In holiday mood!

I was strongly tempted to implement a new Good Impressions branding. In the end, I resisted. Probably a wise decision!



I am not sure to whom it should be credited; I found it courtesy of Jackson Galaxy, an unlikely but highly intelligent and gifted interpreter of the feline world.

Turbocharging Word's 'Find and Replace'

Word's Find and Replace feature is a very powerful tool and I use it constantly to check consistency of spellings, capitalisation, and referenced authors' names and publication dates. I have been so busy using it, though, I have not explored it to the limit.

Recently I came across an aspect that was new to me: the wildcard tool. Why had I ignored that little tick box for so long? Used with care, it has almost magical results. Wildcards work by identifying a specific pattern of characters and replacing them with different characters; they can therefore be used in any instance which can be defined by a formula.

If in-text references include a comma (Jones, 2007) but the publisher’s guidelines specify a different pattern e.g. (Davies 2010), it is relatively straightforward to delete all the unwanted commas. By ticking the Use wildcards box in Find and Replace, inserting a formula to identify the unwanted pattern and than a formula to replace it, the commas disappear without the text being affected:

As a new user, though, I am cautious about using the facility to replace all instances at once; the compilation of correct formulas needs practice (in my case, at least) and I still prefer to make the changes singly until I am sure that there are no potential glitches in the results.

Never put a comma before 'and': truism or myth?

Many teachers and parents have favourite grammatical rules that are trotted out at every opportunity. One of the commonest is ‘never put a comma before and’. Generally applied to lists, the sentence ‘He chose apples, bananas, and grapes’ brings out the schoolmasterly red pencil and is corrected to read ‘He chose apples, bananas and grapes’. The amendment is usually harmless, but applied blindly the results can be chaotic.

Grammar serves one single purpose: to ensure accurate communication. The danger of ungrammatical writing or speaking is simply that the meaning can be misunderstood. The purpose of punctuation for a writer, therefore, is to guide the reader through the words so that ideas are conveyed both accurately and easily.

Although this supposed rule about commas is often quoted some people take the opposite view and the question causes much debate. The use of a comma before and is, in fact, optional. In the example used above the removal of the comma after bananas makes no difference to the meaning, so either sentence will pass the test and convey accurate information. The optional comma before the last element in a list has impeccable credentials; it was invariably used by Oxford University Press and so for many years was termed an Oxford comma.

There can be practical problems for writers who implement the mistaken ‘no comma before and’ rule, in that the use of commas in complex lists is sometimes essential to guide and inform the reader. Consider the following statements:

She chose different flavours of crisps: plain, bacon and cheese and onion.

She chose different flavours of crisps: plain, bacon, and cheese and onion.

The first example is not clear and the reader stumbles over the meaning. Did she pick bacon and cheese crisps? Cheese and onion crisps? Or were there four flavours: plain, bacon, cheese, and onion?

In this case, the precise meaning is probably unimportant (unless it is a key fact in a fictional murder plot). In academic writing, however, it is essential that lists conveying methodological alternatives, information about sites of case studies, or references to multiple publications, for example, can be readily split into their component parts and accurately understood. In cases such as these the Oxford comma should be a requirement, not an option.

Writing in the first person: innovation or disaster?

A year ago I opened a thesis that astounded me: the doctoral student wrote ‘I will explore the aspects of …’ and that ‘I chose the sample on the basis that …’. It was the first instance of the consistent use of the first person that I had seen in 15 years’ experience of editing academic texts.

The student explained that his supervisor had recommended this approach to acknowledge the particularly close links between the researcher and the research subjects. When, a couple of months later, I read another introductory chapter in the first person I again checked that this was not an oversight. Since that time, more theses than not have included significant elements written in the first person and I have long stopped querying it.

So why this sudden introduction of the personal into formal academic texts? Is it a fad or is there a useful purpose?

There is nothing that has to be expressed in the first person. If the author’s own experience is relevant, it can be described in the passive mood: ‘ … the researcher had worked in the local authority for ten years, so many personal contacts were available’. The purpose of using the first person must therefore be conceptual rather than practical.

Clearly, the writer’s thoughts, life, character and experience are in the background and must inform the thesis, from the choice of topic to the conclusions - a different person would produce different work. What is the advantage, though, of focusing a spotlight on the researcher, as well as on the subjects? An acknowledgement of the role of the personal is one possibility, though this can be achieved without using the first person. Beyond that it remains a mystery to me (and yes, I do acknowledge the paradox!).

The disadvantage is clearer: it is difficult to avoid the formal report of a piece of research developing overtones of a primary school essay: the spirit of ‘What I Did On My Holidays’ creeps onto the page. The student asserts ‘I think that …’ and the reader tacitly replies, ‘Who cares?’. The excitement of the ice cream and the trip to Alton Towers overshadows the main purpose of the work, and risks downgrading the research to an opinion piece.

Does this trend reflect the increased consumerisation and marketisation of education? Is the researcher at the forefront because increasingly the main aim is to enhance the student’s career rather than to add to the sum of knowledge? Is this way of thinking encouraged by Thatcher’s children reaching the age where they become doctoral supervisors? Whatever the reason, it does not read well. With luck, it may prove to be a fad. But I (as if you care!) doubt it.