The dissertation writing workshop is offered three times each year, and organized by partner institutions on a rotating basis. The workshops are useful for students in all phases of their work, and we encourage our students to attend as many as possible in order to help them write excellent thesis. Writing workshops will assist students in:
- developing their work to meet high international standards in their fields of research;
- improving writing skills and ability to critically assess and comment on other student’s work;
- encourage them to become comfortable presenting and discussing their work in professional settings, which is essential to their achieving professional and international recognition; and
- completing their doctorates within the stipulated time frame.
Joint module, 4h: How to formulate persuasive arguments
This module discusses strategies for how PhD students in history might go about formulating persuasive arguments. This includes how historians identify their major contribution to knowledge, what role the use of language and good writing can play in the art of persuasion, what approaches historians adopt to facilitate the formulation of persuasive arguments, and how historians cope with the need to balance the limitations of their source material with the need to formulate a persuasive and original argument. Historian and Associate Professor of British Social & Cultural Studies Gary Love will give the introductory lecture. In his lecture he will draw on his own experience with historical research and writing, and through examples from current scholarship engage the course participants in a wider discussion on how to craft persuasive arguments in history.
Small groups, 4h: Student manuscripts
In this module students and faculty work in small groups and offer constructive comments and suggest how to further develop the manuscript. Students submit texts from their dissertations (introduction, methods section, chapter, conclusion) or article manuscripts in advance.
Essential information
This will be an online course, with four hours each day.
Registration: Please fill in this form by 20. October at the latest. We will accept applications as they come in. ALL SLOTS IN THE COURSE ARE FILLED. NEXT OPPORTUNITY TO TAKE PART IN MANUSCRIPT WORKSHOP WILL BE IN FEBRUARY 2021.
Deadline for manuscripts: 10. November
Course conveners: Thomas Brandt and Øyvind Thomassen, NTNU
Administrative support: tba, NTNU
The workshop is estimated to 1 ECTS (25-30 hours of work, including the course itself).
Participation is open to students at partner institutions and other students members of the Norwegian Research School in History. Membership is open to all students who have taken the theory and methods course.
Mandatory writing and other preparatios:
Maximum manuscript length is 6000 words (excl. references). If you submit a longer text, please indicate which parts of the text you want your readers to focus on. In addition to this, in the first pages of the same document, participants include a dissertation outline with title, chapter/article titles and 100-200 words abstracts for each chapter/article. Students will be expected to discuss 3-4 manuscripts and serve as chair for one manuscript and main commentator for another.
Partner institutions:
Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet (NTNU) - Det humanistiske fakultet
Universitetet i Agder - Institutt for religion, filosofi og historie
Universitetet i Bergen - Institutt for arkeologi, historie, kultur- og religionsvitskap
Universitetet i Oslo - Institutt for arkeologi, konservering og historie, Universitetet i Oslo
Universitetet i Tromsø - Institutt for arkeologi, historie, religionsvitenskap og teologi
Nord Universitet - Fakultet for samfunnsvitenskap
Høgskulen i Volda - Samfunnsfag og historie
Handelshøyskolen BI - Institutt for rettsvitenskap og styring