Weekly meetings between student and supervisor

Components of Assessment	Method(s)	Percentage Weighting
Presentation & preliminary report	At the end of the first Semester. This should have a component that judges the level of progress of the student indicated by the presentation and the depth of understanding shown by the student. It should also include a component judging the style and clarity of the presentation.	10%
Final Report	This should include a component that judges the level of difficulty, originality, amount of material and coherence of the report. It should also include components that judge presentation, progress throughout the year, critical ability and bibliographic skills.	80%
Oral examination	This should be assigned according to the clarity of the oral presentation of the project, and the ability to answer questions about the project and related areas.	10%
The examiners are the supervisor and two more examiners (normally the MMath moderator plus one more examiner) who are present at the presentation and oral examination.

None

This module allows the student to demonstrate that, under supervision of a member of staff, the candidate is able to undertake and complete a substantial piece of work that presents, uses and/or applies advanced mathematics. This should normally build on appropriate mathematical material from his or her degree programme and should contain material and/or applications beyond what has been done in other modules at levels 1, 2, 3 and M.

The student should, by the end of the module:

• Be able to independently study mathematics at a level appropriate for the start of a programme of postgraduate study in mathematics.
• Have gained familiarity in areas of mathematics appropriate to level four by private study.
• Be able to present a substantial body of mathematical thoughts and arguments in a coherent way, both by written and oral communication.
• Be able to write a substantial scientific report. This should accurately and appropriately cite relevant references and use diagrams, graphs and tables appropriately.
• It is not required nor expected that the student should obtain original publishable results, but the student should demonstrate originality in the compilation and presentation of the material.
  

The content will vary according to chosen project and supervisor but should in all cases consist of a substantial piece of work that presents, uses and/or applies advanced mathematics. It is not expected to be work of such originality that any section of it is publishable, but it should include evidence of originality and critical ability in its compilation.

Teaching is by discussion, directed reading and interaction between student and supervisor, and by the discussions with the examiners at the presentation. Learning takes place through discussion, practical work, background reading and private study.

N. J. Higham, Handbook of Writing for the Mathematical Sciences, SIAM Philadephia, (second edition, 1998).