Module manager: Dr Rachel Utley
Email: R.E.Utley@leeds.ac.uk
Taught: Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) View Timetable
Year running 2025/26
This module is not approved as a discovery module
This module introduces you to the main skills and approaches for studying international history successfully, supporting your transition to University and to undergraduate-level study. Working from a core text, you will explore how international historians work, how to engage analytically with their work, and how to formulate and develop your own interpretations, arguments and analyses of historical themes, periods and concepts.
The objective of the module is to enable you to acquire and develop the basic skills and familiarise yourselves with the core concepts required for the study of international history at undergraduate level.
On successful completion of the module students will have demonstrated the following learning outcomes relevant to the subject:
1. Effectively identify historians’ arguments and examine the foundations of their case.
2. Distinguish historians’ methods, and critically assess them.
3. Investigate the wider historiographical context and concepts within which a particular body of work is situated.
4. Construct your own arguments and analyses in response to particular historical problems.
5. Successfully apply fundamental standards and practices of historical study for research, discussion and assessed work, including the importance of inclusive and diverse approaches to the study of international history.
Skills Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of the module students will have demonstrated the following skills learning outcomes:
6. Build capacity for independent and self-directed study at University, developing good time-management and organisational skills to fulfil module commitments and deliver work on time.
7. Engage constructively with the ideas of peers, tutors and published sources, and different cultural contexts.
8. Locate and evaluate relevant information and sources in libraries, archives and online environments.
9. Employ analytical and problem-solving skills, communicating complex ideas and arguments effectively, in a range of ways.
10. Develop proficiency in the use of required presentation and referencing styles.
Details of the syllabus will be provided on the Minerva organisation (or equivalent) for the module
| Delivery type | Number | Length hours | Student hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seminar | 10 | 2 | 20 |
| Private study hours | 180 | ||
| Total Contact hours | 20 | ||
| Total hours (100hr per 10 credits) | 200 | ||
Formative opportunities in bibliographical skills and historiographical analysis will be provided in class, and in discussion with your tutor, and feedback/guidance offered. These will support completion of both assessments. In itself, the historiographical exercise also stands as formative preparation for the later assessed essay, helping you to establish, consolidate and enhance the skills you need for successful study.
| Assessment type | Notes | % of formal assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Coursework | Historiographical exercise | 40 |
| Coursework | Essay | 60 |
| Total percentage (Assessment Coursework) | 100 | |
Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated
Check the module area in Minerva for your reading list
Last updated: 29/08/2025
Errors, omissions, failed links etc should be notified to the Catalogue Team