ASSIGNMENT and DISSERTATION TIPS
(Tagg’s Tips
version 5, November 2003)
NB This is the unformatted HTML version
This version does not differ substantially from version 4 (2001): only minor alterations, corrections and updates have been effectuated. Pages are renumbered and cross-references updated.
The PDF version is produced only for US ‘Letter’ size paper. To obtain a decent print-out of that PDF file on A4 paper, please follow the suggestions at http://tagg.org/infoformats.html#PDFPrinting
Introduction
(Online version 5, November 2003)
Why this booklet?
This text was originally written for students at the Institute of Popular Music at the University of Liverpool. It has, however, been used by many outside that institution.
The aim of this document is to address recurrent problems that many students seem to experience when writing essays and dissertations. Some parts of this text may initially seem quite formal, perhaps even trivial or pedantic. If you get that impression, please remember that communicative writing is not the same as writing down communicative speech.
When speaking, you use gesture, posture, facial expression, changes of volume and emphasis, as well as variations in speed of delivery, vocal timbre and inflexion, to communicate meaning. None of these means of expression are at your disposal on the written page. You have to compensate for this lack of paralinguistic expression. Such compensation entails taking care to spell correctly, to punctuate your text into a state of comprehensibility, and to provide your text with an understandable structure and sense of direction. You may well know what you mean by what you write: the problem is that unless what appears on paper can be interpreted as the same thing in the reader’s mind, there will be a communication breakdown.
The object of this text is therefore to help improve communicative skills in essay and dissertation writing. Of course, it is more important to write with enthusiasm than to be inhibited by rules of punctuation, layout and grammar. However, with all the enthusiasm and best will in the world you will fail to get your message across to readers if your writing is clumsy, ambiguous, incomprehensible or peppered with errors. This booklet is supposed to help, not hinder, your chances of communicating your thoughts in writing. Good ideas mediocrely presented may well be preferable to mediocre thoughts in a pleasant linguistic package, but good ideas well presented are invariably a relief to read, sometimes even a joy. Your readers — and that does not just mean those who mark what you write at university — will be happier if they can quickly and easily understand what you write.
Job prospects
Another important reason behind this booklet is the incontrovertible fact that you are more likely to succeed in many jobs if you write well than if you write badly.
Imagine, for example, that your job requires you to carry out one of the following tasks:
w you need to apply for financing to cover the costs of upgrading your community arts centre’s MIDI sequencing facilities;
w the TV production company for which you currently work demands that you explain why the string pads on your old synthesiser aren’t good enough and why you have to hire sixteen professional string players to complete the successful recording of your film score;
w you have to convince an important A&R representative for a large foreign record company why he/she should sign the local band you currently manage;
w you have to invite a well-known figure to talk at your college or to perform at a concert you are organising;
w your application for an interesting job — at a music college, in a media corporation, in arts administration or whatever — has to include a personal statement of your skills, abilities and interests;
w in order to advance in your job you have to produce an annual report on your own, or on your department’s, activities.
If any of these tasks were to be discussed face to face at a meeting and you turned up in flip-flops and nylon shorts, you would not be taken seriously, especially if you went on to swear like a trooper, mumble incoherently or utter erratic statements without respecting the views of your interlocutors. By the same token, you will not be taken seriously by your readers if your written language is bad, unclear, opinionated or too colloquial. Nor will the impression you create be improved by messy layout, clumsy sentences, bad spelling and punctuation any more than your sartorial elegance was enhanced by donning flip-flops and nylon shorts for board meetings. This manual should help you out of any scribal flip-flops or nylon shorts you might own and provide you with linguistic attire more appropriate to the tasks listed in the bullet points above. In fact, two more points need to be added to the list. Imagine, for example that:
w you have to write several essays and a couple of dissertations as part of your university degree course;
w you have to leave university with a decent degree in order to have a chance of following the career path that interests you.
These last two points, as well as the six which preceded them, make it clear that you are well advised to read this manual if you are at all unsure about your writing skills.
Fundamental reasons
Although the reasons just presented for improving your writing skills may be convincing — they certainly can’t be accused of being narrowly academic —, it is quite sad that they have to be stated at all, not so much because those reasons ought to be obvious to anyone of average intelligence as because they sound like a threat: ‘if you don’t write properly it’ll be your own funeral’, so to speak. Whatever validity such a threat may own, I personally find a stick much less motivating than a carrot. True, you have a better chance of a better job if your writing skills are good, but there is much more to writing — and to life — than that.
It is, frankly, more fun to be understood and respected than misunderstood and ignored, even ridiculed. Just as the ability to make music in more than one style enriches your music-making, just as being able to converse in a foreign language means that you can get to know more people and be exposed to more ideas, the ability to write also expands your communicative horizons. If it’s fun to communicate with others through music, then knowing how to wield the pen or computer keyboard ought also to be fun. It’s a all question of personal empowerment.
How to use this manual
w Everyone should read sections 1-5 and sections 8-12.
w If you are unsure about punctuation, read §6, p.36, ff.
w If you are unsure about abbreviations, read §7, p.53, ff.
Otherwise, this is a reference manual with a detailed index. To find out, for example, how to deal with e.g. and i.e., or with its and it’s, or with capitals, bibliographies, footnotes, abbreviation, planning an assignment, etc., look up the subject, problem, procedure, word, or abbreviation you want to find out about by using the index at the end of the manual. Then turn to the relevant page and read the relevant section.
Typographical conventions
The following typeface conventions are peculiar to this booklet:
This is the typeface for example text.
This is a quotation passage within an example text.
This is a bibliographical entry example.
® This is a bullet point, usually in a list of examples.
This is normal text.
w This is a bullet point in the normal text.
O This is an example of acceptable writing.
N And this egg sample ov right in, dunarf suk.
& This is a statement by currant US precedent, George W Bush.
´ This is a very important rule, point or concept.
This text is also important.
Optional text is placed in square brackets, thus: [optional text].
§ means ‘section’ or ‘paragraph’ number. For example, §6.5.2.1 should be about initial adverbial markers (see table of contents).
The phonetic anomalies of standard UK English (Southern/official/’BBC’) are set out as follows according to the International Phonetic Alphabet.
AŤ ah!, harp, bath, laugh, half ç hot shot, what, want
Q hat, cat oŤ or, oar, awe, war, more, all, for, four
aI eye, I, my, fine, high, hi-fi oI toy boy, coil
aU down, about ´ about, better, circumspect, correction, currant, current, her, colour, fir, fur, fuel, liar, lyre, terrific, tutor, measure
D the, that, clothing, breathe
dZ jazz, general, congenial, age ´U no, know, toe, toad, cold, whole
E help, better, measure, leisure S shirt, station, champagne
EŤ air, bear, bare, there tS church, itch
EI date, day, wait, station T think, throw, nothing, cloth
I it, minute, complement, pretend Đ but, luck, won, colour
iŤ sees, seas, seize, Fiji uŤ boot, cool, rule, rude
I´ hear, here, beer, pier U foot, look, bush, put
N singing, sync-ing, think, gong Z genre, derision, measure, seizure, mirage
: = this syllable is stressed Ť = this vowel is long
1 Formal practicalities
1.1 Crucial points
1. Use the appropriate cover sheet and fill in the details properly.
Using a cover sheet aids identification of details necessary for filing and retrieving your work. It also provides you with a receipt that your work and its appendices, including accompanying recordings, have been duly submitted.
2. Use only A4 (210 x 297 mm) or only ‘Letter’ size paper (215.9 x 279.4 mm).
One single paper size facilitates filing, carrying, storage, etc.
3. Write on one side of the paper only.
Your text might need to be photocopied and it is much easier to copy text written on one side than on both.
4. Put your name and the course code at the top of each page. Since pages can get separated it is essential to know which page belongs to which essay, by which student on which course.
5. Number all pages. Pages can get separated and it is a waste of time having to reread page turns in an effort to piece together the intended order.
6. Use a word processor or desktop publisher. We are, after all, living in the twenty-first century. Besides, poor handwriting severely impedes comprehension. If writing by hand, use a pen with black ink: so that your work is photocopiable, and so that you can distinguish more easily any comments (usually in red or blue) made by whoever marks your work. Never use a pencil or coloured pens.
7. Copy your work before submitting it.
If you do not have your work on disk, photocopy it. Texts have been known to get lost in the increasing amounts of paper teachers are expected to deal with under the brave new bureaucracy of university ‘management’. If your work is on hard disk or on a server make sure you have a backup copy on an external carrier, e.g. diskette, CD-ROM, zip drive, removable hard-drive.
8. Leave proper margins, especially on the left. Text obscured by a binding mechanism cannot be read. Sufficient margin, both left and right, also allows the marker to enter comments and is much easier to read.
9. Leave some blank space between each written line to facilitate the marker’s insertion of comments (e.g. an extra 6 points if writing in a 12-point font).
10. Do not submit your text in a plastic pockets.
It is time-consuming for markers to extract every single piece of paper from plastic pockets in order to make notes or comments on your work. It is also time-consuming to have to put each sheet back. Instead, bind your sheets of paper together in a way so that the marker can write comments on them. Staplers are useful binding tools.
11. Do not submit original hard copy if you wish it to be returned with no comments written on it in ballpoint pen.
12. Leave extra space between paragraphs.
If you insert enough space between paragraphs you will not need to indent. If you insist on keeping paragraph and line spacing the same, you must always indent a new paragraph.
13. Run at least two spell checks before printing. If typing or writing by hand, check your spelling, please. Correct spelling is not just a matter of form: it also aids comprehension considerably.
14. Check punctuation.
Bad punctuation obstructs comprehension (See §6, p.36, ff.).
15. Check pronominal referencing.
Readers read text, not your mind. Are you sure there can be no doubt what each ‘it’, ‘this’, ‘which’, ‘they’ etc. refers to? (See §5.7, p.33.)
16. Check sentence construction.
Proper sentences make much better sense and are much easier to read. If your software includes a style check, run it (see also §5.6, p.30).
17. Check page layout. Good layout makes reading easier.
18. Check your references (see §2.5, p.16; §3.1.4, p.18; §11, p.81; §13, p.97). You must make sure that anything you quote, paraphrase, refer to, draw on, etc. is properly sourced.
19. Check your links (see §5.5, p.26).
20. Does your work have a coherent structure? (See §3, p.17.)
21. Read your work through at least twice before handing it in. Do all the sentences make sense? Does it read well? Is it legible? Do you have empirical and/or theoretical backup for your opinions, claims and evaluations?
22. Get someone else to read through your work before submitting it.
Why not arrange with a fellow student to read through their work if they read through yours?
23. Plan to finish writing in time to allow your work to be properly checked through (see previous point) before submitting it (see next point).
24. Submit your work on time.
Deliver your work personally, with the appropriate cover sheet filled in (see point 1, above), to the appointed person / place.
1.2 Submitting musical materials
1.2.1 Musical notation
1.2.1.1 General guidelines
In the case of most analysis and composition assignments in popular music studies, the purpose of notation is not to act as a medium for subsequent performance. Large format scores, although easier to produce, are therefore totally unnecessary and ecologically unsound, especially if they are to be duplicated for the whole class. Therefore, please observe the following guidelines.
1. Do not submit manuscript paper any larger than A4 or US ‘Letter’ size.
2. Write your notation on one side of the paper only to facilitate photocopying, reduction and scanning.
3. If possible, use notation software to produce your music examples, transcriptions and written compositions. Most notation software packages export to image files which can then be imported into most types of desktop publishing software (recommended software: Finale or Sibelius).
4. Use a photocopier to reduce one large-size or two standard sheets of manuscript paper to one standard-size sheet (A4 or ‘Letter’, see §1.2.1.3). If your notation is very large, it may be advisable to reduce your score twice.
5. It is often more practical to use landscape rather than portrait orientation of an A4 or ‘Letter’ page for presenting scores, transcriptions, compositions, etc.
6. As with standard text, leave generous margins all round your transcriptions and compositions.
7. Always paginate and bar-number your transcriptions, compositions, etc. Page and bar numbers allow you to refer to your notation appendix from the main text.
8. Follow standard notation practice. Check your enharmonic spelling. Present drumkit parts and lead-sheet chords according to established norms.
1.2.1.2 Manuscript paper originals
For handwritten notation on manuscript paper, use black pen. Never submit pencilled script and do not use coloured pens. Best notation results are obtained by using notation software (see #3, above).
1.2.1.3 Reducing to half size
1. Lay your one large sheet, or your two ‘normal-size’ originals side by side, face down on the photocopier’s glass.
2. Ensure that the photocopier registers the original(s) correctly.
3. Ensure that the relevant paper tray contains enough A4 or ‘Letter’ paper.
4. Ensure that the photocopier’s magnification/reduction display shows the numeral 70. If it does not, press the manual/automatic toggle button and set reduction factor manually to 70% (˝ size). Then press the usual copy button.
1.2.2 Recorded materials
If your assignment requires submission of material stored on audiocassette, MiniDisc, video, CD, DAT, DVD, diskette, etc., please remember the following.
1. Ensure that your name and a description of the work are visible and legible on both the medium and on its cover.
2. Do not submit cassettes (DAT, audiocassette or video) or Mini Discs, CDs or DVDs without their cover or jewel case.
3. Do not submit a diskette without its envelope.
4. If you submit a recorded audio extract shorter than the track from which it is taken, you should always end that extract with a fade-out, unless (of course) the end of the original track coincides with the end of your extract. Violent cuts in the middle of a musical flow do not make a serious impression. It may sometimes also be necessary to fade in an extract is its start does not coincide with that of the track from which you are recording.
1.2.2.1 Submitting an audiocassette or a video
Remember that most audiocassette counters and many video counters vary notoriously from one machine to another. Therefore, whether the cassette you submit was recorded sporting a real-time counter or not, please proceed as follows.
1. If the material to be perused is not at the start of the A side of the submitted audiocassette, or if it is not at the start of the submitted video, cue the cassette to the appropriate starting point.That point will be understood by the reader as ‘0:00’ (=zero minutes and zero seconds elapsed).
2. If submitting a video or audiocassette which contains more than one item to be watched and/or heard, and if those items are not next to each other on the cassette, either (i) rerecord the items so that they are arranged sequentially one after the other, or (ii) submit the items cued up on separate (video) cassettes.
3. On the cassette’s inlay, or on a separate piece of paper securely attached to the cassette (or its box), write out a clear list of the cassette’s contents.
When editing an audiocassette, MiniDisc or CD containing short excerpts of longer pieces of music, please remember the following points:
1. [Cassettes only] If you are recording over previously recorded sound, first wipe enough of the tape clean (by recording at zero input volume) so that pauses between the new examples you intend to record will not be bugged by loud ‘blips’ of sound from previous recordings.
2. Always fade out the recording volume (unless you are recording the end of a piece) at the end of each excerpt. It is also sometimes advisable to fade in examples (unless you are including the start of a piece or starting to record after a complete pause).
3. [Cassettes only] It is very difficult to ‘splice’ one excerpt into another on a standard audio cassette recorder. However, if you need to attempt a direct splice, remember to (i) have the record, play and pause buttons depressed well in advance; (ii) to press, but not to let go of, the pause button before the ‘splice point’ arrives; (iii) to let go of the pause button a split second before the ‘splice point’. It also helps if, before attempting the splice, you take the cassette out of the machine and wind the tape back a millimetre or so using the unsharpened end of a hexagonal pen or pencil stem.
1.2.3 Use of computer
You are strongly advised to use a computer for your written assignments for the following reasons:
1. Computers are virtually everywhere these days and basic computer skills are essential in many jobs. It’s better to learn about computers now than to hope they’ll become unnecessary or any easier to use in your foreseeable future.
2. You do not need to photocopy your text. It remains on the computer’s hard disk. You need only think about backing up — a matter of seconds.
3. You can alter your text without using rubbers, TipEx, scissors or glue. You also avoid messy crossings-out, unwanted empty spaces, etc.
4. All word-processing and desktop publishing packages come with a spell check, so you need not delve into your dictionary so often.
5. Some word-processing and desktop publishing packages also come with a style check, others with indexing and table-of-contents-generating facilities.
6. You can lay out your text in a professional manner, use italics, indents, margins, columns, paragraph formats, different fonts, etc. You can even import image files (e.g. short music examples, drawings, photos) into your text file.
7. Text produced using a word-processing or desktop publishing package is much easier to read than handwritten text.
8. For further details on computer availability on campus, see separate handout.
1.2.4 Basic word processing
[to be written up]
1.2.5 Basic notation software
[to be written up]
2 Planning a dissertation
Although section 2 deals with fundamental issues in writing a dissertation, many parts of this section are also relevant to the writing of longer essays. Some parts are even applicable to the writing of normal essays.
2.1 Initial questions
Before you start your work in earnest you should have a reasonably clear idea of what you want to say. At this stage, the best questions to ask are:
1. What are the most important points to put across and why are those points important?
2. What is wrong with the world that writing this assignment could help set right? Are the main points you want to raise generally ignored and neglected or is the whole issue misrepresented and misunderstood? Are there conflicting accounts or views of your topic that need to be sorted out?
3. What has already been said or written about the subject that might be useful? What existing facts, figures, ideas, theories and methods could help you write about the topic?
4. Within the parameters of the assignment, how much of what you want to put across is it realistic to research and to present in written form?
5. What methods of gathering data and opinions are you going to use?
6. What kind of theoretical framework are you going to use to discuss and evaluate the facts and opinions you present?
2.2 Problematisation
If you try answering the six questions, listed above, before you start your work in earnest, you will be able to formulate a clear problematisation of the issues you want to raise. This means that you tell the reader why you are writing about your topic by identifying a set of contradictions or an issue of contention that needs to be resolved. Like a murder story, which by definition needs an initial murder to be cleared up, a good essay or a good piece of research needs the clear presentation of a problem to be solved.
Problematisations in popular music studies dissertations tend to be of the following types:
w Particular artists or musical practices are demonstrably important or influential but have been (also demonstrably) neglected, trivialised or falsified by either academe, the press, the media or the music business. Therefore these artists or musical practices need to be (re-)assessed.
w Particular areas of popular music have been studied from some angles and not from others, such studies painting an incomplete or false picture of the area in question. Therefore the picture needs methodological improvement, completion or correction.
w There is a demonstrable need for information (e.g. empirical, biographical, bibliographical, anthropological, musicological, historical) about a particular area of popular music and existing knowledge on the topic is demonstrably either false, unsystematised or incomplete. Therefore such information needs to be gathered, systematised and evaluated.
In other words, problematisation involves:
w demonstrating the existence of a problem, even if — or especially if — the issue is not generally regarded as a problem;
w accounting for why the problem needs to be solved;
w contextualising the problem epistemologically and ideologically, i.e. how it relates to current world views, theories, notions and approaches both inside and outside the discipline of popular music studies.
A good way of starting your problematisation section is to use concrete examples of the main contradiction you intend to resolve in your work and then to discuss the epistemological underpinnings of that contradiction.
2.3 Hypothesis
Trying to answer the six questions will also help you form a clear hypothesis, i.e. an intelligent hunch about how the problem can be solved. As with the murder investigation, this should lead you to suspect certain progressions of cause and effect as more likely than others and to formulate the best methods for answering the questions raised. Hypotheses may not be totally verifiable or falsifiable but they should always be fully discussed in such terms.
If you present your hypothesis as it were a foregone conclusion it ceases to be a hypothesis. Just as you would not expect anyone to read through a whodunnit story to the end if the whodunnit question is answered at the start, no-one will want to read your work if you start with a foregone conclusion.
2.4 Existing body of knowledge
As with murder cases, academic problems and their solutions also have precedents in the sense that other people will have almost certainly dealt to some extent with similar questions previously. They may even have dealt with similar questions in a similar way. It is for this reason that you must check who has said or written what on topics similar to yours. You will also need to check if others have approached a topic comparable to yours in a useful fashion. Standard reference works can be a useful starting point here, as can keyword searches in computerised bibliographies (e.g. at the main library) or via the Internet. Even your supervisor or course tutor may be able to help.
This exercise in checking the existing body of knowledge in relation to your topic is motivated by the following considerations:
1. it makes those that read or hear about your work aware of an existing body of knowledge that may interest them considerably;
2. it can help you find facts, figures, ideas, theories and methods that may be useful in your work, thus saving you from having to reinvent the wheel and from having to work hard at something that someone else has already covered;
3. it gives proof of scholarly honesty: it is unethical to steal ideas from someone else and make it look as if they were your own (see §2.7, p.16).
2.5 Keeping tabs on references
As you read other people’s work or glean information and ideas from interviews, questionnaires, broadcasts, recordings, etc., it is important to note carefully all the necessary reference details (see §11, p.81; §12, p.94). Omitting this chore usually means an inordinate amount of extra work in the final stages of the essay or dissertation because it becomes necessary a second time to find all the books, journals, records, etc. you had access to earlier on anyhow. With interviews, broadcasts, newspapers and rented videos, such omission is particularly difficult to rectify: questions like ‘when was it I interviewed such and such a person?’, ‘what date was that programme on which channel?’, ‘on what page of which issue of that newspaper did I find that report?’ or ‘what was the year, company and number of that video which is now deleted from rental circulation?’ can be hard to answer!
2.6 Defining terms
It is important that you clarify the meaning of certain terms from the outset. Some may be highly specialist or consist of abbreviations that just need a little initial explanation. Others, usually more well-known terms, can be problematic. Working definitions, specific usage of terms, etc. are discussed under §5.2, p.19. Some names (people, places) may also need introduction or explanation before they are used on their own.
2.7 Avoiding plagiarism
Plagiarism, from the Greek plăgiow (=askance, treacherous) via the Latin plagiarius (=kidnapper), means taking the ideas of someone else and passing them off as your own. In Roget’s Thesaurus, plagiarism is mentioned in the same breath as theft, fraud, bluff, fake, sham, forgery, deceit, dishonesty, imposture, swindling, cheating, pirating, misappropriation and breach of trust.
Avoiding plagiarism does not mean that you should not use other people’s ideas; on the contrary, good research draws largely on the work of others. Plagiarism occurs only when the work of others goes unacknowledged and is passed off, intentionally or unintentionally, as if it were yours. Plagiarism is best avoided by clearly referencing the source (author, work, date, page or bar number, etc., see §11) of the work you quote, paraphrase, draw on, are influenced by, etc.
Markers suspect plagiarism on the basis of certain common symptoms, for example: [i] clear changes of style within the same assignment; [ii] notable differences in the frequency of linguistic errors between different sections of the same assignment; [iii] turns of phrase that do not seem typical of the student’s usual writing manner; [iv] in-text references that are either inadequately sourced, or not sourced at all; [v] page references omitted in conjunction with in-text references; [vi] the presentation of ideas or of a writing style with which the marker is previously familiar from elsewhere.
Plagiarism is regarded as a serious type of fraud and treated accordingly. An assignment suspected of plagiarism is always given to a second marker. If both markers independently harbour suspicions of plagiarism, the matter is passed to the Head of Department who conducts his/her own investigation. On the basis of that investigation a decision is made as to whether the student may resubmit or whether the student should fail, or whether other measures are called for.
3 Structuring your written work
Although this section deals primarily with dissertation writing, many parts of this section are also relevant to the writing of essays and assignments.
3.1 Beginning - middle - end - appendices
A well-structured piece of writing is much easier to read than one whose thoughts and descriptions wander all over the place. One simple rule is to decide what in your written work constitutes the beginning (or introduction), the middle (the ‘meat’ of the work) and the end (or conclusion). You will also need to decide what information belongs in the main body of text and what should appear in an appendix.
3.1.1 Beginning
The introduction should present the following:
1. the problematisation (see §2.2, p.14), so that the reader can understand what the main issues are and why the essay or dissertation has been written;
2. an account of the work’s aim and structure, so that the reader is orientated from the outset as to how and in what sequence of events the subject is to be tackled;
3. definitions of neologisms or of terms used in a special way (see §5.2, p.19);
4. an account of how and why the topic has been restricted to make it manageable within parameters operative for the assignment;
5. an account of the existing body of knowledge relating to the topic (see§2.5, p.16);
6. hypotheses (see §2.3, p.15) to be tested and methods to be used in the rest of the work.
It is not essential that points 1-6 be presented in the above order, but it is often logical for the aim to arise out of the problematisation.
3.1.2 Middle
The middle should contain the main substance of the work. What constitutes that substance will vary, according to your topic and its aims, from analytical or theoretical discourse to the presentation, description and discussion of empirical materials. It is important here to draw up a clear order of presentation so that both description and discussion follow a coherent and comprehensible pattern.
3.1.3 End
The final section of your main text should contain your conclusions — a brief summary of your findings, evaluations and recommendations. The end may also contain a future research need statement, i.e. an account of what still needs to be discussed and researched.
3.1.4 Appendices
Appendices are usually presented in the following order.
w Transcription or composition (if applicable);
w Other musical notation (if applicable);
w Endnotes (see §11, p.81; §12, p.94);
w Bibliography (see §11.2, p.82; §12.2, p.94)
w List of Musical References (see §11.3, p.87; §12.3, p.95);
w List of Audiovisual References (see §11.4, p.90; §12.4, p.96);
w List of interviews, graphs, tables, illustrations, etc. (see §11.5, p.92; §12.5, p.96);
w Index.
Please note that the number and type of appendices necessary will vary considerably according to the subject matter and academic level of your assignment. For example, it may be better to combine all recorded references (e.g. CDs, videos) into one single appendix; or you may have used footnotes rather than endnotes; or musical notation may not be relevant to your assignment; or your assignment is too short to warrant an index.
4 Order of writing
Before you start on your final write-up it is advisable to have the following already written down in some form:
1. general structure of the essay, including a list of sections or a provisional table of contents;
2. problematisation and hypotheses;
3. quotations and references;
4. all empirical and other source materials;
5. large portions of the middle section.
The reason for this suggested order of working is that it is much easier to write the final version of both the introduction and the conclusions if the middle section, containing the main substance of your work, is more or less complete beforehand. This way of producing the final write-up may seem easier for students using word processors than for those typing or handwriting their work. However, there is nothing that prohibits typists and handwriters from leaving the last page of their introductions partially blank, provided that all pages are numbered in correct sequence.
5 Style and comprehensibility
This section applies equally to all types of written work.
5.1 General
The whole point of writing an essay or dissertation is to present ideas, accounts and arguments that will interest and convince the reader. If you wish to achieve this aim, your text must be clearly presented and comprehensible. Although it may be hard work reading unnecessarily difficult words or long sentences, comprehensibility is far less likely to be impaired by these factors than by the following:
w poor sentence construction
w incorrect punctuation and spelling
w impersonal pronouns (usually ‘this’ or ‘it’) without clear referents
w slovenly use of words
w ambiguous or cryptic turns of phrase
w unsubstantiated opinions, judgements and interpretations presented as if they were facts
w conclusions and opinions presented before arguments substantiating them
w unclear distinction between your own ideas/text and those of others
w unsatisfactory links between sentences, paragraphs and sections
w lack of overall structure
5.2 Definitions
´ Readers read text, not your mind.
There are three types of obstacle to comprehension caused by lack of verbal definition in essays and dissertations: unknown concepts, ambiguous concepts and unknown names.
1. Unknown concepts include technical terms, abbreviations, names, etc. with which intelligent readers interested in the serious study of popular music cannot be reasonably expected to be sufficiently familiar in order to understand your text.
2. Ambiguous concepts are those open to differences in interpretation between reader and writer, as well as between different readers of your text.
3. Unknown names are those whose identity or relevance readers cannot be expected to grasp.
The first two types of concept require some kind of definition. The third type demands that the relevance and identity of the name in question be explained. Absolute definitions (those covering all possible meanings in all popular music study contexts) of the first two types of concept are not necessary. However, it essential to provide at least a working definition, i.e. the sense in which you will be using the term in the work you submit, or a delimitation, i.e. the particular or restricted (limited) meaning you are applying to the term in question.
5.2.1 Unknown concepts
5.2.1.1 Unusual abbreviations
Obviously, you do not need to spell out the meaning of abbreviations like CD, DJ or BBC. However, the abbreviated names of less well-known entities may well need explanation, as do abbreviations you invent yourself. If you plan to use several recurrent abbreviations of this type, it is worth providing the reader with a list of abbreviations amongst your appendices (see also §6.2.2, p.37; §7, p.53).
5.2.1.2 Technical terms
You may be highly familiar with certain technical terms of which intelligent popular music readers may well be totally ignorant. For example, are you really sure they already know what an Aphex exciter is and what its effects are? If not, explain, or at least let readers know where they can look up its meaning.
5.2.1.3 Unknown names ‘in the know’
´ Do not preach to the already converted.
Since your assignments are neither contributions to fanzine X nor written for the mutual admiration purposes of in-crowd Y, you should angle your work with a much wider readership in mind. Most people, including your readers as well as yourself, will probably be popular music specialists of one kind or another, but the reader’s area of expertise is unlikely to coincide with yours. You may well know details of particular artists, venues, scenes, labels, chord sequences, instruments, etc. so well that you expect everyone else to be equally interested and initiated. Such an assumption is both false and short-sighted. To readers who do not subscribe to fanzine X, who have no idea what music is played at venue Y, or of what goes on there, to those who may have heard of band Z, but who only have the vaguest of notions as to how they actually sound (let alone what topics their lyrics deal with or who buys their records), dropping ‘names in the know’ is confusing, pointless and off-putting. Therefore, if you refer to such names, provide some sort of explanation, at least in a footnote, unless the significance of the name in question is evident from the context.
5.2.1.4 Other unexplained names
´ Do not assume that readers know what you know.
Perhaps you have interviewed a particular individual, or conducted a study of music in a particular venue, institution, company or small community. You may be so familiar with those people, places and their names that introductions seem superfluous to you. Readers, on the other hand, are unlikely to be familiar with those names. Consequently you must explain the identity and relevance of each potentially unfamiliar name the first time it appears in your text.
5.2.2 Ambiguous terms
5.2.2.1 Very broad terms
´ Some seemingly obvious terms may need defining.
If your work is of a theoretical or methodological character, you may have to give readers a clear idea of what you mean by quite broad terms in general usage. However, if, for example, it were necessary to discuss the meanings of popular, music, and popular music, you would not need to concoct your own definitions: you could refer to (or quote from) existing attempts to explain the terms, and reshape those explanations to fit the requirements of your work. Other, less general terms that you may be using in a specific way and which recur in your text may also require definition in a similar manner.
5.2.2.2 Genres and styles
´ Some genre and style names may need defining.
The next sentence raises at least ten questions.
N The sound of grunge is less poppy than indie, which has more of a rock feel .
1. Are you sure the reader thinks that grunge and indie denote the same sounds as you think they do?
2. Can grunge or indie be defined as a sound or set of musical practices at all?
3. Does either grunge or indie denote music sharing its own common denominators of lyrical content, or are they labels given to music played by certain types of artists with certain visual, sartorial and behavioural traits in common? In other words, are the terms generic or stylistic labels?
4. Do the labels refer to the status of each genre’s artists, fans or production processes in relation to the music industry (if so, in which part(s) of which nation(s) of the world)?
5. If the labels are generic rather than stylistic, i.e. if they cannot be shown to refer primarily to common characteristics of musical structure, how can they reasonably be used as denotative of sound?
6. Is poppy (not the red flower) a word in the English language? No!
7. What does poppy mean, if not denoting the homonymous flower?
8. If poppy means ‘like pop music’, what, then, is meant by pop? Are you sure you know yourself and do your readers know what pop means in the same way as you (think you) do?
9. In which sense (of many) is the word rock being used?
10. What is a feel in this context?
The best way of dealing with these obvious problems is to state quite clearly at the outset what you mean by grunge and indie and to define these terms generically or stylistically. Similarly, if you intend to set up a dichotomy between rock and pop, it would be helpful for the reader to know, at least approximately, where you think the dividing line goes between the two. In addition, if you intend to use the word poppy as an adjective meaning ‘like pop’, then you would be well advised to state this the first time you use it, for example, in a footnote (see §11.1, p.81).
5.2.2.3 Rock and rock ’n’ roll
Each of the three labels rock, rock ’n’ roll, and rock and roll can have its own meaning, distinct from the other two. If you are using any of these terms, ensure that the reader knows what you mean by each of them.
5.2.2.4 Sounds, feels, beats
´ What do you mean by sound, feel and beat?
Questions 2 and 10 under 5.2.2.2, above, raise the issues of sound and feel. Beat belongs to the same category of totally ambiguous concepts that almost everyone in popular music studies sees fit to use uncritically. This problem is discussed in the handout Introductory Notes to Popular Music Semiotics.
5.2.2.5 Ethnocentric genre names
´ The USA and the UK are not the only popular music nations.
´ English is the native language of 5% of the world’s population.
Some genre and style names mean different things in different parts of the world. For example, although the tango is highly popular in Finland, as well as in Brazil and Argentina, all three nationally defined sets of tango practices are quite different musically, choreographically and in terms of social function. Similarly, it is as misleading to talk about African music as it is silly to refer to European music as if it were all one and the same thing. Please be precise about which music you mean.
Country music
Another ethnocentric, specifically Anglocentric, problem of genre definitions concerns the word country. Since Bosnia, China, Chile, the USA and many other nations all have country music in the sense of music originating in rural rather than urban areas, it is ethnocentric to assume that country music automatically means the musical practices of a particular part of the population originally associated with a particular region of a particular nation (the rural white working class in certain parts of the US South). If you mean that particular type of country music, use the term Country (with a capital c). For further problems of ethnocentricity in English-language writing on popular music, see §6.9.6, p.48; §7.2.3, p.54.
Dance and ‘dance’
´ For 99.9% of the world’s population dance means moving the body rhythmically, usually to music.
Despite this obvious, general and global use of the word dance, many devotees of the UK’s rave-related subcultures seem to use dance to signify no more than music associated with those subcultures. By so doing, they unilaterally disqualify waltz, polka, jig, jive, chalga, salsa, samba, cúmbia, cueca, trepak, etc., etc. as dance — a highly dubious and ethnocentric restriction of the word.
If you still want to call the kind of 1990s music played in such clubs as Liverpool’s Cream dance rather than anything else, you must convincingly explain why you have chosen to apply so restrictive a definition of the word in your assignment. If you mean music associated with UK youth club culture of the 1990s, perhaps you’d better use a more precise term to cover what you mean. Otherwise you will need to state your narrow definition of dance at the outset, to redefine it if you revert to its usual meaning, to define it again if you go back to the restrictive meaning, etc., etc. It may also be advisable to distinguish between Dance, with a capital D for the restrictive meaning, and dance, with a lower-case D for ‘dance’ in its usual sense (see §6.9.6.2, p.49).
5.3 Opinion and interpretation
5.3.1 Opinions and value judgements
´ Always distinguish between fact and opinion.
´ Do not preach to the already converted.
´ It is absurd to assume that readers will share your own personal tastes and opinions.
There is nothing wrong with expressing your own opinions or values. On the contrary, personal opinions and values are essential in motivating anyone to write with conviction about any topic. However, it is quite another matter to state opinions as if they were irrefutable fact, or to slip them into your text as though there could be no other view of the issue than your own.
Negative value judgements
Although everyone reading your text will hopefully disapprove of murder, rape, neglect, greed, destruction, dishonesty, abuse of power, etc., it is unreasonable to assume that all readers will share your musical tastes or your opinions about particular social or cultural phenomena. Consider, for example, the following statement, written by someone who clearly hates rock music from the 1970s.
N This style exhibits the same bombastic self-importance as most seventies rock.
Whoever wrote this sentence assumes either that no-one can possibly disagree with his/her personal view of seventies rock, or that those who disagree with that view deserve no consideration. The first assumption is illusory and uninformed, the second one arrogant and disrespectful.
Another common trait of opinionated writing is the use of derogatory quotation marks and deprecatory turns of phrase.
N The whole rock ‘aesthetic’ was a dreamt-up concoction of ‘intellectual’ clichés.
Even assuming that rock aesthetics have been discussed in some detail before its appearance, the previous sentence will fail to convert readers to the author’s opinion. Putting aesthetic and intellectual between quotes does not magically cancel the usual value of those words, nor will an intelligent reader be slow to wonder why a dreamt-up concoction of clichés should be a more accurate appraisal of the phenomenon than, say, a carefully reasoned set of precepts.
Positive value judgements
It is reasonable to assume that everyone reading your text will strongly approve of peace, love, kindness, concern, care, generosity, honesty, equality, reason, mutual respect, empowerment, emancipation, etc. It is, however, not reasonable to assume that readers share your musical tastes or your opinions about particular social or cultural phenomena. In fact, assumptions about shared positive values are even more common than illusory assumptions about negative value judgements. Here are some examples.
N Last night we heard some really good drumming.
N Changing from F9-5 to Emaj9 is much more interesting than from B7 to E.
N Superb channel balance and careful use of reverb on the vocal tracks makes this track a perfect recording.
N Tina Turner performed much better when she was with Ike.
N Smith (2001) provides a marvellous account of the trance scene.
Some tips about value judgements
You should never assume that readers agree with your ideas or share your tastes. Indeed, the purpose of a piece of academic writing is not to preach to a small group of fellow converts but to convince a much wider readership outside your own personal community of taste that what you are trying to communicate is valid, reasonable and important. Unsubstantiated value judgements are more liable to act like a red rag to a bull and to discourage self-respecting readers from taking your text seriously.
When marking the N sentences included under the two value judgement subsections above, I would almost certainly put red rings round bombastic, self importance, ‘aesthetic’, dreamt-up, concoction, ‘intellectual’, clichés, really good, much more interesting, superb, careful, perfect, much better and marvellous. I would probably also scribble ‘who says?’ in the margin, not because I think there is no validity at all in the opinions expressed but for three more serious reasons:
1. an opinion is stated as if it were an absolute fact;
2. it is not clear whose opinion it is;
3. it has not been shown that a majority of any given population, however small, thinks that the statement is true.
Ignoring these three considerations may be standard practice if you are working in corporate marketing, or as a trendy pop journalist, or if your work in any other way entails opinionated posturing and hype. Otherwise, unless you have clearly shown, for example, that most 1970s rock was in fact considered bombastic and self-important by the majority of a specified population, or unless you clarify whose opinion you are expressing, the statement is unacceptable in an essay or dissertation. Just imagine readers who (unlike myself) adore Elton John or The Rolling Stones after Sticky Fingers. Even worse, imagine readers (like myself) who thoroughly enjoy the music of artists like Lynyrd Skynyrd or AC/DC. This respect of readers’ tastes and opinions, whether you agree with them or not, means that you have to be very precise about whose opinion (e.g. your own) you are stating and about what is being praised or criticised by whom for which reasons.
In short, value judgements and swashbuckling invective combined with intellectual laziness may have its place in certain types of journalism and political or commercial propaganda, but such scribal sleight of hand is counterproductive when writing for readers who hopefully see themselves as critical, intelligent and independent human-beings rather than as malleable consumers of opinion, trends and fads.
Since it is usually impossible to present incontrovertible evidence supporting your opinion, you will have to use intersubjectivity as a means of qualifying the generality of your value judgement. You can present intersubjective qualification of your opinion in one or more of the following ways:
w by demonstrating that a majority of a particular population hold the same opinion;
w by referring to a documented body of collective opinion;
w by referring to several acknowledged experts or influential figures in the field;
Failing these three procedures, you can, if you still insist on stating your own opinion rather than demonstrating its validity, resort to phrases like In my opinion or It seems to me or I think, etc. However, beware of It seems and It appears (without the to me), as well of It could be argued and Arguably, because these expressions beg the same questions as those at the start of this section: it ‘seems’ or ‘appears’ to whom according to which arguments on which basis?
´ If in doubt, leave out your personal opinions.
5.3.2 Interpretative evaluations of musical meaning
´ Your interpretation of the music is not everyone else’s.
Similar difficulties arise when referring to the perceived connotative qualities of particular styles or pieces of music, even if no value judgement is intended. For example, there is no certainty that readers will automatically agree with you that the music you are describing as ‘ethereal’ or ‘rough’ is in their experience ethereal or rough, unless, of course, those words, or similar descriptors, are generally and explicitly applied to the music in question. In cases like this you have to resort to one of three strategies: (i) provide intersubjective evidence that the majority of a given population do in fact hear the music as ethereal or rough; (ii) provide a short hermeneutic or semiotic discussion, using musematic analysis; (iii) make it clear that the descriptive words involved are no more than your own personal perception of the music’s character. For more information on this problem, see handout Introductory Notes to the Semiotics of Popular Music.
5.3.3 Hypothesis, argument, conclusion
´ Don’t jump to or start with conclusions.
Since the whole idea of writing should ideally be to convince the reader that what you say is right and true, you should ideally state your questions and hypotheses first, then your evidence (both for and against), waiting until the end before putting forward your evaluations and conclusions. It is in other words both illogical and bad tactics to present conclusions and evaluations before evidence and arguments substantiating those conclusions and evaluations. The order of presentation (though not necessarily of initial writing) for each section of your text, as well as for the work as a whole, should, as stated earlier, be (i) question or problem, (ii) evidence and discussion, (iii) conclusions. If you start (a section of) your work with an unsubstantiated opinion or questionable statement, even though you go on to convincingly document the validity of that point of view, you will rub the reader up the wrong way and spoil your chances of getting your message across.
5.4 Headings and subheadings
Once you have decided how to structure your written work, it is important that you make it perfectly clear to the reader where one section ends and another starts. Headings and subheadings are a useful tool in this quest for comprehensibility and structuring. They can be inserted at points in your writing where there is a clear change of topic or approach. (See also §10.1, p.79).
5.5 Links
5.5.1 General
´ Let the reader know where you are in your account.
Once your work is structured into its sections with their headings, it is important that the reader be notified as to how contiguous sections are linked. To put this matter in the form of a simple question, does what we are about to read relate to what has just preceded it in a ‘more-of-the-same-thing’ way or is it a matter of ‘and now for something different’? If the latter is true, it helps the reader to know why the text veers off in another direction. If the former is true, readers will probably find your text easier to follow if you tell them which kind of ‘more-of-the-same-thing’ relationship you intend. For example, is what you are about to write another illustration of the same thing (e.g. ‘Another example of this tendency is’…) or yet another example (e.g. ‘Moreover’) or the final example (e.g. ‘Finally’…)? Such episodic markers should prevent your text from reading like avant-garde poetry, trendy pop journalism, loose chat or an unstructured stream of consciousness.
It is therefore good practice to end each section with a sentence or two summarising what you have just written and pointing towards what comes next. You can also link back to the previous section when starting on a new tack. This is quite helpful to the reader because text flow is visibly interrupted at paragraph changes, even more so at the start of a new section. Once again, the question to ask is ‘how does what I’m about to write now relate to what came just before and to what comes next?’
5.5.2 Links of contrast
If what you are about to write is in contrast or opposition to what preceded it, or if the new sentence presents a counter-argument to, or a different side of, whatever came just before, comprehension can be aided by starting the new sentence with such words or phrases as:
® However, …
® Nevertheless, … or Nonetheless, …
® Despite [the last statement], …
® Even though/if [what I just wrote may be true in one way], …
® Although [what you just read might sound fine], …
® This does not mean to say that …
® On the other hand, …
® Conversely, …
® Now, [previous text] seems to imply that … [but it doesn’t really because] …
® One objection to [previous text] is that …, another that …
® Another way of …ing […] would be to …
5.5.3 Links of similarity, complementarity and additionality
On the other hand, if you are piling on the arguments or evidence and if what you are about to write treads the same basic path as whatever immediately preceded it, you can always clarify this relationship of complementarity or additionality between sentences or paragraphs by using such words or phrases as:
® Moreover, …
® In addition to …, …
® Not only …, but […] also …
® Over and above …, …
® Furthermore, …
® (Yet) Another example of … [is] …
® Apart from … [previous statement(s)], … [similar statement]
® A similar … [e.g. tendency/argument/question] …
® Similar … [e.g. chord progressions/notions/issues] …
® Similarly, …
® By the same token, …
® In the same way as …, …
® Given that …, …
5.5.4 Links of summary
If what you are about to write sums up or expresses in a different way what you have just written, it can be useful to start a sentence with words or phrases like:
® This means that …
® In this way, …
® In short, … or In brief, …
® In other words, …
® Therefore, …
® Thus, …
® It should therefore be clear from … that …
® From the … [e.g. account/discussion] presented so far, …
® As the account presented above shows, …
5.5.5 Numbered links
Another aid to comprehension and easy reading is to count the number of issues or examples you are about to raise in the (next section of your) text and to insert a sentence before you start that multiple account, saying something like The problem can be approached in three ways or This tendency can be illustrated using the following six examples. Then follows the actual enumerative text in which you let readers know how far the count has reached:
The first way of approaching this problem is to …
The third approach to the same problem attempts to …
The sixth and final example shows how …
If you are presenting a series of short arguments, each of these can be enumerated with adverbial markers, e.g:
There are three problems with this approach. Firstly, the author ignores the fact that … Secondly, there is an intrinsic contradiction between … Thirdly, the empirical evidence presented above clearly shows …
Another way of enumerating short points in your text is to insert numerals (either lower case Roman or standard Arabic) between brackets at the start of each point.
There are three problems with this approach: (i) the author ignores the fact that …; (ii) there is an intrinsic contradiction between …; (iii) the empirical evidence presented above clearly shows …
If the points are longer or in need of particular emphasis, you can lay them out as a list:
The three main problems with Author X’s approach can be summarised as follows:
1. X ignores the fact that …
2. There is an intrinsic contradiction between …
3. The empirical evidence presented above clearly refutes …
5.5.6 Internal cross-reference links
As the writer of your essay or dissertation, you will have spent far more time with your work than anyone reading it. You also know your own thoughts and intentions with what you have written far better than any reader. However, do not expect readers to double as your mind readers. One way to avoid this problem of communication is to provide the reader with references within your work. Obviously, a long work will need much more internal cross-referencing than a short assignment.
5.5.6.1 Linking backwards
Comprehension can be facilitated by referring back to statements you have already made in the same text. In the next example, you (the writer) have assumed that the reader will have remembered that you demonstrated the falsehood of a particular statement eight pages earlier.
Nevertheless, it is often said that music is universal language. Since this statement is false, it will be necessary to …
The reader stops and thinks ‘just a minute, I don’t agree with that at all!’ The problem could have easily been avoided if you had written as follows.
Nevertheless, music is still often characterised as a universal language. The problem here is, as I have already shown (pp. x-y), that music cannot be regarded as either universal or a language. Therefore, it will be necessary to …
5.5.6.2 Linking forwards
Sometimes you may need to refer briefly to something that you have not yet discussed in full. For example, if you are discussing a point using arguments or findings from later on in your account and it is not clear that those matters will in fact be dealt with, readers may either become confused or start asking themselves how you can be so bold when what you claim has yet to be proved. The following refutation of ‘common sense’ is, for example, unacceptable.
It is often said that music is universal language. Since this statement is completely false, it will be necessary to …
Who says the statement is completely false? Maybe readers think it is absolutely true. If you intend to prove the statement as false later on in your text, the problem is easily overcome by writing something along the following lines.
It is often said that music is a universal language. However, since, as will become evident from the subsequent discussion, it is impossible to regard music as a language in the strict sense of the term or as universal in any sense, it will instead be necessary to …
If you use a forwards link you have to ensure that there is in fact something substantial in the subsequent text to which you can refer!
5.5.6.3 References to appendices, examples, tables, etc.
You will probably be very familiar with your own work, including all its appendices, music examples, figures, tables, transcriptions, etc. Your readers, including those marking your work, will not be so familiar. If you refer, for example, to a passage in a transcription or graphic score, your reference should include the bar number or elapsed time indicating the exact location of the passage in question. Special procedures apply to in-text referencing of books and articles (see §11.2, p.82), recordings (§11.3, p.87; §11.4, p.90), and web sites (§11.4.2, p.92).
5.5.7 Other link words and phrases
Link words and phrases can be divided into eight main semantic categories:
1. causal, e.g. because, since, due to, on account of, owing to, by virtue of,
for which reason;
2. consequential, e.g. (i) therefore, thus, hence, consequently, this means that,
in other words, this implies that, in consequence, of course, naturally,
from … it follows that …, with the result that, by consequence, as a result, so … that;
3. intentional, e.g. so that, so as to, in order to, with the intention of,
with the [sole] purpose of;
4. conditional or exclusive, e.g. if, although, even if, even though, in the event of,
in case, in cases where, in the case of, provisionally, conditionally, on condition that,
provided [that], given [that], with the reservation that, except if, except when, except for, with the exception(s) of, unless;
5. contradictory, e.g. however, nevertheless, nonetheless, despite, in spite of,
this does not mean to say that, notwithstanding, on the other hand, while, whereas,
not … but …, conversely; (+ although, etc., see 4, above)
6. qualificatory, e.g. to the extent that …, in the sense that …;
7. complementary or additional, e.g. moreover, in addition to, over and above,
furthermore, even more … [is] …, another example [is/being], yet another …,
not only … but also, apart from …, if … [then also] …, similarly, in a similar way,
in the same way, by the same token, reciprocally; just as … so too …;
8. referential, e.g. as demonstrated earlier, as we have seen, as described above, it is clear from this discussion that..., as documented by author X, as author Y has observed, as I hope to show later on, as will become evident from later chapters;
9. final or conclusive, e.g. finally, in conclusion, by way of summary, summing up …, in short, in brief, in other words, in simple terms, put simply, expressed briefly,
by way of conclusion, therefore, thus, hence, this means to say that, this implies that.
All these words and expressions are reasonably precise in their denotation of how consecutive statements, sentences and paragraphs can be interlinked.
5.5.8 Avoiding ‘And’, ‘But’ and ‘So’
It is unwise to start sentences with ‘And’, ‘But’ or ‘So’ since these words do not always establish a precise relationship between the new sentence or paragraph in construction and whatever preceded it (see §5.6.1, p.31).
5.6 Sentence construction
´ Write readable sentences.
´ Read everything you write out loud before you submit it.
´ Ask a friend to read your work before you submit it.
´ Write exactly what you mean to say and leave no room for ambiguities of interpretation.
´ Never make readers guess what you mean!
Badly constructed sentences are without doubt the most common cause of confusion, ambiguity and irritation in texts submitted by students. Consider, for example, the following sentence I had to read a few years ago. Only the names have been changed to protect the author’s identity.
N So the authors say that record production is an industrial process and take TakkiTrax as an example because there’s the way they market acts and songs and their double dealings in the music business but all the same there’s a lot of work goes into all their songs and the reviews they get are all really good.
The four serious problems of comprehension in this sentence are as follows.
w It clearly states that the authors are those citing TakkiTrax as an example. However, it is possible that the essay writer may have meant that readers should consider TakkiTrax as an example of record production as an industrial process, not that the authors do so.
w Since there is no other plural subject in the vicinity, the essay writer must literally mean that it is the authors (the only conceivable ‘they’) who are marketing acts and songs. However, it is again possible that the writer did not mean what he/she wrote. Perhaps the meaning of TakkiTrax (a singular noun) was changed to plural in the writer’s head. Why should readers have to waste time working out you don’t mean what you write?
w It appears to say that the authors (or perhaps, judging from the context, TakkiTrax) are marketing double dealings. Readers should not have to work out what you really meant! They are not mind readers.
w It suggests that either the authors or TakkiTrax (once again depending on the context) put a lot of work into the reviews they get.
Perusing the sentence several times — an unnecessary and annoying task for any reader, let alone for your marker or examiner —, it sometimes becomes clear that whoever wrote the sentence did not manage to write what they really meant to put across. The reasons behind the clumsiness of the sentence are (i) bad punctuation (see §6, p.36); (ii) ambiguous pronominal referencing (see §5.7, p.33), (iii) abominable sentence construction, the main problem being too many simple conjunctions (‘and’ and ‘but’) giving rise to no less than five (5) separate main verbs.
´ A sentence should contain only one main verb.
´ No sentence exists without its main verb.
The following sentence probably expresses whatever was originally meant by the sentence criticised above. This rewritten sentence, with its six verbs, is both comprehensible and grammatically correct because it only contains one main verb. Can you spot the single (one and only) main verb?
O Although the authors have argued that record production is an industrial process, there is undeniably a core element of individual craftsmanship in all songs recorded by TakkiTrax, who, despite being noted for their slick marketing and entrepreneurial dishonesty, have nevertheless produced many tracks earning them considerable critical acclaim.
The six verbs are: (i) have argued, (ii) is, (iii) recorded, (iv) being noted, (v) produced and (vi) earning. The only main verb, however, is is (as in there is unquestionably a core element). Is is the main verb for five reasons. (i) … have argued… is part of the initial subordinate clause, starting with Although; (ii) recorded is a past participle (verbal adjective) qualifying songs; (iii) being noted is a present participle attached to the relative pronoun who (referring to TakkiTrax); (iv) …have produced… is contained within the relative subordinate clause starting with who; (v) earning is a present participle directly attached to tracks which, in its turn, is subordinate to the relative clause starting with who (referring to TakkiTrax). In other words, although the second example constitutes quite a complex sentence including six verbs, it causes no ambiguity of meaning because it is correctly constructed by virtue of its sole main verb. In short, it is not the length of a sentence that makes for difficult reading but how that sentence is constructed. If you are uncertain about main verbs, subordinate clauses, etc., read up on some English grammar or keep to short sentences.
5.6.1 ‘And’, ‘but’, ‘or’ and ‘so’
‘And’, ‘but’, ‘or’ and ‘so’ are all conjunctions enabling the writer to extend a sentence to include more than one main verb. There are, however, problems with using these conjunctions.
Compare these two sentences:
O TakkiTrax were noted for their slick marketing, and criticised for their unethical management methods.
N TakkiTrax were noted for their professional recordings and slick marketing and criticised for their unethical management methods.
Sentence (i) is clear, concise and correct, even though it contains two main verbs: ‘were noted’ and ‘(were) criticised’. Sentence (ii), however, is unsatisfactory, not so much because it contains two ands as because it confuses the reader by using and in two ways (incongruent use of and). The problem is that sentence (ii) starts by setting up a combination of characteristics for which TakkiTrax were noted (the recordings and the marketing), after which it uses and a second time, not to add to those same characteristics but to add to the ways in which TakkiTrax is described as being perceived. The sentence would have read better as
O TakkiTrax, noted for their professional recordings and slick marketing, were also criticised for their unethical management methods.
or as
O TakkiTrax were noted for their professional recordings and slick marketing but were severely criticised for their unethical management methods.
Similar observations can be made about but, or and so. In short, it is rarely a good idea (though not always avoidable) to have more than one and, but or so in the same sentence. It is also advisable to avoid starting sentences with And, But, or So.
So has its own set of difficulties. For example, the sentence
N TakkiTrax plc produced so many records so no-one else could cover their songs.
could either mean that TakkiTrax actually intended to preclude everyone else from covering the songs (‘in order that’) or that such preclusion was the unintentional consequence of the company’s recording activities (‘with the result that’). There is, however, another so in the sentence (so many). Slightly less clumsy versions of sentence’s two potential meanings could have been:
O TakkiTrax plc produced a vast number of records in order to prevent anyone else from covering more than a fraction of their output.
O TakkiTrax plc produced so many records that no-one else could ever have covered all their songs.
´ Overuse of and is common in idle gossip and childish chit-chat. In written English it impedes understanding.
5.6.2 ‘However’
N During verses he often almost mumbles, however he yells at the top of his voice in the chorus.
O During verses the vocalist often mumbles. However, in the chorus he usually yells at the top of his voice.
The wrong sentence reads as if the vocalist mumbles the verses regardless of how he yells in the chorus.
´ Do not use however as an in-sentence conjunction like and, but, or or.
However, in the sense of ‘on the other hand’ is always followed by a comma. It almost always starts, or comes very close to the start of, a new sentence. Occasionally it is found after a semicolon or a colon.
O During verses he usually puts down straight quavers on the hi-hat; however, he plays shuffle patterns in the chorus.
O During verses he usually puts down straight quavers on the hi-hat. In the chorus, however, he plays shuffle patterns.
5.7 Pronominal referencing
´ Do not expect your readers to be psychic.
The second most frequent and serious impediment to understanding written texts submitted by students is, in my experience, inadequate or non-existent pronominal referencing. For example, I have actually had to read such sentences as:
N This is an example of this.
Trying to discover what this actually refers to can, as in the example just cited, be as frustrating and time-consuming as trying to work out the value of x in an extremely complex algebraic equation. Students writing sentences like ‘This is an example of this’ usually have a very clear idea in their heads of what each this refers to. The only problem is that the students in question choose not to commit that clarity of thought to paper: it remains in their heads and is concealed from the reader who is apparently expected to know through the magic of telepathic intuition exactly what they really meant when they wrote that this.
Pronouns are short words which replace real nouns, e.g. I/me, you, he/him, she/her, we/us, they/them, it, this, that, which, who, whom, whose.
I/me, you, he/him, she/her, we/us, they/them are pronouns referring to persons.
It, this, that are impersonal pronouns.
Which, that,1 who, whom, whose are relative pronouns.
5.7.1 This and it
´ Use impersonal pronouns only if it is totally clear what each it, this, and that actually stands for.
Consider the following difficulties:
N Author X says life is wonderful but Author Y says it is awful. This is difficult to discuss because …
What does the this refer to? It is an indefinite pronoun without clearly stated referent. Does the this refer to the fact that the two authors differ in their opinion or to the matter about which they differ? Trying to work out what the writer really means is a waste of the reader’s time and mental energy. To save readers the trouble of having to provide their own pronominal referents, spell them out yourself!
If you think that criticising the last example was pedantic, try this one!
N Author A describes how Author B characterises life as hard while Author C observes it in a different way. This is not true because he does not take into account that it is a problem of cultural specificity.
What is the it that is a problem of cultural specificity? Is it whether life is hard or is it the question of how Author A understands Authors B and C? What does the this that is not true actually stand for? Is it the reported fact that Author C observes it (whatever that it is) in a different way or Author B’s reported characterisation of life as hard or Author A’s description of what Authors B and C have written? What is the it that Author C observes in a different way? Does he or she think that life is not hard or does Author C differ from Author A in his/her description of Author B’s view of life?
Finally, which of the authors does the he refer to? All three authors mentioned could be male. In fact, all pronouns in the example need to be spelt out and clarified. Here are two possible interpretations:
O Author A describes the differing views of life held by Author B, whose characterisation of life is ‘hard’, and by Author C. Author A’s description is, however, somewhat dubious because he/she does not consider the possibility that differing views of life may well be a question of cultural specificity.
O Author A describes how Author B characterises life as hard, but Author C describes B’s outlook on life quite differently. Author C is, however, mistaken, since he/she does not account for questions of cultural specificity in Author B’s background.
5.7.2 Relative pronouns and their antecedents
´ Put antecedents next to their relative pronouns.
The most common relative pronouns in English are the words who, whose, which and that when used in the following way.
® They would not divulge the names of members who disagreed.
® They turned away everyone whose identity papers were invalid.
® He writes sentences which are a joy to read.
® He writes the kind of sentence that makes you want to cry.
The antecedents and relative pronouns of these four sentences are: [1] members ´ who; [2] everyone ´ whose; [3] sentences ´ which; [4] kind of sentence ´ that.
Sometimes antecedents get separated from their relative pronoun, for example:
® They turned away everyone, no matter what their status, whose identity papers were invalid.
® He writes sentences, some short, some long, which are a joy to read.
It is still clear that whose refers back to everyone in the first example and, in the second, that which refers back to sentences, even though in both cases the antecedents everyone and sentences do not immediately precede their respective relative pronouns. However, the separation of relative pronouns from their intended antecedents can cause confusion:
N You can hear a guitar riff in the chorus which is easy to transcribe.
In this sentence chorus is the antecedent of which. The reader is consequently led to believe that the student who wrote the sentence found the whole chorus easy to transcribe. Unfortunately, after finding several transcription errors in the chorus but a correctly notated guitar riff, I have to deduce that the student in question really meant guitar riff to be the which’s antecedent, and that he/she should have written:
O The chorus contains a guitar riff which is easy to transcribe.
Matters of comprehension deteriorate further when the intended antecedent is absent from the sentence and the relative pronoun preceded by a grammatically correct but unintended antecedent.
N Reich criticised fascism which was impressive.
Whoever wrote this last sentence has stated that Reich criticised fascism when he found it impressive (‘fascism which was impressive’), not when it was (as by definition) petty, tawdry, destructive, despicable, mean, and anti-human. If whoever produced the sentence truly meant what they wrote, they are of course wrong and would be marked accordingly, because Reich was a strong opponent of all manifestations of fascism, not just of ‘fascism which was impressive’. The sentence cannot mean that Reich’s critique of fascism was impressive because the noun fascism immediately precedes the relative pronoun which and is therefore the antecedent of that which. Criticised is a verb, not a noun or noun phrase, and cannot therefore be antecedent to the relative pronoun which. If, despite these facts of syntax, the student responsible for this sentence really meant to say that Reich criticised fascism and that Reich’s critique of fascism was impressive, then he/she should have written:
O Reich’s critique of fascism was impressive.
6 Punctuation, capitalisation and italics
6.1 Spacing and punctuation
6.1.1 Rules
1. There should be a single space after each full stop, comma, colon, semicolon, exclamation mark and question mark, unless these punctuation marks occur at the end of a paragraph. There should be no space immediately before these punctuation marks.
2. There should always be a space before each left-hand bracket and before each opening of inverted commas (quotation marks), unless you are opening a paragraph with inverted commas or brackets.
3. There should be no space immediately after a left bracket or opening of inverted commas and no space immediately before closing brackets or inverted commas.
4. For purposes of clarity, it is advisable to insert a space both before and after a dash.
5. Footnote or endnote references are generally placed at the end of a sentence, after the final full stop but before the space preceding the subsequent sentence. Note references can also be placed in the same way after semicolons or, occasionally, after commas.
6. Brackets at the end of a sentence are placed before the full stop of that sentence, not after it.
6.1.2 Common errors of punctuation spacing
N This ends the first sentence . This starts the next one …
N This ends the first sentence .This starts the next one …
N This ends the first sentence.This starts the next one …
O This ends the first sentence. This starts the next one…
N One,two,three,and they’re off!
N One , two ,three , and they’re off!
O One, two, three, and they’re off!
N Tagg(1999) states:“transcribing is fun”. ( although I don’t think so )
O Tagg (1999) states: ‘transcribing is fun’ (although I don’t think so).
N Some authors believe that transcribing is fun. (e.g. Tagg 1999)
O Some authors believe that transcribing is fun (e.g. Tagg 1999).
N Some authors 1 think that x is good,while others think y is better2.
O Some authors think that x is good,1 while others think y is better.2
6.2 Full stops [.]
See also §7.1, p.53 - §7.3.
6.2.1 Ending a sentence
´ All sentences end with a full stop unless they end with a question mark, exclamation mark or ellipsis (§6.2.3, p.37).
6.2.2 Abbreviation markers
Full stops are also used to mark certain types of abbreviation (see §7.2.1, p.53). If a sentence ends with such an abbreviation (e.g. ‘etc.’), there is no need for an extra full stop:
O He owned hundreds of Merseybeat singles in mint condition, including recordings by The Fourmost, The Dakotas, The Searchers, etc.
6.2.3 Ellipsis […]
Three dots in a row constitute an ellipsis. An ellipsis (¶lleiciw = ‘omission’, ‘defect’) is used to mark omitted or incomplete text. It is often used in quoted passages to denote that a citation has been abbreviated. For example, if you wanted to make your text more readable and if you wanted to quote another author’s conclusions as succinctly as possible, you might need to shorten a quote like this one in the following manner:
[Original quote] ‘It is clear, especially in consideration of the ideas presented over the last nine hundred pages, that Adorno was talking through his high Hegelian hat.’
[Example of text including abbreviated quote] Summing up this part of the argument, it is not unreasonable to conclude that Adorno had little idea of how popular music really works; or, as Wagg (1999: 1201) put the matter: ‘It is clear… that Adorno was talking through his high Hegelian hat.’
If an ellipsis occurs at the end of a sentence, a fourth point can be added as the full stop of the whole sentence.
6.3 Colon [:]
Colons are chiefly used to separate main clauses when there is a step forward from the first to the second, especially from introduction to main point, from general statement to example(s) (enumeration by example), from cause to effect, from exposé or premise to conclusion:
6.3.1 Enumeration by example
The problem can be solved using the following two strategies: by identifying the underlying contradiction and by calculating the most likely outcome of that contradiction.
6.3.2 Exposé to conclusion
Privatisation of public service leads to reduced efficiency, to a deterioration in most people’s sense of civic pride and identity, as well as to an increase in both crime and social expenditure: it is in fact both inhuman and economically unsound.
6.3.3 Cause to effect
The quantity of ‘e’ in circulation was alarming: they had to close down the club.
The same meaning could have been more efficiently expressed using the following construction (see §5.6.1, p.31):
The amount of ‘e’ in circulation was so alarming that they had to close down the club.
6.3.4 Marking short quotations
In The Joys of Studying Pop Music at University, Tagg (1999:22) states quite glibly: ‘transcription can be fun’.
A less emphasised way of expressing the same meaning would be (see §10.2.2):
…Tagg (1999:22) glibly states that transcription can be fun.
6.4 Semicolon [;]
6.4.1 Uniting closely linked sentences
´ Semicolons are mainly used like substitute full stops to mark the end of complete sentences within a string of statements that for purposes of layout or comprehension needs to be read as one single sentence.
There are three main reasons for criticising this approach: (i) it has no empirical basis whatsoever; (ii) it takes no consideration to a wealth of existing literature on the subject; (iii) it totally ignores the political, economic and musicological aspects of the problem under discussion.
During his early career, he made extensive use of stride bass techniques; later on he developed a more mellow arpeggiated style.
6.4.2 Main division of sentences already containing commas
A semicolon can also be useful for similar reasons (making a multiple sentence look like one single sentence), especially before a ‘but’. Although a comma would also have been possible in the same position, a semicolon makes the sentence slightly easier to read on account of the two commas earlier in the same sentence.
Although their philosophical background was populistic in the extreme, they nevertheless propagated for a holistic understanding of music, citing several sources, even the early works of Marx; but their efforts were fruitless because they applied the theory in a mechanistic and idealistic fashion.
The same point could have been put across more easily as two separate sentences.
…they propagated for a holistic understanding of music, citing several sources, even the early works of Marx. However, their efforts were fruitless because they applied the theory in a mechanistic and idealistic fashion.
6.4.3 Stronger separation in list of items or names
As particularly important influences on their work, it is essential to mention the Cincinnatti rapper, Cool Cocoa; the managing director of EMU publishing, Kevin Cantenŕ; and the German synth rock band, Schwachwerk.
6.5 Commas
Commas have as many uses as there are different rules about how to use them. The Concise Oxford Dictionary (1995:1655) considers that the essential role of commas ‘is to give detail to the structure of sentences, especially longer ones, and make their meaning clear. Too many commas’, the dictionary continues, ‘can be distracting; too few can make a piece of writing difficult to read or, worse, difficult to understand.’
6.5.1 Additionality markers
If semicolons are used to mark the end of each sentence in a series of statements that in itself constitutes a single long sentence, commas are used to separate individual items in a series of grammatically congruent words or phrases. Traditionally, the last item in the series is marked with an and or or and no comma. However, this practice is currently being superseded by the insertion of a comma before the final item in such series. Whichever system you opt for (comma or no comma before the final and or or), your punctuation practice should be consistent throughout the work you submit.
Note also that each individual item in the series exemplified below is both short and grammatically congruent.
6.5.1.1 Separating a string of adjectives
® Most respondents found the music shoddy, tacky[,] and boring.
® The government’s policy was diversely characterised as immoral, unethical[,] or antisocial.
6.5.1.2 Separating a string of adverbs
The government’s policy is morally, ethically, socially[,] and economically unsound.
6.5.1.3 Separating a string of short clauses
TakkiTrax plc bought the studio, ran it into the ground, fired the staff, sold off the equipment, and ended up as beneficiaries in a cleverly staged bankruptcy suit.
6.5.1.4 Comma before final ‘and’ or ‘or’
In the previous sentence, the final comma made the sentence slightly easier to understand. It is indeed perhaps best to stick to the principle that a comma marking additionality also be placed in front of the final item in the list, just before the concluding and or or, especially when the final item contains an and or or:
® Her favourite artists were Richard Clayderman, Sepultura, and Hall and Oates.
® The manager’s stock reply would then be one of the following: ‘make up your mind’, ‘do or die’, or ‘yes or no?’.
6.5.2 Marking sentence structure
6.5.2.1 Initial adverbial markers
Commas are also used to mark off certain initial adverbs or adverbial phrases, for example:
® However, this does not mean to say that …
® The defendants, however, took a different view of the matter.
® Moreover, no-one has been able to explain how …
® Once seated at the organ, Bach decided to pull out all the stops.
® Taking all the previous arguments into account and considering all the different ways in which those arguments can be applied to the matter in hand, it is not unreasonable to conclude that …
6.5.2.2 Initial subordinate clause markers
If your sentence starts with a subordinate clause (like this one), that subordinate clause may end with a comma, for example:
® By the time they arrived at Phoenix, Stig had died of an overdose.
® Although everyone expected the lead guitarist to be targeted first, it was the drummer who was found dead in his motel toilet on that fateful day in November 1976.
® While many commentators attribute Stig’s death to drug abuse, others argue that the CIA had been involved since an early stage in …
6.5.2.3 Subordinate clause and phrase markers
Commas are also used in pairs to mark off a subordinate clause or phrase in the middle of a sentence, for example:
The whole series of events surrounding Stig’s demise, one of the most tragic episodes in rock history, still remains to be thoroughly investigated.
In the preceding sentence, one of the most tragic episodes in rock history constitutes the subordinate phrase to be ‘comma-ed off’. It merely qualifies Stig’s demise and if the phrase were left out, the sentence would still make sense.
In the next sentence, the subordinate clause runs from who were previously suspected down to Radical Rockers and qualifies the CIA. This relative clause between commas could also be left out and the sentence would still make sense. Note also that the initial adverbial phrase According to recently published documents ends with a comma and that the final subordinate clause, starting whether or not, is marked off from the main clause by a comma.
According to recently published documents, the CIA, who were previously suspected of pushing cheap cocaine to dealers working neighbourhoods frequented by the Radical Rockers, had actually been under direct orders from the Secretary of State to target all overtly anti-capitalist organisations, whether or not such organisations posed any real threat to the nation’s security.
Commas can also show how a relative clause relates to its antecedent:
N The NME qualified the band’s sound as ‘less poppy’ than that of indie which is far more influenced by blues-based guitar rock.
O The NME qualified the band’s sound as ‘less poppy’ than that of indie, which is far more influenced by blues-based guitar rock.
Neither sentence is brilliant. However, at least the second sentence (thanks to its comma after indie) is reasonably clear about indie music in general being more influenced by blues-based guitar rock whereas the first sentence is ambiguous on this point. Does it mean that the band’s sound is ‘less poppy’ than indie in general or than the particular sort of indie that shows blues-based guitar rock influences?
6.5.3 Frequent comma errors
6.5.3.1 Commas without function
N Radical Rockers, was probably one of the most progressive, organisations in the USA.
O Radical Rockers was probably one of the most progressive organisations in the USA.
N It therefore seems that artists backed by massive marketing campaigns, are often those with pretty faces and no talent.
O It therefore seems that artists backed by massive marketing campaigns are often those with pretty faces and no talent.
6.5.3.2 Missing or wrongly placed commas
The following statement is a thoroughly ambiguous start to a sentence:
N However the prosecutor tried the jury members …
This could continue in either of the following ways:
O However, the prosecutor tried the jury members, only to discover that none of them would confess to having taken bribes.
O However the prosecutor tried, the jury members were not convinced of the defendant’s guilt.
Commas would also help determine the meaning of the following sentence:
N The company started employing staff marketing folding chairs and selling CDs.
If the writer means that the company started to employ staff, at which time the same company also started to market folding chairs and to sell CDs, then the sentence should have read:
O The company started employing staff, marketing folding chairs, and selling CDs.
If, on the other hand, the writer meant that the company started to do all four things all at the same time, i.e. employing staff and marketing product and folding chairs (e.g. after a special meeting requiring extra seating) and selling CDs, then the sentence should have read:
O The company started employing staff, marketing, folding chairs, and selling CDs.
However, the same original sentence might also mean that the company employed marketing staff to do two things: fold chairs and sell CDs. In that case, it would probably have been better to write:
O The company started to employ new marketing staff whose duties included folding chairs as well as selling CDs.
6.5.3.3 Comma instead of full stop
´ It is wrong to make one sentence out of two by inserting a comma:
N Stig was fond of fireworks on stage, he blew up his drumkit on many occasions.
Either keep the two sentences separate:
O Stig was fond of fireworks on stage. He blew up his drumkit on many occasions.
or, if appropriate, use a colon (see §6.3, p.37):
O Stig was fond of fireworks on stage: he blew up his drumkit on many occasions.
6.5.4 Commas in numerals
Commas are used in numbers greater than 999 to separate thousands into groups of three digits, starting from the right, e.g. 15,185,000 (= fifteen million, one-hundred-and-eighteen thousand).
6.6 Dash [—] and hyphen [-]
´ Dashes should not be confused with hyphens.
´ Hyphens are not punctuation marks: their function is to join (parts of) words together.
´ Dashes mark the start and end of an ‘aside’. Each dash should ideally be both preceded and followed by a space.
´ Dashes (and brackets like these) should be used with discrimination. A better way of expressing this exhortation is:
® Brackets — and dashes like these — should be used (or used) with discrimination.
® Later that year — and this was not the first time such evidence came to light — the Flagstaff police uncovered a money laundering racket at the city’s golf club, an establishment frequently patronised by Bud Beissinger of the State Department.
This is the same as writing
Later that year (and this was not the first time such evidence came to light) the Flagstaff police uncovered…
If the ‘aside’ to be demarcated occurs at the end of a sentence, it has a similar function to a colon (q.v.) and should not be completed with a final dash — the full stop at the end of the sentence is quite sufficient, e.g.
If the ‘aside’ to be demarcated occurs at the end of a sentence, it has a similar function to a colon and should not be completed with a final dash — the full stop at the end of the sentence is quite sufficient.
In fact, a colon would have been better than a dash in that last sentence.
6.7 Quotation marks [‘…’ / “…”]
Everything you write between quotation marks, also known as ‘inverted commas’, must by definition be between such marks. This tautology implies:
´ if you open inverted commas you must also close them because readers need to know where the word or passage so demarcated both starts and ends.
If you are using a typewriter or computer, it is advisable to use the single quotes [‘…’]. As second best, you can use double quotes [“…”].
6.7.1 Marking off words uttered by someone else
The main point of inverted commas is to help readers differentiate between your words and those uttered by someone else (see §10.2.2).
6.7.2 Other uses
Inverted commas can also be used to demarcate special words or phrases belonging to one of the following categories:
6.7.2.1 Neologisms
You will need to flag up the a neologism and enclose it within inverted commas the first time it appears in your text.
® Therefore, a minimal unit of tactile signification will be referred to as a ‘hapteme’.
® Their studio sound seemed more ‘Abbaesque’ than ‘Spectorian’.
In the first sentence it was also necessary to define the neologism. In the second sentence the sense of both neologisms is clear enough to the popular music scholar.
6.7.2.2 Highlighting meaning
® At the start of the sixties, hardly anyone in Britain had heard of ‘yoghurt’ or the ‘electric bass’.
® As it turned out, ‘postmodernism’ was just another imaginary garment from the academic Emperor’s empty wardrobe of concepts.
6.7.2.3 Highly colloquial or loosely defined expressions
® The general consensus was to regard the record as ‘cool’, even though many metal fans argued that it ‘sucked’.
® Kevin’s synth pad made a very ‘woolly’ sound.
6.7.2.4 Expressions used in a highly particular sense
® According to Assafiev, this world view would be ‘intoned’ in symmetric, quaternary, and monorhythmic terms.
® Zappa’s ‘church of the flatted fifth’ is discussed in some detail.
6.7.2.5 Distanced expressions
Quotation marks can be used to mark off words whose general value and meaning you want to keep at a safe distance (or disagree with):
Some critics still prefer to think of ‘classical music’ in terms of ‘great masterpieces’ of ‘eternal value’, as ‘pure art’ created by compositional ‘geniuses’ who ‘transcend’ class conflict. Such aesthetic elitists not only trivialise popular cultural practice: they also falsify the very tradition they claim to uphold.
However, beware of excessive or derogatory use of quotation marks (see p. 23).
6.7.3 Quotation marks and other punctuation
According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary (1995:1656), ‘the closing quotation mark should come after any punctuation mark which is part of the quoted matter but before any mark which is not’:
They all roared ‘rock and roll!’.
The dictionary continues: ‘punctuation dividing a sentence of quoted speech is put inside the quotation marks’:
‘However,’ he said with great emphasis, ‘that is another matter altogether.’
Quotations inside quotations are put in double inverted commas while punctuation outside the sentence of quoted speech is put outside the quotation marks:
‘Have you any idea’, the students asked, ‘what “postmodernism” actually means?’.
If you are using double quotation marks as the norm, the quotation within a quotation should be put in single quotation marks.
“Have you any idea”, the students asked, “what ‘postmodernism’ actually means?”.
6.8 Apostrophe [’]
Apostrophes are used in two main ways: (i) to show that one or more letters are missing; (ii) to denote the genitive case of a noun.
6.8.1 Signalling missing letters
An easy illustration of the first use of the apostrophe is the expression rock ’n’ roll (not rock ‘n’ roll!). Rock ’n’ roll is short for ‘rock and roll’ because both the a and the d of and are missing. Similarly, What’d I Say? is short for What Did I Say?, i.e. the Di of Did is signalled as missing. Other common examples of this use of the apostrophe are …n’t (= not), …’ll (= will or shall), …’d (= had or would), …’ve (= have), …’s (= is), as in can’t, don’t, didn’t, I’ll, they’d, we’ve, it’s, there’s.
Although it is perfectly OK to use nouns or noun phrases containing apostrophes, e.g. everyone’s (see below) or rock ’n’ roll, it is, with the exception of quoted speech, uncommon to find the apostrophed abbreviation of verbs in scholarly texts. Use cannot rather than can’t, do not rather than don’t, does not rather than doesn’t, they have rather than they’ve, ought not rather than oughtn’t, etc.
6.8.2 Denoting the genitive case
6.8.2.1 General rule
The general rule applicable to denotation of the genitive case is:
´ An apostrophe must be inserted between a noun and its final s if that noun is in the singular and after the final s if that noun is in the plural.
The teacher was acting in the student’s best interests.
This means that the teacher was acting in the interests of one particular student. The next sentence means that the teacher was acting in the interests of several students.
The teacher was acting in the students’ best interests.
6.8.2.2 Irregular plurals
If a plural noun does not end in s (e.g. children, people), the apostrophe precedes the final s, e.g. the children’s playroom, most people’s idea of a good time (see also §8.2.5, p.64).
6.8.2.3 Noun ending in ‘s’, ‘x’ or ‘z’
If the singular form of a noun ends in s, its genitive is sometimes formed by adding an apostrophe after that s, e.g. Copernicus’ theory, Jesus’ disciples, Barthes’ Mythologies. At other times it is usual to add ‘s after the final singular s, i.e. to write the school class’s night out, Mr Jones’s car, the Jones’s budgerigar, St James’s Park, etc. It is more usual to read Marx’s theory of labour as commodity than (the also correct) Marx’ theory of labour as commodity. However, Barthes’ Mythologies remains Barthes’ Mythologies because the final s of Barthes is unpronounced. Also, it is better to write Berlioz’ diaries than Berlioz’s diaries.
6.8.3 It’s, its, who’s, whose, there’s, theirs
The most frequent (and most frequently incorrect) use of the apostrophe signalling one or more missing letters is it’s, which can only mean ‘it is’.
´ It’s, meaning ‘it is’, is not the same as its, meaning ‘of it’.
´ There is no such thing as its’ (M) in the English language.
´ Who’s, meaning ‘who is’ is not the same as whose, meaning ‘of whom’.
´ There’s (=‘there is’) is not the same as theirs, (=‘belonging to them’).
6.8.4 False apostrophes
´ The plural of DJ is DJs (J), not DJ’s (N) (for more, see §7.2.2, p.53).
´ The eighties are the 1980s (J), not the 1980’s (M) (see §7.3.3, p.55).
6.9 Capitalisation
6.9.1 First letter in a sentence
´ The first letter in a sentence is in upper case unless preceded by a numeral.
6.9.2 People and places
´ Named nouns are always capitalised.
Proper names (or proper nouns) are names used for persons, named groups of individuals, places, etc., e.g. The Beatles, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Elvis Presley, Charlie Poole and his North Carolina Ramblers, The Cure, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Guess Who, The Who, Lime Street, Liverpool, the River Mersey, the Irish Sea, Montréal, the Ottawa River, Tower Records, the Phantom of the Opera.
Words within an proper name which are non-initial prepositions or articles are not capitalised. This rule applies not only to English language names (e.g. the and the in Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders) but also to foreign names, e.g. Peter van der Merwe, Erich von Hornbostel, Helga de la Motte-Haber, José Pinto de Carvalho, Luigi del Grosso Destreri. Nevertheless, please note that many Anglophones tend to treat van, de, dal, del, le, la, etc. as if they were names in their own right (Eddie Van Halen, Stevie Van Zandt) and that practice on this point is inconsistent even in the country of linguistic origin, e.g. F Delalande, G de Maupassant, R Dalmonte, A dal Pozzo, and not de la Lande, Demaupassant, Dalpozzo or dal Monte.
The rule is to write other people’s names as they themselves do: Mr and Mrs Duckham would not wish to be called Duck Ham. Ensure also that you provide foreign names with their correct diacritics. Do not be ethnocentric. For example, Ĺslund is a common Swedish surname, whereas Aslund sounds insulting, a bit like calling Carter ‘Farter’, or Duckham ‘Suckham’, not to mention other consonant commutations.
Note also the use of a capital letter elsewhere than at the start of a word in names like Sean O’Keefe, Ian McDonald, Moira MacDonald, and Fiona NiDhomhnaill.
6.9.2.1 Words deriving from people’s names
´ Most words deriving from people’s names are capitalised.
Examples: Taylorism, Thatcherite policies, Reaganism, Christian, Marxist, Aristotlean, Platonic, Cartesian (from ‘Descartes’). If the connection of such derivatives with their original names is slight or generally unknown, no capitalisation is necessary, especially in the case of verbs: boycott the fascists, bowdlerise Shakespeare, hoover the carpet.
6.9.2.2 Words deriving from place names
´ Almost every word designating peoples, languages or cultures that derives from an otherwise capitalised concept starts with a capital
Examples: Americanisation, Anglocentric, Anglophones, Brazilian, Celtic, English-speaking, Eurocentric, Francophones, Liverpudlian, Scottish, Spaniard, Spanish, Swedes, Urdu, Yoruba.
NB: anglophone, germanophone, etc., start with a lower-case letter when used adjectivally (e.g. ‘the francophone world’), with a capital when denoting people (e.g. Francophones).
6.9.2.3 Points of the compass
Most dictionaries and grammars tend to favour capitalisation of points of the compass. This practice seems to be on the wane and we recommend that
´ lower case should be used for points of the compass when they are not part of a proper noun or noun phrase.
The westerly wind blew the boat eastwards until we sighted the south coast of Western Australia… We drove east into the rising sun, turning north after about 400 km. A southbound convoy of beer lorries was heading our way, sending clouds of desert dust towards the northeast just before we arrived at West Djedbanga.
However, when such words are part of a proper noun [phrase], they should be capitalised. Thus, the state of Western Australia (a proper place name) covers all of western Australia (the part of Australia lying in the west of that nation). Similarly, whereas the Northwest, the Northeast and the Southeast are all named regions of England, northwest[ern], northeast[ern] and southeast[ern] England are not.
6.9.3 Institutions
6.9.3.1 Public organisations
´ Names of institutions are generally capitalised
Examples: the Arts Council, the Department of the Environment, the Government, the House of Representatives, the University of Liverpool, the Institute of Popular Music, Rice Lane Youth Centre, the Royal Society.
6.9.3.2 Companies and trade marks
´ Names of companies and trade marks are usually capitalised
Examples: Sony, Philips, Filofax, Hoover, Xerox, Ford Escort, Triumph 350 cc, Boeing 727, Fender Stratocaster, Hammond B12, Korg M1, Redneck Records, the Parlophone label, Warner Brothers.
‘Some proprietary terms are now conventionally spelt with a lower case initial (baby buggy, biro, cellophane, jeep), and this is generally true of established verbs derived from proprietary terms (to hoover, to xerox).’ Other proprietary names, usually related to computing, combine separate words into one, indicating the start of each constituent with a capital (e.g. FrameMaker, HostVector, SmartRipper, WordMail).
6.9.3.3 Religions, laws, political parties
´ Religions, denominations, their deities, etc. are capitalised.
Examples: Christianity, Islam, Islamic, Islamisation, Muslim[s], Judaism, Catholic, Protestant, God, Allah, the Holy Spirit.
Note that the Methodist Church is an institution, the Methodist church a building.
´ Names of laws, acts of parliament, etc. are capitalised.
Examples: the Poll Tax, the Criminal Justice Act, the Fifth Amendment.
´ Names of political parties are capitalised.
Examples: the Communist Party of China, the Democratic Convention in Las Vegas, Labour under Blair, the Social Democrats. However, please note that the same words are not capitalised if they are not part of a name:
® I have always held communist views.
® The Poll Tax made a mockery of democratic legislation.
® Surplus value relies on the exploitation of labour: so do the capitalists supporting New Labour.
® The Socialist Party is not very socialist at all.
6.9.3.4 Events and venues
´ Named events and venues are capitalised.
Examples: The Wirral Guitar Festival, Liverpool Now, Wigan Jazz Festival, The Piddletrenthide Pig Show, etc.; The Flamingo, The Marquee, Cream, The Lomax, The Odeon, Time/Warner Multiplex, Wembley Stadium, etc.
6.9.4 English language work titles
6.9.4.1 General
´ The initial word and all important words in titles of English language books, magazines, journals, newspapers, films, videos, records, radio and TV programmes, etc. must start with a capital letter.
´ Articles (a, an, the, some), many common prepositions (e.g. of, to, for, towards), and conjunctions (and, or) are not capitalised unless they occur as first word.
® Everyone has to read Studying Popular Music because it provides a theoretical framework for discussing books like The Sound of the City. However, it is obvious that Offerkeik has never read Understanding the Real World, let alone Middleton (1990), and totally reasonable that none of her work was accepted for publication in the Journal for the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music.
® In his doctoral study, entitled An Investigation of the Motives for and Realization of Music to Accompany the American Silent Film, Berg does not suggest that the synth ‘megadrones’ of Twin Peaks or the eerie Twilight Zone wailings of Day of the Living Dead XIV, not to mention the pan pipe trills of The Good the Bad and the Ugly, have anything to do with Birth of a Nation or The Sound of Music.
® Another question investigated on How Do They Do That? was why details of the band’s sexual habits were all over the front page of The News of the World.
® My favourite tracks on Sergeant Pepper are Good Morning and A Day In The Life.
NB. Longer prepositions included in a title may sometimes start with a capital letter, e.g. File Under Popular but Musical Life in Urban Haiti under the Papa Doc Dictatorship; World Without End but How to Manage a Band without [or Without] the Hassles of Publishing; Making Music During Dinner but Musical Life in Rural Haiti during the Period 1991-95.
6.9.4.2 Titles of articles
In the main body of text, titles of English language articles may be capitalised as works (see §6.9.4§6.9.4, p.47). However, there is a growing tendency to write titles of articles as if they were normal sentences (see §6.10, p.50; §11.2, p.82 §12.2, p.94).
6.9.4.3 Music titles
Every word (including of, the, a, an, for, to) in an individual English language popular song title tends to be capitalised. Such song titles are also italicised in the main body of text (see §6.10, p.50; §11.3, p.87).
6.9.5 Foreign language titles
Foreign language titles should be rendered according to the orthography of the language in question, e.g. Les professionnels du disque; Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique; Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen.
6.9.6 Genre names
6.9.6.1 General rule
´ Names of dances or of musical styles and genres start with a lower case letter.
Examples: acid jazz, arabesque, bebop, bhangra, bossa nova, blues, cha-cha-cha, charleston, cueca, cúmbia, disco, drum 'n' bass, estradnaya muzyka, foxtrot, frevo, gammaldans, gavotte, habanera, hip-hop, indie, industrial, jazz, jig, jota, jungle, klezmer, lambada, marcha ranca, maxixe, mazurka, mbaqanga, minuet, murga, nouba, one-step, polka, pop, punk, quadrille, raga, ragtime, raj, reggae, reel, rock, rumba, samba, ska, slip jig, son, soukous, swing, tango, techno, twist, urlar, valse musette, waltz, xiba, yaraví, zouk.
6.9.6.2 Exceptions
1. If the dance, style or genre in question starts with a proper noun that proper noun is capitalised, e.g. the Boston two-step, Finnish tango, Chicago blues, Merseybeat, the Motown sound, Britpop.
2. Names of specifically German-language dances, styles and genres should be capitalised and italicised in accordance with the orthographic practices of German, e.g. Gassenhauer, Schlager, Schottische, Krautrock.
3. Country is a problem term. Since Bosnia, China, Egypt, the USA and most other nations all have country music, in the sense of music originating in rural rather than urban areas, it is advisable to write Country [music] rather than country if you specifically wish to denote the musical practices of a particular part of the population (white working class) originally associated with particular parts of the US South.
4. Dance is another problem term. If by Dance you mean only the sort of music played in the 1990s at clubs like Liverpool’s Cream, then it may be wise to use a capital D to distinguish it from the general concept of dance and dancing. You will need to explain why, in your text, waltz, salsa, rumba, polka, etc. may qualify as dance but not as Dance (for more, see p. 22).
NB. The abbreviation and capitalisation of rhythm and blues to R&B is acceptable, but the contraction of Country and Western to C&W should be avoided, unless used recurrently and explained or defined with other terms and abbreviations.
If any confusion is likely between, on the one hand, the name of a dance, genre, style, etc. and, on the other, the common noun from which it derives, e.g. acid, house, jungle, punk, clarification may be necessary, as is evident from the following examples.
N Those who liked this sort of house did not like the same kind of punk.
This could mean that those who preferred bungalows to terraced housing might have liked some, but not all, of the kids hanging around on street corners.
N Many jungle fans were keen on acid.
Does acid refer to acid house music, to LSD, or did these fans of the Congo and Amazon basins hoard bottles labelled ‘H2SO4’ in their bedroom cupboards and garden sheds.
6.9.7 Names of modes
´ Names of ‘church’ modes start with a lower case letter except when they occur at the start of a sentence, in a song title, etc.
O After the ionian, the most common mode found in English folk song is the mixolydian. However, no-one knows if the Dorians actually used what we know as the dorian mode.
6.10 Italicisation
6.10.1 Italicise or underline?
´ If you cannot italicise, underline.
If you are using word processing or desktop software, you should use italics in the situations explained below. If you are writing by hand, you should underline all text requiring italics according to the description below. This means that the following statements are identical.
® Students are advised to consult Popular Music.
® Students are advised to consult Popular Music.
6.10.2 General rule
Italic typeface (or underling) is used to highlight text within text, mainly for published titles, foreign words and special emphasis.
6.10.3 Work titles
´ Italic type is used for non-generic titles of books, periodicals, musical works, musicals, operas, ballets, poems, plays, films, paintings, sculptures, etc., as well as for named ships and trains.
´ Titles of articles in periodicals and of chapters in written anthologies are not italicised.
Convention also prescribes that names of ‘minor musical works’ and of radio and TV programmes should not be italicised. This convention is not entirely suited to writing about popular music (see §6.10.3.1, p.50 - §6.10.3.2).
® Students must read Studying Popular Music.
® Have you seen the latest number of Popular Music?
® McCartney’s photo was in the Liverpool Echo again today.
® Do you prefer Gimme All Your Lovin’ or I Want Your Sex?
® The Kojak theme is the last track on Golden Detective Tunes.
® Do you like Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare or Tchaikovsky?
® They missed The Last Supper and went straight to the Mona Lisa.
® At the end of Speed they should have sung Speed Kills.
® Good Morning Good Morning is the best track on Sergeant Pepper.
NB. [1] Some italicised titles and names start with an article, e.g. A Tale of Two Cities, The Times, while others do not, e.g. the Messiah, the New York Times.
NB. [2] Genitive and plural endings should be in roman type, e.g. the Flying Scotsman’s final run, a stack of Guardians on the shelf, Popular Music’s in-house style.
6.10.3.1 Tracks, singles, albums and musical works
Traditionally, only ‘larger musical works’ are supposed to be italicised, while ‘minor musical pieces’ should be written in roman type. From this general rule follows the practice of putting titles of individual tracks in roman type and of italicising titles of albums, LPs, CDs, etc. (see §11.3; §12.3). This practice is similar to the classical music convention of italicising the name of a song cycle, an opera or an oratorio, but of leaving titles of individual songs, arias, choruses and recitatives in roman type. The same principle applies to names of songs in albums of sheet music. This general practice should be followed in appendices (see §12.3) but can be confusing in the main body of your text.
Consider the next four examples
[1] It was impossible to find satisfaction in Virgin Megastore.
[2] It was impossible to find Satisfaction in Virgin Megastore.
[3] It was impossible to find ‘Satisfaction’ in Virgin Megastore.
[4] It was impossible to find Satisfaction in Virgin Megastore.
The first two examples have nothing to do with a 1965 recording by the Rolling Stones: [1] means exactly what it says, while [2] personalises satisfaction in the same way as Death, complete with hourglass and scythe, is the anthropomorphic embodiment of death. Version [3] illustrates the conventionally correct way of writing the name of ‘a minor musical work or individual piece’. However, it is much less clear a demarcation of title than version [4]. When writing about popular music, it is therefore advisable to abide by the following rules.
´ Names of individual songs and tracks are italicised in the main body of text.
´ Individual songs in a collection and all tracks belonging to a published album, LP or audiocassette are written in roman type and within single quotes when included in appendices (see §11.3, p.87).
´ All published album, LP, single, CD and audiocassette titles are italicised both in the main text and in appendices.
6.10.3.2 Radio and TV programmes
Names of radio and TV programmes should, according to convention, be written in roman type. However, as with individual songs (see §6.10.3.1, p.50), this practice can cause confusion.
[1] Thrash metal is hardly the right music for neighbours.
[2] Thrash metal is hardly the right music for Neighbours.
[3] Thrash metal is hardly the right music for ‘Neighbours’.
[4] Thrash metal is hardly the right music for Neighbours.
If you are talking about the suitability of Slayer’s music in a well-known Australian soap, there is no doubt that version four is preferable.
6.10.4 Foreign words and phrases
´ If a foreign word or phrase has not been assimilated into the English language, or if it is a foreign homograph of an English word or phrase, it should be italicised.
That night at the small pension in Aix, we were treated to a mbaqanga concert performed by Guinean griots. When Subsaharans play sookian music con brio on the Tunisian ud, using finger-picking techniques more suited to the cora, it is, as German ethnomusicologist Otto von Bumsen put it on that occasion, ‘quite an Überraschung’. Otto’s parents had fled Berlin after the Reichstagbrand, just but before Machtübernahme, because they were au fait with plans for the Endlösung which involved them too. The von Bumsens finally found their personal Lebensraum in the sertăo of Bahía, where Otto soon learnt to master violăo techniques and to do the capoeira.
NB. Foreign words and phrases like ‘per se’, ‘quid pro quo’, ‘status quo’, ‘tour de force’, ‘raison d’ętre’, ‘ancien régime’, ‘fin-de-sičcle’, de rigueur’, ‘Lieder’, ‘Bauhaus’, ‘ombudsman’, ‘cueca’, ‘samba’, ‘soukous’, ‘allegro’, ‘glissando’, ‘au fait’, ‘Nazi’ etc. do not really need italicisation because they are all quite common in English-language texts.
6.10.5 Stress on words
Italic typeface (or underlining, see §6.10.1, p.50) can be used to clarify meaning in ambiguous contexts.
® The label did not want to sign them. [The publishers did.]
® The label did not want to sign them. [They definitely didn’t.]
® The label did not want to sign them. [They had to.]
® The label did not want to sign them. [They wanted to kill them.]
® The label did not want to sign them. [They wanted another band.]
6.10.6 Metalinguistic texts
Italics are also used in texts about language, such as a dictionary, a grammar, or this handout, to highlight words and phrases from their surrounding text. Compare the next two examples:
N Although The The’s lyrics were often politically explicit, it was never clear what the the actually stood for.
O Although The The’s lyrics were always intelligent, it was never clear what the The in the band’s name actually stood for.
The first example could be interpreted as meaning that the writer, forgetting to capitalise the band’s name when using it for the second time, did not know what the band stood for. In the second example it is clear that the word the is felt to be ambiguous, not the band’s message.
6.10.7 Italics within italics
´ When an italicised word or phrase is contained within text that is already in italics, it is written in roman type.
The exploitation of musician labour was admirably clarified in An Examination of Vergesellschaftungstheorie in Marxist Critiques of Capital Accumulation in the Media Industry, published by Progress Publishers (Moscow, 1977).
6.10.8 When not to italicise
Italics should not be used for:
w Generic work titles, e.g. Sonata in F, Symphony N° 5, Sonnet XIV.
w Titles of articles in periodicals or anthologies, e.g. ‘From Refrain to Rave’ in Popular Music; ‘Sexing the Other’ in An Anthology of Postmodern Piss-takes.
w The Bible, The Koran, etc. and chapter titles in books.
w Individual songs or short pieces in anthologies or on albums, when these items are included in appendices.
w Names of buildings, venues, pubs, clubs, cars, etc.
7 Abbreviations
7.1 Acronyms
Acronyms are words formed from the initial letters of a group of words, e.g. UNESCO for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, AIDS for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, DAT for Digital Audio Tape. While most acronyms are written in upper case, some have only an initial capital letter, e.g. Intelsat. Acronyms are pronounced as a single words (e.g. ‘you-ness-coe’). Acronyms need no full stops or apostrophes to signal that they are abbreviations.
7.2 Upper-case abbreviations
7.2.1 F