Grants and Writing Resources for the University of Oxford

Oxford law students study for Moderations in the first two terms of the course and sit public examinations in their first year. The Faculty of Law's prize list for 2025/26 shows how strong that first-year group was: the prize for overall best performance in Moderations was shared by two students, the Criminal Law prize was also shared, and the Faculty also awarded prizes in A Roman Introduction to Private Law and Constitutional Law.

Graduate Scholarships

The Clarendon Fund is the University's largest scholarship scheme. Each scholarship covers course fees and includes a grant for living expenses, and the Fund offered over 230 new scholarships in 2025/26. There are no quotas by nationality or degree. Anyone applying for a degree-bearing graduate course by the funding deadline is considered automatically, and subject experts choose the scholars, weighing future potential as well as academic achievement.

Most Clarendon Scholars are working toward the DPhil, Oxford's PhD. Awards also go to two-year degrees such as the MPhil and BPhil, and to one-year courses including the MSc, MSt, MBA and MFE.

Bursaries and Scholarships for Undergraduates

For students starting in October 2027, Oxford's undergraduate support begins with the Crankstart Scholarship. UK-resident students on a first degree from households with an income of £32,500 or less receive a non-repayable bursary of up to £6,500 a year, along with funded internships, volunteering and social events. UK students without a Crankstart Scholarship can receive the Oxford Bursary, which for that entry year runs from £4,480 a year at household incomes of £25,000 or less down to £1,120 at £42,876 to £50,000.

Named scholarships cover particular groups. The Reach Oxford Scholarship is for students from low-income countries, and the Palgrave Brown UK Scholarship is for applicants resident or educated in Norfolk or Suffolk.

Prizes for Finals Papers and Dissertations

The Law Faculty's 2025/26 prize list runs well past Moderations. In the Final Honour School, the Martin Wronker Prize goes to the overall best performance and the Gibbs Prizes carry a winner, a proxime and three book prizes. Subject prizes run alphabetically from Administrative Law to Trusts. The list includes a Law Faculty Prize for Dissertation, a prize for the Jessup Moot, the Public International Law Prize supported by All Souls College and the Commercial Law Prize supported by 3 Verulam Buildings.

Study Skills for Essays and Dissertations

Oxford's study skills pages cover time management, reading and note-taking, referencing, plagiarism and the step up to master's-level work. The guide to essay and dissertation writing says university essays are judged on how an argument answers the question. For a dissertation it advises writing early, drafting the introduction early even though it is often finished last, and treating each chapter as a shorter essay that has an introduction, body and conclusion. The Language Centre runs courses on writing a thesis or dissertation.

Proof-Reading Rules and the Research Thesis

The University's policy on third-party proof-readers applies to assessed written work with a word limit of 10,000 words or more; work with a lower word limit may not use one. A proof-reader, who may be a fellow student, friend, family member or professional, can point out typographical, spelling and punctuation errors, formatting and layout inconsistencies, grammatical and syntactical errors, ambiguous phrasing, minor formatting errors in references, errors in labelling figures, and repetition or omissions. The proof-reader may not add content, check facts or data, rewrite ambiguous passages, fix an argument, rearrange paragraphs, cut text to meet a word limit or translate. Changes are marked as suggestions the student accepts or rejects, and the student gives the proof-reader a copy of the policy. Departments may bar proof-reading for assessments that test grammar or syntax.

Research students upload examination copies of the thesis as a PDF through the My Research Degrees tab in Student Self Service, and the internal examiner arranges the viva. The research examinations page sets out the last step: after leave to supplicate, DPhil, MLitt, MSc by Research and DClinPsych candidates deposit a digital copy of the approved thesis in the Oxford Research Archive (ORA), and the degree cannot be conferred until they do.

For Oxford work with a word limit of 10,000 words or more, our final edit keeps to the tasks the University's proof-reading policy permits: spelling, punctuation, grammar, formatting and reference consistency, marked as suggestions for you to accept or reject. See our University of Oxford dissertation and thesis editing and University of Oxford essay editing pages, or write to editors@editorsforstudents.com.

From Our Writing Guides

• How to Write an Argumentative Essay: Beyond For and Against
• The Literature Review: Avoiding Intellectual Overwhelm
• Dissertation Defense: Defending the Logical Skeleton