Comments on: Mid-essay insight

By: Tristan Laing

Tristan Laing — Sun, 26 Feb 2006 02:37:00 +0000

The greatest victory of the exam is lost in the administration. An exam doesn’t just exemplify, it shows in written words the sum of your accumulated knowledge. If I wanted to know everything I knew in a philosophy of science course I aced last year, I could read my exam - it’s all there. But, I can’t. The exam is stuck away in some file a couple thousand miles from where I am. All my knowledge is in that exam, and it is written in such a way - by me - that if I were to read it again even the form of it would aid in its coming back to me. But alas, the exam is lost. Exams are the papers whose keeping would hold onto so much more than keeping our papers.

By: Ben

Ben — Sat, 25 Feb 2006 07:15:00 +0000

I’m not sure that’s true. I think I’ve come out of exams before having suddenly seen (under time pressure) how some things fit together…

By: Milan

Milan — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 19:57:00 +0000

Unlike writing papers, exams serve no purpose external to evaluation. They don’t increase your knowledge. Indeed, given the incentive to learn a lot of information in a way that only sticks around briefly, they may actually discourage it.

By: Robert Jubb

Robert Jubb — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 18:38:00 +0000

Not only does it not refer to the thesis, but it sees weekly essays as weekly essays, not as preparation for exams, which, particularly for undergraduates, but also for graduate students, is their ultimate function. I remember from being an undergraduate the sense of a view of the whole subject which did not emerge until after all the tutorial essays for the paper in question had been written, and indeed to some extent until all the other papers had been done. Tutorial essays are part of an ongoing process of learning, the sum of which is not reducible to the learning involved in each individual essay considered as an atomised individual.

By: Ben

Ben — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 16:31:00 +0000

That describes weekly essays, but of course your thesis is the chance to spend longer on something more well considered and polished.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 09:07:00 +0000

Same goes for having to relate to family and friends mostly through email - for foreign correspondents, at least.

By: B

Fri, 24 Feb 2006 07:44:00 +0000

The need to deal constantly with issues not directly related to work, but still critically important in terms of being able to get it done, is another journalism/Oxford parallel. Think of dealing with banks and other bureaucracies; finding housing and maintaining health and sanity; as well as various financial considerations and travel issues.