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The Manuscript

Module description

The Manuscript is your chance to put everything you’ve learned on the MA into practice. By the end of the module, you’ll have produced a substantial and distinctive body of creative work. You’ll also have developed the insight and skills to take it further, supported by a critical reflective essay that explores your creative choices, influences, and development as a writer.  

You’ll undertake an independent project, either starting something new or building on work begun in earlier modules. While the focus is on self-directed writing, you won’t be working alone: a structured programme of activities will help you build productive habits, supported by regular one-to-one tutorials with expert feedback and guidance. 

The Manuscript is an online-only dissertation module.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module aims to:

• Support you in producing a substantial and original body of creative work at postgraduate level.
• Enable you to reflect critically on your creative process, influences, and development as a writer.
• Deepen your understanding of your chosen form, genre, and literary context.
• Encourage independent, self-directed research and creative practice.
• Help you develop advanced critical, editorial, and reflective skills.
• Prepare you to take your work further — towards publication, performance, or professional practice.

In supporting you through an extended creative and critical project, we hope to equip you with key professional skills — including project management, research, communication, and audience awareness — to help sustain a creative career and take your work forward beyond the MA.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Demonstrate an advanced capacity to produce an extended piece of creative writing, as agreed with your supervisor.
• 2. Complete an extended piece of creative writing, if chosen, such as a novel-in-progress, a book-length collection of verse, or a memoir.
• 3. Demonstrate advanced knowledge of your chosen form, genre and style of writing.
• 4. Demonstrate an advanced appreciation of appropriate contemporary creative texts and critical concepts and contexts.
• 5. Demonstrate an advanced appreciation and application of research methodologies appropriate to your dissertation writing project.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 6. Demonstrate an advanced and intellectually mature appreciation of formal techniques and imaginative expression in creative writing.
• 7. Present sustained and persuasive written and oral arguments concerning your own creative writing and the work of other authors, both peers and published authors, and to use such ideas relating to your own work to develop your creative ideas.
• 8. Demonstrate an advanced and autonomous understanding of a variety of theoretical positions in the appropriate critical and professional terminology.

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 9. Demonstrate advanced research and bibliographic skills, an advanced capacity to construct a coherent, substantiated argument, advanced skills of creative expression, and an advanced capacity to write clearly and imaginatively.
• 10. Demonstrate advanced proficiency in information retrieval and analysis, and other methodological approaches, through research for the dissertation.

Syllabus plan

The Manuscript is a dissertation module, and will primarily comprise independent research. However, there will be a structured programme of online activities and guidance to help you prepare. While the precise content may vary from year to year, the syllabus will typically cover all or some of the following topics.

• Why Reflective Writing: An introduction to how critical reflection supports your creative development.
• The Reflective Essay: Tips for structuring a strong, focused commentary that connects your practice to wider contexts.
• Writing a Structured Argument: Guidance on clarity, coherence, and making claims about your work.
• Research and Referencing: Guidance on finding relevant sources and referencing them accurately.
• Critical Contexts: Consider who your work is in dialogue with, and how you position yourself as a writer.
• Key Decisions: Identify and reflect on major creative choices in your project.

The module is delivered entirely online, and can be done in your own time.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 50%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of referral will be capped at 50%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Guidance documents on structuring both extended creative projects and reflective essays will be provided. Reading and research lists will be developed independent by students with guidance from their tutor.

Key words search

Creative writing, dissertation, manuscript, novel, collection, memoir, project, prose, poetry, life writing, supervision, tutor, publication, publishing.