This course is for students thinking of undertaking a research degree. A successful thesis, whether for the PhD or MA, should be an 'original contribution to knowledge'. There are many ways of interpreting this, but one way is to think in terms of the work being accepted by scholars as a useful contribution to the field. Projects could include the critical discussion of neglected texts; the exploration of a particular issue in the work of a writer or a group of writers; the critique of received scholarly opinions; the development or critique of literary, stylistic or linguistic theory; the editing of a text; corpus-based research; or dialectal field-work - though this by no means exhausts the possibilities.