nm0061: lecture might be a rather grand title for what we'll do er today this 
perhaps will be [0.2] a few tips [0.6] perhaps pitched somewhere between er [0.
6] a pep talk and a little bit of the reading of the riot act [0.5] but it's 
just to give you [0.2] a sense a kind of bit of fine tuning [0.3] for how you 
might [0.2] think about the work [0.2] that you present [0.2] for us to read [0.
5] er [0.4] for the degree [0.6] pec-, er particularly as opposed to what you 
might have been doing [0.3] for A-level there are sort of significant shifts 
you see [0.4] so it's no bad thing early on to start thinking about the way 
things might change [0.4] and the [0.4] i will be talking with reference to 
this i may not actually quote it [0.4] but [0.5] afterwards you will be able to 
read this through and see the connections with [0.4] what i've been talking 
about [0.9] now [1.0] if you people were going off [0.7] to study [0.4] some 
other [0.2] subjects around this institution [0.4] perhaps in engineering or 
physics or somewhere [0.9] someone [0.2] might have the job of wising you up 
about safety rules [0.4] 
if you were dealing with [0.3] expensive and dangerous equipment [1.0] but 
actually of course [0.2] you are the people [0.6] who are working with the most 
expensive [1.5] and the most dangerous [0.6] the most delicate piece of 
equipment of anyone in the university [0.7] because you are the people who are 
working [0.3] with language [1.3] that was a very expensive product [0.8] and 
it can do a great deal [0.4] of harm [1.2] and part of your job as students of 
English [0.6] is to be aware of that [0.9] to be aware of your own use of 
language [0.7] and of course to be critically aware of other people's use [0.2] 
of language [0.6] and of course we read [0.7] what has come down to us 
traditionally as some of the great [0.3] texts of [0.2] of literature English 
and European and and American [1.5] partly of course for their er intrinsic 
interest that [0.2] that's the main thing [0.4] but also because they are the 
most complex [0.7] the most concentrated uses [0.2] of the language [0.6] and 
so your interest in the matter doesn't stop [0.3] as it were [0.3] at the text 
that we bound as literary [1.1] from th-, those texts you were 
learning to think about language perhaps in a much broader sense [0.4] now i 
will be concerned [0.2] today to think about your own use of language [0.4] 
when you write [0.5] most of your degree of course will be concerned with your 
[0.3] critical and appreciative entry [0.2] into other people's use [0.3] of 
language [0.3] but there is a [0.3] an important traffic [0.3] between them so 
that's really what we want to think about a little bit today [0.3] how you 
yourselves use language [0.3] in an academic [0.2] er [0.3] context [0.6] now 
we're reading [1.1] literature [0.2] and looking at language in the latter part 
[0.4] of the twentieth century [1.2] and one of the things you will become 
increasingly [0.2] aware of of course [0.3] is that the activity [0.3] of 
reading literature [0.2] has itself been differently conceived just as the 
literature [0.3] has [0.6] been differently conceived [0.3] at at different 
historical moments [0.6] and perhaps one very broad [0.3] er er [0.3] sort of 
[0.3] point of reference that we might put around this [1.3] is that [0.6] 
people often look back now to some [0.5] period round the turn of the 
nineteenth into 
the twentieth century [0.9] and [0.5] er [0.2] refer to something er er er 
called by the phrase linguistic turn [0.2] a linguistic turn [0.6] and i think 
what people have in mind by this [0.9] is of course a big [0.2] shift a big [0.
7] a big shift in the way of thinking [0.2] about [0.4] language [0.8] and 
perhaps you might say in very crude terms [0.3] that [0.3] despite the 
complexity and variety of different ways in which [0.3] human beings have 
thought about language [0.5] right the way down till then [0.6] they perhaps [0.
2] nonetheless stayed somewhat in the same view of language [0.3] that we see 
Adam had [0.3] in the garden of Eden [0.6] it was God's job to create the world 
[1.3] what was thought to distinguish the human traditionally was the 
possession of language [0.6] and Adam in the garden [0.5] gave the names to 
things [0.4] okay so that is the the myth [0.2] so he didn't create the world 
[0.8] but he gave the world its names you see [0.5] now [0.2] what you might 
say perhaps [0.2] happened as we entered into our phase of er of modern culture 
[0.5] was the thought that [0.9] it's not that the wor-, [0.4] the world is [0.
3] out there 
and we stick the labels on it [0.8] it's actually the activity of naming [0.4] 
that creates [0.2] the world [0.3] the world is there as existence [0.4] but 
it's not there as world [0.3] or as [0.3] meaning [0.5] in other words to put 
it in a physical image [0.4] it's sometimes said that if a person blind from 
birth [0.6] is suddenly given [0.2] sight [0.7] they don't wake up after the 
operation or the miracle [1.0] just seeing the world that we see [0.7] what 
they see is just a blur [0.5] of colours [0.5] because they have to learn to 
interpret [0.4] you know er er what is in front of them [0.6] in other words 
there's something out there all right [0.4] but to put it together as world to 
distinguish one [0.4] object from another [0.2] this is actually an activity of 
language so there's an important sense [0.3] in which [0.3] language is prior 
to world [0.6] that's what [0.2] that's what's being [0.3] thought about there 
[0.3] and so all of our [0.4] activities in looking critically at at language 
[0.2] will tend to have [0.2] that kind of consciousness [0.4] in it [0.5] that 
the whole world we live in as human beings and we're not [0.3] we're thinking 
even you could [0.4] that is clearly true at the level of physical objects [0.
3] but [0.2] it's obviously even more true at the level of cultural formations 
[0.6] that these are products in some sense [0.3] of language and your job is 
to be more and more [0.3] critically [0.2] aware [0.2] er [0.2] er of all this 
[0.5] now [0.8] er [0.3] that's to put a very broad frame of reference let's 
sort of move in [0.2] then a little bit more [0.2] specifically by varying 
stages into our topic [0.6] one thing that i think [0.3] would be very useful 
for you [0.8] would be to [0.2] learn as it were to appreciate your language [0.
5] and the specificities perhaps of the English [0.3] language now you're in a 
department of English [0.4] and comparative literary studies [1.0] some of you 
may be doing a purely English degree [0.8] but [0.3] there would be available 
to you [0.6] other languages [0.5] and American [0.6] English [0.6] there are 
other traditions other kinds of language which you could also [0.3] er you you 
know you could also take as options et cetera [0.4] so [0.2] remember that even 
if you're doing English [0.3] there is [0.2] a c-, a comparative [0.3] 
dimension 
that helps you to give a focus on your own language [0.3] it's taken [0.3] a 
lot of English people [0.7] a bit of a while to realize [0.4] that it may not 
be entirely an advantage [0.5] to have as your native language [0.3] the world 
[0.2] lingua [0.3] franca [0.2] very convenient for going everywhere and [0.3] 
booking hotels and whatnot [0.4] but it does tend to mean [0.2] that the 
English are very often [0.2] language blind [0.4] they're not aware of language 
[0.3] in the way that people [0.2] learning the lingua franca from elsewhere [0.
3] er tend to be [0.5] so internally to your studies [0.3] in English [0.3] it 
would be a good thing to develop something of that comparative [0.4] awareness 
[0.3] now even if you're doing English [0.4] only [2.4] there's another sense 
in which of course you acquire a comparative sense [0.2] because you are 
reading the language historically [0.6] so though you may not be reading 
American or German or or whatever it is [0.3] you will be reading [0.3] earlier 
forms of the same language [1.2] and what you er [0.2] would would find it very 
useful to do i think [0.5] would be to always [1.0] think of the language 
historically [1.0] 
if you are looking up er a word 'cause you're not sure how to spell it [1.1] 
you should be curious not about how it's spelled [0.5] but why [0.2] it's 
spelled [0.5] that way [0.6] you know [0.4] because that will be part of the 
history [0.6] of the word [0.4] you see [0.4] so that er [1.0] er [0.7] there 
are words which [0.4] change their meaning [1.2] over the course of [0.2] of of 
the centuries take a word like complacency [0.7] that's about the worst sin 
that a modern person can be accused of is complacency [0.9] and yet in the 
eighteenth century [1.4] it [0.6] referred to something that was [0.2] er er 
highly approved [0.7] a certain sense of [0.3] er [0.2] s-, moral [0.2] self-
approval moral self-consciousness [0.3] you see [0.5] a complete [0.5] change 
or the word [0.2] sentimental [0.2] you see which was one of the great terms [0.
2] of the eighteenth century [0.2] everyone was rushing to be [0.2] more 
sentimental than everyone else it was competit-, who could be most [0.3] 
sentimental er now of course it's the very bottom of the pit you know to be [0.
4] to be sentimental and that's of course a term with a great importance [0.3] 
for literary [0.2] critical [0.3] usage not 
just in the text but in the way we [0.3] we think about the text you see these 
things are changing [0.3] or think of gothic [0.8] and vandal [0.4] they're 
really the same thing they're just the people who came and sacked Rome you know 
[0.3] but the vandals we now think of as you know the the the urban nuisance [0.
3] the gothic has [0.5] gone off on some other completely different [0.4] track 
completely different set of meanings [0.5] and so it's not a fixed thing if you 
want to know what the meaning of the gothic is [0.2] you have to think of it [0.
6] historically see where it's come from and h-, er er er and and how it's been 
transformed [0.6] and if it er just at the humble level of [0.2] spelling [0.4] 
you see you may wonder why er [0.3] er people like me you know get sort of [0.
3] er itchy and worked up at er [0.2] s-, sort of spelling mistakes and whatnot 
but e-, [0.2] so if you th-, if you get people spelling [0.6] the word separate 
[0.7] as [sep3:reIt] you see [0.6] now [0.2] what on earth is going on there [0.
2] [cough] [0.3] it's made up of two Latin words there's [0.2] section [0.2] 
sec there's that bit of 
it [0.4] and then there's the par the parting the part er you see [0.4] er [0.
2] so if you spell it with an E you've completely lost its connection you know 
it's an etymological [0.3] absurdity you've lost its connection with the [0.2] 
the notion of parting you see that is that is that is built into the word [0.4] 
so what it's signalling is not just [0.3] a spelling mistake [0.4] but it's a 
whole [0.3] blankness as it were about the relation of that word to its own 
history and all the other words that it's [0.2] it's moving along with [0.4] 
and you couldn't plausibly [0.2] you couldn't plausibly be a real reader of 
English poetry [1.4] if you were sort of that word blind you see what i mean [0.
4] so [0.4] what what i'm suggesting here is n-, that that that that spelling 
and and whatnot isn't just a matter of correctness [0.7] it's a matter of 
understanding something about the nature [0.4] of the language itself so if you 
have a good etymological dictionary [0.7] and think of it in terms of roots and 
[0.2] historical processes of of of all the words you pick up [0.5] many of 
them are very interesting [0.2] just as little microhistories [0.4] in 
themselves [4.2] and of course that begins to [0.2] to bring us round to er the 
question then of what actually we mean by correctness [1.7] because [0.5] 
obviously there will be a cadre of people here whose job it is to correct in 
some sense you know your er your essays [0.4] including [0.4] your use of 
English [1.4] er [0.5] and it's as well to bring into focus a little bit what 
one might mean by [0.3] correctness [0.2] because i don't think that we do this 
quite in the spirit [0.3] of disgusted Tunbridge Wells [0.3] you know writing 
about the latest er [0.3] er er linguistic solecism heard on the er er er on 
the B-B-C [0.4] you know [0.5] because what i've been saying about language [0.
3] in the past [0.5] must be going on [0.3] in the present too [0.5] language 
[0.2] isn't [0.3] fixed [1.3] and so [0.2] correctness very often [0.5] is a 
kind of er [0.4] you know nervous conservative tic you know that g-, a grid 
that people want to put over [0.4] language when the whole nature of language 
[0.3] is that it changes [0.6] you see [0.4] so the the thrust of what i would 
want to say to you [0.4] here is 
not so much [0.2] that there is a kind of ideal correctness and our common job 
is to try to [0.2] defend this you see against [0.4] change in language [0.5] 
what i'm saying rather [0.2] is that the historical awareness of language that 
you might have [0.3] reading things in the past [0.4] should also be at work [0.
3] in the present you should be curious [0.3] about [0.2] what is happening to 
the language [0.3] er [0.6] in your day [0.2] you see [0.5] so we're not as it 
were what they call prescriptive [0.2] grammarians you see we're not coming 
along [0.3] with a notion derived largely from Latin grammar [0.5] which of 
course is fixed 'cause it's a dead language [0.7] but what people tried do and 
you know the grammar school and whatnot the whole force of this in our culture 
[0.4] was to try to make English into a dead language [0.5] but we're not in 
the business of making it into a dead language you know [0.6] er but you can 
obviously all the you know all all all all the political trouble that in a 
sense that that you know that that would imply once you started to [0.3] think 
about it of course in a 
way we'd want it to be a living language [0.3] but we want to see what's going 
on in the living language [0.3] so there's things like er [0.5] you know people 
of my age are likely to sort of twitch you know when they hear the word [0.2] 
hopefully [0.3] used as a kind of throat clearer [0.2] at the beginning of the 
sentence you know [0.2] hopefully we'll go to-, [0.3] and all it means is er 
well we'll probably go you know [0.3] on the other hand if you say [0.7] we 
will travel hopefully [0.7] i mean [0.3] that means w-, w-, we are investing a 
very fundamental [0.7] human emotion in this travel that we're going to do [0.
5] you know in other words [0.2] the objection really to this kind of [0.4] 
hopefully we'll do this and that and the other [0.3] is that it somehow 
deadened [0.7] the word when it's used in that [0.3] context you know it it 
it's being its meaning i-, i-, i-, i-, i-, is being bracketed out [0.2] but you 
can't say [0.5] that it's not correct [1.2] the we've got it really from 
American usage [0.6] and i take it they've got it from German the Germans have 
always said hoffentlich wir [mumble] [0.2] they they use it as a sentence [0.2] 
modified in that way you see [0.4] so [0.3] 
er you can't say it's incorrect [0.5] but you could look at it and think and 
think about the nature of the usage you see [0.3] or thinking about words like 
er [0.8] disinterested [0.9] and refute [0.7] what's going on there [0.6] you 
know there's all kinds of [0.3] organized [0.4] public debate we have about 
everything these days you know [0.4] television and radio programmes and forums 
set up in universities and whatnot [0.2] there's all a great [0.5] er sort of 
you know activity of democracy but one has to [0.2] at the same time look at 
the quality the nature the assumptions of it [0.8] and of course what's 
happened to the word disinterested is [0.6] itself of course very interesting 
[0.5] but [0.2] er that has come down to [0.4] roughly our generation [0.3] 
with a very important distinction between disinterested [0.2] and uninterested 
[0.4] disinterested as impartial [0.9] and [0.6] interested as you know [0.2] 
taking an interest or perhaps having [0.2] a certain [0.3] er [0.2] view on the 
outcome [0.7] er [0.4] we expect a judge [0.3] to be disinterested [0.6] we 
don't expect him to be uninterested reading his Beano or something you know 
while 
the er [0.4] while the the the talk is going on so there's a very important 
distinction there [0.4] but we notice that it's collapsed [0.9] that more 
people than not [0.2] will use the word disinterested to mean [0.4] 
uninterested [0.9] does that tell us anything about the culture [0.4] we're 
working in [0.7] that the very notion the ideal of being disinterested [0.2] of 
course in all kinds of ways is [0.5] i-, is worth looking at closely culturally 
[0.6] but yet it might still have a certain value as an ideal [0.9] but rather 
than look at it [0.2] critically as an ideal it seems just to be sort of 
disappearing from the usage you see [0.3] similarly with the word refute [0.7] 
you see because that's also concerned with [0.5] public debate [0.6] er to 
refute [0.3] means to show the other argument to be erroneous [0.2] it's to 
destroy the other argument it's a term from [0.3] you know logical debate from 
the the the Middle Ages [0.5] but it will be used now [0.2] simply to mean 
someone got up and said they don't agree [1.1] suppo-, [0.3] y-, she said this 
and then he got up and he refuted her 
you see [0.3] or he refuted what she well it [0.3] all they mean is he got up 
and disagreed with her [0.9] he contested what she said that's not [0.3] what 
refute is [0.2] so refute if you say someone refuted something [0.3] you've 
actually exercised a judgement [0.3] about the force of that argument [0.4] 
against the other one [0.4] you see [0.3] but again [0.3] that has rather 
disappeared [0.3] from use [0.4] and of course if you start looking at the way 
these [0.4] television debates are staged and organized and whatnot one can see 
well [0.3] that makes a certain amount of sense perhaps [0.2] you know [0.4] 
that er [0.3] i-, i-, in a way it's the theatre that's more important than the 
you know the programme's more important [0.3] than than than than than the 
outcome [0.7] so [0.7] these are ways in which you might er [1.3] er think a 
little bit about the language changing in your own time [0.6] see we're not 
really ultimately concerned [0.2] what you decide about your own usage [0.3] 
but we would like you [0.3] to know the consequences the meaning of er er of 
what you're doing [0.9] okay so that's a little bit about the notion 
of correctness [0.4] and the spirit of it okay [0.7] now let's [0.7] bring this 
home a little bit more to think about the practicalities of er of er of writing 
[1.5] for academic purposes and this tends to fall into two broad categories 
doesn't it there's the exam answer [0.9] and there's the essay [1.4] and [0.2] 
very often when you're [0.7] doing A-level [0.5] the distinction isn't perhaps 
too important you know the you get the chance in an exam to put down about 
three written pages [0.5] and lots of people can get their [0.3] pretty much 
total sum you know of knowledge and reflection on this book [0.3] you know into 
that page perhaps you know er er er at A-level [0.4] but what you will 
certainly find when you're working at degree level [0.2] is that you would 
never be able to fit in [0.6] everything you've got to say [1.0] and students 
are often very frustrated [0.4] in their third year [0.7] they put a lot of [0.
2] time and thought and there's all kinds of exciting things going on you know 
in the Shakespeare course and [0.4] and then they've got a three hour exam [0.
5] and they can't you 
know they they can't get it all in you see [0.6] so what a little [0.2] er [0.
2] it's worth thinking a little bit at what the exam is actually trying to do 
[0.6] and to distinguish that from what [0.2] an essay [0.2] er [0.2] is trying 
to do [0.4] and i think [0.4] o-, [0.9] what's lurking here of course [0.3] is 
the thi-, is the point that you are doing a very important [0.7] and very real 
activity that many of you [0.4] will go on in some form [0.3] doing in the 
world afterwards [0.9] but you're doing it under very artificial [0.5] 
circumstances you're doing it to order on certain dates and suchlike so [0.4] 
it's the relation between the reality of the activity [0.3] and the 
artificiality which is [0.5] part of the problem the artificiality is there for 
a purpose [0.3] just as it there for a purpose in poems [0.3] it produces [0.3] 
a concentration [0.3] that you wouldn't have [0.2] you know without that as 
well as all the practical [0.2] er reasons about you know doing something [0.4] 
together and i think the way to think about exams is perhaps something rather 
like 
this [0.6] you tend to go into the exam very often thinking there's some [0.6] 
ideal answer [0.7] or that somehow you've got to pack into a few pages [1.3] w-,
what you might have put into [0.4] m-, m-, m-, m-, many thousands of words in 
an assessed essay you know you're trying to get everything into this [0.4] 
little pot you see [0.3] now i think the way to think about [0.5] exam answer 
is perhaps something [0.3] er rather like this i-, i-, i-, when you go out into 
the world afterwards [1.2] let's say you're er [0.5] acting for a union [0.7] 
or [0.2] you're a teacher [0.6] you're a lawyer whatever kind of person you are 
[0.3] who has [0.4] a special skill [0.7] a special body of knowledge enabling 
you [0.7] to make informed judgements of things [0.8] and people will come to 
you [1.0] and they'll ask you questions [1.2] and what they will want [0.4] is 
a pretty economical [0.3] but useful [0.3] answer [0.5] that [0.2] is like a 
kind of iceberg you know there's a lot there that you know that you don't tell 
them [0.9] but you [0.3] organize that knowledge internally in such a way as to 
give them [0.2] what they need from where they're coming from 
whether it's a child in a classroom [0.2] or [0.2] or whoever it may be you see 
[0.4] and if you think [0.3] of the exam answer as a kind of practice in doing 
that [0.8] and if you think that [0.4] two or three pages of writing [0.7] are 
not too different from a few minutes [0.2] of speech [0.7] you perhaps begin to 
get the feel [0.4] of how an exam answer [0.2] works it's not a test [0.4] of 
your [0.5] complete knowledge by putting it all out in the shop window [1.0] 
it's a test more of your implicit grasp of the subject [0.3] by the way in 
which [0.2] you angle your knowledge [0.2] towards the particular question [0.
5] that's been put there [0.3] see what i mean [0.3] and when it's in the flesh 
[0.5] many of you would do it [0.2] quite naturally [0.6] you wouldn't think 
about it [0.5] but when you're asked to do it under artificial circumstances [0.
3] you kind of [0.2] put all that ability on one side [0.6] and so you you 
forget you've got it you're looking for something else you see [0.3] that's as 
artificial [0.3] as the situation [0.5] well i think it's probably true to say 
[0.3] that the best exam answers [0.6] come from the people 
who deal that d-, [0.3] you know answer them as it were most naturally [0.7] 
you know who really do treat it [0.2] as if it were a real question [0.6] and 
get on giving it you know a real answer [0.5] you know and that's what comes 
over with force [0.3] and of course part of what you you you then register is 
that [0.6] the thrust of your answer is should probably be there in the first 
paragraph [1.3] and then there are more bits of [1.2] possible confusions or 
counter-arguments or whatever that you need to unpack [0.4] a little bit before 
you put it all back to bed again on the third page [0.3] you know for your er 
er er for your conclusion [0.4] but it's the [0.2] simple thrust [0.3] of an 
overall response to a complex question [1.0] which communicates your awareness 
of the complexity [0.2] but doesn't entirely necessarily [0.2] go into it you 
see [0.2] so that's a way of thinking perhaps about er [0.4] er er exam answers 
[0.3] and one of the best things you can do of course to practise for exams [0.
6] is to be [0.4] as [0.2] many of you will be [0.7] er [0.2] is to be active 
[0.4] participants [0.3] in seminars [0.8] as 
once you get into the way of er er er of using seminars as a kind of [0.5] 
instrument this will give you a lot of useful training [0.6] because we all sit 
in our heads [0.4] understanding certain things [0.6] and it's only when you 
start to [0.2] say it or listen to other people [0.3] you realize that they 
don't [0.2] understand this or they understand you know [0.7] i-, i-, in some 
totally different way [0.7] and you begin to get the feel of what it is that 
you'd need to do [0.5] to make what you've understood [0.3] actually available 
to the whole group out there to sort of you know [0.3] to objectify it to meet 
the various angles from which [0.4] people might be looking on on ostensibly 
the same object [0.4] so i think the kind of er [0.4] tuning in that you need 
for for for for good examination [0.4] is [0.3] very largely a viva voce one [0.
4] and if you communicate that sense in the in in the answer [0.3] that a-, as 
it were as if you were in a kind of debate but [0.2] giving your own 
intervention as they say these days [0.4] that that that's probably the thing 
that will come over well 
nm0061: 
thinking about essays [0.2] perhaps in some ways these are even more tricky [0.
3] because [1.1] you invest more time in it [1.0] and [0.3] essays are just 
about long enough by the time you're doing your second and third year essays 
you know for things if they're going to go wrong [0.2] you know to go more [0.
4] seriously wrong [0.7] so let's [0.3] think a little bit about er [0.5] how 
you go about essays [0.3] one thing of course [0.7] is always the starting 
point that we've hung on to this word essay [0.6] i mean we could call it [0.2] 
something else [0.9] but we do hang on to that [0.2] word we don't call it a 
paper or something we call it an essay [0.7] so it hangs on to this [0.5] root 
meaning of an attempt [0.5] having a go [0.3] at something [1.0] and of course 
that will be an important part of your [0.7] education no one's expecting you 
[1.1] to know all about you know the literatures [0.2] you're reading [0.2] you 
are actually in the act of discovering it [0.8] and the act of discovery is not 
just the reading of the text [0.5] but when you try to make sense [0.3] of your 
[0.4] response to that text [0.4] very often it 
starts as a kind of blur or a gut feeling about this and that [0.4] and the 
discovery is very often a discovery of your own response [0.6] so that the 
process of [0.3] writing an essay [0.3] you know is a process of discovering 
something [0.5] you know er er about yourself really [0.2] but of course in 
relation to the text it's a kind of dialogue between yourself [0.4] and the 
text so hanging on to that [0.6] notion of an attempt [0.2] the essay is an 
attempt at something [0.6] o-, er you know would be quite useful for for for 
tuning into [0.3] er er [0.4] what we're doing here [0.9] er in the sciences 
for example [0.7] when people are doing [0.4] a PhD [1.3] they will often refer 
to the process of what they call [0.2] writing up [0.7] are you [0.2] writing 
up yet you know this this phrase goes around it's going round [0.5] and of 
course that [0.5] no doubt makes sense they spend about [0.2] you know three 
years whatever it is [0.3] getting all their [0.4] er information in from their 
machines and in in their laboratory [0.3] and then they have this bit at the 
end you know where they just [0.3] write up [0.2] you know what 
the conclusions were [0.4] you see [0.4] well that of course would be a deeply 
misleading way to look [0.6] at research or writing in English [0.4] and it 
would be as misleading for undergraduates as it would be for [0.3] PhD research 
students [0.5] because they are actually [0.4] doing their research as it were 
in the writing [0.7] 'cause the research is partly [0.4] into themselves [0.5] 
you know and into their way of [0.2] thinking about [0.3] the topic [0.5] 
'cause i'll tell you one thing my friends [0.3] in in the in the topic we work 
in in the subject of English [0.5] answers are almost always banal [0.5] and 
sort of useless and boring [0.4] it's understanding the problem [0.4] that's 
interesting [0.4] so when you're doing essays [0.2] don't feel driven [0.4] to 
come up with some sort of [0.3] you know a [0.5] conclusion that puts it all to 
bed you know 'cause usually that that will actually be sort of rather [0.3] 
tedious and was already there [0.5] what actually [0.3] gets the reader going 
is if you read something that opens up for you [0.2] the complexity the 
difficulty the ambivalence the moving around you 
know of the [0.3] of of of what's going on in the text that you're looking at 
[0.4] so don't feel necessarily driven [0.5] by [0.2] a-, as it were a need to 
have a Q-E-D at the end [0.5] much more interesting [0.2] to find out what the 
problems are [0.2] but to now understand clearly what they are [0.7] not just 
to know well it's er you know it's difficult it's problematic [0.2] but 
actually to be able to identify [0.3] why and how it is so [0.2] that's what 
will usually give the er er the life [0.5] to your essay [1.7] er [0.9] now the 
other thing that you need to keep a [1.1] er a careful eye on is the question 
as well of time management [0.5] when you're writing essays [0.6] we have a 
policy in the department [0.9] of giving you at the beginning of your second 
and third year [0.2] posted up [0.2] on the board [0.6] the [0.2] dates for all 
[0.2] assessed essays that come in over the year [0.9] sometimes they may be a 
bit bunched together [0.7] that doesn't mean that you all have to sit down [0.
6] on the same week and write those essays [0.3] individually [0.2] personally 
[0.2] you plan your own schedule [0.2] to see which essays you want to do [0.2] 
first 
the point is they [0.4] you may have three essays coming in within a week of 
each other [0.4] it doesn't mean they have to be written [0.3] within a week of 
each other [0.6] now one of the ground rules of all this for all of us [0.4] is 
that no one gets more time [0.7] you know you've got your three-score years and 
ten as it were of your biblical allotment [0.3] but you've got twenty-four 
hours a day you've got sixty [0.4] er er er you know er er er minutes in the 
hour you can't change that [1.2] but some people [0.3] are better [0.5] at 
making the time work better for them [0.6] to work a bit more [0.3] on their 
side [0.9] er [0.3] and one tip [0.3] might be for example [1.6] er if someone 
asks me to give a talk in a year or so's time i may not really know what i'm 
going to say [1.2] er but i will have somewhere or other you know in my anatomy 
a kind of gut f-, feeling or something that that [0.3] yeah i'll i'll come up 
you know [0.2] you know i'll sort of think about that over the year [0.7] and i 
may not have time to think about it [0.9] but i could put a little file on one 
side [1.2] and while i'm going about my other 
business whether it's teaching or watching the telly or going shopping whatever 
[0.3] all kinds of thoughts flit through your mind [0.5] and if you've 
established a certain theme [0.3] that you've put [0.7] on the back [0.3] 
burner there [0.7] it will in fact attract things to it [0.5] so that things 
that would have passed through your head and out the other side while you were 
reading [0.3] you know something unrelated [0.6] those things that would have 
been lost [0.8] can actually sort of collect [0.2] gradually [0.3] around this 
and your theme can sort of [0.6] build up [0.2] you know [0.5] er [0.2] and so 
that's why we give you these things at the beginning of the year [0.7] er [0.4] 
so that you can plan the timing of your essay but also [0.5] that you can start 
[0.2] thinking about them [0.4] rather than grab at the last minute [0.3] a 
topic [0.3] that you've got to you know give in in [0.4] two weeks' time or 
whatever it is [0.3] if you try to go into each course [0.4] with an author [0.
9] a theme [0.3] a question [0.2] something or other that you think [0.2] will 
be your point of interest you know what you're really 
interested in [0.4] if you identify that at the beginning of the year [0.7] 
you'd be quite surprised how often [0.3] the conversation in seminars and 
lectures and whatever [0.2] might just sort of cross over [0.3] that theme in a 
way as i say you wouldn't have noticed [0.2] if you hadn't identified [0.3] you 
know your centre of interest first [0.5] and so even though you're not going to 
get more time [0.7] to [0.5] work on that essay [0.7] you can give your mind 
more time [0.5] and you can give that bit of your mind that's most important 
which is [0.2] the less [0.3] conscious the less willed bit of it [1.2] to to 
to you know [0.2] to let it [0.4] get on with that job [0.6] so that's just a 
few thoughts about time management you might as well er er er er er er er [0.2] 
also think as part of time management [0.4] that [0.3] you don't really want to 
be doing that essay at two o'clock [0.6] the night before [0.7] you know it's 
given in [0.7] er it's as well to try to time yourselves to give it a week or 
so beforehand [0.9] so that you can reread it cold [0.7] because one of the 
hardest things curiously enough to do is to 
proofread your own work [1.5] and i remember a [0.2] a retired professor of 
this department some years ago remarking on this [0.4] fact that you work on 
this book [0.5] k-, God knows how many times you know you've read this [0.5] 
typescript you know then it goes off to the publisher and they have 
professional people who go through it [0.2] you know line by line very 
carefully you know and then [0.3] then comes the day when the postman you know 
drops the finished book [0.4] you know through your letter box and you pick it 
up and there is it you [0.3] you open it and there's this stupid typo waving 
and jeering at you and you think [0.2] how did that get there it's the first 
thing that you see when you open the book you see [0.4] er and then you look 
but yes it was there it was there all the way your eye passes over it [0.8] 
because you [0.2] you're reading what you are expecting to read not what's [0.
4] on the page you see [0.3] so [0.3] although it sounds a very simple thing [0.
2] proofread proofreading is actually [0.4] er something you really have to 
concentrate on and 
do cold [0.3] rather than doing it [0.2] while you're still warm with the 
subject [0.2] because the subject will otherwise just read over [0.4] er er er 
what's you know on on the text on the page [0.3] so give yourself some time to 
[0.3] to make sure [0.3] you're coming in [0.2] properly dressed with your 
essay [0.5] okay [0.2] so that it makes the right impact on the er [0.4] er er 
on the reader [1.2] well the other [0.2] i mean that's essay writing [0.4] er 
the other [0.4] thing that we're thinking about this morning is the question of 
scholarly practice [1.0] and [0.6] here what i particularly want to talk about 
is the [0.3] your relation [0.9] to [0.2] things that you read [1.1] while 
you're getting your thoughts together [0.5] for your essay [0.5] you will be 
reading the primary text [0.3] but you'll also be trying to get other kinds of 
historical and scholarly information [0.5] you'll be trying to read around to 
see what kind of [0.3] critical debates you know there have been about this 
question et cetera [0.3] and that's quite right you should be bringing [0.5] er 
a sense of of 
that [0.2] informed background [0.3] to the text that you're reading that that 
is part of the skill [0.9] but [0.8] it's quite a dangerous area it's quite a 
slippery [0.2] area [0.9] and [0.2] what i'm advising you to do is to take very 
careful notes of what you read [0.5] because what's important is to be able to 
distinguish [0.4] what you're saying [0.5] from what [0.3] other people [0.3] 
have said [0.5] if you want to agree with them that's okay [0.4] but you still 
have to indicate [0.3] that that is what you're doing [0.4] you know [0.4] of 
course very often if you're very clear about what other people are saying [0.3] 
it will become clearer to you how you've got your own [0.3] slightly different 
[0.6] take on it [0.2] you know [0.4] and that there would be a perfectly 
legitimate a perfectly good [0.3] kind of undergraduate essay [0.5] that might 
have no very [0.3] personal original [0.3] er slant to it [0.3] but which is a 
very lucid [0.6] a very [0.2] just you know very helpful [0.3] summary of the 
debate [0.6] that's been going on out there that would be a perfectly 
reasonable kind of [0.3] undergraduate essay that would demonstrate a real [0.
4] kind of 
understanding [0.3] you see [0.5] and [0.2] to write that kind of essay of 
course you have to be very clear [0.3] about what all these different people [0.
3] have said and that's why it it's a perfectly legitimate [0.4] kind of essay 
to do [0.4] but you can see that there is the danger [0.8] of [0.2] reading 
things [0.6] or taking notes [0.3] and they all go into a kind of [0.7] soup [0.
3] you know er in your mind and then [0.2] later when it comes to [0.3] er er 
writing your essay you're really sort of taking ladlefuls of this [0.3] soup 
out not quite sure [0.3] where it all came from you know what the [0.4] er what 
the ingredients were you see [0.4] now at this point you begin to get into the 
danger [0.3] of course of what we call [0.2] plagiarism [0.6] which is really 
[0.2] passing off other people's work [0.3] as your own [0.2] you see [0.6] and 
[0.8] of course i do have to say stern words about [0.4] the possibility of 
plagiarism [0.3] it is my belief [0.6] that [0.6] we don't have with you as 
groups of students going through [0.2] a kind of serious problem about [0.4] 
real plagiarism [0.6] er [0.5] er i think that is er that's probably the case 
but it is a 
matter that we have to [0.3] take seriously for everyone's sake and you will 
find that the university [0.3] takes a very serious view of it so that if [0.4] 
someone has [0.8] plagiarized [0.2] an essay [0.4] you know they will be 
treated quite [0.5] severely and [0.2] it it will be zero for the work et 
cetera [0.2] okay and they they do take quite a stern [0.3] view of that [0.2] 
and it's not left really to our judgement there are university [0.3] er rules 
about that so that's the little bit of the [0.3] riot act you see that i need 
to [0.3] make sure that you've er er that you've heard [0.3] but what i'm 
really interested in is that most cases [0.6] of [0.2] what [0.3] might come 
under the heading of plagiarism [0.5] will probably not be [0.3] absolutely 
deliberate cheating [0.8] but may be bad practice [0.7] in terms of presenting 
your work [0.4] and getting lost as to [0.3] what you scribbled out as your own 
notes [0.3] as a kind of draft [0.2] and something that you scribbled out from 
a book [0.4] er you know and then didn't er er er and then lost the reference 
or [0.2] you know it just got [0.4] assimilated to your own and you 
you forgot that it it was someone else's et cetera [0.3] there's this whole 
sort of [0.3] grey area that you have to keep a [0.4] have to keep an eye on 
you see [0.4] so do keep very careful notes on that [0.5] and indicate w-, [0.
5] w-, what you've taken and what you're [0.2] what you're using [0.2] you know 
[0.3] of course as far as [0.8] straight plagiarism goes [1.9] i mean one thing 
about it is that's it's a [1.1] it's a folly [1.1] because [1.5] as strange as 
it may seem to you and incredible though it may seem to you most of the people 
who work in education [0.3] do actually rather like students [0.4] and they're 
rather interested in the subjects that they they do [0.4] and so [0.2] actually 
they're not [0.6] you know they can't be made happier than by you know giving 
you know er er giving you the subject teaching you getting you to understand it 
you see [0.5] but if you [0.4] put yourself in a position [0.3] where you 
isolate yourself from that [0.4] process [0.4] there's nothing they can do 
about it and they don't know about it [0.4] so the person who does as it were 
[0.2] build these defensive [0.2] bulwarks by [0.4] you 
know er plagiarizing essays or whatnot [0.3] has only in a sense [0.2] damaged 
themselves in the first instance you know they've lost the possibility [0.4] of 
er er er er of the tutor [0.3] being able to help them [0.2] and like most 
things in life then of course it becomes a [0.3] a reinforcing [0.4] cycle [0.
3] they would get more and more nervous about really putting them [0.2] selves 
in the hands of the tutor whereas if they'd done that right at the beginning [0.
4] they might have found that it was quite a fruitful [0.3] relation they 
develop more confidence and of course it's becomes [0.5] a virtual cycle you 
know [0.4] so it is a folly because it it it it hurts you first [0.6] but o-, 
but of course it is something more than a folly [0.4] because [0.5] it's a 
crime [0.4] you know as i said [0.3] we have [0.4] regulations and rules [0.3] 
and if you break them [0.2] you know you [0.2] you you have to be punished [0.
5] but er [1.1] more than a crime of course it's a sin [1.1] er [0.5] er 
because a thing may or not be [0.8] illegal under any kind of [0.3] 
jurisdiction [0.5] but a sin is something that [0.2] runs right against and 
damages the values of [0.3] 
everything we're here for [0.3] you know [1.0] in fact it's more than a sin 
it's a dishonour [1.1] er [0.8] because [0.5] not just our subject but the 
whole scholarly community in a certain sense [0.7] works [0.2] on a measure of 
trust [0.5] even in the sciences [0.6] which you think of as hard bench [0.4] 
you know information [0.4] no one actually can go around [0.3] and actually 
test out [0.3] all of the things [0.3] that they have to take in [0.4] when 
they're [0.2] you know developing new [0.4] theories they work in their own 
patch [0.4] and they have in a certain sense [0.2] to trust [0.7] what the 
larger scholarly [0.3] community you know in their [0.3] er er in their area is 
doing [0.8] so it's er [1.0] it it it it's because of that trust that we are in 
a certain sense [0.4] on our honour [0.5] to behave properly in these things [0.
3] and the [0.2] of course the positive way to look at this to put a positive 
spin on it [0.6] is rather to think [0.3] what is the state of the person who 
[0.5] you know who who who who who gets into this frame of mind [0.3] i think 
we're all [0.5] rather [0.6] overcome [0.6] you know by the massive amount 
there is [0.2] to know [0.3] to understand 
we're all like [0.2] er you know Isaac Newton on the [0.4] on the beach there 
thinking of what there was to know this infinite ocean and he was just [0.4] 
picking up the odd stone the odd pebble from the beach you know this is [0.3] 
Isaac Newton you know who was a great figure of the eighteenth century [0.5] 
knowledge that's how he saw it you know let alone any of us coming along you 
see [0.3] so we're it's very easy [0.2] to feel [0.6] psychologically 
overwhelmed you know by what you're doing [0.7] and maybe a kind of fruitful 
image to have er er in relation to the scholarly [0.5] practice is that maybe 
[0.5] you know we're all there to put the odd little brick in the odd little 
stone in the pyramid [0.9] and we can sort of see the whole [0.2] pyramid in 
very rough terms [0.4] but none of us really can build the whole pyramid by 
ourselves [0.7] but what we can do is make sure that that particular stone was 
laid properly [1.4] now what that means in scholarly terms [0.5] is that if you 
are making a claim based on something else [0.3] or passing on a judgement from 
somewhere 
else [0.3] whatever it is that you're putting into the debate or the pyramid [0.
4] you always indicate [0.4] who your source is where you got it from [1.2] and 
then you leave that for the next stone [0.4] to sit on [0.4] as it were [0.5] 
now if someone comes along at a later point and says [0.4] hang on [0.3] 
there's something fishy here because that's how m-, knowledge moves on [0.6] 
you realize that a mistake has been made way down there somewhere [0.7] er [0.
7] and so you go back to try to rethink that but you need the chain you need to 
be able to get back [0.5] so what you leave in place [0.2] is not that you are 
responsible for the whole pyramid [0.3] but you're responsible for your brick 
[0.2] your stone [0.4] you've indicated [0.3] where your sources were [0.3] and 
the next person who comes along who wants to check that out [0.3] can get back 
to that level [0.2] and then that level [0.3] and that level you see what i 
mean [0.5] you see [0.4] and these things [0.7] y-, y-, er you know are just a 
matter of [0.3] as it were getting the right disciplinary practice [1.2] but [0.
2] of course big things can hang on them [0.5] you know there was the 
case of a man called er [0.7] Sir Cyril Burt who was a kind of educational [0.
6] psychologist sort of in the period [0.2] after the war used to study [0.7] 
twins and things and and and and looking at the question of [0.5] intelligence 
and [0.5] development [1.0] and of course there's been a big argument through 
the century [0.4] about to what extent intelligence is [0.3] genetically given 
[0.4] to what extent what we measure as intelligence [0.3] is in fact a fact er 
er er er a response to culture and circumstance [1.1] er [0.5] [0.3] and of 
course this man was working at a time [0.4] when the government was setting up 
[0.2] in this country you know that [0.6] tripartite level if you thought that 
pe-, kids were born [0.5] already intelligent [0.2] then it made sense to scoop 
them out [0.5] and [0.2] stick them in special schools you know twenty per cent 
or so or whatever it was you know [0.4] er [0.3] er that that would make a 
certain amount of sense if you didn't think [0.5] that what you measured as 
intelligence was quite so clearly genetic as that then 
you might [0.3] hesitate about that sort of thing you see [0.4] so [0.3] the 
the the conclusions about this would be quite important but you see there was a 
big scandal about this man i mean it's argued both ways i wouldn't [0.3] take a 
position on that but you see people found [0.4] when they started looking into 
the research [0.4] that you couldn't actually get back [0.4] to the sources [0.
6] the statistics were quoted about research on kids you see and whatnot [0.2] 
but when you actually tried to get back well who was this [0.3] researcher who 
who who who did this and where is the [0.4] evidence they found that it it 
tended to sort of [0.4] run into the sand you see so all kinds of questions 
were then [0.3] thrown up [0.2] about the whole edifice of knowledge and [0.3] 
and judgement that was built up [0.3] there you see [0.3] and none of us know 
[0.3] none of us know really what kind of things [0.2] at some later point are 
going to prove to be important [0.5] but one thing you can do is to go out in 
the world [1.0] properly trained in that kind of internal discipline [0.5] so 
that 
you're responsible [0.4] for your own patch [0.3] okay [0.2] that's really what 
er [0.3] er er [0.2] we're after [0.9] er because in a way you see [0.2] 
although [0.4] intellectual life is often a matter of a debate and opponents 
and arguing with other people [0.8] the most dangerous person around is always 
yourself of course [0.9] er as Cicero said in one of his er er legal orations 
[0.3] men will [0.4] readily believe [0.8] what they wish to be true [0.6] and 
that's what we all do [0.2] you know we're inclined you know to see much more 
force in the evidence [0.3] that supports us [0.3] you know than the evidence 
that doesn't et cetera [0.4] so we need these kind of externally [0.3] acquired 
disciplines [0.3] to protect us not just from the subject and from others [0.2] 
but most importantly [0.3] er from ourselves okay [0.5] but other than that 
despite all my er [0.2] you know er er admonitory tones there [0.2] of course i 
i wish you every success in what you're doing over [0.4] over the next three 
years [0.3] okay [0.2] thank you