The purpose of this course is to acquaint students with general academic skills, to prepare you for the development of your written work, especially for your dissertation. We will provide guidance on research design, and introduce a range of research methods.

By the end of this course you should be able to understand the nature of academic enquiry, have an awareness of the range of methods used in both the social sciences and the humanities, and be able to develop a research proposal moving form a general question to a specific and appropriately specified research design.