Studying at Northeastern University London

Assessment

For all policies and forms, please refer to the Northeastern University London Academic Handbook.

Appeals

The University is committed to having in place fair, effective and timely procedures for handling student queries and academic appeals.

For your degree, the Northeastern University London Academic Appeals Policy found in the Northeastern University London Academic Handbook outlines a two-stage process. The first is facilitated by the University; the second stage is an academic appeal to Southampton Solent University should the query not be resolved to the satisfaction of the student.

For your Northeastern University London Diploma, appeals against academic judgment are not permitted. For more information, please see the Appeals section in the Northeastern University London Diploma Regulations section of the Northeastern University London Academic Handbook.

Attendance

The University recognises that students come to Northeastern University London as adults and are expected to work independently and be responsible for their own decisions and actions.  However, Northeastern University London has a responsibility to its students and to external bodies to ensure that students are attending and studying, so as to comply with the relevant regulatory requirements, as well as the University’s and its awarding bodies’ requirements.

You are expected to be ‘in attendance’ at the University for the full duration of the published term dates for your programme of study. Tutors will be taking attendance registers in both lectures and tutorials.  Please read the Northeastern University London Attendance Policy, found in the Northeastern University London Academic Handbook, carefully.

Complaints

We hope that you never need to make a complaint while at Northeastern University London, but we recognise that problems can occasionally arise. If you feel something has gone wrong, please do not suffer in silence – raise your concerns with someone immediately.

You should begin with an informal complaint by speaking to your academic tutor, Emma Norman (the Student Wellbeing Coordinator) or another member of Student and Academic Services located in G02. In most cases problems may be resolved at this stage. If you are unhappy with the outcome, a formal complaint about any matter of College policy or administration, not involving a decision to expel or remove a student, can be made and, if unresolved, can be referred to the Student Complaints Review Panel.

Our general procedure in dealing with complaints is outlined below:

Stage 1: informal discussion(s) of the complaint with the individual(s) directly involved.  The University strongly encourages the informal resolution of complaints at the the earliest opportunity and before the formal procedure is required.    This initial informal stage should normally involve a discussion directly with the relevant member(s)if staff or with the most immediate supervisor or manager.

Stage 2: the Formal Complaints Procedure.  If you are unhappy with the outcome of the informal approach, you can take your complaint to the formal stage to allow the complaint to be resolved to the satisfaction of all parties through the intervention of the Head of Quality Assurance and formal investigation.

Stage 3: a review by the Student Complaints Review Panel.  You are entitled to seek a review by the Student Complaints Review Panel of the decision concerning your complaint, only where there is evidence that the Stage 2 investigation:

• did not include in its deliberations all relevant issues, and any relevant issues identified a not included at Stage 2 are material to the decision and do not constitute a new basis for complaint:or
• was not carried out in accordance with the Northeastern University London policy.

Student and Academic Services can advise you on how to deal with your complaint, help to resolve it informally and, if necessary, support you in the process of making a formal complaint. Other people you may wish to discuss specific issues with include a student representative and your Personal Tutor.

In general, the Student Complaints Policy and Procedures is not designed to look at complaints against other students.  Most of these complaints will be dealt with under the Student Code of Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures.

It is important to remember that complaints will not always produce the outcome preferred by the complainant. Sometimes there are factors that are out of the control of the University, sometimes there is insufficient evidence or support for a complaint, but whatever the outcome you will be informed at the earliest possible opportunity.

If you have completed the University’s internal complaints process and remain unsatisfied, you can refer your complaint to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA).  Please refer to the full policy for further information.

You will find the full Northeastern University London Complaints Policy, forms and guidance in the Northeastern University London Academic Handbook.

Changing your degree programme

If you wish to transfer to another degree programme, you must meet the Head of Faculty of the programme to which you wish to transfer, as early as possible, to discuss your proposed change of programme.

The Friday before Reading Week in Michaelmas term in your first year is the latest that you can change degree programmes.

Transfers are considered on a case-by-case basis.

You should also speak to your current  Head of Faculty and the Student Wellbeing Coordinator to let them know you are considering a change.

If you are on a Tier 4 Visa, you must make an appointment to see the Head of Admissions to discuss the implications for your visa.

Once you have discussed your proposal and you still wish to transfer programmes, you must read Change in Circumstances Guidance and complete Part A of the Change in Circumstances Form.

If a transfer is approved, the Head of Faculty of your new degree programme will advise you on how to ‘catch up’.

The Student Voice

The student voice is a key priority within the University. Your opinions have a valuable role in informing the development and enhancement of programmes and courses, and shaping all aspects of the learning experience.  There will be many opportunities to share your views and tell the University what you think, including:

• The National Student Survey
• Student-Staff Liaison Committee (via student representatives)
• Programme team meetings (via student representatives)
• Faculty meetings (via student representatives)
• NCHSU Office for Academic Affairs representative who sits on Academic Board
• Informal feedback during scheduled sessions
• Taking part in programme development/periodic review panels/teams

The University’s Student Engagement Statement may be read in the Northeastern University London Academic Handbook.

SSLC

The aim of the Student-Staff Liaison Committee is to discuss feedback, complaints and suggestions relating to students’ studies. There are elected student representatives for degree subjects, from each cohort. The Committee meets once a term.

Committee agendas and minutes can be found on Moodle.

Further information can be found in the Student Representative Job Description, found in the Northeastern University London Academic Handbook.

Teaching and Learning

Study skills

During your time at Northeastern University London, you will experience a range of teaching methods and research strategies that aim to challenge and encourage you to develop your own ideas.

Lectures, for instance, are intended to give you food for thought and are an opportunity to listen to our faculty staff sharing their knowledge and discoveries with you. Simply attending lectures, however, is not enough if you are to truly benefit from attending Northeastern University London. That is, you are expected to build on this foundation by further reading around your subject and using your discovery and analytical skills to critically evaluate the information you receive.

Below is an overview of your weekly contact time and independent study. Every week you will normally attend:

• your degree subject lectures
• your enrichment subject lectures [optional]
• an hour and a half’s seminar for LAUNCH
• core subject lectures
• any professorial lectures

Independent study is an essential aspect of your degree. Outside of lectures and tutorials, you will be expected to find time to read books and articles, as well as write essays. This may seem daunting, but all you need to do to succeed is utilise your time well and exercise some self-discipline.

You should familiarise yourself with the libraries – Senate House and British Library (which you should join). On certain weeks a proportion of your reading will be provided on Moodle for you to read on screen or download and print. However, the material on Moodle will never be completely sufficient and neither will online resources, so you will also need to find books. When you do find a book, be wise and selective about how much of it you read. It is always a good idea to read a book’s conclusion and introduction. Beyond that, only read chapters that you think will be relevant to your research.

The essays you prepare for your group tutorials will receive direct and immediate verbal feedback from your tutor and your peers.

At the end of term, you will have a Collection in which you will receive verbal feedback from all of the tutors who have been teaching you. You will also be asked to give your own feedback on each course.

Essay Writing

Essay writing is a craft, and you should put effort into developing your essay-writing technique, learning to structure your thoughts coherently and effectively, and to write with fluency and style. In the preparation of each essay, you will need to select wisely from the recommended reading.

What we are looking for in your essays:

• You have worked hard on it – thinking, reading, planning, checking for errors and editing.
• You remain focused on the essay question and don’t lose the thread of your argument.
• Your writing is coherent and well-structured.
• Your essay is persuasive and has a strong argument supported by evidence and examples.
• You have avoided plot-telling and that you have not included irrelevant material.
• Your writing is accurate, free from spelling errors, properly punctuated, and has correct grammar.
• Your language is sufficiently formal (avoiding colloquialisms).
• Your essay is well referenced with footnotes and a bibliography.
• You have a strong introduction, with a well-constructed first sentence.
• You use the first lines of each paragraph to signpost the development of your argument.
• You have a lively conclusion in which you have synthesised and summarised your argument.
• You have learned from the feedback you have been given week by week.

Quoting

Whenever you quote or paraphrase, you must cite your sources. Short quotations (fewer than 40 words) should be enclosed in quotation marks and put in the main text.

Longer quotations should be separated from the main texts by being indented, with single spacing and without quotation marks.

If you miss out text in a quoted sentence, indicate it by three full stops in square brackets […]

Stylistic/grammatical points

You must reread your work before you hand it in (or read it out) and edit it so that it makes sense. There is little point having great ideas if they are lost under a morass of badly worded or incomplete sentences, or poor spelling and syntax. Your tutors do not want to proofread your work: they want to engage with your ideas.

• Be circumspect in the use of the first person pronoun.
• Tenses: the present tense should be used when talking about events in fiction; either the past or the present tense can be used when describing what a critic has argued/argues. The past tense places the critic more firmly in her or his historical context.
• Do not start sentences with ‘because’ and only very infrequently, ‘also’. Be wary of using ‘and’ and ‘but’ to start sentences.
• Do not end sentences with ‘of’, ‘to’, ‘at’ or other prepositions.
• Numbers up to ten are written out: one, two, etc. Above ten, use numerals.
• 1580s NOT 1580’s etc.
• Quotations should be in inverted commas, but not italicized as well. Words derived from other languages should be italicized: ad fontes, ex post facto, ad hominem, juste milieu, amour propre, etc.
• Avoid colloquialisms – this is formal academic writing so be wary in general of e.g. ‘thing’, ‘a lot’, ‘describing words’ (known as adjectives), ‘big problem’, ‘big factor’, ‘massively’.  Don’t use ‘incredibly’ for ‘very’.
• Given that you are doing formal writing, do not use ampersands (&), slashes (/), i.e., e.g. or anything else of this nature in your text.
• Use British spelling (though either –ise or –ize is fine).
• Use capital Roman numerals after the names of monarchs and popes: Henry VIII, Alexander VI, Louis XIV.

Developing effective study habits

Skills development is a continuous process, and you are encouraged to reflect on your own progress and to take advantage of all the help that is on offer, not only in the early days but throughout your programme of study. Some study tips are presented below:

• Avoid being distracted by setting up a time and area that you use specifically for studying, so that you associate it with work and a concentrated mindset. This could be in your bedroom, in the library or wherever you want, but make sure your environment distracts you as little as possible, and ensure that you have all the equipment you need to hand.
• Decide how much you will read or for how long you are going to work, and schedule it for a time when you are awake and able to concentrate. Do not disregard your natural preferences; if you are a late-night worker, then don’t force yourself to study at 08.00. Likewise, if you are an early riser then cramming before an exam at 01.00 the night before probably will not work.
• Work effectively for short periods of time, not aimlessly for hours. Write a timetable to keep you on track. Chapter Five in Eviatar Zerubavel, The Clockwork Muse: A Practical Guide to Writing Theses, Dissertations and Books (1999) has useful tips on how to structure your writing and study periods.
• If you take a lot of notes make sure you reread them the next day and write down exactly how they will be used in your assignment. If they are not relevant, put them aside. Do not throw notes away until the end, though, as your thoughts will develop during the learning process and you may wish to refer to them later on.
• Make sure that you comment on every idea, concept or quotation that you note down, otherwise you are not thinking critically: you are just restating other people’s ideas. Notes and diagrams will help you to retain a sense of structure and progression, as will researching information for future reference.
• Be organised. File your notes and course materials carefully. Consider using Endnote or similar bibliographic referencing software. An excellent guidebook for grammar and syntax tips is The Wadsworth Handbook by Laurie Kirszner and Stephen Mandell (2010).
• You should take sensible precautions against accidents and last-minute problems, both in terms of being careful about storing work in progress and not leaving things until too late. Regularly save documents when you’re working on them (every ten minutes is good) and always have multiple back-ups of important files.
• Encourage each other. Discuss and debate with each other. Don’t try to impress each other with how little or how much you have done. In group tutorials, give both praise and constructive criticism to the person who shared his or her essay. Remember that it will be your turn the next week.

General writing tips

Researching and producing high-quality essays and assignments will form a significant part of your workload. Of course, different approaches work for different people, and each subject has its own distinctive requirements. However, observing the guidelines below should help make the writing process easier by teaching you how to approach the task in a structured way.

Although writing well usually requires a lot of work, you can make the process less stressful by being highly organised. Therefore, before you even think about the first draft, you should produce a detailed work plan. Draw up a clear structure for the reader to follow, starting with a general outline and then adding more layers of detail.

• Making preparatory notes, using mind maps and drafting essay plans are all ways of helping you think about what a piece of work should look like.
• Divide the document into main sections and then into sub-sections. Think about what will go into each section. Decide what the main topic is for each and allocate the key points and their supporting evidence.
• Write the introduction and each subsequent paragraph so that it contains a ‘signpost’ telling the reader where they are. Remember that what is clear to you may well need clarifying for your audience. You will most likely have to revise and redraft your essay plan several times before coming up with something satisfactory.
• Identify how each section links to the preceding and subsequent one. Does your argument proceed logically? Does it flow? Are you making a comparison, or are you extending your discussion of a particular point?
• Maintain a critical approach – rehearse and test your arguments as fully as possible before you start the first draft. If something feels vague, then you can guarantee that it will be noticed by your tutor.
• Start fleshing out these detailed notes into a first draft. This should now be far easier than working with a blank screen or page.

Preparation

Your tutors and fellow students expect you to turn up for classes on time, having prepared appropriately. You should be able to contribute actively and constructively to the session and engage readily with any questions raised in preparatory material. Adequate preparation may include reading your materials thoroughly more than once and taking accurate and detailed notes.

Revision

Details about revision sessions and the timing of your examinations can be found in Course Guides. At the revision sessions you receive advice on exam technique. Additionally, faculty staff hold set office hours during examination weeks so that you can ask last-minute questions and seek advice.

Teaching

Plagiarism

(With acknowledgments to Oxford University English Faculty plagiarism guidelines, from which some of the below has been taken.)

i) Plagiarism is the use of material appropriated from another source or from other sources with the intention of passing it off as one’s own work, and may take the form of unacknowledged quotation or substantial paraphrase. Plagiarism can also be the unintended result of careless presentation, if extensive quoted material or close paraphrase are included without acknowledgement. This constitutes ‘reckless’ plagiarism. Sources of material include all printed and electronically available publications in English or other languages, or unpublished materials, including theses written by others. Plagiarism is regarded as a serious form of cheating for which offenders can expect to receive severe penalties.

ii) Your essays will inevitably sometimes involve the use and discussion of critical material written by others with due acknowledgement and with references given. This is standard critical practice and can be clearly distinguished from appropriating without acknowledgement (and presenting as your own) material produced by others, which is what constitutes plagiarism. If you employ good working habits in preparing your weekly essays and extended essays, there is little danger that you will be accused of plagiarism.

iii) An essay is essentially your view of the subject. While you will be expected to be familiar with critical views and debates in relation to the subject on which you are writing, and to discuss them as necessary, it is your particular response to the theme or question at issue that is required by tutors and examiners.

iv) When you read the primary texts that you will be discussing in your essay, make sure that you find your own examples of episodes, themes, arguments, etc that you wish to discuss. Note these down and make sure that they form the basis of the material you will be discussing in the essay. If you work from your own examples, you will be much less likely to appropriate other people’s materials. Get to know your primary texts well before you embark on detailed secondary reading.

v) When you are taking notes from secondary sources:

• Always note author, title (of book or journal, and essay or article title as appropriate), publisher, place of publication (for books), year of publication and page numbers.
• If you have time, it is a good idea to read the chapter or article through once quickly before you take notes. This will make the notes that you take on a second, slower reading, more discriminating and will make you less likely simply to transcribe quantities of material without thinking it through.
• If you do copy out material word for word from secondary sources, make sure that you identify it as quotation in your notes. This will ensure that you recognise it as such when you are reading it through in preparing your essay.
• At the same time always note down page numbers of quoted material. This will make it easier for you to check back if you are in doubt about any aspect of a reference. It will also be a necessary part of citation.

When you are writing your essay, always make sure that you identify material quoted from critics or ideas and arguments that are particularly influenced by them. There are various ways of doing this: in your text and in footnotes. If you are substantially indebted to a particular critic’s arguments in the formulation of your materials, it may not be enough to cite his or her work once in a footnote at the start or the end of the essay. Make clear, if necessary in the body of your text, the extent of your dependence on these arguments in the generation of your own – and, ideally, how your views develop or diverge from this influence.

vi) You may wish to acknowledge ideas or material that you have obtained from lectures. The best way to do this is to put in a footnote citing the lecturer, lecture series and term in question.

Example

This is a passage from Barry Windeatt’s Troilus and Criseyde (The Oxford Guides to Chaucer; Oxford, 1992, p. 196):

At the very centre of the poem’s structure Troilus is at last impelled inside the curtained bed of Criseyde, which stands inside the ‘litel closet’ within Pandarus’ house in the walled and besieged city of Troy. The most intimate experience of Troilus lies not only at the centre of its structure as a poem but at the centre of a succession of containing and enclosing structures in the fabric of its setting at Troy, within which the physical union of Troilus and Criseyde is a climax not only intrinsically but also as the fulfilment and completion of a pattern. It is towards this central episode that the poem moves with a ‘centrifugal’ energy which, once the centre is passed, becomes a centripetal force, and this is given form and shape through the setting and background of the action.

Legitimate use of this passage:

Like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, or indeed Beowulf, Troilus and Criseyde is a poem susceptible to a number of different approaches to its structure. The move ‘fro wo to wele, and after out of ioie’ (I, 4), announced at its opening, focuses on the fortunes of the poem’s main protagonist as a key element in its construction. The ‘Troy … ioye’ rhyme in this stanza (I, 2 and 4) is a recurrent one in the poem and draws attention to the central role that location also has in Troilus. As Barry Windeatt notes, as the poem approaches its structural centre, the Trojan locations narrow down to ‘the curtained bed of Criseyde, which stands inside the “litel closet” within Pandarus’ house in the walled and besieged city of Troy’.1 As he also observes, this central episode, in which the first physical union of Troilus and Criseyde takes place, is in fact part of a structural sequence, which places this union at the heart of the poem – and one might say, almost at the heart of Troy – and then moves after it to an increasing fragmentation of location and action. But it is arguable that the fact that Chaucer puts ‘wele’ and human love at the structural centre of Troilus is as important as what he puts at its end.

1 B. Windeatt, Troilus and Criseyde, Oxford Guides to Chaucer (Oxford, 1992), p.196.

This illustration both quotes from and paraphrases parts of the passage in question, but it acknowledges its debts, in footnote (for the quotation) and in the text (for the paraphrase). It also incorporates the material within a set of arguments that are either not dependent on Windeatt’s material or develop it in an original direction, and it adds in its own original examples or insights.

Plagiarised passage:

What Chaucer puts at the heart of his poem is worthy of note. At the very centre of Troilus and Criseyde Troilus is at last brought inside the curtained bed of Criseyde, which stands within the ‘litel closet’ within Pandarus’ house in the walled and besieged city of Troy. The intimacy of this scene is further intensified by the fact that it completes a structural pattern in the poem in which what might be seen as centrifugal and centripetal elements are involved. The poem moves towards this central episode so that it forms a climax in the work; after this centre is passed, the centripetal movement takes over.

This version is almost entirely derivative of Windeatt’s original passage. It quotes some of it directly or with minimal variation and puts other parts of it into close paraphrase. It contains no new material, nor does it add to the sum of the ideas in the original. It offers no acknowledgment of its source, and gives the impression that its author intends this argument and choice of illustrations to be taken as original to him or her. Every time you use another’s ideas, you must give them credit – even in your weekly essays.

Repercussions

Summative assessment for your degree: Information about how any plagiarised assessment would be considered and dealt with can be found in the Northeastern University London Student Academic Misconduct Policy in the Northeastern University London Academic Handbook.

Formative assessment: Tutorial essays will also be checked for plagiarism. Make sure you don’t fall into plagiarism involuntarily or otherwise.

Summative assessment for the Northeastern University London Diploma: The University’s Plagiarism Policy can be viewed and downloaded from the Northeastern University London Academic Handbook.