These notes are adapted from a presentation given to Film Production students – the requirements for CGA and DFSA Dissertation Proposals are more flexible than may be indicated in this presentation – I will highlight any differences in the notes under each slide where appropriate!

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If you need inspiration try looking back at the previous assignments you’ve been set while on your course – look at the questions you chose not to answer, and look at your notes to see if there were any ideas that maybe you didn’t include in your final essay, or which you did use but felt you could expand on further. You don’t necessarily have to write about the specialism you hope to practise when you graduate – this might be your last chance to really explore any different specialisms that you’re also interested in. WARNING ABOUT USING YOUR FAVOURITEST DIRECTOR OR FILM OR GAME AS A TOPIC: Sometimes the affection we have for particular films/directors/games etc. can blind us to the fact that they might not make ideal case-studies. Firstly, you can’t just be gushing in a dissertation, you have to be critical too – do you really feel comfortable about doing that to something you have so much affection for? Secondly, you’re going to be analysing that film/director/game repeatedly for several months – you won’t just be watching for enjoyment, as you may have done previously – will doing this kill your enthusiasm for it/them? Thirdly, there are bound to be stages where your project gets difficult – this can happen in any project and it’s usually temporary, but be aware it can be much more demoralizing when you’re using subject matter that’s close to your heart. This is not to say that it won’t all be worth it in the end - in the long term you will get huge satisfaction from being able to understand your film/director in so much more depth... however the research stage of a dissertation may test your affections to the limit. Finally, don’t rule out the Library, and your Librarian, as a source of inspiration as they have resources for generating ideas as well as the heavy intellectual stuff. For more information about techniques and strategies for inventing ideas try clicking on the link for an in-depth guide provided by Dartmouth (if you’re reading a print version of this presentation Google: ‘Dartmouth Coming Up With Your Topic’ and click on the first result that comes up.

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There are two ingredients needed for your idea – a case study (e.g. a film or a director you plan to examine) and the theory/theories you plan to use with them. You can either use general arts theories (Feminism, identity, postmodernism, etc.) or specific ones that apply to your discipline (e.g. Classical Hollywood Narrative, Direct Cinema, etc.). You will probably find that the precise choice of case study and theories will evolve together and every refinement you make to one will affect the other.

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You may have been able to avoid serious ideas-development for previous assignments but your dissertation is simply too big and too complex for you to get away with that strategy now. A good way to promote creativity is to regularly alternate between viewing your case study and exploring the theory (don’t rely on your ability to recall one while investigating the other – if you read some of the book and then watch some of the film straight away you’ll make more intellectual connections). Even if you don’t quite see a connection between the two, regular repeat viewings and readings will soon reveal things you’ve never noticed before. Also, try using non-linear notes to help you establish more connections between the theory and the case study – if you don’t like mind-mapping try using post-it notes which you can constantly rearrange according to your deductions and observations. Finally, if you’re stuck on interpreting a theory (or case study), try using the citations functionality of Google Scholar to see how others have interpreted them (just don’t forget to cite these influences if you borrow from them!).

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Here are some alternative techniques for ideas development – for more information on how to do them just Google them. Then look for any websites from .edu or .ac domains in the results, as these will be websites for Colleges and Universities.

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YOU DON’T NEED A FULLY FORMED DISSERTATION QUESTION FOR YOUR PROPOSAL... But it’s worth explaining now so you’re prepared for it later on. Your dissertation title can either be in the form of a question or a statement. Either way it should summarize the central ‘quest’ of your research, and as such should mention your case study, the theories you will be applying to it, and what direction it will be taking (along with any parameters/limits to your research). You can probably tell instinctively when a dissertation title is good or bad but this formula can help explain how and why. It may also help identify where any weakness might be in your research area. Another good page from the Dartmouth website is linked on this slide, once again, if you can’t access the link Google ‘Dartmouth Developing Your Thesis’ and click on the first result that comes up.

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There’s no formal structure prescribed for your dissertation proposal, because the structure you choose will depend on the nature and subject of the topic you’ve chosen. However, you do need to include the following components: Some sort of description of your chosen research area (possibly including a tentative Dissertation Question), a discussion of the theories that are relevant to it, a methodology (i.e. how you will use the theories and the case study) and a bibliography. How formal you want to make your structure (and the order you want to cover these components in) is up to you – however, whatever the structure you must use Harvard-format referencing/citations and a Harvard-format Bibliography that’s located at the end of your proposal (and which is not included in your word count).

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These figures are NOT prescriptive – the reason I used an arbitrary length of 300 words for each section on this slide is that I want you to think about how short a 1000 word essay is, and how concise you’ll need to be if you’ve got to squeeze in a methodology, some explanation of your research area and some discussion of the theories that underpin it. You may be at a stage in your research where one of these areas is more developed than the others – in which case these sections may not be of equal length in your proposal.

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Once you've determined that you're meeting the requirements of the assignment, you'll want to get even more specific about what your essay says exactly. One way to do this is to create a "backwards outline." (It's "backwards" because it is written after rather than before the draft itself.) To do this, simply read your essay paragraph by paragraph. After each paragraph, determine the main idea of that section, and write the main idea in the margin of your draft. If you find more than one significant idea in a paragraph, write them both down. When you're finished, read over your marginal notes (or "outline") and look for connections - is there one central idea that each paragraph supports? If so, that's your main idea. If not, you'll probably want to look for an idea that most of the paragraphs support and consider dropping or rewriting paragraphs that don't support your focus.

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Your discussion of theories, sometimes called a Literature Review, is a survey of the intellectual debate that relates to your topic. This serves two purposes: at one level it provides a rationale for your research (it supports your discussion of the research area, in helping to justify why you’re bothering with this topic at all). It does this by identifying if there are any gaps in current theory, if there are any disagreements between authors and if there are any faults or problems with particular theories (perhaps in relation to your case study). The idea is that hopefully your chosen research area and proposed question will set out to answer one or more of these anomalies. At another level it also serves to show your reader where your research sits in the wider intellectual debates surrounding your research. As a result your Literature Review needs to give your research some context as well as some justification. NOTE TO CGA and DFSA – you don’t need a distinct section called ‘Literature Review’ in your proposal – just make sure you include some of this intellectual stuff somewhere in there to help justify your choice of research area.

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If you’re struggling with challenging the ideas and theories put forward by the authors you’re investigating, try thinking of example films/games/genres/etc. that could reasonably be covered by those theories/ideas, but which don’t conform to them. You don’t need to just rely on the opinions of other authors to challenge a theory/idea – you can also use logic to disprove them. For a primer on using creating logical arguments Google ‘Dartmouth Logic Argument’ and click on the first result that comes up.

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Your Methodology covers How you intend to do your research. Once again, you don’t need a distinct section called ‘Methodology’ but you do need to cover as much of this stuff as you can. There might be practical reasons for your choice of case study or theory (e.g. not all the films by a particular director might be on general release, or maybe you can only use a specific part of a theory because it’s too broad for a BA dissertation). Or there might be a series of assumptions that you need to define and explain in the dissertation to enable you to answer the bigger question you’ve set yourself. Or there might not be much literature on the theory you’re using, meaning that you’ve got to approach the authors for an interview. Whatever it is, this is you’re opportunity to explain the practical stuff about how your dissertation is going to happen.

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What constitutes an ‘annotation’? It depends very much on why a source might be present in your bibliography or how you intend to use it. Just consider writing a sentence or two underneath each reference to give your reader a little context about it (e.g. why you’re using it, how you plan to use it, if/how it relates to other sources in your bibliography, whether it’s a key text for your dissertation or just a supporting theory, etc.). Your annotations don’t have to be deeply intellectual – you’re just giving your reader a little bit of insight into the research you’re doing.

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