2 | Teaching and Learning

2.1 Induction

Both the History Faculty and the college tutors provide guidance at the outset of the course to get you started. If you have questions, your college tutors – especially one who may be designated Personal Tutor or Director of Studies – are the first port of call. Some colleges produce written guides for their incoming students and/or introductory sessions to discuss the assumptions behind tutorial teaching, approaches to reading, essay-planning and writing, and preparing for tutorials.

The Faculty offers two initial induction sessions for new students at the start of Michaelmas Term:

  • The senior professor in the Faculty, the Regius Professor of Modern History (Professor Lyndal Roper) will give an introductory lecture on ‘The Study of History at Oxford’, which will provide students with some general ideas about the range and intellectual aims of the history course.
  • The Directors of Undergraduate Studies (Dr. Ian Archer and Dr. Lucy Wooding) will offer a further lecture, and later in term a workshop, on study skills. These sessions will cover all the various different elements in studying History, and also focus on the processes involved in the task which will take up much of your time, from reading and note-taking through to submitting an essay.

The Department of Economics provides a pre-recorded induction lecture and a welcome address from the Head of Department. These can be accessed via the induction section of Canvas: https://canvas.ox.ac.uk/courses/18480/pages/induction- materials?module_item_id=161961

A Politics induction session, geared towards History and Politics students, will be hosted by the Politics Director of Undergraduate Studies on Friday of 0th Week in Manor Road Building. Your college will provide you with more information.

2.2 | Communication and Administration

The Faculty of History, in conjunction with its joint school faculties and the University, is committed to adopting primarily electronic means of communicating important information to its undergraduate members. It’s very important that students, guided by their college tutors, attend to the administrative organization of their studies. At present the following categories of information exchange are handled through the Undergraduate Office by electronic means:

  • The course handbooks
  • Bibliographies
  • Optional Subject ballots
  • Lecture and class questionnaires
  • Amendments to the Lecture List
  • Examiners’ reports and past exam papers

The termly Lecture Lists are available exclusively on-line, and can be found here: Termly Lecture List | Oxford Historians Hub

All administrative communication with undergraduates will be directed to their official college email addresses. The Undergraduate Office will not correspond with social networking or commercial webmail addresses. It is therefore your responsibility to check your official email address regularly for correspondence originating from the Faculty as well as for messages from your college tutors.

You are requested to pay attention to matters of organization and to respond promptly to Faculty and College administrative emails.

2.3 | Teaching Formats

During the course of your studies at Oxford, your teaching will primarily be conducted through tutorials, lectures, and classes, as detailed below. Information about each can be found in the drop-down sections below.

Tutorials are the principal form of teaching within the History Faculty. Each tutorial will usually involve two or three students and a tutor, although occasionally you may find yourself being tutored individually. Normally you will have been given a reading list and a title for an essay, or possibly a presentation, which is to be prepared before the tutorial. Written work may be handed in and read by the tutor before the tutorial, read out by the student at the beginning of the tutorial, summarized briefly by the student at the outset, and/or handed in after the tutorial. Tutors will vary in their procedures and you should always do what your current tutor asks.

Tutorials are not intended to impart new information. They are designed for discussion of the problems central to that week's topic, which should emerge from the preparatory reading and essay-writing leading up to the tutorial. While the tutor will naturally be concerned to ensure that each student has a well-grounded understanding of the topic, the key aims are for you to foster critical thinking, to deepen analysis, and to develop the ability to argue coherently but also flexibly, and with a nuanced sense of the subtleties of historical interpretation.

While the tutor will play a key role in leading discussion, you are also encouraged to raise questions and difficulties about historical interpretations and the evidence which underpins them. You should be proactive about identifying material that you would like clarified, introducing hypothesis that you would like to test, and arguments that you would like to think through more fully. You should not be afraid to raise points that your tutor and tutorial partners have not considered; it may be that this opens new and illuminating avenues of discussion. The best tutorials are those in which the students are most active.

 

i | Overview

The programme of teaching will be supported by regular lectures provided by the Faculty, which run throughout the academic year. Details of the lectures running each term can be found on the Lecture List, accessed on the Oxford Historians Hub: https://ohh.web.ox.ac.ac.uk/termly-lecture-list.

Lectures are valuable for providing an overview of a given topic, for highlighting certain historiographical challenges, or for exploring a particular line of argument in detail. They should not be considered a comprehensive resource, and should never be a substitute for reading. Most lecturers will provide handouts - these will vary in style but usually contain a basic outline of the lecture, useful data, excerpted quotations, and suggestions for further reading. Handouts will be uploaded to Canvas shortly after the lecture. As with lectures themselves, handouts are not intended to summarise the lecture and should not be a substitute for taking your own notes.

Most lectures are delivered in 'circuses' - a series of lectures relating to a given topic. Some lecture circuses provide a chronological overview of a period; others approach the topic thematically. Please note that lectures will not necessarily correspond directly to the topics you are covering in tutorials or classes each week, and in some cases your lectures and tutorials may occur in different terms.

Lectures are provided for the outline papers (History of the British Isles /European and World History), and in smaller numbers for the Paper IV and Disciplines of History papers. Some of the Optional and Further Subject papers may also have lectures, but these are most commonly taught in classes. There are also additional lecture series that run throughout the year, focusing on smaller, more specialised topics. Details of these are provided on the Lecture List.

Although the Lecture List divides lectures between the Preliminary Examination and Final Honour School, in reality students are entitled to attend most of the lectures in History, and many in other subjects too, and are encouraged to explore beyond the courses they are taking.

  ii | Lecture Recordings

Most lectures are given in-person in the Examination Schools, although others take place in the History Faculty or in Colleges. Where possible, lectures will be recorded and made available for playback on Canvas within a few days of delivery.

Lecture recordings are not intended as a substitute for attending lectures in person. They are intended as a revision aid, an accessibility measure, and a means of catching up on lectures missed due to illness. The Faculty's policy on the use of recorded lectures may be found here:

 

Students should also be aware of the University's Educational Recording Policy, located at Educational Recordings Policy | Academic Support (ox.ac.uk)

Frequently asked questions about lecture recordings may be found at: Replay: Frequently Asked Questions | IT Help (ox.ac.uk)

In certain courses you will experience, alongside tutorials, a proportion of your teaching through classes.

  • In the Preliminary Examination, you may encounter Faculty classes for Optional Subjects.
  • In the Final Honour School, you will encounter College classes for Disciplines of History, and Faculty classes for Further and Special Subjects.

While classes are clearly differentiated from tutorials by their size – typically 8-12 students and a convenor, possibly with a graduate assistant as well – they build on the culture of discussion fostered by tutorials. Students will therefore learn more from each other, and also engage in more multi-faceted discussion. Needless to say, this depends partly on the level of each student’s preparation; the more you put in, the more you will get out. But it also depends on a willingness to speak up, to ask questions – even, or perhaps especially, in cases where you aren’t following or don’t understand and need clarification – and to try out interpretations even if you’re not sure about them.

Some convenors may ask students to give a short presentation, by individuals or groups, at the beginning or at various points through the class. In Further and Special Subject classes, these may well centre on interpretation of the sources. Another format is for the class to break into small groups, sometimes at the start of the class to produce agendas for discussion, or during it to talk through the questions which have been posed. Classes therefore offer a flexible medium which convenors will use in various ways to enhance the learning of the whole group.

Successful classes thus require careful preparation, a willingness to ask questions, attentive and purposeful listening, and the ability to refine and defend an argument in the light of discussion. They therefore develop further a range of skills: presenting material in an engaging, coherent manner; an understanding of how individuals interact in groups; the playing of a variety of roles within the group (leading, supporting, challenging, ice-breaking; some convenors may use student chairs to direct the discussion); working collaboratively with others.

2.4 | Recommended Patterns of Teaching

The Faculty has agreed the following standard teaching arrangements for the Preliminary Examination and Final Honour School. Colleges may, where appropriate, substitute a larger number of classes for a given number of tutorials.

Preliminary Examination

British History 7 tutorials  
European and World History 7 tutorials  
Optional Subject 6 tutorials  

Paper IV

 7 tutorials

Exceptions:

  • Quantification in History (taught in classes)
Revision 1 tutorial  

 

European and World History 7 tutorials  
Greek or Roman History 7 tutorials or classes  
Optional Subject 6 tutorials  

Paper IV

 7 tutorials

Exceptions:

  • Quantification in History (taught in classes)
  • Ancient Languages (Ancient and Modern History)
Revision 1 tutorial  

British History 7 tutorials  
European and World History 7 tutorials  
Optional Subject 6 tutorials  

Paper IV

 7 tutorials

 
Revision 1 tutorial  
Introduction to Microeconomics 7 tutorials  
Introduction to Macroeconomics 6 tutorials  
Quantitative Methods 3 tutorials  

British History 7 tutorials  
Optional Subject 6 tutorials  

Approaches/Historiography

 7 tutorials  
Revision 1 tutorial  
Introduction to English Language and Literature 8 classes & 4 tutorials  

Paper 4 (English)

 7 classes or tutorials  

British History 7 tutorials  
European and World History 7 tutorials  
Optional Subject 6 tutorials  

Paper IV*

 7 tutorials

*Except for Quantification in History, which is taught by classes only.
Revision 1 tutorial  
Introduction to Theory of Politics 4-8 tutorials  
Introduction to Practice of Politics 7-10 tutorials  

History Papers

British History 7 tutorials  
European and World History 7 tutorials  

Paper IV

 7 tutorials

Exceptions:

  • Quantification in History (taught in classes)
Revision 1 tutorial  

 

Language Papers

Papers I and II (Language) 2-4 classes/week  
Papers III and IV (Literature) 1 class or tutorial/week  

Papers V, VI, and VII (Ancient Greek/Latin)

 1 tutorial/week

 
Papers VIII, IX, X (Linguistics) 1-2 classes or tutorials/week  
Papers XI, XII, XIII (Additional Papers) Varies by paper.  
Final Honour School

British History 8 tutorials
European and World History 8 tutorials
Thesis 5 contact hours
Further Subject

12 contact sessions, typically:

  • 6 classes
  • 6 tutorials
Special Subject 8 classes and 4-6 tutorials
Disciplines of History 10 teaching sessions, of which 2 may be tutorials

 

Ancient History 8 tutorials
British History 8 tutorials
European and World History 8 tutorials
Thesis 5 contact hours
Further Subject - Ancient

A variety of formats, in most cases by tutorials, in others by university classes
Further Subject - Modern

12 contact sessions, typically:

  • 6 classes
  • 6 tutorials
Special Subject - Ancient 8 classes or lectures and/or 8 tutorials
Special Subject - Modern 8 classes and 4-6 tutorials
Disciplines of History 10 teaching sessions, of which 2 may be tutorials

British History 8 tutorials
European and World History 8 tutorials
Economics Papers 8 tutorials
Thesis 5 contact hours
Further Subject

12 contact sessions, typically:

  • 6 classes
  • 6 tutorials

British History 8 tutorials
European and World History 8 tutorials
Compulsory Interdisciplinary Dissertation 5 contact hours
Further Subject

12 contact sessions, typically:

  • 6 classes
  • 6 tutorials
Special Subject 8 classes and 4-6 tutorials

History and Modern Languages students should note the following class durations:

History Classes 90 minutes
History/Modern Languages Tutorials 60 minutes
Modern Languages Classes 60 minutes

 

British History 8 tutorials
European and World History 8 tutorials
Politics Papers 7-8 tutorials
Thesis 5 contact hours
Further Subject

12 contact sessions, typically:

  • 6 classes
  • 6 tutorials
Special Subject 8 classes and 4-6 tutorials

Note that, unless otherwise stated, a class typically lasts 90 minutes and a tutorial one hour.

You may also have a revision tutorial in the final Trinity Term for European and World History. Show initiative in using this for what you need for revision, especially for thinking through possible arguments you will make in the exam: tutors will not expect to have to set the agenda, still less to answer a series of detailed factual questions. Further Subjects may offer a Faculty revision class to their students, but not a tutorial.

Note: while the variety of the tutorial is, for students, often one of the most fertile and memorable features of Oxford, it can happen that a student feels that the tutor’s approach is incompatible with the student’s own. In such cases the student should not hesitate to raise the problem with their Personal Tutor or Director of Studies, another College tutor, or the College’s Senior Tutor, who will, if necessary, arrange a change of tutor.

2.5 | Skills, Resources, and Development

The below sections offer specific advice on the skills you will develop over the course of your studies.

Reading for tutorials and essays at Oxford will require different skills, and engagement with different kinds of text, than preparing for essays at school. Where previously you may have relied primarily upon textbooks for information, at the undergraduate level you will find yourself engaging more frequently with the core forms of scholarly writing: the monograph, a book-length work of original research; and the article in an academic journal or collected volume. You will also be encouraged to study primary texts, particularly in the first-year Optional Subject, as well as Historiography and Foreign Texts papers, as well as the second- and third-year Further and Special Subjects.

Tutors will provide reading lists or bibliographies for the subjects that you choose to study - usually an overall reading list for the paper as a whole, and specific reading lists for weekly classes or tutorials. Different tutors will expect different levels of engagement with these bibliographies: some will identify essential or useful texts, while others will encourage you to engage with the texts that you find most useful or engaging. It is important to develop skills in flexible and focused reading, as you will soon find that you cannot read every word of the recommended literature, and will therefore need to work out which chapters and paragraphs require more detailed reading than others.

It is essential to develop good note-taking practice when reading. Taking clear, concise note of the key ideas and information is vital, but it is neither feasible nor useful to record every word of a scholar's argument. Try to capture in your own words the key points of the argument, with some necessary supporting detail.

You will also develop note-taking in lectures, where you cannot dictate the speed of the text, but need to learn to distinguish between what must be recorded and what is superfluous (or is already on the lecturer’s handout).

Note-taking is connected to the important issue of plagiarism, for which see the Plagiarism section on the Writing Advice page.

Throughout the process of reading, writing, and attending lectures at Oxford, you will be required to think carefully and constantly; not only about the new information that you are learning, but also about how you construct and frame your arguments. It is always worth devoting time to considering the questions that you are being asked - both in terms of how you might answer them, and how they relate to the broader themes of your papers. 

Questions that you might consider include (but are not limited to):

  • How does what I have read relate to current scholarly opinion (i.e. the historiography)?
  • Are there other interpretations which don’t seem to have been suggested?
  • What might be being suggested which is not immediately apparent?
  • How might this information help me to answer the question I have been set - or others like it?

You may want to keep a sheet on which to jot down ideas as they occur to you – separate from what you are recording from your reading – which will then feed into your essay-planning.

Planning your essay is probably the most intensive time for thinking. You will need to gather the information you have collected from various sources and put it into order, making sure that you have grasped the most important concepts.  Where information or scholarly opinions appear to conflict, you will need to consider why this might be, and how you might resolve them. You will also need to ensure that you have thought carefully about the question, and understood what it is asking.

There are many different approaches to scholarly thinking - some people like to put their thinking on paper, while others might prefer to do it in their heads. The important thing is to make sure you have thought carefully and deeply about the topic. 

When approaching an Oxford essay, it is useful to remember that you are meant to be setting out an argument in response to the question you have been asked. You should not simply summarise the information or ideas you have read, but use them - and the views of other scholars - to come to a conclusion which provides an answer to the problem posed by the question.

The first paragraph of the essay is often considered the most important; it should identify the point of the question and outline the direction that your answer will follow - though you do not necessarily need to reveal your conclusion. Subsequent paragraphs should set out your arguments in a clear and logical manner, each addressing a distinct point and supported by relevant evidence. Paragraphs should connect to each other logically, demonstrating why they are relevant to the question and building up towards the conclusion. Your final paragraph should draw the threads of your argument together in a satisfying conclusion which directly answers the original question. Unlike a school essay, you are usually expected to argue for a particular point of view - though you should demonstrate awareness of other perspectives.

It can be helpful to write out an essay plan to help remain focused on your line of argument. Your essays should be clearly written and grammatically correct; you should deploy appropriate terms and concepts, but should avoid unnecessary jargon.

When referring to the ideas and arguments of other academics, it is important to acknowledge them correctly. Your tutors will be able to advise you on referencing, but in general, it is important to acknowledge where ideas and arguments are not your own. You should always try to engage with the ideas of other academics yourself, evaluating them critically rather than referring to them unquestioningly.

If your notes are electronic, you should not write your essay in the same document as them. Start a fresh document, and try to write from start to finish, rather as if you were in an exam. See further below on the Plagiarism section on the Writing Advice page.

Engaging actively in discussion is a crucial part of the Oxford History degree, particularly as much of your teaching will take place in small tutorial groups or classes. In each of these settings, you will be asked to contribute towards discussions, offering your own perspective on the reading you have done. You may be asked to present arguments that you have found persuasive, or to defend why you disagree with a particular position. Some classes may require you to deliver a short presentation - either alone or with others - on a prepared topic.

Discussion should be interactive, which means that you need both to listen – to suggestions and criticism, whether from your tutor or other students – and to contribute, defending what you have argued and developing it, or commenting on points brought up by others. You should not be afraid to ask questions, or to present an alternative viewpoint to those being discussed; even if you have struggled to understand a particular point, the resulting discussion may well be useful for everyone, and might reveal alternative ways of looking at the issues at hand.

It is useful to consider academic discussion as a meeting of equals. Although your tutor will be more familiar with the topic at hand, their role is to guide discussion, not to examine you - you are all meeting as scholars to discuss the question and work towards finding an answer. You will get the most out of your discussions if you develop confidence in speaking up and participating in dialogue. Even if you have not fully grasped a topic, asking questions and seeking clarification from your tutors and peers will enable you to develop deeper understanding and improve for the next week's essay.

Tutors will either provide their own bibliographies for the specific topics you have chosen, or they may talk you through essential and otherwise important or relevant books from the Faculty Reading List. The Faculty prepares such general lists for all papers on the syllabus; these are normally available on Canvas at: https://canvas.ox.ac.uk/courses/22234 

Nevertheless you should feel free to use your own initiative and to supplement bibliographies by a willingness to be adventurous in discovering additional books and articles. Do not assume that any of the Faculty Reading Lists, however apparently voluminous, include everything published, even in recent years, on a particular subject. It is particularly important to be aware of this when compiling bibliographies and amassing reading for your thesis and your Special Subject extended essay.

In advance of collections (practice exams; see 2.7.4 below) and the exams themselves, you will revise each paper you have studied. Revision is much more a process of thinking than of learning.

Success in exams rests on the same basis as successful essay-writing, that is, above all providing a direct answer to the question, which is, in addition, as coherent, broad, well- informed and perhaps creative as you can make it. Revising therefore involves thinking through answers to the possible questions which may be asked on a topic, partly by use of essay-plans. You will need to learn some facts, but only in conjunction with the possible points and arguments they will be used to make. Colleges may provide you with further guidance on revision at the appropriate times in the year.

You can search for past paper questions on the Exam Paper Archive on SOLO. 

The Examiners’ Reports for previous years of examinations also provide advice to future candidates; they are available at on the Undergraduate Examination and Assessment page of the OHH.

History is made and written in many different languages, and undergraduate historians who can read one or more foreign languages can only enhance their understanding of the past. Knowledge of one or more foreign languages also enhances the benefits of travel. Many colleges offer small grants to support well-planned travel by their undergraduates.

In the Third Year several Special Subjects are based on texts and documents in one or more foreign languages and can only be taken by students with an adequate reading knowledge of the language(s) in question. A number of Further Subjects also require knowledge of languages, though the extent of that requirement varies with the particular courses. See the course descriptions of particular Special and Further Subjects on Canvas

Without foreign languages, therefore, a student’s choice of subjects in the Final History School will be restricted.

The History Faculty has commissioned the Language Centre to provide courses in French, German, Italian, Spanish and Russian for historians in their second year, especially those considering doing the special subjects on France, C20 Russia or Germany for Finals. Details of these will be circulated to undergraduates at the end of their first year through their College Tutors.

In addition, History students are able to study the language papers in Greek and Latin offered to students reading Ancient and Modern History on a non-examined basis if there is sufficient teaching capacity: contact your College Tutors if you are interested.

For those who wish to learn a new language, or improve their existing language skills, the University Language Centre offers students the following options:

  1. Taught classes through the Languages for All pathways in Arabic, Dutch, French, German, Modern Greek, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.
  2. Materials for independent study: available in some 200 languages.

Information about the Faculty's support for language learning can be found here: Language Learning | Oxford Historians Hub

In addition to the Languages for Historians courses, the University of Oxford Language Centre provides a wide range of general and specialised courses in foreign languages and Academic English. See their course listings at https://www.lang.ox.ac.uk/

For specific queries please contact admin@lang.ox.ac.uk.

A wide range of information and training materials are available to help you develop your academic skills – including time management, research and library skills, referencing, revision skills and academic writing - through the Oxford Students website: http://www.ox.ac.uk/students/academic/guidance/skills

2.6 | Plagiarism and Good Academic Practice

Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s work or ideas as your own, with or without their consent, by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgement. All published and unpublished material, whether in manuscript, printed or electronic form, is covered under this definition. Plagiarism may be intentional or reckless, or unintentional. Under the regulations for examinations, intentional or reckless plagiarism is a disciplinary offence.

The most common form of plagiarism is the use of a passage copied unchanged and unacknowledged from another author; but you will be guilty of plagiarism too if you disguise your borrowing in the form of a close paraphrase, or if you present the ideas or arguments of others without due acknowledgement. Plagiarism also includes the citation without proper referencing from secondary sources of primary materials that you have not consulted yourself. Collusion, in which you collaborate with one or more other people in the composition of an essay or thesis which is then presented as the work of only one of those authors, also constitutes plagiarism.

The University defines plagiarism as follows: Presenting work or ideas from another source as your own, with or without consent of the original author, by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgement. All published and unpublished material, whether in manuscript, printed or electronic form, is covered under this definition, as is the use of material generated wholly or in part through use of artificial intelligence (save when use of AI for assessment has received prior authorisation, e.g. as a reasonable adjustment for a student’s disability). Plagiarism can also include re-using your own work without citation. Under the regulations for examinations, intentional or reckless plagiarism is a disciplinary offence.

Please note that artificial intelligence (AI) can only be used within assessments where specific prior authorisation has been given, or when technology that uses AI has been agreed as reasonable adjustment for a student’s disability (such as voice recognition software for transcriptions, or spelling and grammar checkers).

All students are strongly advised to take the online course, which you can find in the bar on the right hand side under ‘Related Websites’ at www.ox.ac.uk/students/academic/guidance/skills/plagiarism. 

 

 

Plagiarism is a serious offence. It is dishonest in that the plagiarist is claiming credit for work and writing that they have not done. It deprives the author of the plagiarized passage of credit for the work that they have done. If undetected in essays and theses submitted for assessment, it devalues the achievement of honest students who have done the work themselves but get the same marks as the student who has cheated. And when deployed in tutorial essays the plagiarist is failing to develop the independence of mind that is required of a historian, and indeed of anyone with an Oxford degree.

The University and the Faculty of History respond to plagiarism very severely. Students found guilty of plagiarism in any piece of work submitted for assessment are heavily penalized. Even inadvertent plagiarism – the result, for example, of careless note-taking, where you have copied down in your notes what another author has written, and then transferred that wording to your essay or thesis without realizing that it is not your own – will be penalized in submitted work, and severely corrected in non-assessed work.

 

Everything you write at Oxford – tutorial essays, extended essays, theses – will inevitably involve the use and discussion of material written by others. If material written by others is duly acknowledged and referenced in your work, no offence will have been committed. It is not necessary to provide a full reference for every fact or idea that you mention in your work: some things – such as the date of the Battle of Hastings, for example – can be said to be common knowledge. Moreover, many tutors do not require tutorial essays to be footnoted, since they can be understood as an exercise in arguing a case using other people’s information and ideas (as well as your own ideas), rather than an exercise in academic research. Many other tutors, however, do require footnoting of essays, and some will start to impose this in the second year. 

There are two key forms of plagiarism which must be avoided. You must NOT, in any form of writing, replicate phrases, sentences or even paragraphs taken from someone else’s work without due acknowledgement, whether consciously or inadvertently. This can become all too easy if you write your essay on the basis of an electronic document which is derived from your notes: this is why an essay should be written in a fresh, separate document, and in your own words. Indeed, your notes should be as much as possible in your own words, rather than a transcription of phrases from the text. If when reading you wish to take down an important quotation in full, put it in inverted commas so that it is clear that it is verbatim, and if you use it in your essay be explicit that it is a quotation from that source. Tutors will come down heavily on students whose essays silently deploy phrases in the reading; and you will learn much less through doing so. If you wish to quote you must do so with a reference; even an unfootnoted essay must have an acknowledgement of the author, perhaps in brackets. Even paraphrases count as plagiarism if it is not clear that you are expounding someone else’s argument.

Secondly, in work where you are required to provide footnotes, you must reference all the information which is not common knowledge and all ideas and arguments which are not specifically your own. The key maxim is that the reader must be able to see and to track down where you saw the information or argument. You will deploy information taken from secondary material commonly in tutorial essays, often in your extended essay, and to some extent in your thesis, for context. You should try to reference where it came from as closely as possible. Arguments may not always be footnotable to specific pages, but you should not footnote too loosely, for instance citing a whole book without specific pages as the location for an argument.

For your thesis, you will ideally rely on your own primary research. But sometimes you will use primary information taken from secondary material when you have not yourself been able to consult the original (perhaps because it was unavailable, or because it was in a language you don’t read). In this case it must be clear where you yourself saw the information, by referring to the secondary source: you may add information about the primary source, but it must be clear that you have not consulted it yourself.

Here is a Welsh-language example:

‘In order to buy this [the Bible] and be free of oppression, go, sell thy shirt, thou Welshman’.3

3 G. Williams, Wales and the Reformation (Cardiff, 1997), p. 358, citing and translating Thomas Jones, Hen Gwndidau Carolau a Chywyddau.

 

The best way to ensure that you do not engage in plagiarism is to develop good note-taking practices from the beginning of your career in Oxford.

Whatever you read, record accurately its title, its nature (article, essay in a book, book, primary source), the author or editor, and place and date of publication. For unpublished primary material, you will also need the form of reference used by the library or archive where it is held, such as a shelf mark, the date and writer/recipient (for letters). Material derived from electronic media should also be carefully sourced: keep a note of the URL for anything obtained from the internet, for example, and the date you accessed it.

Do not mix up notes from different pieces of writing, but keep your notes separate so that it is always clear where you read any particular piece of information or idea. (This does not preclude you making further notes for yourself, e.g. constructing a time-line of key events, which might come from different books you read.) Make clear to yourself which are your own your own comments and ideas on what you read, by putting them on a separate sheet, using a different font or writing them in a different colour or in the margin.

Record closely the page-numbers from which you are taking your notes (or folios in the case of manuscripts). Make sure that you distinguish clearly between passages you record verbatim – which you might use as quotations – and your own summaries or paraphrases of the content; try to put the latter as much in your own words as possible. If you find in a secondary source a quotation from a primary source which you may want to use later, make sure you record also all the detail necessary to enable you to cite it properly in your own work, as indicated above.

There is more information about plagiarism on the University website: www.ox.ac.uk/students/academic/guidance/skills/plagiarism.

These pages also provide an online course which all undergraduate students should complete as part of their skills training portfolio. At the end of each course, there is a quiz to test your knowledge; if successful you can save a certificate for your records.

The Proctors regard plagiarism in the examinations as a serious form of cheating, and offenders should expect to receive a severe penalty. Where plagiarism is identified in an extended essay or thesis, for example, a mark of zero may be returned, a punishment that will have a devastating result on the final degree classification. Even the lightest penalties for plagiarism will almost certainly have the effect of pulling down a candidate’s overall examination result by a class. The examiners check all submitted work for plagiarism, and will use electronic forms of detection if necessary to identify it.

The Proctors on Plagiarism:

All undergraduate and graduate students must carefully read regulations 3, 4, 5 and 6 in the Proctors’ Disciplinary Regulations for University Examinations below. These make it clear that you must always indicate to the examiners when you have drawn on the work of others; other people’s original ideas and methods should be clearly distinguished from your own, and other people’s words, illustrations, diagrams etc. should be clearly indicated regardless of whether they are copied exactly, paraphrased, or adapted. Failure to acknowledge your sources by clear citation and referencing constitutes plagiarism. The University reserves the right to use software applications to screen any individual’s submitted work for matches either to published sources or to other submitted work. In some examinations, all candidates are asked to submit electronic copies of essays, dissertations etc. for screening by ‘Turnitin’. All material submitted via ‘Inspera’ is automatically run through Turnitin. Any matches might indicate either plagiarism or collusion. Although the use of electronic resources by students in academic work is encouraged, you should remember that the regulations on plagiarism apply to on-line material and other digital material just as much as to printed material.

Guidance about the use of source-materials and the preparation of written work is given in departments’ literature and on their websites, and is explained by tutors and supervisors. If you are unclear about how to take notes or use web-sourced material properly, or what is acceptable practice when writing your essay, project report, thesis, etc., please ask for advice. See also the University's guidance on how to avoid plagiarism: (www.ox.ac.uk/students/academic/goodpractice/).

If university examiners believe that material submitted by a candidate may be plagiarized, they will refer the matter to the Proctors. The Proctors will suspend a student’s examination while they fully investigate such cases (this can include interviewing the student). If they consider that a breach of the Disciplinary Regulations has occurred, the Proctors are empowered to refer the matter to the Student Disciplinary Panel. Where plagiarism is proven, it will be dealt with severely: in the most extreme cases, this can result in the student’s career at Oxford being ended by expulsion from the University.

 

The Proctors have made the following disciplinary regulations for candidates in University Examinations: it is an offence to breach any of these regulations either intentionally or recklessly, and such breaches are dealt with under the procedures explained in section 11.

  1. These regulations are made by the Proctors in the exercise of their powers under section 22 of Statute IX and are designated by Council as disciplinary regulations under section 2 (2) (b) of Statute XI.
  2. In these regulations: (1) ‘examination’ includes where the context so permits the submission and assessment of a thesis, dissertation, essay, Transfer of Status materials, Confirmation of Status materials, or other coursework which is not undertaken in formal examination conditions but is a requirement for, counts towards or constitutes the work for a degree or other academic award; and (2) ‘examination room’ means any room designated by the Academic Registrar and Secretary of Faculties (now the Deputy Registrar) or his or her deputy or approved by the Proctors as a place for one or more candidates to take an examination.
  3. No candidate shall cheat or act dishonestly, or attempt to do so, in any way, whether before, during or after an examination, so as to obtain or seek to obtain an unfair advantage in an examination.
  4. No candidate shall present for an examination as his or her own work any part or the substance of any part of another person’s work.
  5. In any written work (whether thesis, dissertation, essay, coursework, or written examinations) passages quoted or closely paraphrased from another person’s work must be identified as quotations or paraphrases, and the source of the quoted or paraphrased material must be clearly acknowledged.
  6. Unless specifically permitted by the Special Subject Regulations for the examination concerned, no candidate shall submit to the Examiners any work which he or she has previously submitted partially or in full for examination at this University or elsewhere. Where earlier work by a candidate is citable, he or she shall reference it clearly.

2.7 | Feedback

Oxford can claim to offer more ‘formative’ feedback to students than any other university in the world: this is feedback during the teaching process, which then enables you to improve as you go along.

Since you will write many assignments as part of reading History at Oxford, the most frequent and regular form of feedback is tutors’ responses to your essays. Many write comments on the essay (manually or perhaps electronically), which is then returned to the student at or after the tutorial. Such commentary may cover factual errors, the accuracy and quality of your prose, the structure of the essay, specific points in your argument, the argument as a whole, or on issues omitted or key works not read. It is important to read these comments and feed them back into your working processes.

Tutors commonly do not provide marks on tutorial essays, not least because they are more concerned that you absorb their substantive feedback, not just a grade. If you want to know the rough current level of your work before your end-of-term report, you can ask the tutor this (perhaps individually, or by email); but it should be repeated that this is no substitute for responding actively to tutors’ comments.

Feedback on essays may come in tutorial discussion, and inevitably so if a student gives a presentation. Some tutors focus tutorials round one or more essays or presentations, and make a point of offering explicit feedback at a particular moment; but their feedback may be more implicit in the way they respond to and comment on what you have written or presented. Even if a tutorial addresses issues which did not appear in your essay, this in itself may be a comment on what you need to cover to do justice to a topic. Furthermore, the tutor’s response to your comments in tutorial discussion constitute a form of feedback on your thinking and ideas.

These mechanisms also apply to classes for which students prepare essays or presentations. Tutors may choose to offer comments on a tutorial or class presentation separately by email. In general, you will find that tutors have different styles of delivering feedback, and you will benefit from this variety.

The tutor who conducts your tutorials will write a report to your college at the end of term, covering your performance in your essays and the tutorials. This will again involve substantive comments, with recommendations for how you can develop and improve in the future, and also identifying specific gaps which need filling. Tutors may well offer a rough guide to the level at which you are performing at this stage, although it is as well to remember that you are still developing, and that this is therefore not a final judgement.

You will receive this report in two ways. Your Personal Tutor or Director of Studies will read it to you and discuss your progress with you. In some colleges this reading takes place in the presence of the Principal and/or the Senior Tutor, and/or possibly other History Tutors. (These short sessions are often known as ‘collections’, and should not be confused with the practice exams of the same name.) You will also be able to read and download the report directly on the colleges’ reporting system, the Teaching Management System (TMS), normally after it has been read to you in person.

Normally, colleges expect students to sit a practice exam in 0th week on the paper or papers they completed in the previous term. Known as ‘Collections’, these provide students with the incentive to consolidate the term’s work, and to practise their examination technique.

It is therefore important to dedicate time in the vacation to revise your work from the previous term, alongside preliminary reading for the following term’s work.

Collections are normally marked by the tutor who taught you, or sometimes another tutor, ideally by 4th week; while these are graded – essay-by-essay and with an overall mark – it is again the substantive commentary which will be of value for improving your performance in Prelims. This is particularly true if your exam performance is below the tutor’s expectations derived from the term’s work: much can be achieved through better technique in exams, and revision must partly involve practising it.

Colleges are discouraged from setting more than one collection per examined paper, for instance extra revision collections.