A Question on Academic Creativity and Convention

Some academic fields have become like a factory that produces same style, same format of argument.  As soon as anything is not written that style, examiners and so called senior colleagues in the field fail to show the vigillity and creativity to find clues to read things that are non-conventional.  It seems that they have been so protected and pampered that everything has to suit what they want.  Ironical as it is, they are still the centre of power.  No wonder every generation it takes a certain rebellious nerves ( which later honoured as genius when their work discovered and claimed as bla-bla-bla…..).  Ironical is that they said they set originality as one of the criteria for PhD thesis, but they those on the panels are sometimes the murderer of originality when originality also means creativity that is so against their reading habit and convention.  They never try hard enough to understand but simple assume they will understand given that they are the experts.  But it occurs that they don’t understand, they wouldn’t admit (and they have lost the ability to recognize) that the problem could be on their side instead of their junior colleague.

Chinese Phonology and Palaeography

Feeling inadequate! That’s a good and a bad thing at the same time. Good. Because you will then try to equip yourself. Bad. You don’t have the confidence in what you are writing especially when you are doing a Phd.

One area of my thesis is Yijing. When I told some Chinese studies experts that my thesis is about Yijing. They all look stunned. Maybe what they said in their mind is that 唔知死! (Don’t know that death is!) And then when I told them I wanted to compare it with Pauline theology and read them from a pastoral and experiential perspective. Then they turned speechless! Maybe they thought: are you out of your mind. Are you ignorant or simply naive or what?

Now there is a chance to back up my background for doing a related study of Yijing research: old Chinese phonology and palaeography in Oxford. What a good opportunity and it is all sponsored.
But is phonology and what is palaeography, if you don’t know (just like me). Look up in wiki! which I have already linked up. The studies in these two areas are also related to philology.

A Checklist of revision

As now I am beginning to do a more serious revision of my draft, I am glad to encounter Mabbett’s list as quoted below. This is for my own use, serving as a reminder.

The following list is taken from I.W. Mabbett, Writing History Essays: A Student’s Guide (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 126-27.

Uses of sources

Evidence properly identified and distinguished from interpretation or judgment

All evidence properly documented

Authority for interpretations or judgments properly acknowledged

Best available evidence consulted, especially primary sources. Internet sources used only if relatble as academic authority or useful primary source evidence.

Authorities’ judgments or interpretations not treated as if they were fact

No paraphrase of authorities of authorities’ words except where unavoidable in brief statements of factual evidence

No copying out of authorities’ words except in properly set out quotations

Quotations aptly chosen to exploit primary sources or identify interpretations to be discussed

Quotations properly set out, documented and integrated into syntax of text

Allusions properly explained

Construction

Proper introduction setting out plan of attack

Ambiguous terms or concepts analysed where appropriate

Stages of argument clearly signalled to the reader

Concluding section showing how question has been answered

Format and Presentation

Full title at the beginning

Length within prescribed limits

Legibility, attractive layout

Page format (with adequate margins, page numbers, indented paragraphs)

Footnotes

All material evidence documented

No strings of ibids reflecting scissors-and-paste construction

Footnotes all citing sources you have actually inspected, not seen cited elsewhere

Citation format exactly as prescribed, and giving adequate information for verification (including place and date of publication, initials, etc.)

All data in the prescribed order (e.g. initials first)

Unwanted date not included

Exact page numbers given

Abbreviations properly used (op. cit., ibid., etc.)

Bibliography

Bibliography well laid out, surnames first

All prescribed data included in right sequence

Annotations supplied, with comment on use made of each item, not on how good you think it is; especially, justify use of any Internet sites.

For English Expression

Punctuation

Apostrophes properly used

Commas properly used

Full stops, capitalization, semi-colons as required

Italics for titles of publications and foreign terms

Spelling

Avoidance of words that are correctly heard and applied but wrongly spelled

Avoidance of mis-formed words

Avoidance of mis-spellings caused by contamination of homophones or similar words

Grammar

Agreement of number, gender

Consistency of tense

Parallel construction

Properly constructed clauses

Properly formed sentences with main verbs

Style and Vocabulary

Abbreviations not used

Note form not used

Colloquialisms not used

No woolly, pompous sentences that say nothing important

Every sentence expressed as simply as possible

All words used accurately with full knowledge of their meaning; no Malapropisms

No use of prejudicial, tendentious language

寫作句子層次分明

思維層次須分明，句子結構必相隨。張冠不能李來戴，追根究底各歸魂。

10 Your Essay

9 Your thought about the problems of understanding your sources

8 Problems of interpretation raised by the secondary and tertiary sources

7 Secondary and tertiary sources

6 The ideas of the writers of the secondary and tertiary sources

5 Problems of interpretation raised by the primary sources

4 Primary sources – documentary evidence

3 Observations of events from which primary sources come

2 Historical events and behaviour

1 Causes of historical events, motives of behaviour

The chart provided by I.W. Mabbett, Writing History Essays: A Student’s Guide (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 102.

Some Confusions In Sentences not Because English is Poor, but because….

“Errors may result from unclear thought or from ignorance. Those that result from unclear thought constitute a large proportion of all sorts that history students make. If the underlying thought in an essay is confused, the confusion will work through into the choice of words, the grammar, the punctuation, and all aspects of the style.

It is for this reason that, in drafting, you need to examine every sentence that gives you the slightest qualm, asking yourself exactly what is the thought behind it. What are the things about which the sentence is talking, and what exactly are the relationships between those things? What sorts of things are they anyway? – people in the past, or things written a long time ago about people in the past, or books about the things written about people in the past? Sometimes, when you can get these categories and relationships straight, the problems of style and grammar may solve themselves.

Thus it happens very often that a student will write clumsy and ill-expressed sentences, with various errors of English in them, not really because of any intractable ignorance of the principles of English expression, but simply because of confusion about subject matter.”

I.W. Mabbett, Writing History Essays: A Student’s Guide (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 101.

Something About Conclusion

“… Do not offer a dry repetition of things you have already said. Do not plod laboriously through all the stages of an argument that should anyway have been clear enough on the way through; your summary should be revelation rather than repetition. You may want to recapitulate briefly the essential points from what has been gone before, but chiefly you will wish to show, not what has already been spelled out, but where it has now all led. Show how all of what precedes was necessary in order to be able to give a satisfactory answer. Try to distil the essence of your argument in a way that adds at least one final thought – a thought that grows out what you have just been saying without repeating it, and which makes the last neat link with the original question in the title.”

I.W. Mabbett, Writing History Essays: A Student’s Guide (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 100.

What About Quotation?

Mabbett has a good reminder for inexperienced researcher who is tempted to do quotation and finds it irresistibly the best way to support his or her argument. See what Mabbett says,

“… you should not want to quote something just because it is important, or even because it is well-expressed in a book. There is no need to quote anything, generally, unless you wish to discuss the actual sentences you quote (italic his). Two main cases of this are: (a) in primary sources, words which in themselves constitute evidence to be discussed, and (b) in secondary sources, words which are debatable (italic his) at points which matter to your argument, especially where you compare one author’s judgments with another’s.” I.W. Mabbett, Writing History Essays: A Student’s Guide (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 69-70..

Oops! Am I not doing the same thing: a big chunk of quotation. Strictly speaking, I am doing note taking instead of writing an essay; thus it’s okay to do this here.

An Example of Pseudo-Academic

常有人提起所謂的假學術，到底那是甚麼意思呢？

Mabbett提供了一個假想的文章，用來說明那種無謂挑戰某些權威專家的看法的例子，乍看起來好像很學術，事實不然。讀起來很有趣。

Acton alleges that William the Conqueror invaded England in 1066. This may well be true, but he does not give any footnote for it and I have been unable to make any independent assessment of his evidence. It is true that some other historians such as Smith (footnote) and Jones (footnote) mention the same thing, but it may be significant that they were writing later than Acton, and were perhaps uncritically repeating what Acton had said. We need to take into account the possibility that Acton was biased. Perhaps his family was of partly Norman descent. At all events, we should not accept claims like this without better evidence than he has given us. [Footnote can be imagined.] I.W. Mabbett, Writing History Essays: A Student’s Guide (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 45.

以上這段落，有趣的是口吻、語氣、文字完全模仿了所謂一般學術討論風格，但卻在一個自己沒有新證據，也無法真找出自己挑難之對象之證據之「確實」問題何在的情況之下，大言對方論述有問題。

Learning How to Write and Argue

Differentiate one’s data/source/evidence/fact and one’s opinion/interpretation/argument, and then show that whether you agree with the latter or not. If yes, why? If not, why? Are there any ways to interpret/argue to the same given data/source/evidence/fact? What existing arguments/interpretations available in other scholars’ works? Are they based on the same data et cetera? What other data and evidence, et cetera, you make yourself available? Do these discoveries help you to come with different arguments?

Ditch IT

這就叫忍痛割愛！

“There are times in the research of every essay when you find yourself collecting material that is interesting and so closely argued that you find it difficult not to take notes from all of it, particularly when it’s relevant to the wider implications of the topic. But if it’s not relevant to the problems raised in this essay, ditch it! File it away for other essays, by all means, but don’t let it tempt you in this essay. Otherwise it will lose focus and the reader will fail to understand what you’re doing and why.”

Bryan Greetham, How to Write Better Essays, 2nd Ed. (Hamsphire: MacMillan, 2008), 7.