MEL Dissertations and Long Essays

An important component of the dissertation and long essay is the development not only of general language skills but also, through reading, the development of the appropriate style, register, and technical skills for the production of a scholarly paper in the target language.

Deadlines & formal requirements

Since dissertations and Final Year MEL Long Essays are treated as examinations, extensions will not be granted under any circumstances. Late submissions will be awarded a mark of zero. Of course, if you are experiencing serious personal problems or illness you may have your special circumstances taken into account.  For details of the procedure for applying for this, please refer to the DELC pages on 'Sources of Support'.  Individual members of staff are not able to offer dispensation ‐ any potential action can only be taken by the relevant Board of Examiners following recommendations from a Special Circumstances Committee.

MEL Dissertation

Students writing a MEL dissertation are required to complete and submit a MEL Dissertation Preparation form (available on the MEL dissertation preparation course page) to the TO by 4pm, Thursday 21st September 2017.

All MEL dissertations are written in the target language and are approximately 6000 words in length. This word count includes the quotations but not the bibliography, footnotes and appendices. Dissertations and long essays will be subject to a penalty if the word count is more than 10% above the given word limit. One word‐processed copy in a temporary binding (e.g. spiral or hard plastic spine) must be submitted with a coversheet to the Teaching Organisation by 4pm on Thursday, 29th March 2018 and an identical electronic copy submitted via Turnitin. Coversheets are available on Learn.

MEL Long Essay

All Final Year MEL Long Essays are written in the target language and are approximately 3000 words in length. This word count includes the quotations but not the bibliography, footnotes and appendices. Dissertations and long essays will be subject to a penalty if the word count is more than 10% above the given word limit. One word‐processed copy must be submitted with a coversheet to the Teaching Organisation by 4pm on Thursday 29th March 2018 and an identical electronic copy submitted via Turnitin. Coversheets are available on Learn.

Unintelligible language will be penalised in the same way as unintelligible production of written English would be, in an essay written in English.

Supervision

The MEL Long Essay is not supervised. You are given the same amount of assistance as with an option essay. The dissertation is supervised and you can expect to have 2 meetings with your supervisor to be arranged at mutually convenient times. You may expect supervision to include providing advice on approaches to research methods and reading as well as giving feedback on dissertation plans. However, it should not be expected that supervisors will comment in detail on, still less revise, large sections of the final dissertation draft. In order to benefit fully from these meetings, you should carry out substantial and thorough work in advance.