Advanced Geographic and Environmental Research

Description

This module will introduce students to the practice of research at the advanced level and develop skills in critically appraising ongoing research projects and the techniques/methods which underpin them.

The core component will comprise six hours of tutorials exploring issues including:

  • Theoretical approaches to scientific research
  • The practice of science
  • Framing research for publication
  • Refereeing and journal metrics

Students will also attend at least 15 hours of research seminars either in-house as part of the brown bag programmes or at conferences/workshops elsewhere.

Students will keep a diary of the presentations they have attended and their reflections upon these.

They will then prepare an extended essay, either a survey of a field in the format of a review article for an appropriate journal, or a critique of a body of work of a specific researcher, again in a style suitable for publication. This essay may or may not spring from one of the seminars that students have attended.

Assessment

  • Reflective Diaries
  • Essay

Key skills

Subject/discipline-specific skills

  • Critical awareness of the philosophy of science and how this feeds into the research process
  • Critically comment upon, analyse and reflect on the approaches and quality of research presentations
  • Critically comment, analyse and reflect upon the work of a researcher and their research field in the context of broader debates within the field

Generic and intellectual (thinking) skills

  • The ability to develop critical thinking skills
  • The ability to summarise and synthesise relevant information
  • The ability to develop and put forward reasoned arguments in written form