Professor Ellen Helsper

This course is available on the MPhil/PhD in Data, Networks and Society and MPhil/PhD in Media and Communications. This course is not available as an outside option.

Students must have completed Research Seminar for Media, Communications & Culture (MC500).

The series is intended to offer students guidance and support in the writing-up of their thesis. The approach to the series is student-centred, practice-oriented and dialogic, focusing on students’ work - hence the term ‘workshop’. Specifically, participants commit to submitting a draft of one of their PhD chapters and comment on others’ submissions, in the course the academic term. The curriculum consists therefore of individual students’ work, each week concentrating on a single student’s draft (maximum 5000 words) submitted together with a relevant academic reading. Through a system of signing-up and pairing, each ninety-minute session is set up in two parts: the first part is a twenty-minute dialogue between the writer and their discussant, who introduces and comments on the writer’s work; the second part is a full hour’s exchange of ideas by all - the expectation being that everyone commits to reading the submitted draft. The role of the DPD is to gently guide group interaction and, when necessary, provide input as much on the submission as on subsequent discussion points. The role of the DPD is not to substitute the supervisor but to ensure that the discussion is conducted in an informal, friendly and non-intimidating way. 

This course will be delivered through workshps totalling a minimum of 40 hours across Michalmas and Lent Term.