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free guidance notes on writing skills and English Language, sample pages, How-to guides, and study resources

Topics in essays

August 25, 2009 by Roy Johnson

sample from HTML program and PDF book

1. Topics are distinct units of meaning. They are normally sub-divisions of a subject, but they can sometimes stand as the purpose of an essay in their own right.

2. For instance, if the subject of an essay was ‘government’, the separate topics for discussion might be ‘finance and taxation’, ‘law-making’, ‘public health’, and ‘international diplomacy’. Each one of these however might, in a different context, be a subject on its own.

3. If ‘international diplomacy’ became the main subject of an essay, this might be considered by sub-dividing it into topics such as ‘government policy’, ‘political history’, ‘trade and industry’, and ‘foreign relations’.

4. In most essays, the subject in question can and should be broken down into a series of separate topics. These are then arranged in some persuasive or logical order at the planning stage to form your argument.

5. Remember that each paragraph normally deals with a separate topic. This should be signalled (usually by a ‘topic sentence’) at the outset. Its relevance to the subject in question should also be explained as part of the argument.

6. In the following essay plan the main subject is ‘French wine’ and the topics to be discussed are Loire wines, Bordeaux wines, Cotes du Rhone wines, and Burgundy wines.

Introduction

Loire
* red wine
* white wine

Bordeaux
* red wine
* white wine

Cotes du Rhone
* red wine
* white wine

Bugundy
* red wine
* white wine

Conclusion

7. In the following essay plan the main subject is ‘Congestion charging in city centres’, and the topics to be covered are – traffic density, ecology, economy, and politics.

Introduction

Part One – In favour of congestion charges
* [traffic] reduces volume
* [ecology] less air pollution
* [economy] generates local income
* [politics] positive social control

Part Two – Against congestion charges
* [traffic] public transport alternatives
* [ecology] transfers problem elsewhere
* [economy] reduces profitable activity
* [politics] punishes tax-payers

Conclusion

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Tutor comments on essays

August 25, 2009 by Roy Johnson

sample from HTML program and PDF book

1. Tutor comments written on your essay script are the most detailed response you are likely to receive on what you have produced. You should take the trouble to read these comments carefully, and learn from them as much as you can.

2. Where there is no comment on the script you can usually assume that your argument is to the point. Tutors often find it difficult to comment on an argument which is relevant and well articulated. Ticks on the script are usually a sign that your writing is dealing with the issues required.

3. If you are answering the question successfully there may not be much for the tutor to say, except to offer encouragement and suggestions for further development at the end of the essay. [This however should not be taken as an endorsement of lazy script-marking.]

4. Your tutor may correct the first instance of a common mistake, then ignore subsequent occurrences. This often happens with spelling problems, for instance. You should take careful note, and try to learn the correct form.

5. Be sure to read the tutor’s comments at the end of the script. Don’t just check the grade awarded to your work. The comments represent valuable feedback and response to what you have written.

6. A comment such as ‘What does this mean?’ usually suggests ‘Your argument is not very clear at this point of the essay’ or ‘You are not showing the relevance of this topic to the question’.

7. The tutor may use square brackets [these] to indicate those parts of your argument which are not really necessary – as in this example.

… just as Mansfield Park [by the novelist Jane Austen] is a novel which is concerned with the theme of ‘improvement’

8. If the tutor invites you to discuss a particular issue in person, then take up the offer. But don’t abuse this arrangement. Tutors can easily become irritated by students ‘seeking further clarification’ too frequently.

9. Be academically modest. Be prepared to learn from your mistakes. Put into practice those suggestions made by the tutor. After all, they are made for your benefit, not for the convenience of the tutor.

10. The most noticeable advances in essay-writing skills are usually made by those students who take notice of each new suggestion offered for improvement. They are also likely to incorporate these ideas on a permanent basis. That is, once a new strategy or technique is adopted it becomes a skill which is used regularly. Subsequent suggestions for improvement are also incorporated in the same way.

11. Conversely (and not surprisingly) those students who make the least improvement in their work are those who seem to disregard tutor comments. They require the same notes of ‘advice for improvement’ with each successive essay. Do yourself a favour – take notice of your tutor’s comments.

12. See the selection of marked essays in Writing Essays 3.0 for examples of typical tutor comments.

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Twentieth Century – literary timeline – part 1

July 26, 2009 by Roy Johnson

a chronicle of events, literatures, politics, and the arts

1895. X-rays discovered; invention of the cinematograph; trial and imprisonment of Oscar Wilde; Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest and An Ideal Husband; H.G. Wells, The Time Machine.

1896. Wireless telegraphy invented; Abyssinians defeat occupying Italian forces – first defeat of colonising power by natives; Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure; Anton Chekhov, The Seagull; Daily Mail first published.

1897. Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee; Henry James, The Spoils of Poynton , What Masie Knew; Bram Stoker, Dracula.

1898. Second Anglo-Boer War begins. Henry James, The Turn of the Screw ; Thomas Hardy, Wessex Poems; George Bernard Shaw, Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant; H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds.

1899. British disasters in South Africa. Schoenberg Verklarte Nacht; Henry James, The Awkward Age; Kate Chopin, The Awakening; Anton Chekhov, Uncle Vanya.

1900. Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim; Deaths of Nietzsche, Wilde, and Ruskin; Max Planck announces quantum theory. Daily Express started.

1901. Queen Victoria dies – Edwardian period begins; First wireless communication between UK and USA; H.G.Welles, The First Men in the Moon; Rudyard Kipling, Kim; First Nobel prize for literature – R.P.A.Sully Prudhomme (F).

1902. End of Boer War; Henry James, The Wings of the Dove;
Arnold Bennett Anna of the Five Towns; Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness; Nobel prize – T. Mommsen (G).

Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Literature in English is a new reference guide to English-language writers and writing throughout the present century, in all major genres and from all around the world – from Joseph Conrad to Will Self, Virginia Woolf to David Mamet, Ezra Pound to Peter Carey, James Joyce to Amy Tan. Includes entries on literary movements, periodicals, and over 400 individual works, as well as articles on some 2,400 authors, plus a good introduction by John Sutherland.

1903. First flight in heavier-than-air machine by Wright brothers in USA; first silent movie, The Great Train Robbery; Henry James, The Ambassadors; Daily Mirror started; Nobel prize – B. Bjornson (N).

1904. New York subway opens; Russo-Japanese war begins; Henry James, The Golden Bowl; Joseph Conrad, Nostromo; Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard; Death of Chekhov; Nobel prize – F. Mistral (F) and J. Echegary (Sp).

1905. ‘Bloody Sunday’ massacre of protesters in St Petersburg; Einstein, Special Theory of Relativity; Freud, Theory of Sexuality; E.M. Forster, Where Angels Fear to Tread; Nobel prize – H. Sienkiewicz (P).

1906. First Liberal government in UK; death of Ibsen; General strike in Russia – followed by first (limited) democratic parliament; Women’s Suffrage movement active; San Francisco destroyed by earthquake and fire; Labour Party formed. Nobel prize – G. Carducci (I)

1907. Belgium seizes Congo; Austria seizes Bosnia and Herzegovina; Picasso introduces cubism; first electric washing machine; Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent; E.M.Forster, The Longest Journey; Nobel prize – Rudyard Kipling (UK)

1908. Ford introduces Model-T; Elgar’s First Symphony; E.M.Forster, A Room with a View; first Old Age Pensions; Nobel prize – R. Eucken (G)

1909. Ford produces first cheap cars – Model T; Death of George Meredith; Bleriot flies across English Channel; Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto; Vaughn Williams Fantasy on a Theme of Thomas Tallis; Nobel – S. Lagerlöf (S)

Twentieth-century Britain is an account of political, industrial, commercial, and cultural development in England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland. It’s particularly strong on the changing face of government, and it also relates issues of the day to the great writers and artists of the period. This ‘very short introduction’ series offers a potted account of the subject in handy pocket-book format, with plenty of suggestions for further reading.

1910. Death of Tolstoy, Edward VII, and Florence Nightingale; E.M.Forster, Howards End; Arnold Bennett, Clayhanger; H.G.Wells, The History of Mr Polly; Nobel prize – P. Heyse (G).

1911. Rutherford discovers structure of atom in Manchester; Chinese revolution; Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes; D.H. Lawrence, The White Peacock; Nobel prize – M. Maeterlink (Be).

1912. China becomes a republic following revolution; Sinking of the Titanic; railway, mining, and coal strikes in UK. Daily Herald started; Schoenberg Pierrot Lunaire; Nobel prize – G. Hauptmann (G)

1913. New Statesman started; first crossword puzzle; Thomas Mann, Death in Venice; D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers; Stravinsky The Rite of Spring; Nobel prize – R. Tagore (In)

1914. Outbreak of first world war; first traffic lights; Panama Canal opened; James Joyce, Dubliners; Marcel Proust begins to publish A la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past); Nobel prize – not awarded.

1915. First air attacks on London; Germans use poison gas in war; Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis; Einstein, General Theory of Relativity; D.H. Lawrence, The Rainbow; Ford Maddox Ford, The Good Soldier; D.W.Griffith, The Birth of a Nation; Nobel prize – R. Roland (F).

1916. First Battle of the Somme; Battle of Verdun; Australians slaughtered in Gallipoli campaign; Easter Rising in Dublin; James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; Prokofiev Classical Symphony; Nobel prize – V. von Heidenstam (S).

1917. USA enters the war; October Revolution in Russia; battle of Passchendaele; T.S. Eliot Prufrock and Other Observations; Nobel prize – K. Gjellerup (D) and H. Pontoppidan (Da).

1918. Second Battle of the Somme; German offensive collapses; end of war [Nov 11]; Votes for women over 30; influenza pandemic kills millions; Lytton Strachey, Eminent Victorians; Nobel prize – not awarded.

1919. Peace Treaty ratified at Versailles; Einstein’s Relativity Theory confirmed during solar eclipse; Breakup of former Habsburg Empire; Alcock and Brown make first flight across Atlantic; prohibition in US; Ronald Firbank, Valmouth; Franz Kafka, In the Penal Colony; Nobel prize – K. Spitteler (Sw).

Twentieth century literature
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Twentieth Century – literary timeline – part 2

September 28, 2009 by Roy Johnson

a chronicle of events, literature, and politics

1920. League of Nations established; Oxford University admits women;
D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love; Nobel prize – K. Hamsun (N).

1921. Irish Free State proclaimed; extreme inflation in Germany; Fatty Arbuckle scandal in US; Nobel prize – Anatole France (F).

1922. Fascists march on Rome under Mussolini; Kemel Ataturk founds modern Turkey; T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land; James Joyce, Ulysses; Katherine Mansfield, The Garden Party; Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus; John Galsworthy, The Forsyth Saga; Nobel prize – J. Benavente (Sp).

1923. Charleston craze; BBC begins radio broadcasting in the UK; William Walton Facade; Nobel prize – W.B. Yeats (Ir).

1924. First UK Labour government formed under Ramsey MacDonald (lasts nine months); Deaths of Lenin, Franz Kafka, and Joseph Conrad; Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain; E.M. Forster, A Passage to India; Nobel prize – W. Raymont (P).

1925. John Logie Baird televises an image of a human face; Webern Wozzeck; Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf; Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway; Nobel prize – George Bernard Shaw (UK).

1926. UK General Strike; first demonstration of television in UK; Fritz Lang, Metropolis; Nobel prize – G. Deledda (I).

1927. Lindbergh flies solo across Atlantic; first talkie film – Al Jolson in ‘The Jazz Singer’; Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse; Nobel prize – Henri Bergson (Fr).

1928. Women in UK get same voting rights as men; Death of Thomas Hardy; first Oxford English Dictionary published; penicillin discovered;
D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover; Evelyn Waugh, Decline and Fall; Nobel prize – S. Undset (N).

1929. Slump in US, followed by collapse of New York Stock Exchange; Start of world economic depression; Second UK Labour government under MacDonald;
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own; first experimental television broadcast; Kurt Weil The Threepenny Opera; Nobel prize – Thomas Mann (G).

1930. Mass unemployment in UK; Death of D.H. Lawrence.
William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying; Nobel prize – Sinclair Lewis (US).

1931. Resignation of UK Labour government, followed by formation of national coalition government; Empire State building completed in New York; Virginia Woolf, The Waves; Nobel prize – R.A. Karfeldt (S).

1932. Hunger marches start in UK; scientists split the atom; air conditioning invented; Aldous Huxley, Brave New World; Nobel prize – John Galsworthy (UK).

1933. Adolf Hitler appointed Chancellor of Germany; first Nazi concentration camps; prohibition ends in US; Radio Luxembourg begins commercial broadcasts to UK; George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London;Jean Vigo, L’Atalante; Nobel prize – Ivan Bunin (USSR).

1934. Hitler becomes Dictator; Evelyn Waugh, A Handful of Dust; Samuel Beckett, More Pricks than Kicks; Nobel prize – Luigi Pirandello (I).

1935. Germany re-arms; Italians invade Abyssinia (Ethiopia); Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet; Nobel prize – not awarded.

1936. Death of George V in UK, followed by Edward VIII, who is forced to abdicate; Stalinist show trials in USSR; Civil War in Spain begins; Germany re-occupies the Rheinland; BBC begins television transmissions; Aaron Copland El Salon Mexico; Nobel prize – Eugene O’Neil (USA).

1937. Neville Chamberlain UK prime minister; Destruction of Guernica;
George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier; Nobel prize – Roger Martin du Gard (Fr).

1938. Germans occupy Austria; Chamberlain meets Hitler to make infamous Munich ‘agreement’ to prevent war; Samuel Beckett, Murphy; John Dos Passos, USA; Nobel prize – Pearl S. Buck (USA).

1939. Fascists win Civil War in Spain; Stalin makes pact with Hitler; Germany invades Poland; Britain and France declare war on Germany; helicopter invented;
James Joyce, Finnegans Wake; Nobel prize – F.E. Silanpaa (Fi).

1940. Germany invades north-west Europe; Fall of France; British troops evacuated from Dunkirk; Battle of Britain; Start of ‘Blitz’ bombing raids over London; Churchill heads national coalition government; assassination of Trotsky; Nobel prize – not awarded.

1941. Germany invades USSR; Japanese destroy US fleet at Pearl Harbour; USA enters the war; siege of Leningrad; Deaths of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf; Orson Wells, Citizen Kane; Nobel prize – not awarded.

1942. Battle of Stalingrad; Battle of Midway; Beveridge report establishes basis of modern Welfare State; T-shirt invented; Nobel prize – not awarded.

1943. Anglo-American armies invade Italy; Warsaw uprising; Nobel prize – not awarded.

1944. D-Day invasion of France; ball-point pens go on sale; German V1 and V2 rockets fired; R.A. Butler’s Education Act; Aaron Copland Appalachian Spring; Nobel prize – J.V. Jensen (Da).

1945. End of war in Europe; Atomic bombs dropped on Japan; first computer built; microwave oven invented; United Nations founded; huge Labour victory in UK general election; Atlee becomes prime minister, George Orwell, Animal Farm; Nobel prize – G. Mistral (Ch).

1946. Churchill’s ‘Iron Curtain’ speech; Nuremberg war trials; bikinis introduced; United Nations opens in New York; Nobel prize – Herman Hesse (Sw)

1947. Marshall Plan of aid to Europe; Jewish refugees turned away by UK; Polaroid camera invented; coal and other industries nationalised in UK; transfer of power to independent India, Pakistan, and Burma. Thomas Mann, Doktor Faustus; Nobel prize – A. Gide (Fr)

1948. Berlin airlift; state of Israel founded; Railways and electricity nationalised in UK; Bevan launches National Health Service in UK. Nobel prize – T.S. Eliot (UK)

1949. East Germany created; Mao Tse Tung declares Republic of China; NATO founded; Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex; George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty Four; Nobel prize – W. Faulkner (USA)

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Twentieth Century – literary timeline – part 3

September 28, 2009 by Roy Johnson

a chronicle of events, literature, and politics

1950. India declares itself a republic; UK and USA attack Korea; first credit cards; first organ transplant; Billy Wilder, Sunset Boulevard; Nobel prize – Bertrand Russell (UK)

1951. Festival of Britain; first colour TV; Conservatives defeat Labour in UK general election; Churchill becomes prime minister; UK troops seize Suez Canal zone; Benjamin Britten Billy Budd; Samuel Beckett, Malloy; Nobel prize – P. Lagerkvist (S)

1952. Death of George V. Accession of Queen Elizabeth II at 25;
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man; Nobel prize – F. Mauriac (Fr)

1953. DNA discovered; conquest of Everest; Death of Stalin – and Prokofiev on same day; Nobel prize – Winston Churchill (UK)

1954. British troops withdrawn from Egypt; Four-minute mile broken; Nobel prize – E. Hemingway (USA)

1955. European Union created; Warsaw Pact founded; V. Nabokov, Lolita; Patrick White, The Tree of Man; Nobel prize – H. Laxness (Ic)

1956. Khruschchev denounces Stalin at Communist Party Conference; Anglo-French invasion of Suez, followed by withdrawal; Hungarian uprising crushed by Soviets; Samuel Beckett, Malone Dies; Nobel prize – J. Ramon Jiminez (Sp)

1957. European Economic Community established; Homosexuality decriminalised in UK; Patrick White, Voss; Nobel prize – A. Camus (Fr)

1958. Orson Wells, Touch of Evil; Nobel prize – B. Pasternak (USSR) [forced to refuse it]

1959. Castro overthrows Batista regime in Cuba; first motorway opened in UK; Nobel prize – S. Quasimodo (I)

1960. Sharpville massacres in S Africa; new republics declared in Africa; Lady Chatterley’s Lover cleared of charges of obscenity in UK; J.F. Kennedy elected US president; Alfred Hitchcock, Psycho; Nobel prize – A. St. Leger (Fr)

1961. Adolf Eichman on trial for role in Holocaust; USSR makes first manned space flight; USA-backed Bay of Pigs attack in Cuba fails; Berlin Wall erected; Patrick White, Riders in the Chariot; Samuel Beckett, Happy Days; Nobel prize – L. Andric (Y)

1962. US sends troops to Vietnam; Cuban missile crisis; Nelson Mandela jailed; Please Please Me first Beatles hit; Nobel prize – J. Steinbeck (USA)

1963. French veto Britain’s application to join European Common Market; Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech; Profumo scandal in UK; Kennedy assassination in USA; Nobel prize – G. Seferis (Gr)

1964. Khruschchev deposed by Breshnev in USSR; Vietnam attacks US destroyer in Gulf of Tonkin; Labour party gains power in UK under Harold Wilson; Saul Bellow, Herzog. Nobel prize – J-P. Sartre (Fr) [prize not accepted]

1965. Malcolm X assassinated; India invades Pakistan; US air raids in Vietnam; anti-war protests in US and Europe; Harold Pinter, The Homecoming; Nobel prize – M. Sholokov (USSR) [authorship subsequently disputed]

1966. Black Panthers established in US; Cultural revolution under Mao in China; Britain wins Wold Cup in football; Nobel prize – Samuel Agnon, Nelly Sachs (Il)

1967. Israel seizes land in 6 day war; first heart transplant; first colour TV transmissions in UK; Stalin’s daughter defects to west; ‘Summer of Love’ hippy demonstrations in San Francisco; decriminalisation of homosexuality in UK; Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude; Nobel prize – Miguel Angel Asturias (Gu)

1968. Martin Luther King assassinated; student protests in Paris; USSR invades Czechoslovakia; theatre censorship abolished in UK after 23 years; Tet offensive in Vietnam; Nobel prize – Yasunari Kawabata (Jp)

1969. UK troops sent into N Ireland; US puts first men on the moon; death penalty abolished in UK; precursor of the Internet, ARPANET created; Woodstock music festival; Monty Python’s Flying Circus first broadcast; Nobel prize – Samuel Beckett (Ire)

1970. My Lai massacre; Rubber bullets used in N Ireland; Allende elected socialist president in Chile; anti-government demonstrations in Poland; age of majority lowered to 18 in UK; invention of computer floppy disks; Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch; Patrick White, The Vivesector; Nobel prize – Alexander Solzhenitsyn (USSR)

1971. Open University begins in UK; internment without trial in N Ireland; China joins UN; Nixon resumes bombing of Vietnam; video recorders introduced; Britain negotiates entry into EU; Nobel prize – Pablo Neruda (Ch)

1972. Miners strike in UK; Bloody Sunday in N Ireland; Watergate scandal begins in US; Nobel prize – Heinrich Böll (Gr)

1973. Allende government overthrown by Pinochet in Chile; industrial strikes in UK; Arab-Israeli war; abortion legalised in US; US pulls out of Vietnam; Britain enters the European Common Market; Nobel prize – Patrick White (Aus)

1974. Miners strike in UK; Impeachment and resignation of president Nixon in US; Nadine Gordimer, The Conservationist; Nobel prize – Eyvind Johnson, Harry Martinson (Sw)

1975. Margaret Thatcher elected leader of Tories in UK; Vietnam war ends with hasty retreat of US troops; first elections in Portugal for 50 years; Microsoft founded; Nobel prize – Eugenio Montale (It)

1976. Jeremy Thorpe resigns as UK liberal leader following sex scandal; Britain found guilty of torture in N Ireland; Jimmy Carter elected president in US; Patrick White, A Fringe of Leaves; Nobel prize – Saul Bellow (USA)

1977. First democratic elections in Spain since 1936; student activist Steve Biko tortured to death in S Africa; Punk rock fashionable; Nobel prize – Vicente Aleixandre (Sp)

1978. World’s first test tube baby; Nobel prize – Isaac Bashevis Singer (USA)

1979. Shah leaves Iran; Ayatollah Khomeni returns from exile in Paris; Islamic republic declared; Margaret Thatcher elected first woman PM in UK; first heart transplant; Pol Pot convicted of murdering 3 million in Cambodia; Francis Ford Coppola, Apocalypse Now; Nobel prize – Odysseus Elytis (Gk)

1980. USSR Nobel peace prizewinner Sakharov sent into internal exile; Mugabe’s establishes one-party ZANU(PF) state in Zimbabwe; outbreak of Iran-Iraq war; Solidarity trade union recognised by Polish government; Ronald Regan elected US president; John Lennon shot in New York; Nobel prize – Czeslaw Milosz (Po)

1981. Greece joins EEC; Social Democrats launched in UK – merges with Liberals; Peter Sutcliffe convicted of Yorkshire Ripper murders; Prince Charles marries Lady Diana Spencer; first reports of AIDS; Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children; Nobel prize – Elias Canetti (UK!)

1982. Argentina invades Malvinas (Falklands); UK re-takes islands; General Galtieri resigns; Polish government abolishes Solidarity; death of Breshnev; Nobel prize – Gabriel García Márquez (Co)

1983. Demonstrations in 20 Polish cities; IRA prisoners escape from Maze prison; US-backed invasion of Grenada; Cruise missiles installed in UK; Nobel prize – William Golding (UK)

1984. UK miners strike against pit closures; USSR boycotts Olympics in LA; Mrs Gandhi assassinated; Nobel prize – Jaroslav Seifert (Cz)

1985. USSR reforms of Glasnost and Perestroika called for by Gorbachev; Greenpeace ship sunk by French agents in NZ; Nobel prize – Claude Simon (Fr)

1986. Westland scandal in UK government; press disputes lead to move from Fleet Street to Wapping in UK; legal independence for Australia; US bomb Benghazi and Tripoli; Chernobyl nuclear disaster; 180-day detention without trial in S Africa; US and Commonwealth impose sanctions on South Africa; Nobel prize – Wole Soyinka (Ni)

1987. Gorbachev begins critique of Breshnev in USSR; white-only elections in S Africa; Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie guilty of crimes against humanity; Iran attacks US tanker in Persian Gulf; DNA first used to convict criminals; Nobel prize – Joseph Brodsky (USA)

1988. IRA members shot by UK in Gibraltar; first Gulf war begins; Gorbachev proposes democratic reforms in USSR; George Bush Snr president in US; Nobel prize – Naguib Mahfouz (Eg)

1989. Khomeini issues fatwa on Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses; Tiananamen Square massacre; elections, protests, and shakeups in Communist block; E Germany closes borders after demonstrations for reform; Iron Curtain begins to be removed; Romanian leader Ceausescu executed; playwright Vaclav Havel becomes Czech president; Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web; Nobel prize – Camilo José Cela (Sp)

1990. Lech Walesa becomes first president of Poland; Nelson Mandela freed after 27 years in jail; John Major replaces Margaret Thatcher as UK prime minister; Derek Walcott, Omeros; Nobel prize – Octavio Paz (Mx)

1991. Collapse of the Soviet Union; Apartheid laws repealed in S Africa; Iraq invades Kuwait; first Gulf war begins with Operation desert Storm; Satellite-based communications become established for TV and Internet; Nobel prize – Nadine Gordimer (SA)

1992. Official end of Cold War; Nobel prize – Derek Walcott (SL)

1993. Bosnian civil war; Use of the Internet grows exponentially; Nobel prize – Toni Morrison (USA)

1994. Channel tunnel opens in UK; Mandela elected president of S Africa; Rawandan genocide; Nobel prize – Kenzaburo Oe (Jp)

1995. Nobel prize – Seamus Heaney (Ire)

1996. Prince Charles divorces Princess Diana in UK; Mad cow disease hits UK; Nobel prize – Wislawa Szymborska (Po)

1997. Hong Kong returns to China; Princess Diana dies in car crash in Paris; Tony Blair wins landslide victory in UK with New Labour Party; Nobel prize – Dario Fo (It)

1998. India and Pakistan test nuclear weapons; US President Clinton in sex scandal; use of mobile phones and Internet becomes commonplace; digital technology widely introduced into broadcast media; Nobel prize – José Saramago (Pt)

1999. New Euro currency introduced; NATO forces in Serbia; hereditary peers abolished in UK House of Lords; Nobel prize – Gunter Grass (Gr)

2000. First elected Mayor of London in UK; Legal age for consensual gay sex reduced to 16;Nobel prize – Gao Xingjian (Fr)

2001. Labour Party re-elected with huge majority; Twin Towers attacked and destroyed in New York; Britain joins US in Afghanistan war; Nobel prize – V.S. Naipaul (UK)

2002. Nobel prize – Imre Kertész (Hu)

2003. Nobel prize – J.M.Coetzee (SA)

2004. Nobel prize – Elfriede Jelinek (Au)

2005. Nobel prize – Harold Pinter (UK)

2006. Nobel prize – Orhan Pamuk (Tk)

2007. Nobel prize – Doris Lessing (UK)

2008. Nobel prize – J.M.G Le Clezio (Fr)

2009. Nobel prize – Herta Mueller (Gr)

2010. Nobel Prize – Mario Vargas Llosa (Pe)

2011. Nobel Prize – Thomas Transtroemer (Sw)

2012. Nobel Prize – Mo Yan (Cn)

2013. Nobel Prize – Alice Munro (Ca)

2014. Nobel Prize – Patrick Modiano (Fr)

2015. Nobel Prize – Svetlana Alexievich (By)

2016. Nobel Prize – Bob Dylan (USA)

2017. Nobel Prize – Kasuo Ishiguro (UK)

2018. Nobel Prize – not awarded

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Typography bibliography

October 30, 2009 by Roy Johnson

Gavin Ambrose & Paul Harris, The Fundamentals of Typography, Lausanne: AVA, 2006, pp.176, ISBN 2940373450.

Tom Arah, Web Type: Start Here!, Lewes: ILEX, 2004, pp.192, ISBN: 1904705189.

Jeff Bellantoni and Matt Woollman, Type in Motion: Innovations in Digital Graphics, 2nd edn, London: Thames and Hudson, 2005, pp.176, ISBN 0500512434

John D. Berry, dot-font: talking about fonts, New York: Mark Batty Publishing, 2006, pp.126, ISBN: 0977282708

Charles Bigelow, Paul Hayden Duensing, and Linnea Gentry (eds) Best of Fine Print on Type and Typography, San Francisco: Fine Print/Bedford Arts, 1988.

Lewis Blackwell, Twentieth Century Type, Rizzoli International Publications/Calmann & King, 1992, pp.256, ISBN 084781596X

Lewis Blackwell, 20th Century Type: Remix, London: Lawrence King, 1998, pp.191, ISBN 1856691160. New edition of a historical survey of 100 years of innovation in typographic design – presented in elegantly publication which has become a favourite amongst designers.

Lewis Blackwell and David Carson, The End of Print: The Graphic Design Of David Carson, Chronicle, 1995, pp.160, ISBN: 0811811999. California dreaming. Father of ultra-distressed type. Carson came to fame by designing Raygun and has remained popular with the avant garde ever since.

Lewis Blackwell and David Carson, David Carson: 2nd Sight: Grafik Design After the End of Print, Universe Books, 1997, pp.176, ISBN: 0789301288. Follow-up to best-selling title above. More of Carson’s influential work – where type and graphics begin to merge with each other.

Joseph Blumenthal, The Printed Book in America, Boston: David R. Gondine, 1997.

Alexander Branczyk et al, Emotional Digital: A sourcebook of contemporary typographics, London: Thames & Hudson, 2001, pp.312, ISBN 0500283109. Showcase presentation of modern type design from the best of today’s studios – both traditional and avant-gard. Examples shown in wide range of applications. Beautifully produced book.

Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style (2nd edn), Vancouver: Hartley & Marks, 1996, pp.351, ISBN 0881791326. The Bible of typography. Beautifully designed and poetically written encyclopedia of all things typographic. Impossible to recommend this book too highly.

Christopher Burke, Paul Renner: the art of typography, London: Hyphen Press, 1999, pp.223, ISBN 1568981589. Scholarly biography of the designer of the Futura typeface. Mixes graphic design issues with politics and social history. Elegantly produced and well illustrated.

Sebastian Carter, Twentieth Century Type Designers, New York: W.W.Norton, (new edition) 1995.

Warren Chappell, A Short History of the Printed Word, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970.

Carl Dair, Design With Type, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982.

Geoffrey Dowding, Finer Points in the Spacing and Arrangement of Type, (Revised edition), Vancouver: Hartley & Marks, 1995, pp.96, ISBN 0881791199. Does what it says on the tin. Dowding reflects on the more subtle points of punctuation and letter spacing. Elegant, restrained, and well-produced.

William Addison Dwiggins, Layout in Advertising, New York: Harper and Brothers, 1948.

James Felici, The Complete Manual of Typography, Berkeley (CA): Peachpit Press, 2003, pp.360, ISBN 0321127307.

Adrian Frutiger, Type, Sign, Symbol, Zurich: ABC Verlag, 1980.

Simon Garfield, Just My Type, London: Profile Books, 2010, pp.352, ISBN: 1846683025

Eric Gill, An Essay on Typography, London, 1936, reissued Boston: David R. Godine 1993, pp.144, ISBN: 0879239506. Gill’s essay is a slightly quirky plea for the aesthetics and morals of good design principles. This has become a design classic. Produced in Gill’s own typeface – Johanna.

Bob Gordon and Maggie Gordon, The Complete Guide to Digital Graphic Design, London: Thames and Hudson, 2002, pp.224, ISBN 050028315X. Typography is only one part of this survey of contemporary design – but the book is so beautifully illustrated and produced, it acts as an excellent example of page structure and layout.

Bob Gordon, Making Digital Type Look Good, London: Thames and Hudson, 2001, pp.192, ISBN 0500283133. Beautifully designed and elegantly printed study. Includes the anatomy of type, rendering, technology, and fine tuning. Clarifies all the complexities of font technology in a very straightforward manner – showing how tracking, kerning, and hyphenation can be used to good effect.

Nicolette Gray, A History of Lettering: Creative Experiment and Letter Identity, Boston: David R. Gondine, 1986.

Robert Harling, The Letter Forms and Type Designs of Eric Gill, Boston: David R. Gondine, 1977.

New Hart’s Rule for Compositors and Readers, London: Oxford University Press, 1999, pp.182, ISBN 019212983X. Compact style guide to typographical and presentational niceties – from punctuation and spacing, to hyphenation, foreign words, symbols, and proof-correction.

Oldrich Hlavsa, A Book of Type and Design, New York: Tudor Publishing, 1960.

Richard Hollis, Graphic Design: a concise history, London: Thames and Hudson, 1994, pp.224, ISBN: 0500202702. Compact, well-illustrated, and good-value history of twentieth century design – including graphics and typography.

Sally Hughes, Design and Typography, Computer Step, 1998, pp.193, ISBN 1840780045. Well-illustrated and simple introduction to typography and desk top publishing – every point illustrated by examples.

Indie Fonts, Buffalo, NY: P-Type Publications, 2002, pp.408, ISBN: 0963108220. Beautifully produced collection of over 2000 fonts from eighteen of the most innovative independent type designers.

W. Pincus Jaspert, W. Turner Berry, and A.F. Johnson, The Encyclopaedia of Type Faces, New York: Blandford Press, 1986.

Rob Roy Kelly, American Wood Type, New York: Van Nostrand Rheinhold, 1969.

Robin Kinross, Modern Typography: An Essay in Critical History, Chronicle Books/Princeton Architectural Press, 1996, pp.208, ISBN 0907259057.

Alexander Lawson, Anatomy of a Typeface, London: Hamish Hamilton, 1990, pp.428, ISBN 0241132673.

Alexander Lawson, Printing Types: An Introduction, Boston: Beacon Press, 1971.

Ellen Lupton, Thinking with Type: A critical guide for designers, editors, and students, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2004, pp.176, ISBN 1568984480

Mac McGrew, American Metal Typefaces of the Twentieth Century, New Castle Delaware: Oak Knoll Press, 1993.

Ruari McLean, The Thames and Hudson Manual of Typography, Thames and Hudson, 1980, ISBN 0500680221. Popular, good-value, and well illustrated general introduction to typography. Covers all aspects of the craft, but ends with focus on book design.

Ruari McLean, Jan Tschichold: Typographer, Boston: David R. Gondine, 1975.

Stanley Morison, Letterforms, Montreal: Hartley and Marks, 1997, pp.128, ISBN 0881791369

Stanley Morrison, First Principles of Typography, New York: The Macmillan Company, 1936.

Stanley Morrison, A Tally of Types, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973.

Robert Norton, Types Best Remembered/Types Best Forgotten, Parsimony Press, 1993, ISBN 1884606008. Collection of well-known typefaces, complemented by negative and positive criticism.

Bruce Rogers, Paragraphs on Printing, New York: Dover Publications, 1979.

Julian Rothenstein and Mel Gooding (eds), 130 Alphabets and Other Signs, London: Thames and Hudson, 1993, pp.183, ISBN 0500277419. A charming sample book of signs, symbols, alphabets, rules, swashes, and pictograms. Highly recommended.

Julian Rothenstein and Mel Gooding (eds), A B Z: More Alphabets and Other Signs, London: Redstone Press, 2003, pp.221, ISBN:1870003330. Another charming sample book of font sets, signs, symbols, alphabets, rules, swashes, and pictograms. Highly recommended.

Rosemary Sassoon, Computers and Typography, Oxford: Intellect, 1993, pp.164, ISBN 1871516234. Articles on text massage; layout and readability; new alphabets using bitmapped fonts; the history of typography and its effects; the visual analysis of a page of text; and Sassoon’s essay on perception and type design related to writing for children.

Rosemary Sassoon, Handwriting of the Twentieth Century, London: Routledge, 1999, pp.208, ISBN 0415178827. Developments in the teaching and study of handwriting over the course of the 20th century. A historical record of techniques, styles and methods. Beautifully illustrated with examples – from guidance manuals, schoolbooks, clerks’ registry entries, and personal handwriting.

Erik Spiekermann & E.M. Ginger, Stop Stealing Sheep and find out how type works, Adobe Press/Hayden Books, 1993, ISBN 0672485435. Very popular introduction to the general principles of typography. Well designed and illustrated.

Walter Tracy, Letters of Credit: A View of Type Design, Boston: David R. Godine, 1986, ISBN 0879236361.

Jan Tschichold, Asymmetric Typography, London: Faber & Faber, 1967.

Jan Tschichold, The Form of the Book: Essays on the Morality of Good Design, Vancouver: Hartley & Marks, 1991, pp.181, ISBN 0881791164. Short essays from Tschichold’s ‘late’ period on some of the most fundamental issues of arranging type on paper. Eloquent opinions on page shape, margins, text spacing, and even blank pages.

Jan Tschichold, The New Typography: A Handbook for Modern Designers, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995, pp.236, ISBN: 0520071476. Manifesto of the modernist movement. Tschichold’s ‘early’ period, politically committed argument for ‘form follows function’. Original illustrations, and printed in period style.

Jan Tschichold, Treasury of Alphabets and Lettering: A Source Book, W.W. Norton, 1995, pp.236, ISBN 0393701972.

D.B. Updike, Printing Types: Their History, Forms and Use, New York: Dover Publications, 1980.

Hugh Williamson, Methods of Book Design: The Practice of an Industrial Craft, New haven: Yale University Press, 1985.

Adrian Wilson, The Design of Books, San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1995, pp.159, ISBN 081180304X.

Jon Wozencroft, The Graphic Language of Neville Brody, London: Thames & Hudson, 1988, pp.160, ISBN 0500274967. Comprehensive survey of Brody’s graphics and typography – in two very popular and well-illustrated volumes. Best-seller.

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Using a spell checker

September 16, 2009 by Roy Johnson

a poetic caution – please take note

Ode to a spell checker

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.

Norman Vandal

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Verbs – how to understand them

September 14, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Verbs – definition

A verb expresses an action or a state of being.

Most statements in speech and writing have a main verb.

Examples

The following verbs are expressed in their infinitive form:

to sing to eat to run

to travel to be to have

to intend to feel to paint

Use

Verbs are traditionally expressed along with the appropriate pronouns as follows:

Singular Plural

I run We run

You run You run

He runs They run

She runs —

It runs —

Singular	Plural
I run	We run
You run	You run
He runs	They run
She runs	—
It runs	—

This is the conjugation of the verb ‘to run’.

Verbs are expressed in tenses which place the statement in a point in time. Broadly speaking these are are the past, present, and future tense:

PAST I ran [yesterday]

PRESENT I run [today]

FUTURE I shall run [tomorrow]

The verbs ‘to be’ and ‘to have’ are the most commonly used auxiliary verbs and they work alongside the main verbs in any statement.

NB! English is the only European language which doesn’t have a future tense. It uses an auxiliary verb (‘shall’) to indicate the future.

Traditionally, children are taught that verbs are doing words. This is a very simplistic definition, although it is valid for most normal purposes:

John went to the bank.
My mother arrives on Saturday.
Simple Simon met a pieman.

The verb is a very important part of the sentence. It is a necessary part of every fully expressed predicate – the part of the sentence which normally follows the subject.

The verb is the grammatical instrument which gives us information about the person or thing which is the subject.

Consider the following sentence:

Jane grasped the neckace with joy and placed it in the carved wooden box.

We are given essential information here by means of two verbs – ‘grasped’ and ‘placed’. They express the subject’s physical and psychological attitude, and they also place the action in a temporal context by the fact that they are verbs in the past tense.

These verbs in this context are lexical items, even though they are also doing essential grammatical work. They are lexical in the sense that they are giving detailed information regarding the actions of the subject.

In other contexts, the verb does take a more mechanically grammatical role, as in the following sentence:

James is absolutely sure that Alice is the right choice for the executive post..

Here the verb ‘to be’ is used twice to express the information. The verb’s function here is almost entirely grammatical rather than lexical. The lexical information is given by means of the two adverbs ‘absolutely’ and ‘sure’, the adverbial phrase ‘right choice’, and the phrase ‘executive post’.

The verb ‘is’ puts the information in the present tense and facilitates the expression of James’ state of mind.

Advertisers trade on the grammatical dynamism of the verb when space is at a premium. The following slogans all use the verb in a lexical mode, which places the focus on the action.

It’s good to talk British Telecom

Makes the going easy British Rail slogan

Wash and go shampoo ad

Pick up a Penguin chocolate biscuits

The listening bank Midland Bank ad

Road signs also need to be succinct, so verbs play a crucial part in the best known:

Keep left Stop Give way

All of these are strong imperatives. The recent ‘Kill your speed’ is not only imperative but emotive by the use of the word ‘kill’, here applied as a metaphor.

Verbs are employed to critical effect by poets. The following well known extracts show the powerful effect of the lexical verb.

My heart aches and a drowsy numbness pains my sense
As though of hemlock I had drunk one moment past
And Lethewards had sunk.

[John Keats]

Here ‘aches’ and ‘pains’ both in the present tense are strongly evocative of a listless state of being. The next active verb ‘drunk’ acts as a clear connection between the state of being and the possible cause, at the same time as shifting the action from the present to the hypothetical past. ‘Sunk’ completes the sequence by suggesting physical movement as a result of all the preceding verbal information.

Verbs can also be transformed into other grammatical functions and in many cases this results in an increased dynamism.

Adverbs ‘Thats nice’ he said mockingly, as she tried her best to pick up the broken vase.

Adjectives The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on.

Nouns He always insisted on doing all his own washing.

Conversely, other parts of speech can be used as verbs. American English is replete with such usages, some of which have been assimilated into British English.

Young people now go ‘clubbing’ on Saturday evenings. ‘Parenting’ has now become the term for child-rearing. A recent court case in America revealed that the defendent had been ‘incested’.

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Vocabulary – how to use it correctly

September 14, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Vocabulary – definition

Vocabulary is a general term to describe the particular selection or type of words chosen in speech or writing.

It refers to individual items of content such as words.

Stylistic analysis picks out specific vocabulary items and analyses them as distinct from the grammar of the statement.

Examples

Here is a statement [from the world of computer technology] with certain vocabulary items selected for analysis.

“JavaScript is not a standalone programming language, and JavaScript programs cannot run outside the context of a Web browser.”

JavaScript technical jargon and the proper name for a programming language

standalone a recent coinage used as an adjective describing the nature of the programming language

program an American borrowing, useful as it distinguishes it from the English ‘programme’ which is now kept for reference to theatrical or TV content lists

Web more technical jargon, and the [abbreviated] proper name of the World Wide Web

browser the name of software for exploring the Web [a very recent coinage]

Use

Every individual has a collection of vocabulary items stored up in memory for use in speech and writing.

This collection can be referred to as a person’s lexicon.

The lexicon of any group is the sum-total of its word-stock.

This public lexicon is recorded in dictionaries — which have to be kept up to date as word meanings change and new items of vocabulary are created.

Vocabulary (or ‘lexis’) is usefully distinguished from grammar in textual analysis. The grammar of any utterance is the underlying structure. The vocabulary or the lexical level is the immediate content or subject-matter of a statement.

The passage which follows contains a normal mixture of grammatical items and vocabulary items.

Bananas are cheap and plentiful and can be used in many interesting ways, either as desserts or in main meals.

With the grammatical items removed, the sentence still makes some sense.

Bananas cheap plentiful used many interesting ways either desserts main meals.

Without the lexical items however, the grammar words mean nothing as a sequence.

are and can be in as or in

As part of the language acquisition process, children build up a vocabulary which is like a personal archive of words or utterances. These may be called on as part of the natural act of speaking.

Much research has been carried out to assess the volume of a child’s vocabulary at a young age. It has been impossible to gain accurate results in this field because a child utters only a fraction of its total vocabulary.

Saussure applied the terms langue and parole to this phenomenon. Langue referred to the total individual vocabulary comprising the words learnt and understood (but not necessarily uttered). Parole referred to the vocabulary actually spoken.

There is an added complexity surrounding this topic. That is the definition of ‘knowing’ a vocabulary item. A person could utter a word or a phrase without knowing its meaning. Moreover, the quality of understanding is not always easy to assess, especially in children.

Vocabulary is one level of stylistic analysis, along with graphology, phonology, grammar and semantics.

In anylysing the vocabulary of a text or a speech, patterns of usage would be the subject of comment. For instance, the frequent occurrence of technical terms in car repair manual, or of emotive terms in a tabloid newspaper article.

Aberrant usage would also be of interest. In advertising for instance, words are sometimes spelt deviantly as in Beanz meanz Heinz. Coinages are also used, as is rhyme and onomatopoeia. All these features become issues of vocabulary in stylistics.

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Waterhouse on Newspaper Style

July 23, 2009 by Roy Johnson

writing skills via amusing critique of tabloid journalism

Waterhouse on Newspaper Style has a complex history. It was originally written in 1979 as a series of style notes for journalists on the Daily Mirror, and it has gone in and out of print ever since – whilst simultaneously establishing a reputation as a classic of clear guidance and an analysis of tabloid journalism. Keith Waterhouse is one of the old Fleet Street school who actually care about clarity, accuracy, and good prose style.

Writing from the point of view of a working journalist, he inspects the linguistic practice of the press and reveals its weaknesses in a series of witty mini-essays. He adopts the A-to-Z format – from Adjectives through Metaphor to the Weather – looking at usage and abusage in a way which is both instructive and very amusing.

It’s easy to score points off the tabloid fixation with headlines which combine rhyme, alliteration, cliché, and weak puns [RAMBO BOY ON RAMPAGE]. However, in the course of dissecting these literary weaknesses, Waterhouse forces us to think about the everyday misuse of language in a way which is instructive beyond the pages our daily newspapers.

For instance, in terms of the discourse of the medium, he points out that popular journalism employs an artificial language which nobody actually speaks – as in “the dollar takes a pounding”.

He describes this approach as being like “ransom notes which are made up of lettering cut out of various publications”. And all through this amusing tour of catchwords, journalese, officialese, and tautology he has perceptive advice to offer on the most basic elements of good writing – such as accuracy and restraint in the use of the comma, and alertness to the cliché, the vogue word, and the tired metaphor.

Another of his observations which struck me as usefully perceptive was the reason he gives for distrusting those who use too much jargon:

to use outsiders’ jargon is to take their own evaluation of themselves on trust – or anyway to give the impression of doing so. This is one good reason why journalists should never resort to the jargon of the field they cover.

Waterhouse illuminates the conventions of good and bad writing without once resorting to the polysyllabic terms of conventional grammar. There are no ‘objects of a preposition’ or ‘possessive pronouns’ here. Everything is done via plain prose and good examples. He comes out on the side of the specific, the concrete, and the direct expression. We should write ‘red’, not ‘brightly coloured’, ‘rain’ not ‘bad weather’, and ‘began’ not ‘commenced’.

It’s a joy to read, it’s instructive, and you’ll search your own prose more rigorously to avoid the solecisms he discusses. But the book’s idiosyncratic career still seems to be in progress. My edition is a recent Penguin paperback, yet when I checked the Net, it didn’t appear to be in print. Keep looking. It’s well worth the effort.

Buy the book at Amazon UK

Buy the book at Amazon US

Keith Waterhouse, Waterhouse on Newspaper Style London: Penguin, 1993, pp.250, ISBN: 0140118195

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a chronicle of events, literatures, politics, and the arts

a chronicle of events, literature, and politics

a chronicle of events, literature, and politics

a poetic caution – please take note

Ode to a spell checker

free pages from our English Language software program

Verbs – definition

Examples

Use

free pages from our English Language software program

Vocabulary – definition

Examples

Use

writing skills via amusing critique of tabloid journalism

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