Academic culture

To be a student in a college or a university is not only to be a learner. It is also to be a member of a community and a culture with customs, myths and rituals which differentiate it in significant ways from other communities and cultures to which you might belong — sporting clubs, churches, political parties, and so on. To be in university or college is to submit to a sometimes bewildering array of customs and expectations that can take many, many months to feel at home with. To study history or anthropology is to enter the department of history or the department of anthropology, where you are quite likely to be regarded as having begun a novitiate to the vocation of historian or anthropologist. You must therefore learn the customs and rituals of the vocation.

Most departments initiate you by providing a manual or outline of studies for the year. In this there will often be a section called ‘Essay writing’ or, more candidly, ‘Rules for the presentation of written work’. These are the rules you have to learn, notwithstanding the initially confusing fact that the requirements of one department might well conflict with those of another.