Essay / Thesis Guidelines and Submission Deadlines

Guidelines for Undergraduate Written Thesis Presentation

Length (these limits should be observed as closely as possible):

8-10,000 words for 80%/20% students; 10-12,000 words for Joint Course:

Format:

Typewritten on one side only of A4 paper, with margin at binding edge not less than 40mm and other margins not less than 20mm; double or one-and-a-half spacing is recommended, except for indented long quotations, where single spacing is used. Number all pages, including preliminaries and appendices. While all pages are counted, not all carry a typed number, i.e. the title page, contents page.

Binding:

To be hard-bound in black with plain gold lettering, with the thesis title, name of student, faculty/department and year on cover. The spine should carry the name of the student, degree and year (in that order) to be read upright when the volume is flat with front cover uppermost.

Copies:

The copy submitted is retained by the College and cannot be borrowed or exchanged. A second copy (which need not be bound) should be made for the student’s own records, to be available to the faculty if requested.

Organization of Material:

Title Page: List information in the following order: National College of Art & Design; department; faculty; title of thesis; name of student; ‘Submitted to the Faculty of Visual Culture in Candidacy for the Degree of … (name of degree; year of submission)’.
Declaration of Own Work: Format for declaration can be obtained from Visual Culture Faculty Secretary and must be signed by student and bound in thesis.
Acknowledgements: Only persons and organizations who actually aided research (not typist,parents, etc.) should be mentioned in a scholarly manner, without sentimentality or humour.
Table of Contents: Headings of chapters or brief indication of their contents, together with page numbers.
List of Illustrations and Page Numbers, including artist/designer, title, date, medium dimensions and location.
Introduction: An outline of the main argument, methodology and literature review.
Chapters: (Subtitles are recommended for use within chapters to subdivide material.).
Conclusion: A summary of main points and assessment of results.
Appendices: Glossary, detailed data, technical information, questionnaires or text of an interview may be included here.
Bibliography: Lists of sources used, including all items which appear in the references within the text as well as material used for background reading on the subject

Illustrations:

Illustrations should be sequentially numbered, with captions indicating their identity. All illustrations should relate directly to the text and should be located as close as possible to the relevant part of the text.

Methods of Citation:

The name-and-date system used for citing references is based on ‘Harvard Style’.

Citations in the Text: Citations are used to acknowledge the sources of direct quotations or other writers’ ideas or opinions that you have considered, even if you are paraphrasing these ideas in your own words. It is necessary to acknowledge sources so that it is clear when you are using other people’s material.

You should cite the surname of the author or editor, the year of publication and page number(s) in brackets in your text. If a name occurs naturally in your text, add the date and page number(s) only.

e.g. ‘Things begin to change at the time of the Renaissance due to a new consciousness in the European mind’ (Amin, 1989, p.79).

or: According to Amin a new consciousness in the European mind resulted in things changing around the time of the Renaissance (1989, p.75).

If the same author has two or more publications in the same year, the sources are distinguished by lower-case letters (a,b,c, and so on), e.g. (Amin, 1989a, p.75)

Numbered footnotes or endnotes are only used to comment on the text or provide further information. If these contain a citation, it should be in the same format as those in the text.

Bibliography:

All sources of information that have been used should be listed in alphabetical order, including interviews and unpublished material. Works should be cited as follows:

For BOOKS, author (or editor) (surname first), year of publication (in brackets), title (in italics), place of publication, publisher.

e.g. Poyner, Rick, (1998) Design Without Boundaries, London: Booth-Clibborn Editions.

or: Harrison, Charles and Paul Woods (eds), (1992) Art In Theory 1900-1990: AnAnthology of Changing Ideas, Oxford: Blackwell.

For CHAPTERS in books/exhibition catalogues, etc. (when essays or chapters have different authors): author (surname first), year (in brackets), ‘title of chapter or essay’ (in inverted commas), then write ‘in’ followed by name & initial of editor/overall author, title, place of publication, date of publication, page number(s).

e.g. Smith, P.J (1997) ‘British Art in the 1980s and 1990s’ in Murphy, B. (ed), Art from Britain, Sidney, Museum of Contemporary Art, 1997, pp. 147-159.

For ARTICLES, author of article (surname first), year, ‘title of article’ (in inverted commas), title of periodical (in italics), volume number, date, page numbers of article.

e.g.: Fisher, Jean, (1992) ‘In search of the Inauthentic’, Art Journal, vol. 51, Fall, pp. 8-22

For EXHIBITION CATALOGUES with no author, the organiser should be cited as author.

e.g.: Arts Council, (1970) Art in Turmoil, Serpentine Gallery, London..

For FILMS, titles should be italicised (with director and date in brackets)

e.g.: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)

For INTERVIEWS, cite interviewer as author, followed by date (in brackets), details of the interview (interviewee), location, etc.

For WEB FILES, cite (as much of the following as available), author's last name, date (in brackets), the full title of the specific item (in inverted commas), the title of the complete work (in italics), any version or file numbers, protocol; and full URL; date of access (in brackets).

eg.: Burka, Lauren P. (1993) 'A Hypertext History of Multi-User Dimensions', MUD History. Available: http://www.utopia.com/talent/lpb/muccex/essay (2 August 1996)

References to material on the www in the text should be made in the same way as for other material, e.g. (Burka, 1993)

Quotations: For quotes of less than three lines, use single quotation marks and keep the quote within the body of the main text. For short quotations within a short quotation, use single, then double quotation marks, i.e. ‘Jan Assman says that “ritual is more than an ornamentation of time,” but it is also just that’ (Luhman, 2000, p.227).

For longer quotations of over three lines do not use quotation marks; instead indent the entire quote from the margins in block form.

When material is omitted, the ellipsis is indicated by the use of three dots.

Titles

Titles of books, films, periodicals and artworks should be placed in italics and should not be put in inverted commas.

Thesis Title:

The Title should convey the content of the thesis in concise, descriptive terms.

Variations:

Departures from these Guidelines must be discussed and agreed with Thesis tutor.

The Faculty also provides a RESEARCH AND WRITING SKILLS SERVICE to thesis students which provides support to all students in a series of Research Seminars which take place early in Term 1, followed by individual tutorials for those who have difficulty in their written assignments.

Visual Culture Faculty: 2004