“Man plans and God laughs”. How Annie Proulx depicts nature as the ultimate winner in her Wyoming short stories collection, Close Range, Bad Dirt AND Fine Just the Way it is
The following is the assessment details from the attached Module Handbook: The second element of assessment will be a dissertation of ca. 6,000 words (excluding the
bibliography and explanatory notes and references) – anything outside of this word limit may be
penalised. Please note that one of the skills being tested is the appropriateness of the choice of
topic to be tackled within the parameters of the module, so you need to ensure that the focus of
your research is neither too broad nor too narrow given the timescale of your work and the word
limit of the project. Your dissertation must focus on an area of research proper to the discipline
of English literary studies: it must discuss some genuine literary-critical or literary-historical issue,
rather than focusing on purely biographical or historical contexts. Your project should pursue its
argument logically, with appropriate use of relevant evidence, and it should arrive at a clear and
definite conclusion. You will be expected to explain why your topic is worth undertaking, to
demonstrate that you have researched it properly, and to present a convincing argument showing
your knowledge of relevant scholarly work previously undertaken in the field. You will also be
expected to write your dissertation in an appropriate language register, and with due regard for
the conventions of scholarly debate.
