternatively the student may produce an academic dissertation. Students will be expected to build on their previous writing and/or digital/audio-visual production strengths as they have emerged on the course.

The project/dissertation is conducted through supervised independent study, research and creative endeavour. Students are assigned an individual supervisor, who will support and advise on matters of topic, genre and design, and give tutorial guidance and feedback on draft work during the period in which the project/dissertation module is being devised and produced/written.

At the end of the module students will be able to:

Subject specific skills:
LO1 plan, develop and produce an extended, original, practice-based project or academic dissertation within the field of creative, digital and professional writing;

Knowledge and understanding:
LO2 articulate conceptual knowledge and evaluative understanding of an area of creative or professional writing or practice;

Cognitive intellectual abilities:
LO3 reflect critically on the creative and technical processes required to engage in the planning, research and production of a sustained practice-based project or on aspects of writing, media, communication or the creative industries;

Transferable skills:
LO4 learn independently for the purposes of continuing professional development;

Behaviours and values:
LO5 articulate the value of their own creative or academic project in a manner that shows advanced understanding of their chosen field and reflective learning from the supervisory relationship.

Students will produce coursework addressing the module’s learning outcomes through the tasks and criteria as set out in the assessment brief. These will be detailed at the start of each academic year.

Normally the assessment consists of two parts:

1. An initial proposal (typically 500 words) that will test the student’s ability to: formulate a research question or originate an idea for an extended piece of creative work; to plan the research; to reach agreement on its appropriate form and scale with the supervisor.

2. A substantial, practice-led project with critical, analytic commentary or an academic dissertation. Projects consisting solely of prose would typically be in the range 12000-15000 words.

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