Personal Blogs

The full title of this workshop was: The Mechanics of Good Writing in the Arts and Humanities. Although my English degree is now coming to an end, I thought I would go along to a programme wide lunchtime workshop about writing, which took place on 3 March 2026, facilitated by Cindy Benton. This was one of a series of workshops that I attended with the intention of picking up any potential useful tips. I’m really glad I went, since there were some very good tips to be gathered.

What follows are some notes I made, which I’m sharing with permission. When I use quotes, I’m either quoting directly from Cindy, or from the resource that she shared during her session. I would also like to add that the tips shared here may be useful to students who are studying subjects other than the humanities. These notes may also be especially useful for students studying the Computing and IT undergraduate project module, who have to submit a significant report during the end of their degree.

The workshop aim was to focus “on the skills needed to develop good academic writing at the sentence and paragraph level, including how to avoid common sentence structure errors, constructing effective paragraphs, signposting, and using an appropriate academic tone.” Cindy shared an interesting quote from Bourdieu and Passeron (1994); “academic languguage is no-one’s first language”, which I have since tracked down to the following source: Bourdieu, P., Passeron, J.C., & De Saint Martin, M. (1994). Academic discourse, linguistic misunderstanding, and professorial power. Stanford University Press.

I really like this quotation, since it reminds me of some related research that relates to the idea of academic literacies (ORO), that was published by a former OU colleague. From memory, the point is that you’re not just learning about something, you’re also writing about how that subject is discussed or expressed. Put another way, there are a bunch of these hidden rules that you need to figure out.

In computing modules, writing isn’t something that is foregrounded. Students are not typically expected to write essays. Students are, however, expected to write reports, and include short discussions within TMA submissions. Whatever the subject, writing is important.

If you’re a computing student, you might want to skip over the following section about the essay, and start on the section that highlights the importance of the introduction.

The essay

I understand an essay to be a formal piece of writing that is “structured, evidence based, balanced and formal”. It is something that “gives an opportunity to evidence understanding”.

We were asked a question: what makes a good essay?

I noted down three elements of a good essay: presentation, content, structure.

Presentation is important, since it helps the readability. Presentation can be helped by the use of correct use of language, appropriate use of paragraphs which have a clear structure, and correct referencing.

In terms of content, what you include should be relevant. You need to include evidence to support any claims you make and analyse any evidence that you share. Everything that you include should relate back to the essay question.

Turning to structure, there should be a clear introduction, a set of related paragraphs which uses signposts and transitional sentences to move between them, a clear conclusion, and a set of references.

There are things you should avoid: basic language errors (punctuation and word choice), overly personal language, contractions, colloquial language, emotive language, generalisations, and rhetorical questions. The point that we were implicitly returning to is that essays are formal and dispassionate.

Introductions

It is stating the obvious that essays and dissertations should contain introductions.

An introduction sets out the main points you are going to cover. It shares some context to outline what a piece of writing is all about. A rule of thumb is that an introduction should take up between 5 and 10% of a document.

During an introduction, offer a sketch of your conclusion. A practical suggestion is to avoid restating the essay question but instead aim to give an answer to your question. You may write what is called a thesis statement (which is a phrase I’ve not heard of before). A thesis statement should give your answer direction and focus. It should tell the reader about the topic and point out what will be discussed.

In an introduction to a report, you should say something about what you have done or what you have found out. You may also say something about why and how you have done what you have done, whilst also sharing some pointers to sections that follow.

Paragraphs

Each paragraph should share one main point before moving onto the next point. A paragraph should open with a sentence that relates to the thesis statement, or what the paragraph is going to cover. This opening sentence is called a topic sentence.

An effective paragraph has relevance (it has cohesion, which means that it addresses a single point), it has unity and completeness (it develops a point fully before moving on), and coherence (sentences should flow from one to the other and organised in a logical order). An important point to remember is that if your paragraph contains detail that is not related to the aim of the paragraph, leave it out.

A well-known approach to working with paragraphs goes by the abbreviation PEEL: make a point, give evidence from your readings, explain how evidence relates to your point, and then add a linking sentence. Your linking sentence helps with flow and readability. It ensures a clear connection between everything that you have discussed, and can relate back to the question being answered. The explain bit is the analysis bit; it is the part of your paragraph that does a lot of the heavy lifting.

Reflecting on the application of PEEL, a bit of advice I was told by my own tutor was: “don’t end on a quote”. You need to explain what that quote it all about to your reader.

To conclude this section, a very practical tip was: if you’re struggling with your word count, ask whether every paragraph contributes to the overall argument. If not, then consider cutting it.

Signposting

Signposts guides a reader through your argument, essay or report. They can show how points and paragraphs are connected together. They can work at different levels: within sections, at the start of paragraphs (to highlight the point that is going to be addressed), and within sentences. Sentence level signposting makes use of words such as however, alternatively, additionally (adding more ideas). Signposts can also be used within the conclusion, which can offer a reminder of where you got to at the end of the report or essay. They can also work within your conclusion to offer a reminder to the reader about the route they took to get to the end.

Conclusions

Reflecting the introduction, the conclusion to an essay should be anything between 5 to 10% of the total word count. The aim of the conclusion is to bring different threads together, which are expressed in the paragraphs. A conclusion should also show how your essay has addressed the question, and state points that have been identified or shared. Don’t introduce anything that is new. Present your main point or points. Don’t surprise your reader.

A set of questions to ask were shared. These are: is our conclusion related to our essay question? Is it based on evidence? Does it bring thread and points together? Does it avoid adding anything new?

Sentence level errors

The next bit was a quick summary of some small errors that could come up in your writing.

Run on sentences: "are two (or more) sentences that could, and should, stand alone, but that have been spliced together without the proper punctuation or conjunctions" (the word ‘and’). (Thank you Cindy for that precise definition!)

Comma splices: This is where commas, rather than full stops, are used to connect entire sentences together. It can be solved be adding a full stop, or by using a semicolon. A semicolon is used to show that two separate sentences are closely related.

I find all this low level language stuff quite difficult, especially when terms such ‘clause’ and ‘conjunction’ are used. The following resource from the University of Waterloo, Run-on Sentences and Comma Splices offers some helpful guidance.

Another topic that was mentioned was the dreaded apostrophe. I have no shame in declaring that it took me a long time to properly figures this out, although it is inherently very simple. Essentially, the apostrophe relates to possession or ownership. This blog is Chris’s blog. It is my blog. The University of Sussex has a helpful page on The Apostrophe.

This resource is from a wider set of pages on the topic of punctuation, which is worth looking through.

Resources

The PowerPoint resource that accompanied the workshop contained a number of useful resources. I’ve pulled a number of them together and summarise them below:

• Essays (University of Hull): a detailed guide about essay writing. It also contains some useful video tutorials.
• Thesis statements (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill): A handout that summarises what a thesis statement is, and what it can do for you. This is a page from a larger resource.
• Paragraph transitions (Las Positas College): A set of useful dos and don’ts (note the use of the apostrophe!)
• Punctuation (University of Sussex): The detailed resource that was mentioned earlier.
• Grammar and Punctuation (University of Bristol): A series of pages that you can dip in and out of, or go through a page at a time. It also contains a series of help quizzes.
• Writing Centre (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill): A very thorough resource that covers a lot of topics.

And finally:

• OU Study Skills Booklets: always worth a look. Written in an accessible format.

Reflections

Even though I’m an experienced student who has been around the block a few times, this session reminded me that attending events, however familiar, still helps me to pick up new ideas. I came out of this session learning the terms: thesis statement, topic sentence, and comma splices. I still struggle with the idea of an argument when it comes to English essays, but I think I’m getting there.

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments are duly given to the Arts and Humanities team that set up this programme of workshops, and to Cindy Benton (whose excellent suggestions for edits spared my grammatical blushes).

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to prepare a short contribution about group work to a TM253 module team meeting; TM253 is a new second level computing module that is being developed. When reflecting on this, I’ve realised that I’ve experienced online group work from a number of different perspectives: as a student, a tutor and a module chair.

What follows are some rough notes that summarise my experiences, followed by a really simple conceptual framework that relates to online academic group work. From a perspective of a student, the framework might be useful tool to understand what happens in your module. From the perspective of a module team member, if might be useful to understand how to think about group work.

Student experience: A335 Literature in transition

For one of the A335 TMAs, students had to contribute to a collaborative Wiki. We had to find some academic articles that related to some of our set texts, and share a summary of what we find, a couple of useful quotes, and a reference. In turn, we would get some marks for our trouble.

We would then use what was submitted within a longer essay. I really liked this activity, since the students ended up with quite a detailed bibliography that we could also refer to later if we ever needed to. It also focussed our attention to look at the texts that were not the focus of our substantive essay.

Tutor experience: M364 Interaction Design

I tutored on M364 Interaction Design for ten years, starting in 2006. When I started, we all used a product called FirstClass, which was eventually replaced by a version of the Moodle VLE. One of the TMAs focused on evaluation. Students had to take a sketch of a design that they produced in a design TMA and share it with a fellow student. In turn, they would carry out what is called a heuristic evaluation, and suggest enhancements.

One of my duties as a tutor was to pair students together into sub-forums where they would share sketches and evaluation results. These areas had weird names (apparently names are friendlier than numbers) but I can’t remember what any of them were called. On the occasions where I had an odd number of students I would put them into groups of three. When students didn’t submit their sketches, I would share a sketch that had been prepared by the module team.

The whole reason for doing this was to enable students to gain a little bit of experience of collaboration. There was also the point that different evaluators can find different things. It kind of worked, but it was always a bit clunky, and it always took a bit of explaining.

Module chair experience: TM354 Software Engineering

Software engineering is a team sport. Software engineers use all kinds of tools to communicate with each other. They use formal diagrams, sketches on whiteboard, post-it notes, requirements documents, and a myriad of other representations. With this in mind, it would be remiss of us not to attempt to share an experience of team working.

One of the processes that TM354 talks about is agile. Agile development teams are small teams that work together to solve specific problems. Members of agile teams are constantly talking to each other. Talking makes software real. Sharing of sketches and diagrams makes software real, and this is what happens in TM354.

In a couple of TMAs students create sketches and then share them to an online tool called ShareSpace. Fellow students are then invited to make helpful constructive comments about the sketches that have been submitted. In turn, students then go onto refine their earlier diagrams, reflecting on what changes they might have made. The big idea is to simulate some of the work that can happen within module teams.

Conceptual framework

Here’s what I’ve come up with: a simple framework.

Groups vs Teams

There’s an important difference between groups and teams. A group is a group of people that can make contributions that individually may contribute to solving a defined problem, but these are separate from each other. A team is a group of people who solve a defined problem whilst also knowing something about each member’s interests, abilities, knowledge and skills. A team works together closely with each other. A team needs time to form.

More group work takes place than teamwork.

Authentic vs Artificial

The key question here is: does the assessment activity directly reflect the skills that a module aims to develop, or does it reflect what a student may be doing after they graduate? An interesting authentic assessment scenario I have heard that relates to software engineering are scenarios where requirements change part way through an assessment; a theoretical customer may discover a new set of requirements they had never through of before. This notion speaks to a sub-dimension: what is expected vs the possibility of the unexpected. In the real world, new situations can emerge, and things can go wrong.

As suggested, an artificial assessment is one that aims to test learning outcomes in a way that may be distinct from how those learning outcomes may be applied in real situations. Ideally, assessments should be authentic, but when students have a lot to study, assessments are typically artificial, but with authentic elements.

Real tools vs Simplified tools

This follows on from the earlier dimension. Should a module make use of tools that are used ‘out there in the world’, which might be potentially difficult to understand and work with, or should a module team use tools that are designed to help understanding?

In computing, a good example of this is introducing students to a fully-fledged integrated development environment (IDE), such as Microsoft Visual Studio Code, or an IDE that has been specifically developed to help students understand concepts. An example of a useful but restricted tool is BlueJ. Put another way, do we need to provide guard rails?

This topic has been subject to academic debate. My own view is to go immediately with industrial strength tools, if it is able to do so. Academics should be able to offer practical guidance to show how these tools are used.

Interaction matters vs Outcome matters

This pair reflects a design aim from the module team and those writing the assessment. What is the overall objective of the assessment? Is skills and knowledge represented by the interaction or the process, or the product at the end. A related question is whether students should reflect on the actions undertaken by the team, or the effectiveness of the final outcome?

The process is always important, whether it is writing an essay, or writing software.

Actions for points vs Completion for points

This dimension follows on directly from the previous dimension and relates to the question of what is done to gain credit for an assignment. Does completing tasks, and showing you have completed tasks gain credit, or should we assign marks for the completed artifact? In some ways, this is a bit like the idea of ‘showing your marking’ within a maths assignment.

Looking at this practically, there should be points gained for completing (and compiling) evidence of tasks.

Individual scores vs Team scores

If there is a large team supported by a small number of high performing individuals, how should the marks be allocated? Should the overall result reflect the outcome, or should it reflect the individual contributions? The answer to this may well relate to what is being assessed.

Ultimately, there should be some actions and work that enable the contributions by individual students to be differentiated between each other.

Tutor oversight vs Team autonomy

This relates to the amount of scaffolding a tutor should provide, and the extent of the guidance provided whilst teamwork (or groupwork) is taking place. Within this, there is the implicit question of whether a tutor has a ‘plan b’ just in case something goes wrong. This is also connected to the extent to which the module team provides pre-selected tools, guidance or frameworks.

It takes time to observe what occurs within a team, and it takes time (and experience) to productively intervene if things get difficult. Given that tutors often do not have a lot of time, the responsibility for setting everything up and structuring activities should fall to the module team.

Repeated scenarios vs New scenarios

This dimension relates to an issue that the module team needs to resolve. Should they adjust an existing scenario for every module presentation, or should they endeavour to create a new scenario. The risk of creating a new scenario is that it runs the risk of introducing problems (which could, of course, be authentic – but not necessarily related to learning outcomes that need to be assessed).

What typically happens (in my experience) is that a scenario framework is created, and changes are made within that framework.

Reflections

Collaborative work is a term that covers both group work and teamwork. It is a topic that is featured within descriptions of degree level qualifications that are provided by the QAA. Given the nature of higher education, it is difficult to create collaborative assessments that are intrinsically authentic. Perhaps the best we can do is to create assessments that employ and use authentic tools. When considering teamwork, it is also important to necessarily consider safety in terms of the integrity of the assessment process, and the emotional and physical safety of those who participate. Guard rails are important.

4 December 2025

Yesterday I finished listening to The Mill on the Floss. If I’m being honest, the final few chapters flew by in a blur. I do feel as if I need to listen to a few recorded tutorials about Eliot if I were to draw on her text for my EMA.

After a mild study hiatus due to my day job, and other life responsibilities, I did a bit of reading this morning. I feel that my understanding of modernism is becoming slightly firmer. Only slightly, mind.

Tomorrow morning there is an arts and humanities school event about academic writing. Although a lot of TMA marking has now landed, I am tempted, since I’m sure it will be helpful. I took a moment to click through to view the list of recorded events, and there were loads of them. I’m guessing it’s going to be recorded. Maybe listening to some of the other events would also be useful.

12 December 2025

I didn’t make it to the arts and humanities event. I do feel as if I’m on a bit of an inadvertent ‘go slow’ when it comes to my study at the moment. Lots of day job and personal life stuff going on. This said, I did get in a couple of hours of study this morning. I went through the audiovisual materials for Synge and Ford, whilst making notes.

When going through the Ford material, I did notice that there were five bits of additional reading to do. I accessed them all, viewed them as a single page, printed each of them as a PDF, and sent them all to my Kindle. There’s articles about the chronology of The Good Soldier, something about impressionism, and something about the history of the text.

As I was browsing over these materials, I briefly reflected on the EMA question. Although it is a long way away, I started to wonder whether Ford might be a potential choice; Ford and one of those new fangled digital texts we have yet to find out about. It’s a bit too early to be thinking about the EMA. There is quite a lot of learning to do before we all get there.

19 December 2025

I’m doing things, but I feel as if I’m not getting very far. I think that is okay, though. I feel as if I’m slightly ahead, although I do need to get reading more of the set texts.

Yesterday I listened to another Katherine Mansfield story whilst doing a bit of travelling. I’m really starting like her writing. A former colleague (who taught literature) spoke about the idea of ‘writerly versus readerly’ texts, which makes a bit of sense. Mansfield seems to leave gaps for us to do the figuring out.

Last night there was a tutorial for our tutor group. There were only five of us there. It was all about the pragmatics of the next TMA, which I think I now understand, the broad category of modernism, a bit about Ford, and a bit about Mansfield. I asked some pointed questions about how to approach the essay bit of the TMA, which was helpful. As I might have mentioned before, the idea of modernism is getting a bit clearer.

I think I know when I’ll have a bit of time over the winter break to do a bit of reading of Mansfield, and maybe have another read of Ford.

After this bit, we have Woolf, and some Eliot, and then it's onto the other texts that I’ve not touched.

5 October 2025

I’ve not read Salih yet. I still have it in my bag.

Yesterday was officially the first day of study on A335. I celebrated it by listening to approximately 3 hours of an audiobook of the Mayhew text whilst on a drive. I think I have over twenty hours of listening to go. Due to quite a bit of driving about this week (and a trip to the university head office), I’m guessing I’m going to be able to go through about ten hours.

Yesterday evening, there was a post on the WhatApp group alerting me to a resource that had been shared on the module forum: a chapter by chapter summary of Bleak House. I’m not (yet) sure which way I’m going to jump when it comes to the first TMA. I’m going to go to a few tutorials about each of the texts before deciding.

One thing I did a couple of weeks ago was register for every single tutorial. If I find that I can’t attend one of them, I’ll unregister; it’s useful to know what is coming up in my diary.

I also need to find a time to sit down (with a coffee) to start to read through the chapters. I’m always a bit anxious about getting behind, especially when I have such a lot on. I have to balance caring responsibilities, being on multiple module teams, and a potential new project about doctoral student skill development.

I guess being aware of everything is the first step to figuring everything out. Remembering words from a tutor I once worked with: I need to make an appointment with my studies.

12 October 2025

I’ve still not read Salih.

I have, however, been listening to an audio version of Mayhew. I think it was originally 25 hours. I have 11 hours and 55 minutes to go. I’m hoping to get through quite a few on the way to Milton Keynes. I’ll then have to find a way to listen to the remaining hours.

In other news, I’ve received a welcome letter from my tutor, which is reassuring.

I have a sense that I’m getting a bit behind since I’ve not spent much time on the module website. This said, I have nearly read up to the end of the Thoreau chapter. There is an introductory tutorial which is to take place late next week which should help me to choose which text to focus on for my TMA.

I think it’s a toss-up between Thoreau and Mayhew.

16 October 2025

I have 37 minutes of the Mayhew audio book to go. I’m going to listen to that tomorrow on the train, on the way back from an appointment.

After a bicycle ride, I found myself an hour of study time. I aimed to figure out where I am in relation to the study calendar, to have a good look through the online activities, and familiarise myself with online resources. I’ve managed to get halfway through the second Mayhew chapter in the module materials. I need to get that finished.

Yesterday evening, I though about doing some late night study, but I realised I was mentally exhausted after a day of driving about, and doing my day job. Rather than hitting the books, I found myself watching the first ever episode of Mad Men, which I haven’t ever seen. I should have put on Bleak House. I need to be careful. This is a slippery slope. I did, however, listen to two and a half hours of Mayhew, so I must forgive myself. His interview of convicts was truly astonishing.

There’s a tutorial this evening. The first one. There’s a bit of homework I need to do.

It turns out that I’m vaguely on schedule.

18 October 2025

The tutorial was helpful. I got a sense that TMA 1 is a gentle ‘lead in’ to the module, and all the other TMAs. My next steps, after I’ve done what I plan to do today, which is to have a listen to the audio materials for the Tennyson chapter, is to begin the TMA. By begin, what I mean is: create an empty document, read the question, and then read the texts that I’m going to choose.

I’ve finally finished listening to the Mayhew audiobook. All in, I got through 27 hours of it, which is probably an abridged version. I’ve also re-read the Thoreau chapters in the module materials. It made a bit more sense the second time round. There is a Thoreau tutorial this forthcoming Tuesday. Although I’ll probably be choosing Mayhew, I know we’ve got to make choices in the EMA. It’s worth going to, since I always pick something up from whatever tutorial I attend.

I had a bit of trouble getting into the Tennyson poetry. I tried twice, but my attention waned. On YouTube, I found a helpful reading of The Lady of Shalott (It reminded me a bit of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight which we studied in an earlier module). There is also a version of The Lotos-Eaters by the same reader. My initial conclusion after a good listen: well, that hasn’t cheered me up very much. I had to look up what the ‘Lotos’ was all about, which took me to this page: The Lotus Tree (Wikipedia).

Some further digging leads me to a reading of Ulysses, also by the same reader. That is probably going to get another listen since I have no idea what was going on. Another one: Tithonus also by the same reader; another cheery one that I don’t understand. I’m going to have a good read of the module materials. Onto Locksley Hall. This time, with a different reader. There’s a lot going on in this one, but I have no idea what it is really about.

A really big bit of text is In Memoriam A. H. H. Our text begins from verse 28, which is available on this LibreVox recording from 29:33 onwards. There seems to be a slight divergence from our text and the audio when we get to verse 41. Given the title, it is unsurprising that a lot of them are about death. They all have a similar structure, but differ in both length and theme. This is all I know.

Finally, onto two poems that are faintly familiar. The first is the famous The Charge of the Light Brigade as read by our first reader. The second is Crossing the Bar. I discovered the second poem since I understand that it is sometimes read at funerals.

I’ve got the module materials for Chapter 5 to read. Chapter 6 is all about someone called Clough, who I've never heard of before.

19 October 2025

To complement all these audio clips, I’ve found a useful couple of audio resources.

The first resource I found is an episode of In Our Time Tennyson’s In Memoriam. I suspected there would be some kind of back story to accompany the massive In Memoriam poem. I started to listen to this one, but fell asleep. I need to go back to it.

After waking up, I moved to the second resource, which is an episode of Great Lives, available on BBC Sounds. It’s a good listen. This podcast has moved (in my mind) Tennyson from being mysterious figure, to one that is a whole lot more understandable. I still struggle with the idea of a poet laureate, though.

25 October 2025

I’ve been to what must be five different tutorials since the module started. There have been quite a few over the last week. I think I’m just about ready to start work on the TMA.

My approach is going to be: Read the TMA question. Create a template. Locate the passage that I need to focus on and get a printout of it, and read it. Then read bits before and after the passage. I’m then going to look for the other bits of text needed for the second part of the question. In my template document, add the references, and then transfer different thoughts from the tutorial notes into the answer document. I’ll edit these out as I go.

If things go well, I should be done by the end of the weekend. When I’m done, it’s back to Clough, to keep a semblance of keeping up with the study calendar.

I am also quite aware that I’m quite mentally tired; there’s so much to do in my day job. I need a break, but I can’t stop now.

30 October 2025

My first TMA has been edited and submitted. Once I got going, it wasn’t too bad. I have no idea what score I’m going to get, but I think I’ve done enough to get a fair pass.

This morning, just before the day job, I’ve been reading the chapter on Clough. It was interesting enough, particularly his reflections on belief. Next up is a quick listen to the audio-visual materials.

Also, this morning I caught sight of the next TMA date, which is in December. Although I don’t have anything like a formal study calendar, I have two tasks in mind. The first is to have an advanced read of the TMA 2 question, and then to move onto The Mill on the Floss chapter. With quite a bit of driving expected in the coming couple of weeks, I feel another audio book download coming on.

A question I must ask myself is: dare I choose a poetry option for the next TMA? If I stick with prose, would that limit my choices for my EMA? I want to have fun with the EMA (if at all possible!) and write to my interests. Still, there are likely to be quite a few more interests to uncover.

Some final reflections. I’ve now had a look at TMA 2, and a practical thought is: how much text do I have to wade through to answer the question? Another thought is: do I like the question that relates to the various text options? I had a quick look at the EMA, and the text options that are available. My choice for TMA 2 might come down to how much I relate to The Mill on the Floss. A further thought: I need to find out where I can view or access the digital texts that are featured in Chapter 7.

31 October 2025

Happy Halloween! If you’re into that kind of thing...

I’ve given up reading Salih (for the time being, at least).

I think I’ve made a choice. I’m settling on Tennyson.

Using my Kindle, I’ve scribbled the TMA questions onto the Chapter 5 poetry PDF. I’ve also downloaded four critical sources that I’m going to read on a forthcoming train journey. The poetry option is outside of my comfort zone, but that’s the point.

I’ve just come off one of the ‘Poetry for Lunch’ sessions that was facilitated by one of the tutors. The one that I went to was all about Donne. I quite liked it. It is timely; I’ve been reminded what a caesura is.

11 August 2025

I’ve just come back from a couple of weeks of much needed leave.

A few days before heading away I was stuck down by a nasty stomach bug which meant that I couldn’t travel. Whilst recovering, I listened to a couple of audio books: a selection of stories by Katherine Mansfield (but not the exact same selection that have been selected from the module), and a listen to Under Milk Wood by Thomas, as narrated by Richard Burton. I liked Mansfield, but I loved the Thomas text. I remembered fragments from seeing a production of it in the 1990s at the national theatre.

I was planning on taking a lot of texts on holiday with me, but I culled the collection down to a practical core. Plus, I was told I might be getting a couple of the texts for my birthday.

When I finally got stuck into my holiday, I began with Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys, which I adored. It felt quite contextually topical, since I was going to be travelling via Paris on the way back (and I had been drinking a bit of wine to celebrate my break). Next up was Between the Acts by Woolf, which I hated. I found the introduction of the text really helpful, which attuned me to her prose style, but I felt the it was artificial and detracted from what was going on. Perhaps I’ll change my views when I get into the module materials.

Next up was Playboy of the Western World by Synge. Interestingly, there’s a production of this which is going to take place at the national theatre in the new year (I was tipped off about this by some chat in the Facebook group). Tickets have been booked. I have no idea whether it will coincide with the TMA schedule (the module website isn’t open yet). I quite liked it, and I started to think about the meaning of the various characters, and how much there was to decode. I’m sure we’ll get onto this when we get into the module materials.

I followed this by The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford. I really liked this one. Due to the focus on ‘the soldier’ I was reminded of the film The Talented Mr Ripley, which is probably a spurious comparison. I also though of The Secret History by Donna Tartt, which I read when it came out. One of the names of the characters is shared between these two texts.

Two of the birthday texts I received were The Mill on The Floss by George Eliot, and the Norton edition of Walden by Thoreau, which is (of course) different than the version that I had downloaded for my Kindle. I tore through The Mill on The Floss in about three days. I really like Eliot’s writing style; her very considered descriptions. I was really interested to learn that the novel is set in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire. I’m guessing that the river Floss might have been inspired by the river Trent.

In the final couple of days, I managed to start the Thoreau text beginning with his essay Civil Disobedience, which has striking resonance today. I then found my way to the start of Walden, reading his chapter on the economics of living by a lake. I was then drawn to the biography section, asking myself the question: ‘who is this chap?’ I was also struck by how young he died.

I should also mention that I got the A334 result I was hoping for, which is a relief. I felt that the EMA assessment was very fair, and I can clearly see where I could have done better and gained a higher mark. There is always learning to be had.

I’m now back to my day, job triaging my inbox. I’m going to try to keep up the reading momentum and shall try to find some time to read some Thoreau every day; I feel it’s important to get ahead. I want to move onto Season of Migration to the North by Salh, which looks like an interesting read.

16 August 2025

The module website is open. It’s taken a few days to get there, but I’m starting to have a look around. I’ve read the introduction, and I’ve skim read the assessment guide. There are specific bits about TMAs 1 and 3. I think I’m going to enjoy TMA 3, even though it looks like it is going to be group work. Relating to the module website, a further task is to identify whether there are some resources that I can send to the Kindle. Before getting to this, I was directed to a short series of YouTube videos about Women Writers: Voices in Transition beginning with Katherine Mansfield.

A final note on this entry is that I’ve become an A335 WhatApp group co-moderator. There are already a number of messages. To answer a question, I need to look at what the A335 GenAI policy is. I’m sure it will be somewhere on the module website.

29 August 2025

Over the last week or so I’ve been trying to snatch a few moments here and there to read Walden. Just before a long drive, I downloaded a Walden audio book on Audible. It turns out there are quite a few of them, and one was even included in my Audible subscription. The audiobook ran to ten hours, but I realised that I had the equivalent of four hours of audiobook remaining, which was pretty much the length of my drive.

I’m going to have to go over it again if I use this text for any of my assignments, but I have concluded that Thoreau writes really well about squirrels.

I’ve downloaded his essay Walking which runs to an hour and three quarters, which I’m going to have to listen to whilst going on some walks. After this, I’ll continue my pre-reading with Salih. Then there’s the sci-fi novel, but I’m in no rush to read that one.

25 May 2025

My previous module, A334 hasn’t even finished. There are three more days to go before the EMA cut off date, and I’m starting to think about what I need to do for the next module.

Today, I’ve done three things. The first was to download an audio version of Bleak House onto phone, in anticipation of a really long drive. (Bleak House runs for over 40 hours, which is nearly as bad as Rousseau’s Confessions).

Following some chat on the A334 WhatsApp group, I picked up that another set text is Oranges are not the only fruit. I downloaded that too, and that came in at a slightly more digestible 6 hours.

I’m up to chapter 5 in Bleak House, and I have no idea what’s going on, so it’s time to download a version of the text from Project Guttenberg to my Kindle so I can try to make sense of it.

Wish me luck.