Here We Go Again

A new academic term is underway in UK universities. If you’re just starting an MA in ELT or Applied Linguistics, you’ll be getting to grips with

how the library works,

how the IT facilities work,

who your supervisor, teachers and your colleagues are. Sounds obvious, but studies show many students don't do it. Look up info on your supervisor, write to them immediately, establish rapport. Equally, look up info on the academics in the department. Usually one or two will stand out. Take note and use them whenever you can. Join in any discussion groups organised for those doing the same course.

what the first Module covers (a variety of topics, from “What is Applied Linguistics?” to “What is Language?” to “How is teaching English as an L2 different?”). Cover it as fast as you can.

Advice:

Spend as much time as possible getting familiar with the library. Don’t take it for granted. Start out by going there (in presence and / or virtually, and playing with all the knobs and whistles till you feel at home.  Please believe me: a confident ability to use all the library facilities from the start will help you progress thru the course more than you can imagine!

Get familiar with AI tools. There are so many. My tip (thanks to Katherine Bilsborough) is Elicit: at elicit.com.

Get a good overview of your course. Don’t do anything else till you properly understand what steps are involved. Studies show that most MA students don’t bother to do this.

Focus. This is my one “ESSENTIAL” bit of advice. The curriculum of any MA in ELT or AL is impossible to cover. Only by focusing on less than 20% of the course content will you get a good result. I’m not just talking about the grade you’ll get, but about what you’ll learn.

Find out how each Module in the MA is marked and then focus, as fast as you can, on the bits that contribute towards your final mark. Usually the paper of approx. 3,000 words on the topic of your choice counts most on each module. Focus on that.

Articulate the title of your paper and its Thesis Question. “How do people learn an L2?” is a bad Thesis Question. “Has Krashen’s Monitor theory received support from recent research in SLA?” is a good one. “What are the strengths and weaknesses of Dörnyei’s construct of the L2 Ideal Self?” and “A critical evaluation of the construct “Translanguaging” are also good.

Read only about your chosen topic, starting from a good general text and then follow a few of the references.

Ignore everything else in the entire bibliography until it strikes you, as you work thru your paper, as worth having a look at.

Think about your topic, refine it, it, keep it focused. Don’t rush down “promising” new tangential byways exploring other topics – don’t try to understand “everything”.

Write notes about it, write a draft of it, ask your tutor and colleagues about it and stay focused on it.

I promise: if you follow this advice you’ll be very unlikely to fail.      

Make sure your papers are coherent and cohesive. I’ve written posts in this Newsletter about these two vital criteria for academic writing. Please have a look! Cohesiveness is often the weak point. To be cohesive, the text must flow, not read like a list of separate points. Numbered Sections and Sub-sections help a lot. Develop your argument, (outlined in an overview in Section 1) as you go along. Show the reader how you’re moving along with discourse markers. Much as I hate modern postmodern discourse, I think the idea of developing a story or narrative is helpful. In a PhD thesis you really can tell a story. In an MA paper, it’s more a text that makes an argument, but anyway it really does need to be readable, i.e., to take the reader from page 1 till the end with sustained interest. Examiners who, when reading your paper think “What’s this bit doing here?”; “Where’s this going?”; “I’m lost!” will mark you down, and quite rightly so.     

Adopt an attitude. Don’t just trot through all the relevant stuff, take a stance. This is not just because examiners like such papers; it’s because you’ll learn more – providing, of course, as you’re reading about and writing the paper you don’t adopt a doctrinaire attitude in the first place and are open to changing your initial view.

Pay attention to detail. Examiners are, for good or bad, very concerned about consistent formatting and to citations, the Reference Section, and the appendices. You’re probably using the APA system of references, but check with your Handbook. Above all, be consistent. Good formatting, citations, References section and Appendices can make a big difference to your mark. (BTW, a Bibliography is not the same as a References section. In an MA paper, you don’t need a bibliography, tho you might include “Recommended reading” at the end of a Section.)

Less is More. Avoid all kinds of “padding”. We don’t need to know that a command of English is important, or that the world is a global village or that everybody learns in their own way.

Avoid obscurantist prose. This is particularly in evidence in sociolinguistic papers that like to indulge in the convoluted style adopted by post-modernists. Here’s an example:

“We can clearly see that there is no bi-univocal correspondence between linear signifying links or archi-writing, depending on the author, and this multireferential, multi-dimensional machinic catalysis. The symmetry of scale, the transversality, the pathic non-discursive character of their expansion: all these dimensions remove us from the logic of the excluded middle and reinforce us in our dismissal of the ontological binarism we criticised previously.” (Félix Guattari, quoted in Sokal and Bricmont 1999: 156–157).   

Constantly review what you’ve written. This is a bit controversial, but I advise writers to read every paragraph they’ve written, checking for grammar, coherence and how it fits (coherence). Go back, Jack, and do it again. This is a micro process, different to the macro process of general proof reading.

Ask trusted friends to read your text. I can’t believe how few students do this and I don’t know of any good academic writer who doesn’t do it.

Network. Grow a network of people who share your interest in what you’re doing. Joining Linkedin discussions strikes me as a good way of doing this, but obviously there are lots of others, particularly within your university. Less obvious, but maybe at least as valuable, is to contact the scholars whose work you’re interested in. During my MA and PhD studies, I was amazed at how many authors of books and articles I had questions about replied with very helpful comments.

Hang on in there. A Masters degree is probably the most difficult post-grad step of all, if you take much notice of the way they present it to you. It looks terrifying, but in fact it’s “easy” compared to your first degree. Apart from its face value as a qualification that helps employment prospects, it’s a required qualification if you want to do a PhD. In any case, it’s best seen as a chance to focus on an area that you’re really interested in and to “drill down” on it. If you have no interest in being an academic, (i.e. if you're a saint who just wants to be a better teacher) just focus on one bit of each module and you’ll learn lots and get the qualification. If you like academic work and want to do a PhD, again, focus is the key. For prospective PhD folk, the dissertation is the litmus test. It's worth noting that only those going for a PhD will have the details of their marks looked at. For the rest, rather like a driving test, an MA is an MA.

Either way, feelings of being overwhelmed and out of your depth are best countered by focus, by not letting the huge area of ELT or AL make you feel insecure. Once you’ve got the ropes, and once you’ve got a clear idea of what you want to focus on in each module, you’ll feel increasingly empowered.

Good luck and please use this Newsletter if and when you think it might help.