Department of English Honours Program

• Why do honours in English?
• How do I qualify to do Honours in English?
• What would I do in English Honours?
• Qualifying for Honours in Australian Literature
• The Honours Year in Australian Literature

Why do Honours in English?

The overwhelming reason for continuing your study in English should be that you enjoy it. Studying the subject at honours level will give you opportunities both to broaden your engagement with the subject and to specialise in your own particular area of interest in ways that the pass degree may not always allow.

In working on your honours thesis with an expert in a field of your choice, you will develop skills in independent research that will benefit you in a wide range of career paths. One of those might be further academic study and, for this, an honours degree is an important stepping stone. Alongside the thesis, the four seminars that you choose will deepen your understanding of the subject of English. This is great preparation for future study in the discipline. The seminar options change every year, but please see below for some examples of recent and current honours options to give you an idea of the range on offer.

The skills that you develop in an honours degree include analytical thinking; reading, listening to and analysing complex texts and arguments; proficiency in research methods; independence of thought and the capacity to complete a significant writing project. This means that it is an excellent qualification for many careers in a world beyond academia that increasingly demands these adaptable skills. This includes fields which have an immediate relationship to literary study, such as publishing and other careers in the arts, but also other professions and vocations for which an analytical mind is crucial: the law, public service, advertising and the media, teaching, as well as business and industry.

HONOURS CONVERSION

If you have already graduated with a pass degree in which you qualified, or very nearly qualified, for honours in English, you may apply for an Honours Conversion, in order to extend your degree into an honours year, with departmental permission. You can usually do so as a matter of course for several years after you graduate. If more than several years have elapsed, you may be required to complete some supplementary preparatory units before enrolling in your honours year.

If you have graduated from another university with a pass degree in which you qualified for honours in English at that university, we would as a general rule accept you into our honours program, if your English studies elsewhere are comparable to those here.

HONOURS SCHOLARSHIPS

The University of Sydney offers a substantial number of Honours Scholarships every year, some awarded solely on the basis of academic merit and others awarded on the basis of a combination of academic merit and financial need. You can find out more about these scholarships here.

For more information about honours in English, you should consult:

Dr Huw Griffiths
Special Entry, Advanced, and Honours Coordinator
Woolley room N326
Phone 9351 2065

How do I qualify to do Honours in English?

Academic work at honours level is challenging and demanding. This means that the criteria for qualification are higher than for a major in the subject. In order to qualify for admission into honours in English, you must have credit or above in 8 senior units (48 credit points) of English. These units must include two advanced units on topics other than twentieth, or twenty-first century literature and/or film, and the honours special entry unit. Currently this is ENGL 3655: Literary in Theory. In order to take any of the advanced units, including the special entry unit, you must already have gained a credit or above in two senior units of English. Please see the tables below for a brief summary of the pre-requisites for entry into English honours and for a list of qualifying advanced units running in 2010.

Students who are thinking of applying for honours in English from outside the University of Sydney should contact the Honours Coordinator to make enquiries as to how they might qualify.

In any case, all prospective English honours students should contact the honours coordinator towards the end of the semester before they plan to start studying honours so that appropriate supervision can be allocated.

What would I do in English Honours?

As an honours candidate, you write a 15,000 word thesis, or undertake an editorial or bibliographic project of comparable scope. This is done under the supervision of a member of the department who has some expertise in the field in which you choose to work. The English department considers your honours thesis to be a significant research project and, as such, we provide you with the level of supervision afforded any higher research degree candidate. To supplement your supervision, we also provide a series of seminars on scholarly research and writing throughout the year. Due at the end of the October recess, your thesis is worth 40% of your overall mark.

You will also take four coursework options, usually two in each semester. For each of these, you will attend a weekly 2 hour seminar. One, or two, of these can be chosen from amongst the Australian Literature honours options. Each of these is worth 15% of your overall mark. Three of these are normally assessed by means of a long essay, the precise topic of which you develop in conjunction with the option coordinator.

In the March semester, you nominate one of your options to be assessed by your participation in the English honours conference. The conference is an exciting opportunity to be involved with a vibrant academic community. The paper you give at the conference is then written up and the marks divided 50/50 between oral presentation and final write-up.

The honours seminar options change every year, but in 2010 they will include: Medieval Languages (Old English, Old Norse, Old Irish); History in English; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Milton; Early / Modern; Sentiment and Sensation; American Gothic; Modern and Contemporary Drama; Reading Whiteness: Contemporary Literature and Film. You may also choose up to two options from the ASLT honours seminars.

If your interests and achievements are sufficiently multi-disciplinary, you may undertake a Joint Honours program, half with the English department and half with any other department in the Faculty. If you do, your plans will have to be approved in advance by the Honours coordinators of both departments.


Honours Coordinator
Dr Huw Grifiths
Room N 326, John Woolley Building
Phone: +61 (0)2 9351 2065

Qualifying for Honours in Australian Literature

To qualify for honours in Australian Literature, you need a credit average or above in 48 points of senior Australian Literature units, including the two special-entry units:

• ASLT3602: Australian Literature Research Issues, in the March semester, and
• ASLT3601: Australian Literature Research Methods, in the July semester.

To enrol in these special-entry units, which are co-requisites, you need a credit average in 12 points of senior Australian Literature units. The two special-entry units are taught in combination with the two English special-entry units, ENGL3692 and ENGL3964. You should enrol in the special-entry units in the final two semesters of your pass degree, unless your particular circumstances suggest you do otherwise, as when spending a semester on exchange at another university.

The requirements for honours in Australian Literature are more demanding than the requirements for a major in Australian Literature, in terms both of the number and kind of units you do, and of the academic merit you need to demonstrate in each of them. If you decide to enter the honours program belatedly, you will normally be expected to fulfil exactly the same requirements as those entering earlier.

HONOURS CONVERSION

If you have already graduated with a pass degree in which you qualified, or very nearly qualified, for honours in Australian Literature, you may apply for an Honours Conversion, in order to extend your degree into an honours year, with departmental permission. You can usually do so as a matter of course for several years after you graduate. If more than several years have elapsed, you may be required to complete some supplementary Australian Literature senior units before enrolling in your honours year.

HONOURS SCHOLARSHIPS

The University of Sydney offers a substantial number of Honours Scholarships every year, some awarded solely on the basis of academic merit and others awarded on the basis of a combination of academic merit and financial need. You can find out more about these scholarships by consulting the following webpage: http://www.usyd.edu.au/scholarships/current/honours.shtml

For more information about honours in Australian Literature, you should consult either of the following:

Professor Robert Dixon
Professor of Australian Literature
Woolley room N404
Phone 9036 7231


Associate Professor David Brooks
Australian Literature Honours Coordinator
Woolley room S364
Phone 9351 2569

The Honours Year in Australian Literature

Once you have gained a credit average in 48 senior points of Australian Literature, including the two special-entry units, you can apply to take a final full year of honours study in Australian Literature. Of course, you must also have satisfied all other requirements for the pass degree in which you are enrolled. If you did all your qualifying units some years ago, you will need to consult the honours coordinator about your plans.

As an honours candidate you write a thesis of 15,000 words, or undertake an editorial or bibliographical project of comparable scope and sophistication, under the supervision of a staff-member of the Australian Literature program who has some expertise in the field you choose to work in. We regard your honours thesis as no less important than a postgraduate thesis, and endeavour to devote as much care and attention to supervising your work as we do to any postgraduate’s. To supplement the work of your supervisor, a series of seminars on scholarly research and writing is offered by the Department of English throughout the year.

You also take four semester-long coursework options, two each semester. You may, with special permission, substitute for one of these options an Honours option from another Honours program, such as English. Each of your four options is assessed by way of a 5,000-word essay or its equivalent.

For either of your two March semester options – whichever one you choose – you present a twenty-minute paper at a combined Australian Literature and English Honours conference in June. After presenting the paper, you answer questions and respond to suggestions about it from your audience. Your conference performance is worth 50% of your mark for the option. Exactly a week after the conference, you submit a 3,000-word essay, largely based on the paper you presented, but thoroughly revised in light of the discussion it generated and your reflections on it. This essay is worth 50% of the mark for the option, and will be assessed in light of how acutely and comprehensively it responds to the questions and suggestions put to you at the conference.

The following diagram explains at a glance the structure of the Honours year:

If your interests and achievements are sufficiently multi-disciplinary, you may undertake a Joint Honours program, half of it under the auspices of the Australian Literature program, half under those of another program or department. If you do, your plans will have to be approved in advance by the coordinators of both Honours programs.

The Honours year in Australian Literature prepares you well for any vocation or profession that requires exceptional skill in reading and listening to complex and closely argued discourses and texts, and writing and speaking about them carefully and persuasively. These skills are tested much more rigorously in the Honours year than in earlier years, not least by way of your conference paper and your supervised thesis.

For more information about the Honours year in Australian Literature, you should consult either of the following:

Professor Robert Dixon
Professor of Australian Literature
Woolley room N404
Phone 9036 7231


Associate Professor David Brooks
Australian Literature Honours Coordinator
Woolley room S364
Phone 9351 2569