Politics, Psychology, Sociology Tripos

Handbook for Part IIB Students in

Sociology and Psychology
(2014-15)







Free School Lane
Cambridge, CB2 3RQ
Tel: 01223 334520
Fax: 01223 334550
E-mail: pps-enquiries@hsps.cam.ac.uk
http://mws.hsps.cam.ac.uk/pps/current/undergraduate/part2.html
The information contained in this Handbook is correct at the time of going to press, but please note
that all matters covered are subject to change from time to time.

Contents
I: Introduction ___________________________________________________________________ 3
Helpful People __________________________________________________________________ 3
Paper Guide ____________________________________________________________________ 4
Lecture Time Table and changes ____________________________________________________ 4
Other sources of information: ______________________________________________________ 4
Libraries _______________________________________________________________________ 4
II: Sociology in the Tripos ___________________________________________________________ 6
Sociology and Politics _____________________________________________________________ 7
Sociology and Psychology _________________________________________________________ 7
III: Psychology in the Tripos _________________________________________________________ 8
Psychology and Sociology Joint Stream _______________________________________________ 9
Ethical Approval and Risk Assessment in Psychology ___________________________________10
IV: Guidance on Plagiarism ________________________________________________________ 11
V: Assignments Deadlines 2014/2015 ________________________________________________ 16
VI: Penalties applied to assessed work _______________________________________________ 16
VII: Frequently Asked Questions ____________________________________________________ 17
VIII: Academic Staff in Sociology ____________________________________________________ 22
IX: Academic Staff in Psychology____________________________________________________ 25
X: Procedure for Problems/Complaints and Student Feedback ____________________________ 25
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I: Introduction
This handbook complements the PPS Part I Student Handbook. It includes: overviews of Sociology
and Psychology in the PPS Tripos Part IIB; an introduction to the academic staff; an outline of the
schemes available to students and the papers that can be chosen within each scheme; responses to
FAQs about supervisions essays, projects and dissertations; and guide to avoid plagiarism. Beyond
this handbook there are several other useful sources of information: people, written resources, and
email lists.
Helpful People
People who may be able to help with any questions you may have include your Director of Studies
and the Course Organiser, lecturers, and supervisors on specific papers.
Should you need additional support or advice, you may contact your Head of Department. The
Facultys three Departments each have their own Head.
Head of each Department
Sociology: Prof Patrick Baert (pjnb100@cam.ac.uk)
Psychology: Professor Trevor Robbins (twr2@cam.ac.uk)
Politics: Prof David Runciman (dwr12@cam.ac.uk)

You may also contact the following people:
Student representatives and delegates for 2014-15
mailto:pps-tripos-rep@hsps.cam.ac.uk
and
mailto:studentforum-ug@hsps.cam.ac.uk

Tripos Teaching Administrator
Ms Barbora Sajfrtova, bs481@cam.ac.uk
Part II Sociology papers
Mrs Odette Rogers (Sociology Secretary), ohmr3@cam.ac.uk, [3]34528
Part II Psychology papers
Mr Malcolm Davis (Psychology Secretary), md494@cam.ac.uk, [7]68218
Part II Politics papers
Miss Rebecca Burtenshaw (Politics Secretary), rab217@cam.ac.uk, [7]67255




3


Paper Guide
The Paper Guides provide more information about lectures, supervision arrangements, sample
exam/long essay questions, and reading lists for individual papers.

http://mws.hsps.cam.ac.uk/pps/current/undergraduate/part2papers.html


Lecture Time Table and changes
For details about the dates and venues of lectures and classes, please check the Lecture List and the
Time Table under Current Undergraduate Students.
Note that the Lecture List Changes are also posted on this page
http://mws.hsps.cam.ac.uk/pps/current/undergraduate/pdf/ug_lecture_list.pdf

and on the University Time-Table:
https://www.timetable.cam.ac.uk/

Other sources of information:
Notice Boards in the Faculty
The notice board outside the PPS Main Office (Free School Lane) also gives the times and locations of
lectures and classes. Corrections are posted both there and at the POLIS Department (Alison Richard
Building, West Road).
Email
News about teaching is distributed over e-mail, it is very important that your name, college, and e-
mail address be included both on the general PPS register and the subject-specific lists appropriate
for you. Please make sure that you are included on the appropriate lists by confirming this with
one of the secretaries mentioned above.
Course hand-outs on Camtools site
All students taking PPS papers are participants to the Part I or Part II Camtools Sites, accessible from the
Current Undergraduate faculty website (you will need to log in via Raven):
The PPS Part IIB site has a range of useful materials including lecture handouts and past exam papers.
There is as well a library CamTools site where students can access resources for the papers. The SPS
Library site provides electronic access to high demand print material (book chapters and journal articles)
referenced on the reading lists
Libraries
Cambridge is exceptionally well provided with libraries. The College Libraries are good, especially for
the compulsory papers. College libraries have a yearly budget for PPS. Inform your Director of
Studies, Tutor or College Librarian if you would like to request the purchase of particular items.
Materials mentioned as essential in the Paper Guides (and most of the other recommended sources)
will be normally available in the SPS Library in Free School Lane.

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Library eReserves Collection on CamTools provides electronic access to many book chapters and
articles referenced on the readings lists. PLEASE MAKE SURE THAT YOU HAVE ACCESS TO MATERIAL
AVAILABLE FOR THE PAPERS YOU ARE TAKING.

Most items can also be found in the University Library on West Road. Other Faculty libraries might be
useful too: for instance, the Seeley Library of the Faculty of History, the Marshall Library of the
Faculty of Economics and the Radzinowicz Library of the Institute of Criminology, all on West Road;
and the Haddon Library for Archaeology and Anthropology and the Experimental Psychology library
of the Department of Psychology, both on the Downing Site, as well as the History and Philosophy of
Science library in Free School Lane.

You can access the catalogues of the Cambridge libraries (Newton) at:
http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/newton/ or via http://mws.hsps.cam.ac.uk/sps-library/
Besides Newton, you can use for searching books etc. the Library Search:
http://search.lib.cam.ac.uk/. It pulls together most of Cambridge resources, but, on the other hand
may lead to record duplication of some more common titles (it is just a beta issue).
Cambridge Libraries Gateway is a popular universal web site with Twitter, mobile app and much
more: http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/libraries/
As to periodicals, printed versions are found on Newton or Library Search, while electronic versions
of titles that the University subscribes to can be found at ejournals@cambridge:
http://camsfx.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/cambridge/az
For subject related queries and to look for journal articles it is best to use resources compiling and
extracting information from thousands of primary sources listed, for instance, at:
SPS Library Subject Guides: http://www.hsps.cam.ac.uk/sps-library/lib_research.html and
UL website http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/electronicresources/ provides plenty of information including
help and FAQs.
If you are searching for sources for long essays or a dissertation, you might explore
http://socsciresearch.com, http://www.vlib.org and http://etown.edu/vl.







5


II: Sociology in the Tripos

In Part IIB there are Four papers to choose from:
Soc 4- Soc 9 ,Soc 10, Pol 1-2, Pol 7-8, Pol 11, Psy 1, Int 2, Int 3 - Int 9
Or Three papers and a dissertation.
At least one of the papers chosen must be from Soc 4-Soc 10, and no more than two papers can be
chosen from Pol 7-8 and Pol 11. Students can do either (i) three of these papers by examination and
a dissertation, or (ii) three of these papers by examination and one of these papers by two long
essays (available only for Soc 4 - Soc 7, Soc 9, Soc 10 , Pol 7-8, Pol 11, Int 3-9), or (iii) four of these
papers by examination.

In Part IIB, students who have chosen Option (c) can choose from a wide range of advanced papers
in sociology and can combine these with a variety of interdisciplinary papers and with selected
papers drawn from other disciplines. Students in Option (c) are required to choose:
- at least one paper from a list of specialised topics in sociology. These papers may vary slightly
from year to year depending on faculty interests and changing research agendas in the field. In
2014-2015 they include:
- Media, Culture & Society (Soc 4);
- Modern Britain (Soc 5);
- Advanced Social Theory (Soc 6);
- Political Economy of Capitalism (Soc 7);
- Sociology of Education (Soc 8);
- Revolution, War and Militarism (Soc 9);
- Medicine, Body and Society (Soc 10).
Remaining papers may be drawn from this list and from a wide range of interdisciplinary papers and
papers drawn from politics or psychology. In 2014-2015 the interdisciplinary papers include:
- Advanced Methods (Int 2);
- Gender (Int 3);
- Racism, Race and Ethnicity (Int 4)
- Criminology, Sentencing, and the Penal System (Int 6);
- The History and Politics of South Asia (Int 8);
6


- The Family (Int 9). (Further information on the papers available in 2014-2015 may be found on the
website.)
In Part IIB, students in Option (c) can offer either four papers or three papers and a dissertation. The
dissertation is optional.
Sociology and Politics
Option (c) students can also choose to combine sociology and politics IIB level:.
Students who take Option (c) can then go on, in their IIB year, to combine advanced papers in
sociology with a selection of no more than two advanced papers in politics. In 2014-2015, students
in Option (c) will be able to choose from the following politics papers:
-The History of Political Thought (Pol 1 and Pol 2),
-The Politics of the Middle East (Pol 7),
-The Politics of Europe (Pol 8),
-The Politics of East Asia (Pol 11).
They will also be able to choose from the full range of advanced sociology papers and
interdisciplinary papers.

Sociology and Psychology
Students who wish to combine sociology and psychology in Part IIB - Option (d) - choose at least
two papers from a range of advanced papers in sociology:
- Media, Culture & Society (Soc 4);
- Modern Britain (Soc 5);
- Advanced Social Theory (Soc 6);
- Political Economy of Capitalism (Soc 7);
- Sociology of Education (Soc 8);
- Revolution, War and Militarism (Soc 9);
- Medicine, Body and Society (Soc 10).
and in psychology:
-Experimental Psychology (Psy 2 PBS 5 in the Psychological and Behavioural Sciences Tripos);
- Biological and Cognitive Psychology (Psy 3 - PBS 4 in the Psychological and Behavioural Sciences
Tripos);
-Development and Psychopathology (Psy 4) ;
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-Psychology and Social Issues (Psy 6) ;
-Gender Development: Biological, Psychological and Clinical Perspectives (Psy 7).
or from the interdisciplinary papers:
-Gender (Int 3);
-Racism, Race and Ethnicity (Int 4).
and two more papers chosen from the above, or from:
-Inquiry and Analysis II (Int 2);
- Criminology, Sentencing, and the Penal System (Int 6);
- The History and Politics of South Asia (Int 8);
-The Family (Int 9).
And from the IIA papers in politics (Pol 1-4).
-The History of Political Thought (Pol 1 and Pol 2);
-International Relations (Pol 3);
-Comparative Politics (Pol 4).
They can offer either four papers or three papers and a dissertation again, the dissertation is
optional (although an empirical dissertation is a requirement for British Psychology Society
recognition).
If they offer a dissertation, student cannot take any paper by two long-essays.
III: Psychology in the Tripos
Psychology within PPS Tripos adopts a social scientific approach. The curriculum provides students
with knowledge of the concepts, theories and methods of contemporary psychology, and an
understanding of the ways in which research and knowledge in psychology have been applied in
practical contexts. The curriculums focus upon social and developmental psychology makes it
distinct from the Experimental Psychology course offered within the Natural Sciences Tripos.
BPS Recognition in Psychology stream
The programme is accredited by the British Psychological Society (BPS) as conferring eligibility for the
Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership (GBC), provided the minimum standard of a Lower
Second Class Honours is achieved. This is the first step towards becoming a Chartered Psychologist. A
recognised degree is a necessary prerequisite for postgraduate training in clinical psychology and is
also valuable for students who wish to pursue other professional careers in psychology. The
minimum requirements for accreditation for Graduate Membership of the BPS and as the Graduate
Basis for Chartered Membership (GBC) are as follows:
8


Part IIA Social Psychology (Psy 1)
Experimental Psychology (Psy 2) or Biological and Cognitive Psychology (Psy 3)
Inquiry and Analysis I (Int 1A)

Part IIB Development and Psychopathology (Psy 4)
A dissertation based on an empirical project.
Lower second class honours (2.2) or higher

Part IIB Psychology Stream
Students in Part IIB take the following three papers:
Psy 4
One paper from Psy 5-7
One paper from Psy (5-7), Pol (1-4), Soc (1-2, 4, 8, ) or Int (2-10) papers
And are also required to submit a dissertation based on empirical projects (10,000 words).

Psy 4: Development and Psychopathology
In 2014-15 Psy 4 will be delivered in a new format that takes advantage of a variety of
researchers and clinicians from outside the Department of Psychology. Contributors have been
invited from the Child And Adolescent Psychiatry Unit, MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit,
and the Institute of Criminology. Topics to be covered include: Developmental perspectives,
antisocial behaviour, internalizing problems, adolescent disorders, Theory of Mind, and
executive function.
Option papers (Psy 5 7, Int 9)
At least two optional papers offered in psychology will vary from year to year, in order to stay
abreast of current faculty interests. Currently, the optional papers are Psychology and Social
Issues (Psy 6, which includes the study of the world of paid work, psychology and public policy,
social perspectives on mental health, and recent attempts to promote positive psychology), and
Gender Development (Psy 7, which includes material on both the biological and social bases of
gender differences in behaviour and function), or The Family: Interdisciplinary perspectives (Int
9). Students may take two of these optional papers or substitute one paper with a paper taken
from those offered in Part IIA in Politics or Sociology or from a list of interdisciplinary papers.
The list of interdisciplinary papers currently includes:
Int 2. Inquiry and Analysis II (very useful for an empirical dissertation)
Int 3. Gender
Int 4 Race, Racism, and Ethnicity
Int 6. Criminology, Sentencing, and the Penal System
Int 8. History and Politics of South Asia
Int 9. The Family (this paper emphasises psychological and sociological research on the
family)
Int 10. Anthropology of Cities and Space

Psychology and Sociology Joint Stream
9


In Part IIB psychology and sociology joint stream students either take four papers from set lists in
sociology, psychology, the Part IIA papers in politics, and the interdisciplinary papers, or take three of
these papers and write a dissertation.
BPS Recognition in the Joint Stream
Note that the requirements for BPS recognition can also be met within the Joint Psychology and
Sociology Stream, by choosing Psy 2 OR Psy 3; Psy 4; one paper from Psy 5-7; and an empirical
dissertation in the third year. In order to be eligible for the Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership
(GBC), a first step to becoming a Chartered Psychologist, students must gain at least a Lower Second Class
(2.2) Honours degree.

Assessment in Psychology
With the exception of the dissertation, the assessment for all these courses consists of an unseen 3-
hour examination taken at the end of the year.
Ethical Approval and Risk Assessment in Psychology
Especially for psychology students, if your work involves any empirical work (e.g. collecting new
data), you may require Ethics Approval from the Development of Psychology Ethics Committee (visit
http://www.psychol.cam.ac.uk/ethics_committee).
If you intend to work with vulnerable adults or children, you will require approval from the
Psychology Research Ethics Committee in School of Biological Sciences
(http://www.bio.cam.ac.uk/sbs/psyres/).

Have your supervisor check your application form before you submit it to the Committee. Also
conduct a Risk Assessment with your supervisor before starting your project.
(visit
http://www.psychol.cam.ac.uk/ethics_committee )
10


IV: Guidance on Plagiarism

What follows is important guidance on plagiarism for all students in the Faculty of Human,
Social, and Political Science.

Plagiarism is presenting as your own work words and thoughts that are not your own. It is a form
of cheating and treated as such by the Universitys ordinances. At the beginning of each
academic year you are asked to sign a form saying that you have read this guidance and
understand what plagiarism is. If you are in any doubt about what constitutes plagiarism, ask
your graduate supervisor or Director of Studies to talk you through the issue. You should also
ensure that you are familiar with the Universitys formal Statement on Plagiarism,
www.admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/plagiarism.

What Constitutes Plagiarism?

Plagiarism from published literature
Plagiarism is copying out, or paraphrasing someone elses work (whether published or not),
without acknowledgement in quotation marks (where directly copied) or a reference or citation.
Avoiding plagiarism means getting into the habit of careful referencing. Citation styles and
preferences can vary by subject within the Faculty; make sure you check with your supervisor or
course organiser about what style best suits the type of work you are producing. Whatever the
style, though, appropriate referencing is essential.

Take the following passage, from Fritz Sterns book, The failure of illiberalism (1974):
Some of them, unwittingly, hastened the coming of the disaster, for they
became exuberant imperialists, justifying Germanys headlong rush into
world politics by a kind of cultural Darwinism. Once more, brute force was
gilded by idealistic invocations, by reference to Hegel and Fichte and the
German Idealist tradition. Similar rationalizations had been propagated in
Western countries; the difference, as Ludwig Dehio points out, was that the
ideals of the Western powers, of Spain during the Counter-Reformation, of
revolutionary France or liberal England, possessed a universal appeal,
whereas the German mission was parochial and unpersuasive. The
Germans were searching for the identity of their mission, in a sense for their
own identity; the Kaisers theatrics were a pathetic insistence of this search.
(Fritz Stern, The failure of illiberalism: essays on the political culture of
modern Germany, pp. 16-17.)


Any part you directly quote should be attributed to Stern in the main body of your text,
identified by quotation marks.

It is plagiarism to write without a reference to Stern:

A few Germans inadvertently speeded up the impending disaster, for they
became enthusiastic imperialists, justifying Germanys dizzy charge into
world power politics by a form of cultural Darwinism. Again, violence was
11


covered by idealistic rhetoric, through the words of Hegel and Fichte, and
the German Idealist tradition.

This is because the source of the information is not made clear.

To write what follows is also plagiarism:

Some Germans unwittingly hastened the coming of the disaster, for they
became exuberant imperialists, justifying Germanys headlong rush into
world politics by a kind of cultural Darwinism. Once more, brute force was
gilded by idealistic invocations (Stern, 1974: 16-17).

Even though there is a reference to Stern here, this is plagiarism because substantially the same
sequences of words are used as in Sterns text: those words should be in quotation marks.

In both of the passages above, it is not possible to distinguish between your words or thoughts
and those of Stern, and therefore this counts as plagiarism.

Your objective should be to show your reader where and how you have supported or defended
your work with that of others, or where you have carried someone elses work to a new level.
This is done by including references and quotation marks as appropriate:

Stern (1974) felt that some Germans unwittingly hastened the coming of
the disaster, for they became exuberant imperialists, justifying Germanys
headlong rush into world politics by a kind of cultural Darwinism. This
legitimisation can be clearly seen in speeches given by German orators
throughout 1930-39.

It is also plagiarism to pass off an authors discussion of another author as your own. For
example, you must acknowledge Stern in taking his comment on Ludwig Dehio. Here, if you
want to use Sterns words you should write something like:

Stern (1974: 16-17) emphasises Ludwig Dehios argument that the ideals of
the Western powers, of Spain during the Counter-Reformation, of
revolutionary France or liberal England, possessed a universal appeal,
whereas the German mission was parochial and unpersuasive.

It is plagiarism to write the following without acknowledging Stern:

Ludwig Dehio argued that the difference Germany and Western countries
was that the ideals of the Western powers, of Spain during the Counter-
Reformation, of revolutionary France or liberal England, possessed a
universal appeal, whereas the German mission was parochial and
unpersuasive.
12



Plagiarism from the Internet
Buying essays from Internet sites and passing them off as your own is plagiarism. There are no
grey lines with this kind of plagiarism. It always constitutes a deliberate attempt to deceive and
shows a wilful disregard for the point of a university education.

Downloading material from the Internet and incorporating it into essays without
acknowledgement also constitutes plagiarism. Internet material should be treated like published
sources and referenced accordingly.


Plagiarism from other students essays
Submitting an essay written by another student is plagiarism and will always be treated as a
deliberate attempt to deceive. This is the case whether the other student is at this University or
another, whether the student is still studying or not, and whether he or she has given consent to
you doing so or not. Taking passages from another students essay is also plagiarism.

In most courses, it is also plagiarism to submit for examination any work or part of any work
which you have already had examined elsewhere, even if this was in another University or for
another degree.


Collusion
Submitting parts of an essay, dissertation, or project work completed jointly with another
student, without acknowledgement or if joint work has not been permitted, is collusion and is
considered a form of plagiarism. When submitting assessed work, each student will be asked to
declare whether or not s/he has received substantial help from another student or supervisor.
This will include, but is not limited to, rewriting or rephrasing large sections of the work. Each
piece of work is expected to be the original, independent work of the student, and so if this is
not the case it must be declared at the beginning of the assessment process.

Proofreading, reading drafts, and suggesting general improvements are not collusion and
students are encouraged to obtain a third partys view on their essay(s). However, as an
example, if a supervisor or another student carried out detailed redrafting of the entire
conclusion section of an essay, this would be considered collusion.

Some projects may benefit from joint working. In this case, however, the final project carried out
by each student should be original and should not overlap significantly with one another.
Students considering working together should always discuss the matter with their Supervisors
and/or Directors of Studies before beginning the project. This type of joint work must always be
declared by both students when the work is submitted.


Authenticity of data
Some dissertations or project work may focus on analysing and drawing conclusions from a set
of data. The integrity of data collection is paramount and students of any level are expected to
uphold good research practice. Falsifying, or attempting to falsify, data will be treated as fraud
(a form of plagiarism) and will be investigated (see The consequences of plagiarism below).
13



Supervisors of dissertations or projects are encouraged to carry out spot-checks on data
gathered online and via traditional methods, and to seek assistance from computing staff in
interpreting the results of these spot checks. Supervisors who have concerns regarding
anomalous results should in the first instance discuss these with the student. If they are
unsatisfied, they should contact the Chair or Senior Examiner to discuss. In this instance,
supervisors have the right to stop the collection of data or to suspend the students access to a
shared dataset, until the concerns can be reviewed more fully with both student and supervisor.
This will be done in as timely a manner as possible so as not to impede the progress of the
project or dissertation.


The Consequences of Plagiarism

All students are asked to sign a form at the start of the year stating that they have read this
guidance and the Universitys statement, that they understand what plagiarism is, and that they
consent for any work they submit throughout the year to be submitted to software that checks
for originality (see Use of originality checking software below).

Assessed work
A supervisor or examiner with concerns about potential plagiarism in work for formal
assessment, whether or not the work has yet been submitted, will contact the Chair or Senior
Examiner, who will liaise with the University Proctors. This will lead to an investigative meeting
with the student. If the Proctor believes that there is a case to answer, s/he will then inform the
University Advocate who can take the student before the Universitys Court of Discipline. The
Court of Discipline has the power to deprive any student found guilty of plagiarism of
membership of the University, and to strip them of any degrees awarded by it. A case may be
made irrespective of the students intent to deceive.

Supervision essays
Any supervisor who finds evidence of plagiarism in a supervision essay will contact the students
Director of Studies. The College then has the discretion to take disciplinary action. Supervisors
can refuse to supervise any student whom they have found plagiarising in an essay.


Use of originality checking software

The University subscribes to a service named Turnitin that provides an electronic means of
checking student work against a very large database of material from the internet, published
sources and other student essays. This service also helps to protect the work submitted by
students from future plagiarism and thereby maintain the integrity of any qualifications you are
awarded by the University.

This software will only be used when there are unresolved queries about the originality of
student work; such queries may be raised by supervisors, by examiners, or by other students. In
such circumstances, the work will be submitted to Turnitin, where it will be stored electronically
in a database. Turnitin will produce an originality report showing whether any strings of words
not in quotation marks are contained in other items in its database. The originality report will
14


then be used to inform judgements about whether or not plagiarism has occurred. The copyright
of the material remains entirely with the author, and no personal data will be uploaded with the
work.

In order to use the originality checking software, students must grant their authority for their
work to be submitted in electronic form to Turnitin. Students are asked to sign a declaration at
the start of the academic year granting this authority, and any assessed work must be submitted
electronically as well as in hard copy form. Students have the right to refuse this permission;
however, where permission has been withheld the Faculty reserves the right to use alternative
means to investigate the concerns.

15


V: Assignments Deadlines 2014/2015
How to submit your work
1. Two hard copies to Free School Lane Office (or to the POLIS office in West Road for POL
paper essays) by 12.00 noon.
2. Fill out the coversheet when you submit (make a note of your word count).
3. Also send your essay to pps-essays@hsps.cam.ac.uk (or to undergrad-
essays@polis.cam.ac.uk for POL paper essays). The submission is not complete until both
hard copy and electronic versions have been received.
Dissertations
Title submission: Friday 17 October 2014
Submission of written work: Monday 27 April 2015
Essays (Int 3,4, 6, 8, and 9 / Pol 4, 7, 8, 9 and 11 / Soc 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 )
First essay: Monday 19 January 2015
Second essay: Monday 27 April 2015
VI: Penalties applied to assessed work

Late submission
All work must be submitted by 12.00 noon on the advertised deadline. Both the hard copies and
electronic copy must be received by 12.00 noon in order for the work to be considered as
submitted. Unless the student has been granted an extension, any work submitted after 12.00
noon but within one week of the deadline will incur a 10-point penalty. Work submitted later than
one week after the deadline, or not submitted, will receive a mark of 0. Students who have good
reason to request an extension (e.g., serious health problem, major family difficulty) should contact
their College as soon as possible, as all requests must be sent from the Director of Studies or the
Colleges Senior Tutor to the Chair of Part II Examinations (Dr Glen Rangwala, gr10009@cam.ac.uk) at
least 48 hours in advance of the deadline date. All requests must be accompanied by appropriate
evidence.
Students should ensure that they allow appropriate time to print and present their work before the
deadline. Problems with computers or printing facilities will not be accepted as reasons for late
submission, and all work must be bound (stapled or in a hole-punched binder) and have a completed
cover sheet (cover sheet supplied at submission).

Word limit
16


Students and supervisors should note that the word limit is 5,000 words for Long Essays and 10,000
words for Dissertations. There is no leeway. Students exceeding the word limit will be penalised.
The word limit must be written on the coversheet for your dissertation or essay at submission and
the Faculty will carry out checks. At the final Examiners meeting in June, the Examiners will discuss
all overlength work and agree a penalty scale.
What is counted in the word limit will vary by subject (see below), so you should ensure that you
have read the paper guide and are clear on what will be included. Word limit rules apply to the
subject of the paper you are submitting, not the subject track you are on. As a general rule, any
content that the Examiners must read in order to assess your work should be included in the main
body and not in an appendix; overuse of appendices may be penalised if it impairs the understanding
of your work.
For all POLIS assessed work, the word limit will include all text except the bibliography; this
means that the main text, all data in tables or figures, appendices, captions, titles and
subtitles, the table of contents, footnotes, endnotes and all prefatory material at the start of
the essay will be counted.
For all Soc/Psy assessed work, the word limit will include all text except the bibliography and
appendices; tables will be counted according to content. This means that the main text,
captions, table of contents, footnotes, endnotes and all prefatory material at the start of the
essay will be counted. Numerical tables, graphs or figures (for example, reports of statistical
data) will be counted at a fixed rate of 150 words per table. Non-numerical tables, graphs or
figures (for example, comparison tables showing attributes of various groups) will be counted
per-word, and all content of the table will be counted.
Important: You will be penalised if your dissertation word-count is inferior to 6000 words
Plagiarism or unfair practice
Concerns about plagiarism are taken very seriously and students should ensure that they are familiar
with the Facultys guidance (available in your handbook and current student webpages). Cases of
suspected unfair practice including plagiarism, potential data fabrication or breaches of ethical
research practice will be investigated by the Chair of Part II Examiners on a case-by-case basis.
Students should read the Universitys Statement on Plagiarism at:
http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/plagiarism/students/statement.html

VII: Frequently Asked Questions
1: How are supervisions arranged?
Supervisions are an essential part of teaching for most papers because they provide the opportunity
for students to discuss particular topics in depth with individuals who are knowledgeable in the field.
They also provide a focus for students reading and written work and an opportunity to get detailed
feedback on their essays. In the Cambridge system, supervisions are formally the responsibility of the
Directors of Studies in the Colleges. However in PPS we facilitate the process of arranging
17


supervisions through a system of centralized supervision (although Directors of Studies can opt out of
the system and arrange their own supervision for their students).
In the system of centralized supervision, the Course Organiser takes primary responsibility for
ensuring that there is a pool of qualified supervisors available for the paper, and (with the exception
noted below) for ensuring that students taking the paper have one or more supervisors who can
provide them with guidance and feedback on the topics they intend to cover. This does not mean
that the Course Organiser personally takes responsibility for supervision, but a student encountering
difficulties in terms of supervision can contact the Course Organiser and ask for help (either directly,
or via the Director of Studies).
Course Organisers usually discuss supervision arrangements with students at the beginning of the
course and provide them with overall guidance. For this reason it is essential that students attend the
first lectures on their chosen papers. In most cases, Course Organisers provide students with a list of
supervision topics that can be used in conjunction with the lectures. In most cases, they will organise
students directly into supervision groups and allocate a supervisor to each group.
Supervision in sociology:
The following guidelines have been set up by the Sociology Undergraduate Education Committee
regarding supervisions:
Students should expect to receive 6 to 8 supervisions for each paper.
Supervisions should not start later than week 3 of Michaelmas term.
Queries and concerns relating to supervisions should be addressed by students, in the first instance
to their Director of Studies; secondly to the Course Organiser; thirdly to the Director of Sociology
Undergraduate Education: Dr Peter Webb.

2: How can I write a good supervision essay?
There is no single way of writing a good essay. Different subjects will prompt you to write in
different ways, and many styles are equally acceptable for most subjects. Nevertheless, the
guidelines below (given in no particular order of importance) may help you develop an effective
writing style.
Essays are answers to questions; an essay that fails to even address the question will be
marked severely, no matter how entertaining or elegant it is.
The object is to express what you want to say as clearly and as persuasively as you can. This
will entail justifying why you are thinking about the matter at hand in the way that you do,
why you argue about it in the way that you do, why you reach the conclusions you do, and, if
you cannot reach a conclusion, why you cannot.
From an examiners perspective, long and involved sentences are difficult to parse.
However, using nothing but short sentences will limit your powers of expression. Sentences
in a good essay are likely to vary according to the subject and the kind of point you are trying
to make.
Good writing always has a structure. You want to excite and maintain the readers attention,
to make him or her read to the end. You are unlikely to succeed in this aim with a disordered
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stream of allusions, impressions and asides. You will need paragraphs, which usually make a
single point. Complex points may need several paragraphs, and these should connect.
Do not try to say too much. The title to which you are asked to write may be general, its
potential scope enormous. You will have only a week, sometimes less, to prepare for it and
write. And you will usually not be able to write more than two or three thousand words,
even if you would like to.
Good writing also strives to be exact, and where appropriate, precise. Exactness and
precision depend not only on syntax but also on a wide and inventive vocabulary. Do not
unthinkingly adopt the terms of the authors you read. For some essays, of course, these
terms will be what is at issue. But even in these cases, perhaps especially in these cases, you
should ask yourself whether the term is the most appropriate and effective.
A good essay will almost always indicate the range of considerations at issue, the positions
on these issues taken by others, and a defence of your own position. Successful essays will
engage with their subject, of which they should of course reveal a grasp. They will also
engage their reader, through a skilful juxtaposition of good argument and telling quotation or
evidence.
Essays often work towards a definite conclusion, but do not have to. A supervision essay is
not the final word on a subject. It may end in irony or paradox, or with more questions than
it began. You should regard it as evidence of thought and work in progress, to be revised or
extended in discussion and later in private.
Prepare for it by reading as widely as you can, and beware of deciding too soon on the
argument you will make. In thinking of how to start writing, which for most people is always
the most difficult moment, you might find it helpful to start from a question that came to you
in your reading and refused to go away. But do not decide too soon on your argument. If
you are unsure of your starting- or end-point, say why.
It is often useful to understand how others have approached an issue, but you should never
just report what they have said. You will usually be asked to read authors taking different
points of view. It is essential that you understand what these are, and explain them. In
supervision essays, as in examination answers, do not presume that your reader knows the
source, and needs no more than an allusion to it. Always acknowledge those whom you
read.
Supervisors appreciate a list at the end of what you have read, and this can be a useful
reminder to you when you come to re-read your essays, the written comments on them and
the notes you may have made in conversation about them. Get into the habit of giving the
full reference. Some word processing packages include a bibliography programme (e.g.,
Endnote). This is a useful means of recording everything you read (or at some point intend
to read) and of instantly recalling references for insertion into your writing.
You should generally word-process your essays but be careful not to lose the habit of writing
by hand. This is essential for examinations, and will remain so. Practice writing timed essays
by hand for several weeks before an examination.
3: How can I write a good long essay or dissertation?
A quarter of your final mark is assessed from either a dissertation of 6- to 10,000-words or two
5,000-word essays. For psychology students, the dissertation based on an empirical project is
compulsory. These are an opportunity to impress: exam answers are inevitably limited by the time
19


available but dissertations and long essays give you a chance to show your work in a more original
and polished way. To avoid adversely affecting your performance on other papers you should start
preparing your dissertation before Michaelmas and give your supervisor a first draft to read over the
Christmas break.
Supervision of long-essays: guidelines
Students are to be given three supervisions per 5,000 word essay
The first supervision to consider the nature and scope of the question and your approach to
it
The second to discuss progress, normally on the basis of a written outline
The third to review a draft
Supervisions are expected to be given during term time
Supervisors expected to read one draft of each essay
Students are strongly encouraged to attend all lectures
Long essays
The Faculty Board sets the subjects for long essays, but a supervisor will help you choose a topic from
this selection, direct you towards introductory reading, guide you in how to approach the topic, and
read your penultimate draft.
Examiners expect long essays to be more balanced, considered, polished and conclusive than
supervision essays. You should set out the issues that are relevant to the question and briefly explain
which of these you take to be important. Examiners need to see that you have read and understood
the relevant literature, and that you are able to develop an argument. Probably just under a half of
the essay should be devoted to this argument. Examiners will be interested in your conclusion; this
need not be original, but should follow from your argument. If you believe a clear conclusion cannot
be made, then your reasons for why this is so should be clear.
Supervision of dissertation: guidelines
Students can expect to receive six supervisions
Supervisors will read draft chapters once and a draft of the whole dissertation once, and
provide written comments
Supervisors will not read revised drafts
Supervisors will advise on readings where they can, but students cannot expect supervisors
to provide a comprehensive reading, which should reflect some independent initiative.
Supervisions are expected to be given during term time
Dissertations
If you would like to be eligible for the Graduate Basis for Registration conferred by BPS, you must do
a dissertation based on an empirical project (for Psy and Soc/Psy students).
Dissertations for sociology do not have to contain original empirical research, but often will, since
they should draw on a wide range of sources and/or primary material, which may include first-hand
observations, experiments, interviews, undigested statistical data or archive holdings.
20


There is each year a prize competition for the best dissertation in Part II Economics, History or Social
and Political Sciences; candidates from Social and Political Sciences have in recent years been notably
successful in this competition.
Layout
Font: Use 12-point font and double-spacing for the text and 11-point font and single spacing
for footnotes, lengthy inset quotations, notes, and bibliographies.
Margins: Allow an ample margin on both sides of the page.
Pagination: Print on one side only, and number the pages serially from 1.
Abbreviations: At the first mention give the full name and its acronym or abbreviation in
brackets. For dissertations, it is often useful to include a list of the acronyms and
abbreviations you use.
Contents: A table of contents is useful for dissertations.
Sections: Dissertations will normally have sections and perhaps even separate chapters
(these do not have to start on a separate page). Long essays may also have sections (these
can be numbered or given sub-titles).
Acknowledgements: Any statement of acknowledgements should appear between the
contents page and before the start of the examinable text.
Word-count: This includes all preliminary matter (e.g., title, acknowledgements), footnotes
and endnotes, but not the bibliography. Particularly for dissertations, you do not need to
include consent/debriefing forms in your word count. Students are expected to keep to the
word-count as much as possible and penalties will be applied to over-limit work (see Chapter
VI).
All work should be proofread; examiners will penalise work with many grammatical or
typographical errors.
References and bibliographies
Some word processing programmes (e.g., Endnote for later versions of Microsoft Word) format
references automatically from a bibliographical database in a variety of accepted conventions these
can be extremely useful, particularly if you update your database each time you read new material.
Be consistent throughout in the convention you adopt (e.g., 'author-date' citations in the text, with a
bibliography at the end of the work).
Make sure that your referencing is complete: for journal articles etc. the author, the title of the
article, the name of the journal, the volume number, the year and the pages (and where page
numbering starts with each issue, the issue number also); for books and book sections the editor(s)
as well as the author(s), the title of the book, the place of publication, the publisher, and the year.
Examiners often follow up a selection of references and will be irritated if they cannot find what they
are looking for. If you use sources other than books or journal articles, make sure to say what these
are. For sources obtained from the web etc., give the access address. Print the titles of books and
journals in underlined normal type or italics; the titles of articles etc. in normal type inside quotation
marks.
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5: What are the criteria for marking and classing work?
http://mws.hsps.cam.ac.uk/pps/current/undergraduate/pdf/PPS_Marking_and_Classing_Criteria_1
3-14.pdf
Prizes
Part IIA and Part IIB Polity Press Prize for best sociology performance
Each year, once examination results are published, the candidates in the sociology or
sociology/psychology stream who achieve the best overall average and an overall first in Part IIA and
Part IIB are awarded the Polity Press Prize: 100 worth of books to be chosen from Polity Press
publications.
Gladstone Memorial Prize
The 500 Gladstone Memorial Prize is awarded for the most meritorious Part IIB dissertation in the
Economics, Historical or PPS Tripos; each year, PPS examiners nominate the best dissertation
candidate and send a copy of the dissertation to the Gladstone Memorial Trustees.
Part IIB CUP Prize
A prize of 100 worth of books published by Cambridge University Press is awarded to the candidate
in the Psychology or joint stream for the best overall result in Part IIB.
VIII: Academic Staff in Sociology
University Teaching Officers
Professor Patrick Baert (Selwyn College)
Social theory; philosophy of social sciences; sociology of knowledge.
pjnb100@cam.ac.uk
Dr Brendan Burchell (Magdalene College)
Job insecurity; work intensification and stress in the workplace; gender and employment, working
conditions and health; unemployment; interdisciplinary perspectives on the labour market.
bb101@cam.ac.uk

Dr Filipe Carreira da Silva
Social theory.
fcs23@cam.ac.uk

Dr Manali Desai
Political and historical sociology; social movements and ethnic violence in India.
md644@cam.ac.uk

Professor Sarah Franklin
Reproductive and genetic technologies.
22


sbf25@cam.ac.uk

Dr Maria Iacovou
Quantitative sociology.
mi305@cam.ac.uk

Dr Hazem Kandil
Race, ethnicity, nationalism.
hk376@cam.ac.uk

Professor Lawrence King (Emmanuel College)
Transitional economies in Eastern Europe and Russia.
lk285@cam.ac.uk

Dr Jeff Miley
Nationalism and ethnicity.
tjm52@cam.ac.uk

Dr Monica Moreno-Figueroa
Race and Ethnicity
mm2051@cam.ac.uk

Professor Jackie Scott (Queens' College) (on research leave in 2012-13)
Family and life-course in Europe and North America; social attitudes; generations and ageing; young
people at risk; quantitative and qualitative social research methods; survey design.
jls1004@cam.ac.uk

Professor John Thompson (Jesus College)
Contemporary social and political theory; sociology of the media and modern culture; the social
organisation of the media industries; the changing structure of the publishing industry; the social
impact of new information and communication technologies; politics and the media.
jbt1000@cam.ac.uk
Dr Peter Webb
Media.
pw365@cam.ac.uk

Dr Darin Weinberg (Kings College)
Medical sociology; urban sociology; social theory; sociology of science; qualitative research.
dtw23@cam.ac.uk

Affiliated lecturers and College Teaching Officers
Dr Geoffrey Ingham, Emeritus Reader(Christ's College)
Economics and sociology, especially the sociology of money; historical development of British
23


capitalism; sociology of symbols of status inequality.
gki1000@hermes.cam.ac.uk
Emeritus Professor Christel Lane (St John's College)
Varieties of Capitalism theory; interaction of economic globalisation with national institutions and
business organisations; global value chains and productions networks.
col21@cam.ac.uk
Dr David Lehmann
Development studies, especially Latin America; religion and popular culture in Latin America;
fundamentalist and charismatic movements in Latin America and Israel.
adl1@cam.ac.uk
Dr Veronique Mottier (Jesus College)
Social theory; the social and political regulation of gender & sexuality; HIV/Aids & eugenics;
qualitative/interpretative research methods, especially discourse and narrative analysis.
vm10004@hermes.cam.ac.uk
Dr Michael Rice
Crime and deviance: developmental psychopathology; moral development; educational attainment
in relation to offending; incivilities and community safety; nineteenth-century studies of criminal
statistics in England and France; sentencing policy and practice. Literacy and the literacy myth;
dyslexia fact and fiction. Social science research methods: survey research; quantitative data analysis.
mer21@cam.ac.uk

Researchers

Dr Liberty Barnes
Medial sociology; gender.
lb595@cam.ac.uk
Dr Robert Blackburn Emeritus Reader (Clare College)
Social inequality - including stratification, gender and ethnicity; sociology of work.
rmb1@cam.ac.uk
Dr Rory Coulter
Residential mobility and migration; changing family and household structures; well-being and social
attitudes; data analysis.
rcc46@cam.ac.uk

Dr Peter Dickens (Fitzwilliam College)
Society-nature relations; evolutionary thought and social theory; urban sociology.
p.dickens1@ntlworld.com
Dr Zeynep Gurtin
Globalization of assisted reproductive technologies.
24


zbg20@cam.ac.uk
Dr David Lane, Emeritus Reader (Emmanuel College)
Outcomes of transition in Eastern Europe and the former USSR; evolution of the economic elite in
Russia; Russian financial services and banking, its evolution, structure, ownership and control.
dsl10@cus.cam.ac.uk

Dr Marcus Morgan
Critical humanism, social theory, the sociology of intellectuals, pragmatism, hope and agency,
philosophy of the social sciences, disciplinary formation and boundary-making
mm2014@cam.ac.uk

Dr Peggy Watson
Theorising the transition to democracy after communism; East-West difference and the intersections
of politics, health and gender; the experience of health risk in transition in Nowa Huta, Poland;
mortality in a retrospective cohort of Polish steelworkers; the relationship between marriage and
mortality in Poland; the reformulation of gender after communism; citizenship and health in
transition.
pw125@cus.cam.ac.uk

IX: Academic Staff in Psychology
For an up-to-date list of academic staff in the Department of Psychology, please see the following
webpage: http://www.psychol.cam.ac.uk/directory/faculty. Please see the Centre for Family
Research website for a current list of staff: http://www.cfr.cam.ac.uk/directory
X: Procedure for Problems/Complaints and Student Feedback
We hope that your studies on the Tripos will run smoothly. However, if you encounter any
difficulties or problems, please ensure that you contact the relevant member of staff below.
For any problems
concerning:
contact:
Supervisions Part I:
Step 1 Director of Studies
Step 2 Course Organiser

Part II:
Step1 Course Organiser
Step 2 Director of Studies
25


Please note that if your supervisor holds either of these roles and
you wish to speak to someone else, you may contact any of the
people in the table below.
Teaching/Structure
of Papers
Course Organiser
Course Organiser Directors of Undergraduate Education:
For Politics: Dr Helen Thompson, het20@cam.ac.uk
For Psychology: Prof Claire Hughes, ch288@cam.ac.uk
For Sociology:
Mich 2014: Dr Peter Webb; email: pw365@cam.ac.uk
Lent & Easter 2015: Dr Jeff Miley; email: tjm52@cam.ac.uk

Timetable Teaching Administrator
facultyteachingadmin@hsps.cam.ac.uk
General Issues Student Representatives
(pps-tripos-rep@hsps.cam.ac.uk)

It would be helpful if you could please copy all emails to the teaching administrator, so that a copy
can be kept on file.
Student Feedback:
Your chance to put forward your opinions on the papers you take!

For Sociology Papers, student feedback is collected via hard-copy anonymous questionnaires
distributed at various points in the academic year. It is crucial that you fill these out and give
feedback on your papers. Getting good feedback from students makes the course better and shows
the outside world how Cambridge degrees consider their students views.

Course organisers take students' concerns and suggestions into consideration each year when
preparing their paper outlines and selecting supervisors for the year. So please remember to fill out a
form.

For Psychology Papers student feedback will be collected via either hard-copy anonymous
questionnaires given out during the academic year, or via an online anonymous survey.

26