Study Skills Lecture 1:
Introduction to the course
Outline
(a complete outline of the lecture is here)
1. Reading English
1.1 We like it
I want to start with the good news. There is something special
about reading English Literature at University. That special
thing is this: you like doing it. Ask any student why they are
reading English and the chances are they will say, because I
like it. Ask any teacher of English, and you will find the same
thing. We like what we are doing. This is unusual in a University
Department. The reason why we like it is because what we study,
the literary texts, were all, without exception, written in order
to give pleasure. That is their special and particular characteristic.
They may also have been written to impart wisdom, or to be beautiful,
or to move the spirit, or to criticise injustice, but if they
didn't give pleasure no-one would have read them and they would
never have got on to the syllabus. We get pleasure from studying
and reading literary texts because that's what they do: they
give pleasure.
1.2 The usefulness of Jane Austen
So this is a nice situation for teachers and students of
literature to be in: we like what we are doing. Now let me tell
you a hard truth. In the cold world outside the University, the
world of jobs and money, no-one will be interested in your thoughts
about Jane Austen. You can study hard and think deeply and write
the best essay on Jane Austen in the history of the English Department,
and get huge personal benefit from this as well as an excellent
mark, but when you're applying for a job, any job apart from
teaching English, no-one will be the least bit interested in
the skill and sensitivity of your thoughts about Jane Austen.
That's not to say that what you learn here, or rather the
changes you will go through as you learn here, are useless in
employment terms. Definitely not. Employers like English graduates
because they are intelligent and articulate and flexible, and
can write and talk and think in interesting and original ways.
They don't on the whole want specialists, because information
flows so fast nowadays that any specialism you may have picked
up at University will probably be out of date by the time you
get a job: what they want is people who are intelligent and flexible
enough to learn the particular specialisms that they need, right
when they need them. And they like Birmingham English graduates
because Birmingham English Department is one of the best English
Departments in the country, so naturally we only take the best
students, ie you. So just by getting in here you already have
a good start in the preparation for the cold world outside the
University.
1.3 Skills
But. Don't get complacent. The job market is hard, and shows
signs of getting harder, and there are thousands of articulate
and flexible English graduates who will graduate at the same
time as you. And you will find that just having those fine qualities
is not enough. You will find that employers as well as not being
interested in Jane Austen will also be very interested in the
following:
- Can you work with other people?
- Can you write a report?
- Can you find out information?
- Can you deliver an effective presentation?
- Can you use the Internet?
- Can you type?
- Are you reliable?
And so on. In other words, they are interested in skills.
Research skills, presentations skills, team working skills, writing
skills. And if you have these skills, and can prove it, there
is no question at all but that you will be more likely to get
a job. And if not? Well, the man who cleans my windows is a University
graduate. He seems happy enough, but I think that's because he
had the choice, and chose to be a window cleaner. We would like
you to have the choice.
We have set up this Study Skills course in order to give
you an opportunity to learn those skills. In the English Course
as a whole you will read widely and deeply, study poets and novelists
and playwrights, and get pleasure and information and maybe even
wisdom from this study, and that is part of the point of the
course. But in the first year, certainly, the main point of the
course is that you should learn skills.
These skills are useful in two ways. One is that they will
make you more employable. The other is that they are all survival
skills for the English Department. If you know how to use a library,
for instance, or to make good notes on a literary text, then
you will do better work than if you don't, and get more, much
more, out of your very very short time here (you will be amazed
at how fast the three years pass: don't waste them). So, having
these skills you will become more articulate, and more resourceful,
and get a better degree, than if you didn't have them; and for
that reason too you will have a better chance in the job market.
Which is where we came in.
1.4 Motivation
So there is your motivation for doing this course. It will
improve your life and bring you happiness. Ok, that's a joke,
but I mean it too. This course will benefit you greatly, but
only if you have a really strong motivation to do it, if you
apply yourself to it, if you learn the skills. We can't give
you that, the motivation, the application. You have to give yourselves
that. I really strongly advise that you do.
What I'm going to do now is to locate this course in the
context of the first year literature course, to begin with, so
that you can see where it fits.
2. Study Skills in the First
Year English Literature Course
2.1: The Tutorial course
The English Literature Course in the first year (I'm not
now talking about any Language component, just the Literature
section) is divided into three parts. At the centre is the tutorial
course, Texts in Contexts. In that, you learn to read literary
texts, and and to relate them to other literary texts. It's the
centre because what you do in it, the encounter with the literary
text, is the centre, the crucial defining activity, of the English
Department. The best way you can find out how to do this encounter
with literature is by doing it: by reading and preparing for
a seminar, and then, in the seminar, by doing it out loud: talking
about literary texts; and then, still in the seminar, by writing
essays about it and getting feedback on those essays. So that
is why that course is taught by a seminar, known as a tutorial:
one small discussion group, usually of nine students, meeting
once a week.
2.2 The Theories and Methodologies Lectures
The second part of the course is the Theories and Methodologies
Lectures. They are about different ways of reading literary texts.
The Marxist way, the feminist way, the Freudian way, the deconstructionist
way, and so on. The best way to learn about them is to observe
someone who knows a particular reading-method well, in the act
of applying it to a literary text. So that's why this is a lecture
course. If the lecture is good, and the method interests you,
you can follow up the reading list that each lecturer will give
you, learn the method, and apply it in your reading and in discussion
in the Tutorial course.
2.3 The Study Skills Course
The third part of the course is the Study Skills section:
the full title is Independent Study and Study Skills (Literature).
In this you learn skills: essentially research and presentation
skills. The best way to learn research is to do research. In
fact, that's the only way to learn it. That is why this is an
independent study course. You will have help--guidance--from
these lectures, from your tutor, from handouts and fact sheets
and even web pages, but the core activity of the course is not
sitting in a lecture room listening, or sitting in a seminar
room discussing: it is sitting in a library or in front of a
computer, finding out: reading. Here you learn how to learn,
how to organise what you have learned into knowledge, how to
report that knowledge in written or spoken form. What could be
more important?
So having put the course in context, I'm going to describe
it in some detail, so that you (I hope) fully understand what
it involves.
3. Study Skills in detail
3.1 The Study Skills Projects
Specialists in the English Department staff have prepared
a number of different Study Skills Projects. These each define
a possible area of study. Having done that, they suggest the
kind of questions you might ask in studying that particular field
or area, and give you some idea as to how to set about doing
research in that area. Your Tutorial tutor will select one of
these research projects, the one that they feel happiest about
guiding you through, and that will be the one that you will be
working on this semester. I'm not going to go into all the projects
in detail here, because it would be a waste of time: you will
each only be doing one, and your tutor is going to go through
that one with you very carefully. But to give you an idea of
what they are like, here, briefly, is a summary of one.
It's called "The consumption of War since 1945."
It "asks students to investigate aspects of the production
and reception of 'war literature' in recent decades, with questions
like the following suggested for consideration:
how is the enemy depicted in war fiction?
who reads it?
why is there such a strong market for it?
is the market growing?
Some of the several suggested activities are:
Investigating popular genres of war, like the blockbuster.
Each student might go into his/her local Oxfam and choose any
one of the vast number of popular war novels on the shelves,
and then pool knowledge in discussion to see what ... this material
has in common. ... How does the popular war novel of 1990 differ
from that of 1950? How do newspaper accounts of particular events
differ from fictional accounts. How do different media -- film,
television, cartoon, war games -- differ in their depiction of
war?
And so on. I hope this has given you a flavour of this rich
topic, and the sort of things you can do with it.
3.2 The First Study Skills meeting
You will have a preliminary extra meeting of your tutorial
group, with your regular tutorial tutor, outside the normal tutorial
hour: this is the first Study Skills meeting. It will normall
take place near the beginning of term; many of you will already
have had that meeting. The tutor will divide you into groups
of (usually) three. He or she will give you the project, discuss
it with you, make any helpful suggestions they can think of about
it, talk to you about how to organise the tasks, and then send
you off to work.
3.3 Small group work
What work? Your job is to do this. First, most important,
you fix a time with the other two people in your subgroup of
three as to when you are going to meet. Just the three of you,
without any teacher present. Next, in that meeting, as a group,
you have to think of a topic in the area of the project. This
can be a question, or a title. You can choose to work on one
of the questions or titles suggested in the Project paper, or
you can choose one of your own. You make this choice collectively:
that is important. Having done that, you share the work. You
work out how you're going to work together, who is going to do
what, and what is going to be done. Then you start searching
for information, and reading, and making notes. And meeting,
in your group of three, unsupervised, to report on work done,
share knowledge, and work out where to go next.
3.4 The presentation
What are you working towards? At the end of the semester,
before Christmas, you will make a presentation. The whole tutorial
group will meet, and each of the subgroups of three will present
the results of their research in the form of a group presentation,
in turn. Each presentation will last 30 minutes. I will say more
about this later in the lecture.
3.5 How much work?
How much work should you do? This is an important question.
There are two kinds of students doing this course. One is Single
Honours students who are specialising in literature (known as
Single Honours mode 1). The other is Single Honours students
who have chosen to do a mixed language and literature course
(Single Honours mode 2), who therefore do less literature, and
Joint Honours, who also do less literature, for obvious reasons.
The tutorial group you are in will consist only of one or the
other the other kind of student.
We think it's important that you all should do some of this
Study Skills work, and acquire these skills, but the structure
of your courses means that logically those specialising in Literature,
the Single Honours mode 1 group, should do more. Since the work
of the course is independent study, it follows naturally that
this is reflected in the amount of independent study that you
do.
Here is the guideline: Single Honours mode 1 are expected
to do about 13 hours a week of reading, meeting, discussing,
in the Study Skills course. Single Honours mode 2 and Joint Honours
are expected to do about 7 hours a week. Now, remember, this
is independent study. You are expected to be independent. No-one
will be checking up on you. If you do more, or less, than the
expected hours, on average, per week, that is entirely up to
you. If you do more, you will learn more. If you do less, you
will learn less. If you do too much more it will interfere with
the other work you have to do. If you do much too much less it
will show up in your assessment, and you will fail the course.
But for the most part all that will happen is that you will have
wasted an opportunity. Learned less. Lost out. This course is
about independent study, and one of the skills of independent
study is time management.
Now, this is a lot of time. 3 students per group, 13 hours
work each, amounts to 39 hours a week. You can get a lot done
in that time. This is intended to be a really substantial project,
particularly for the Single Honours mode 1 students; we think
that the experience you will get, the really deep knowledge of
the subject, will be extraordinarily valuable for your later
work in the English Department, over and above the value of the
skills you will learn.
3.6 The second tutor meeting
You will have another meeting with your tutor, normally in
week six, just before Reading Week. Each group will describe
the topic they have chosen and the work they have done so far,
and ask for any help, guidance, answers to questions, that they
need. If there's time this will also be a good opportunity for
your tutor to talk to you about essay writing, since you will
be heading for your first tutorial essay.
3.7 The third tutor meeting
Some time towards the end of the semester there will be a
final Study Skills meeting with your tutor. Your work should
by now be more or less complete. Now is a final chance to ask
questions, but what will be more on your minds will be the assessment:
the presentations; and you will be wanting to sort out details
of how to do presentations, what hardware you are going to use,
which order you are going to present in, and so on.
3.8 Next semester
Next semester, the whole process is repeated again: you have
a different tutor, who will choose a different Study Skills Project,
but you will stay in the same tutorial group. You will again
work in subgroups of that group, but the difference is that by
the end of the semester you will produce an essay, done individually,
but arising from the group research. In other words, one essay
each.
Ok, so that's what you have to do. But, how are you going
to learn the skills that you need to do it? Well, from the Study
Skills lectures. I will now introduce these lectures, in terms
of the skills that they will describe.
4. Lectures and Skills
4.1 Working in groups
We ask that you work in small groups of three for particular
reasons. One reason is that the discussion in those small groups
will be freer and more flexible than in the large groups, and
students often find this extremely valuable. But the main reason
is that employers complain that Universities are good at turning
out people who can work by themselves, but that this is not what
most employers want. Most jobs are team jobs. They want team
workers, not individual geniuses. People who know how to collaborate,
to help each other and rely on each other. This is where you
learn that skill. In the third lecture, Ros McCulloch will be
talking about how to do this. We are extremely fortunate to have
Ros doing this lecture, because that is precisely her area of
expertise: she is an educationist. She comes from an English
Literature background, but what she does is teach people how
to learn, how to present, how to teach. She is an expert.
4.2 Making presentations.
If you go for almost any white collar job nowadays you will
find that as well as the individual interview, you will have
to make a presentation. Now, this is a real presentation, where
you are trying to sell something, namely yourself. To convince
someone of your fitness for the job. Reading out a prepared essay,
in a monotone, not projecting, too quietly, or too fast, or incomprehensibly,
will not sell anything or convince anyone. Presenting is a specific
skill. You vitally need it. Ros can teach it, and will be doing
so, in her lecture. This is another part of her field of expertise.
4.3 Library skills
In order to do this work you need a library, in fact libraries;
they are where you go first to find things out. The big building
on the West side of the campus has nearly two million books in
it, and is only one of the libraries that are on campus: there's
also a law library, and a medical library, and an education library,
any of which may be useful to you. Then there is the excellent
Birmingham Central library--and on, and on. You need to know
about these places, how to use them, what they have in them:
this is essential. Marie-Pierre Detraz is a trained Librarian.
She will be lecturing on Libraries. They are something she really
knows a lot about.
4.4 Essay writing
You will notice that there's no lecture on essay writing
in this lecture set. That's because the essay part of the Study
Skills course is right at the end of the year, and there's not
much point giving you a lecture now in the hope that you will
remember it until then. But, in the English Department handbook,
there is, as well as much else of use and note, a very good section
on how to write essays, and I recommend that you read it. I also
have done an essay on writing essays, and many students have
found this useful: you can find it on my web site. How do you
get on to my web site? That brings me to the next section: computers.
4.5 Computers
Computers, as you may have noticed, rule the world. I.T.
is it. You must have noticed. Feeling comfortable with using
a computer is now a totally necessary qualification for any form
of interesting employment. It's as simple as that. And, too,
there's a particular use of computers that you may well also
have heard of: it's called the World Wide Web. The Web is now
the biggest library on the planet, much more accessible than
any other library: for instance, you can search for any combination
of words in it. Incredible. The whole thing, billions of words,
is indexed. Where is it? Everywhere. You're looking at it, for
instance. You need to know about it. I will be giving you a lecture
on it.
4.7 How to be a complete idiot
Now, this is important: unlike every other lecturer on this
course, I am not, repeat not, an expert. The technical term for
computer expert is geek. This is a geek [picture
of Bill Gates]. Geeks are very highly trained, create intellectual
structures in their heads so complex that I can't even imagine
them, live on pizza and Jolt Cola, and own the world. I am not
a geek. But, I use computers every day, I am really comfortable
with them, do all sorts of things with them, and love them dearly.
I even teach people how to use them. I have never ever been trained
in IT. I have no qualifications. I am not an expert. How come?
The answer is very simple. People who write computer programs
(the geeks) don't write them for other geeks. They used to, but
they don't any more. Why not? Because there's no money in it.
Not enough geeks to go round. The people they want to sell the
programs to are the complete idiots, because there are such a
lot of them; so they write programs that complete idiots can
understand. Like me. There's even a series of computer manuals
especially for us, Windows 95 for Complete Idiots, Excel for
Complete Idiots, and so on. They sell in millions and millions.
That's me: I am a complete idiot. And I can make a computer do
pretty well anything I want.
Oddly enough, not many people know this about computers.
It's a secret. So, many people are frightened of them, because
they think you have to be a geek in order to work them. 10 year
old children, however, are not frightened, because they don't
know what a geek is, nor do they care; that's why 10 year olds
are so good with computers. If a 10 year old comes across a program
that they don't understand, or that intimidates or frustrates
them, what do they say? They say, this program is stupid. They
think it's the program's fault. If someone over 16 comes across
the same thing, a program that frustrates them, what do they
say? They say, I am stupid, and get very depressed. They think
it's their fault. They are wrong, and the kids are right: it's
the program 's fault.
So 10-year old kids, are, in this sense, like me, complete
idiots. They know the secret. And so do you, now. So in future
you will all be very comfortable with computers, because you
know the secret. Just go and fool around with them and see what
happens. If you find you feel intimidated or puzzled, this must
mean that the program has been badly designed. Complain. "Excuse
me, this program doesn't seem to have been written for complete
idiots." Well, you may not want to say that. "Excuse
me, this program appears to have been written for geeks. I am
not a geek. Fix it." (note) Or,
if you want to be technical, you can say: there is a serious
problem with the user interface in this program. That should
do the trick.
4.8 Getting on the Web
And this is what I want you to do, right at the beginning
of the Study Skills course. I want you to go and get yourselves
on to the World Wide Web, and fool around with it. The best place
to start is the Library, because there are computers there, plus
people who can help you. If you have any trouble getting started,
ask a librarian. Find your way to the English Web site, and you
will see lots of information that you will find very useful.
Just do it: get on the Web. It's very easy.
In the final part of this lecture I want to give you a skill.
It's a vital skill, without which you can't get very far in the
English Department, which is why we're giving it to you right
at the beginning. It's called note-taking.
5. Note taking
5.1 What students in English do: interpretation and evaluation
To begin with, let me tell you what your essential job is
as a student in the English Department. This is very very important.
This is the basic reason why you are here. You really should
listen to this.
The thing that a student of English must do is to collect,
in the next three years, a large number of small chunks of information.
These chunks are the currency of the Department: collect enough,
of the right quality, and you will become rich. What are these
chunks like? Well, in the English Department, we work with literary
texts, or books about literary texts, and we do two kinds of
operation to them: we do interpretation, and we do evaluation.
When it comes right down to it, we look at literary texts and
ask two questions: we say, how good is it, and what's it about?
That's all. That's what we do.
5.2 Chunk = quote + idea
So a chunk is going to consist of two things. First, it's
going to be part of a literary text, or a text about literary
texts: it's going to be a quotation. Second, it's going to be
a thought about that quotation. The thought will be, this is
good, or this is not so good, or this is bad, because... In other
words, evaluation. Or it will be, what this actually means is...
Interpretation. A chunk is a quote plus an idea, and the idea
is either an interpretation or an evaluation.
Note-taking is nothing more, and nothing less, than the collecting
and storing away of chunks. This is what literary criticism is.
Not just reading, which is what everyone does, but criticising:
having critical thoughts about texts. You must learn to criticise
literature, and you must learn to criticise the critics of literature;
and this is how you do it, by collecting chunks.
5.3 Quote + reference
Here is something extremely important about the quotation
part of the chunk. It must have a map reference. You must know
where you found it. This is for two reasons: one is, because
you will need to find it again if the quote is useful, to check
that you've copied it correctly, or to check the context. The
other is, that the map-reference is what distinguishes the quote
from an idea. An idea is original; a quote is not. Never, ever,
get the two mixed up. It's surprisingly common for students to
copy out quotations from a critical text in the second or first
year, and not bother to reference them. Then they find the notes
in the third year, read the quotes, and mistake them for original
ideas. They think, my God, was I that talented in those days,
copy out the unreferenced quotes, and serve them up as their
own ideas in an essay, expecting huge approval. In fact what
they get is a huge penalty, because this is indistinguishable
from cheating: plagiarism. Stealing someone else's ideas. There
is an excellent section on plagiarism in the English Department
handbook, and I really recommend you read it more than once.
And, always reference your quotes: write down which page of which
copy of which book you got them from.
5.4 Reading interactively
How do you collect chunks? Mainly, by reading books. Listen:
you must always read with a pen or a pencil in your hand. Always.
You must always read actively, never passively. If you slip,
even for a moment, into passive reading, you might skip over
a quote, lose an idea, miss out on a chunk. Chunks are valuable.
When you come to write an essay, if you have a nice collection
of chunks, you will have no problem at all, it will be a pleasure.
If your chunk store is minimal, you will be in a lot of pain.
Chunks are currency: multiply them.
5.5 No short cuts
So, you read, and as you read a thought occurs to you in
connection with some part of the text. Do this. One: copy out
the section of text. Two: reference it. You now have a quote.
Three: write out the thought. You now have a chunk. It's as simple
as that. But: never miss out on any of those three activities.
The ego is a lazy organism, and you will be surprised at how
ingenious it is at finding reasons for you not to read interactively.
It will suggest for instance that you underline the quote, and
come back afterwards, and write out the thought then. In order
not to disturb the flow of reading, it will say, seductively;
in order to locate your thought in the context of the whole book,
it will suggest, as if it cared. Don't do it: believe me, don't
do it. I've been caught like that many times. For one thing,
there is a special, unpleasant, section of the afterlife reserved
for those who write in books, even their own books. For another,
when, or in fact if, you come back to complete the chunk, you
will have lost the idea. You'll end up holding a pile of quotes
with no thoughts: half-chunks, quite useless. No: write down
the quote, reference it, write down the thought. This is the
work: this is what you are here to do.
5.6 The shorthand notebook
The best way to do it is to get hold of a simple, and cheap,
shorthand notebook. The great thing about these bits of information
technology is that they cost pennies, have an infinite battery
life, and weigh almost nothing. You can, and should, carry your
shorthand notebook everywhere. Everywhere. You should never be
separated from it, because a thought might occur to you at any
point. If so, you should drop whatever you are doing, whatever
it is, however compelling or intimate, and write down your thought.
After that, you can go back to whatever you were doing.
It's a very good idea to write down one chunk per page of
your notebook. That way, you can remove the pages from the notebook
and shuffle them, in order to organise your ideas.
5.7 Other kinds of notes
And that's it: that is note taking. There are other kinds
of note taking. Sometimes, quite rarely, it is useful to summarise
a book as you read it, if it's a complex theoretical work that
you want to get into your head. But it may, as Dr Johnson said,
be better to read it twice. When you're in a lecture it's a good
idea to do summary notes, because you can't normally go back
to a lecture to reread it, and you will forget. But the main
note taking activity is in the collection of chunks, and I advise
you to start doing it straight away.