Block A: Definitions

The bust in the photo is of one Mahsati Gandjavi a revered Persian poetess, author and feminist from approaching a 1000 years ago.

Why her?  Well I guess she features in Azeri museums of Persian culture & history and archives of ancient poetic works: she therefore embodies the ‘join‘ between your two specialities.

I am asking you here to undertake TWO definitions tasks (one to be done by half of the two cohorts [promos], and the other done by the other half):

The first ‘half‘:

1. Half of the Archivists will define ‘Archive‘,  ‘Archiving‘ and the ‘Archivist‘ as a place, field of endeavour and career.
2. Half of the Museums group will define ‘Museums‘, ‘Museology‘ and the ‘Museums Specialist‘ as a place, field of endeavour and career.

The second ‘half‘:

• There will be two teams doing the same thing (because you may well have very different views! – we will see!): one the remaining Acrhives students not involved in the above ‘first half’, and one the remaining Museums students not involved in the above ‘first half.’   Both teams will be defining three key terms which you will all be using throughout your academic and professional careers:

1. Heritage
2. Preservation
3. Conservation

Why are we doing this?

Simple really:

• we need to know what we are talking about when we use key terms. If we don’t really understand, then it is easy to talk ‘at cross-purposes‘ as we say: one understanding one meaning and the other another!  In your reports (especially rapports de stage) it is imperative that you define the key terms in your title from the start.  It is not as simple as just choosing one definition from the first page of Google search returns: how will you know if it is really good: comprehensive, valid, reliable, accepted/acknowledged?  Don’t get the idea that adopting a much-used defnition means that it is necessarily correct either [from an early career in Tourism Management, I can tell you that ‘official’ definitions of ‘Tourism’ are very limited indeed and tell far less than the whole ‘Tourism story’].   You need to take definitions seriously!

• From an English-learning point of view, coming up with a clear and complete definition requires precision language, specialist terminology and specific vocabulary. Saying what you mean and meaning what you say become all-important: sometimes there are only slight nuances of difference that you wish to express: that takes a LOT of work to achieve (which is where using Grammarly and WordReference will help you enormously)

 

How are we going to do this?

• Phase 1. Most definitions are poor because they tend only to answer the question: WHAT. Here we need to apply ALL the principle question words to the term/terms we have to define: Who, What, When, Where, Why and How [WWWWWH].    It is not as simple as it sounds.  Let us take just one of these: ‘WHO’.  That implies questions, inter alia like: Who started/invented the Museum… WHO are they for … WHO works in them … WHO actually visits them???                                                                                                                                   So to begin with, each member should begin by  thinking about the WWWWWH indivdually. [Please, Do NOT at this stage resort to looking up your course notes, textbooks or the internet – why not? – because we all act upon what we believe things to be rather than upon some obscure and/or official online definition.   Looking at the internet will come later….]

• Phase 2. Pool/share your personal ideas with your team members and rationalise them into ONE NARRATIVE TEAM DEFINITION which you believe to be the best (not just a list of WWWWWH – make it flow as narrative like an essay, BUT double check when you read it back that you have all the WWWWWH elements in there somewhere).

• Phase 3. Think where you might find decent definitions (I am NOT thinking here about an English dictionary – which will inevitably give a very narrow view – but rather about specialist sources: government ministries, appropriate professional bodies and associations, journals etc. To mention just two, I suspect that much might be gleaned from the National Trust or Englsh Heritage inter alia concerning ‘Heritage’ for example) and go online and to the library and see what you can find. Then:
  • together, compare your team’s narrative definition with those you have found in your research:
    • just how good IS yours: where is it better and why ... and where did you ‘miss’ some important aspect that you really need to incorporate in your defintion
    • amend and improve your definition by importing elements from your research
    • make sure you identify and explain/justify the ‘evolution’ of your definition and atribute specific additions/amendments to their sources (you must also include a bibliographical reference to credit the words/paraphrases /ideas which you have sourced elsewhere)

 

What is the output required?

A team-produced, written report  (in WORD) in your very best English to the above specifcation.  It must cover the ‘evolution’ of your ideas from your initial, draft (brouillon) narrative definition(s) to your final, post-research ‘Master Definition(s)’.  It must also bear the names of your team members.

You must also inlude at the end of your report your impressions of the process of discovery and definition-evolution you went through and whether and why you believe that your Master Definition(s) is/are far more comprehensive than others available.

As mentioned above, in order to improve the quality of your English, please do use all the legal and acceptable tools at your disposal:

• The spell-check facility in WORD
• WordReference: helpful dictionary showing synonyms and examples of expressions using particular words
• Grammarly to help you correct.
• a proof-read (relecture) OUT LOUD (à haute voix) which will help you ‘catch’ punctuation, spelling and expression errors far more effectively than an on-screen read through.

 

When is the submission date?

Friday 23rd October 2020…(just before the holidays to ‘draw a line’ under the project and leave you nothing outstanding for me over the holidays.  I do believe that holidays are for having a break from work!).  This means you have 3 x 2hour classes to work on it over three weeks and I am expecting each of you to spend a similar amount of time ‘outside class’ on it.  With 12 hours of individual work invested by each person, this task should be eminently ‘do-able’ within the time limit.

Please would each team email their written report to me no later than this date.  I will try to mark it during the holidays and return it to you with feedback on the first session after the break.

T