essay rules oxford

How to Write the Perfect Essay

06 Feb, 2024 | Blog Articles , English Language Articles , Get the Edge , Humanities Articles , Writing Articles

You can keep adding to this plan, crossing bits out and linking the different bubbles when you spot connections between them. Even though you won’t have time to make a detailed plan under exam conditions, it can be helpful to draft a brief one, including a few key words, so that you don’t panic and go off topic when writing your essay.

If you don’t like the mind map format, there are plenty of others to choose from: you could make a table, a flowchart, or simply a list of bullet points.

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Thanks for signing up, step 2: have a clear structure.

Think about this while you’re planning: your essay is like an argument or a speech. It needs to have a logical structure, with all your points coming together to answer the question.

Start with the basics! It’s best to choose a few major points which will become your main paragraphs. Three main paragraphs is a good number for an exam essay, since you’ll be under time pressure. 

If you agree with the question overall, it can be helpful to organise your points in the following pattern:

• YES (agreement with the question)
• AND (another YES point)
• BUT (disagreement or complication)

If you disagree with the question overall, try:

• AND (another BUT point)

For example, you could structure the Of Mice and Men sample question, “To what extent is Curley’s wife portrayed as a victim in Of Mice and Men ?”, as follows:

• YES (descriptions of her appearance)
• AND (other people’s attitudes towards her)
• BUT (her position as the only woman on the ranch gives her power as she uses her femininity to her advantage)

If you wanted to write a longer essay, you could include additional paragraphs under the YES/AND categories, perhaps discussing the ways in which Curley’s wife reveals her vulnerability and insecurities, and shares her dreams with the other characters. Alternatively, you could also lengthen your essay by including another BUT paragraph about her cruel and manipulative streak.

Of course, this is not necessarily the only right way to answer this essay question – as long as you back up your points with evidence from the text, you can take any standpoint that makes sense.

Step 3: Back up your points with well-analysed quotations

You wouldn’t write a scientific report without including evidence to support your findings, so why should it be any different with an essay? Even though you aren’t strictly required to substantiate every single point you make with a quotation, there’s no harm in trying.

A close reading of your quotations can enrich your appreciation of the question and will be sure to impress examiners. When selecting the best quotations to use in your essay, keep an eye out for specific literary techniques. For example, you could highlight Curley’s wife’s use of a rhetorical question when she says, a”n’ what am I doin’? Standin’ here talking to a bunch of bindle stiffs.” This might look like:

The rhetorical question “an’ what am I doin’?” signifies that Curley’s wife is very insecure; she seems to be questioning her own life choices. Moreover, she does not expect anyone to respond to her question, highlighting her loneliness and isolation on the ranch.

Other literary techniques to look out for include:

• Tricolon – a group of three words or phrases placed close together for emphasis
• Tautology – using different words that mean the same thing: e.g. “frightening” and “terrifying”
• Parallelism – ABAB structure, often signifying movement from one concept to another
• Chiasmus – ABBA structure, drawing attention to a phrase
• Polysyndeton – many conjunctions in a sentence
• Asyndeton – lack of conjunctions, which can speed up the pace of a sentence
• Polyptoton – using the same word in different forms for emphasis: e.g. “done” and “doing”
• Alliteration – repetition of the same sound, including assonance (similar vowel sounds), plosive alliteration (“b”, “d” and “p” sounds) and sibilance (“s” sounds)
• Anaphora – repetition of words, often used to emphasise a particular point

Don’t worry if you can’t locate all of these literary devices in the work you’re analysing. You can also discuss more obvious techniques, like metaphor, simile and onomatopoeia. It’s not a problem if you can’t remember all the long names; it’s far more important to be able to confidently explain the effects of each technique and highlight its relevance to the question.

Step 4: Be creative and original throughout

Anyone can write an essay using the tips above, but the thing that really makes it “perfect” is your own unique take on the topic. If you’ve noticed something intriguing or unusual in your reading, point it out – if you find it interesting, chances are the examiner will too!

Creative writing and essay writing are more closely linked than you might imagine. Keep the idea that you’re writing a speech or argument in mind, and you’re guaranteed to grab your reader’s attention.

It’s important to set out your line of argument in your introduction, introducing your main points and the general direction your essay will take, but don’t forget to keep something back for the conclusion, too. Yes, you need to summarise your main points, but if you’re just repeating the things you said in your introduction, the body of the essay is rendered pointless.

Think of your conclusion as the climax of your speech, the bit everything else has been leading up to, rather than the boring plenary at the end of the interesting stuff.

To return to Of Mice and Men once more, here’s an example of the ideal difference between an introduction and a conclusion:

Introduction

In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men , Curley’s wife is portrayed as an ambiguous character. She could be viewed either as a cruel, seductive temptress or a lonely woman who is a victim of her society’s attitudes. Though she does seem to wield a form of sexual power, it is clear that Curley’s wife is largely a victim. This interpretation is supported by Steinbeck’s description of her appearance, other people’s attitudes, her dreams, and her evident loneliness and insecurity.

Overall, it is clear that Curley’s wife is a victim and is portrayed as such throughout the novel in the descriptions of her appearance, her dreams, other people’s judgemental attitudes, and her loneliness and insecurities. However, a character who was a victim and nothing else would be one-dimensional and Curley’s wife is not. Although she suffers in many ways, she is shown to assert herself through the manipulation of her femininity – a small rebellion against the victimisation she experiences.

Both refer back consistently to the question and summarise the essay’s main points. However, the conclusion adds something new which has been established in the main body of the essay and complicates the simple summary which is found in the introduction.

Hannah is an undergraduate English student at Somerville College, University of Oxford, and has a particular interest in postcolonial literature and the Gothic. She thinks literature is a crucial way of developing empathy and learning about the wider world. When she isn’t writing about 17th-century court masques, she enjoys acting, travelling and creative writing. 

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• 9 Essay Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

Writing essays is a mainstay of education from secondary school through to university, and no matter how well you know the subject in question, if you can’t write a good essay, your marks will suffer. Different academic traditions approach essays in different ways, so in this article we’re going to focus on the kind of essay expected in British schools and universities; the kind you’d be taught how to write, for instance, at our Oxford summer school . That kind of essay should put forward an argument, develop it through several different points, and conclude in a way that marries the points together and reinforces your original argument. It sounds straightforward, but as anyone who’s ever had to write an essay knows, it isn’t always so simple. Here are the types of error people make when writing essays, and how you can avoid them.

1. The list

Perhaps the most common type of bad essay is the list. This can be a result of bad essay writing, but bad question-setting also plays a role. Take the classic essay topic of the causes of the First World War . One way of phrasing a question on this could be simply, “What were the causes of the First World War?” It naturally lends itself to a list; you could almost answer in bullet point. To avoid the list, you’d have to distort the question. Another question could explore the same area of knowledge, but encourage a better-structured essay, such as “Was the First World War inevitable?” or “Was imperialism responsible for the First World War?” You’ll know if you’ve fallen into the trap of writing a list if words like “moreover”, “furthermore” and “additionally” are creeping into your essay more than “therefore” and “however”. To avoid just writing a list, first see if the question invites a list, and if so, reframe it in your head in order to construct an argument. In the First World War example, you could say, “It is popularly believed that the chief cause of the First World War was… but the causes of war in fact went much deeper…” – and then you’re arguing, rather than listing, right away. Consider also which items on your list are more important or less important, and how they interact with each other, and make sure that you come to a firm conclusion that picks a stance and doesn’t settle for “there were many causes, all important” or related waffle.

2. The weighing scales

The “weighing scales” approach to writing an essay is when you have a choice of two options, and you come down firmly on the fence. This is particularly common in essays on a difficult or controversial topic, such as, “Would justice be better served if criminals were given longer prison sentences?” The weighing scales approach would say, “on the one hand, some criminals are treated too leniently… on the other hand, longer prison sentences can increase recidivism… then again, longer sentences may act as more of a deterrent… but they also cost the state a lot of money.” The essay then concludes that there are strong arguments in favour of both sides, and perhaps that more research is needed (even when there has been plenty of research on the topic). In some academic disciplines and some cultures, the “weighing scales” approach to an essay is considered actively desirable. But that’s not the case for British universities. While it’s important to mention both sides (more on that in a moment), an essay should advance an argument. If you conclude that both sides have merit, your argument should at least propose a way of navigating between them. Make sure that by the end of your essay, your reader knows what your opinion is.

3. The polemic

The direct opposite of the “weighing scales” approach is the polemic. In this kind of essay, your reader is in no doubt at all about what your point of view is; unfortunately, they’ve heard rather too much of it and rather too little of anything else. Continuing on the same example as above, in the polemic, you might argue that prison is wholly negative, based on punishment not rehabilitation, leading to worse outcomes for prisoners than alternatives like community service, and introducing ‘new’ criminals to experienced ones so that they end up learning not how to avoid crime, but how to become better at it. While all those points are reasonable, the issue is that the other side is altogether missing. In a “polemic”-style essay, the writer rejects the other side so much that they won’t even discuss their ideas. That’s not persuasive; you also need to spend time acknowledging and refuting the alternative point of view. You don’t need to accept it, only explain where it comes from, and why it’s mistaken.

4. The literature review

A literature review is a perfectly valid piece of writing: it’s where you look at everything that’s been written on a particular topic, and compare, contrast and analyse the writers’ stances without interjecting too much of your own views. It’s a standard part of theses and dissertations, allowing you to establish the thoughts of the major authorities in the field so that you can refer to them later in the piece without the need for a lengthy introduction. But if you’re not supposed to be writing a literature review, then your essay shouldn’t resemble one. After all, it’s about assessing your knowledge, ideas and opinions, not everyone else’s. When a subject has been written about extensively, it can feel impossible to produce an original thought on it. You can end up attributing every point you want to make to another writer, because otherwise it can feel like plagiarism. But while every point might have been said before, your route through them and your reasoning will still be original. Make sure your own point of view is established, without relying too heavily on the literature.

5. The plagiarist

The opposite of the literature review, the “plagiarist” is the essay that passes off a little too much as your own work when it really ought to be credited to someone else. To be clear, we’re not talking about genuine copy-and-paste plagiarism (or the same thing with a couple of words tweaked and examples changed, which is no better) – that’s not a pitfall, that’s grounds for expulsion. This is instead where you’ve maybe read an idea, forgotten which article or book you read it in – or even that it wasn’t your idea in the first place – and put it in an essay without a citation. But even if you didn’t do it deliberately, it’s likely to be frowned on by your teachers. The only way to avoid the “plagiarist” essay is to take more thorough notes when you’re working on an essay. If you read something interesting, even if you don’t think it’s relevant, make a note of where you found it in case you do want to refer back to it. If you’re feeling really lazy, just take a photo of the details on your phone. Then you can make sure you’re not taking credit for ideas that aren’t your own.

6. The long introduction

This one is reasonably self-explanatory – it’s when it feel like the majority of the essay is introduction or scene-setting, and you never really get to the point. To go back to the earlier example of an essay on the causes of the First World War, a “long introduction” essay would spend paragraphs describing the context, the different countries and personalities involved, not to mention their histories – and then, running out of word count, would cram in a paragraph or two at the end about how all of this resulted in war. A “long introduction” essay can be the result of misjudging the word count (and more on that later) but it can also be the result of knowing a great deal about a topic and not wanting to commit to an argument. Avoid the long introduction by making sure your argument is clear from your introduction onwards. Sometimes students also structure an essay by starting with their weaker points and leading to their best point, as a kind of rhetorical crescendo. This can be effective if done well, but it can also lead to a “long introduction” essay as your reader has to sit through paragraphs of muddle waiting for you to get to your real knock-out idea.

7. The textbook

Another perfectly valid piece of writing that nonetheless makes for a poor essay is the “textbook” approach. Instead of writing an essay – with points, examples, explanations and an argument running through it all like a stick of rock – you write an explainer on the topic. This is akin to the list, but typically better written and structured. A “textbook” essay is not necessarily a bad piece of work; it’s just not what’s being asked of you when you write an essay. Sometimes, when students are shy about expressing their opinion, a “textbook”-style essay is the end result. They outline all the examples and explanations that they might have included without committing to the points. The end result is an essay where the student’s point of view could perhaps be inferred from the approach taken, but where it isn’t made explicit. If this is you, try to express your opinion more assertively; you might be avoiding saying things like “I believe” (as usually essays shouldn’t contain the first person) but try phrases like “it is clear that” or that such and such an alternative argument “is flawed”.

8. The revision notes

The “revision notes” essay is not an essay that resembles revision notes; instead, it’s an essay that’s so painfully light on detail that it reads like you used revision notes rather than doing the reading or research that you were supposed to. It skims over dates; it focuses only on the main characters of a novel; where a reader might expect it to cite another theorist, it avoids it with vague statements such as “many people have argued that…”. Assertions go unexplained and unproven. Typically the reason a student writes an essay like this is because they’re out of their depth; they haven’t done the work or understood the topic well enough to go into any more detail. If you’re finding that you’re writing this sort of essay even when you do know your topic, go through and see where more detail could be added. Even something like adding dates for events in brackets can give the sense that you know what you’re talking about. Similarly, try to use examples that aren’t the most obvious or default choice for the point that you’re making. It might feel unnecessary when you know the person marking your essay knows these details already, but you have to prove that you know the details as well.

9. The word count challenge

This goes in both directions – the essays where you’re restricted to 2,000 words and you feel like you could write a novel on the subject, and the ones where you have to write 2,000 words and you feel like you could barely manage a paragraph. Every student will have developed some tricks for getting round this, such as changing the margins or font size, or adding or removing contractions and adjectives. Of course, your teachers are wise to this. It’s much better to write an essay that’s appropriate for the length set in the first place, which means planning it out carefully. If you have what feels like too few points for the word count, can you go into more detail on those points? And if you have too much to say, can your points be grouped together for more of an overview that skips out the finer detail? Or perhaps your approach is too broad, and you can stick more closely to the question asked to condense what you want to say. This is particularly relevant for exams, where realising that you have more to say than time to say it in can be disastrous; the way to avoid it is practising until you have a better sense for how much content you need for a certain exam duration or word count.

Image credits: writing an essay ; list ; scales ; speaker ; books ; citation ; long book ; textbooks ; post-it note ; miniature book .

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Learning English with Oxford

The latest language learning tips, resources, and content from oxford university press., 12 top writing tips for the oxford test of english.

• by Oxford University Press ELT
• Posted on June 1, 2020 July 28, 2020

To help you to overcome your writer’s block, and feel as prepared as possible when you take the Writing module of the Oxford Test of English , we’ve pulled together a list of tips and advice, and have even created a Writing Tips study guide to help you get ready.

Follow these tips and you’ll feel more confident than ever about getting a great writing result when you sit the Oxford Test of English .

Make a plan

• Make a weekly schedule of when – and what – you will practise. Whether it’s an hour a day, or three evenings a week, putting a structure in place will really help you to tick off those objectives, and feel fully prepared when it comes to sitting the test.
• Find a ‘study buddy’ – another English learner who you can practise with. Ask your ‘study buddy’ to check your work and offer to check theirs, after all a second pair of eyes could help to spot mistakes you may have missed.

Make sure you know what to expect

• Download the Oxford Test of English practice tests and answer keys to get used to the different kinds of questions you will find in the test.
• Study the sample responses in the answer keys so you can learn what the examiner will be looking for in your response.
• Take the Oxford Test of English demo so you know what kind of questions to expect when you do sit the test, and how it feels to take it on a computer.

Know how to answer the questions to the best of your ability

• Show off your vocabulary! Make sure to use your own words – don’t just copy phrases and sentences from the questions or tasks in front of you; examiners will be more impressed.
• Using the right level of formality is also really important – think about whether you are writing to a friend, someone you don’t know well or someone you don’t know at all. For example, if you are writing to a friend, use informal language as you would normally, but if you are writing to someone you don’t know very well, you should use neutral or formal language.
• Make sure you answer each question fully – sometimes you will be prompted to write about more than one thing. You will lose marks if you do not answer all parts of the question, so read it through several times before you start your response to make sure you cover all the bases.

Practise makes perfect!

• Get into the habit of writing in English by writing emails to your ‘study buddy’, or connecting with native English speakers on social media. If you want to, you could also change the default language on your phone or social media accounts to English so you can learn new words without even realising it.
• If you keep a diary, why not try writing down your thoughts in English, or start a blog? Writing about topics you feel passionate about will help it to feel more natural when you have to write in English in a test environment.
• Use a clock to time yourself answering practice questions. Check how long you are given to answer each question, then keep doing this until you are comfortable writing for the same amount of time that you will be given to write your answers in the actual test.
• Practise typing your responses, rather than writing them with a pen and paper. You will need to type your responses when sitting the Oxford Test of English, and this will also help prepare you if you need to use English in the workplace, or as you continue your studies.

Download our Oxford Test of English Writing Tips!

Our Writing Tips guide is designed to help you get the best possible score in the Writing module of the Oxford Test of English .

It has four sections – one for each part of the test: Email, Essay, Magazine Article, and Review. Each section has advice on how to answer the questions in the test, and exercises to help you put these tips into practice.

Are you looking for fun ways to test your English level while studying at home? This article recommends a variety of easy-to-use tools and techniques you could use to help you track your progress.

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Author: Oxford University Press ELT

Every year we help millions of people around the world to learn English. As a department of the University of Oxford, we further the University’s objective of excellence in education by publishing proven and tested language learning books, eBooks, learning materials, and educational technologies. View all posts by Oxford University Press ELT

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Oxford Style Guide for College and University Students

Considered one of the best universities world over, the University of Oxford stands tall among its peers. Studying there predetermines a very prestigious career in the future — ten to one. The acceptance rates are rather low, so once you get on board, you should be proud of yourself. However, there is no room for complacency. You should perfect one thing at a time: there is plenty of different rules and writing standards you've likely never heard of. One of the requirements is to write in Oxford style in adherence to the corresponding manual. The University of Oxford is rather strict in this regard so that formatting is an integral element of the grading rubric that has a great impact on your final project’s score.

The main idea is to use superscript numbers and footnotes. This article shares the basic principles of formatting along with the examples that you may find useful.

Use Oxford Writing Style Properly

The University of Oxford Style Guide was published to introduce the documentary-note citation system. That aims to help students and local researchers organize their scientific work properly. It is very likely that you will be asked to format the papers using this style if you do subjects in:

• Anthropology
• Political science

Oxford men prefer citing in their papers in the style of Oxford as they’ve grown accustomed to it throughout the study. Further still, it keeps the document well-structured and logical. The law departments in the local schools may also ask to use Oxford style referencing in their works. McGill format is closely related to Oxford format, and that is why it happens so.

So, what are the essential elements of this format? Let’s find out:

• Header — A student or scientist can insert the page numbers at personal direction.
• Font and size — It is recommended to choose Times New Roman 12 or 14-point in size.
• Margins — Make sure you have 1-inch margins everywhere except for the top of the page as well as a couple of inches at the top. Double-spacing is preferred. That does not apply to bibliography list.
• Cover page (or Title page) — This is an opening section, and it looks different against other formats. Put the work’s title at the top of your first page skipping several lines to mention the specific type of your assignment. It could be a thesis proposal, critical analysis, dissertation, etc. Insert the full date enclosed by the total amount of words in your project, your name, and title of your school. We recommend downloading some templates or examples of the cover page to make it easier for you.

The History of the Civil War and Its Consequences for the Modern US Population

August 21, 2014

Lindsay Harris

University of Oxford

• Requirements — Add a full reference each time you insert another in-text quotation, direct or indirect. Acknowledge the credible, up-to-date sources like books and journals.
• References — List the cited sources or sources that contributed to your project somehow. Oxford references and footnotes are what constitute this type of essay format.
• In-text citation — According to the official manual, writers have to involve citations throughout the text to prove their words with examples. It is being done with the help of the “Insert” tab in Microsoft Word or Google Docs. Thus, there is nothing complicated about the process. The citation should show up in both the footnote and references page (your bibliography).

Oxford citation style is a method used to cite a passage from or to name as the authority for a statement or an opinion in a paper. You will get specific techniques for that: by inserting footnotes during the writing, for example. These footnotes should lead your readership to a full list of references where cited sources are to find. This list appears at the bottom of the page to acknowledge the studies and findings of other scientists working on the same research question. Confusing at the first thought, this format seems to be reminiscent of MLA or APA. It is possible to get acquainted with it in no time all. Our guide is the capsule version of the entire manual which is rather a long read.

Examples of Oxford Footnotes

In the heart of this format, we have footnote referencing. You can easily come up with footnotes in your Word. It has all the necessary instruments to make your life easier. An “Insert tab” function was developed specifically for the formats that apply footnotes and endnotes just like in Chicago or Oxford style. Pick “Footer” out of all the available options ( either in Word or Google Docs) when you’re so far.

The full citations will show up akin to what you find below:

• Journal/print article with the writer: 1 B. Bells. Coming up with a Tasty Salmon Dish. Journal of Cooking, vol. 37, no. 7, 2008: pp. 145-171.
• Journal/print article written by unknown: 1 Things You Can Get from the Common Beans. Journal of Cooking, vol. 35, no. 4, 2007: pp. 264-269.
• Book with a single author: 2 A. Wesley. Adding Peppers to Meat Dishes, New York: Great Books Press, 2011, p. 31.
• Book with many writers: 2 J. Seifried, M. Bowling, and S. Fries. Introduction to Dishes Prepared in an Oven, New York: Great Books Press, 2012, p. 42.
• Book without any authors: 2 Mastering the Art of Preparing Hamburgers, New York: Great Books Press, 2013, pp. 33-44.
• Chapter alone: 3 M. Madyson. The Difference between Pork and Beef. In Cooking is Your Life, 33-52. New York: Great Books Press, 2012.
• Online article/post: 4 H. Oxford. Cooking as a separate Type of Hobby. Fun Cooking. 11-12-09. Full URL address (Accessed full date).

In Oxford writing style, you can add the superscript numbers on the page you’re working on: the length of the footer is predetermined by the number of sources quoted in the particular part of your paper.

For instance, you have a superscript number in bold, and the rest of the reference is not in bold (the main title should be italicized then). Remember to add a space after the superscript number.

Types of Oxford Citation

There is nothing left to say in this regard. In Oxford citation except the superscript number should follow the words of another author. No need to provide any other details — leave them for the footnotes.

You can decide which type of citation to use:

• Direct in-text citation: Copy-paste the sentence(s) or phrases of another author (the words should appear exactly the way they were used by him or her). Add a superscript number to define the source in the footnotes and bibliography.
• Indirect in-text citation: Paraphrase the words when citing from another author. Add quote in your document where it makes sense. Add a superscript number to define the source in the footnotes and bibliography. The example of the in-text citation in Oxford style would be:

The rapid drop in literacy rates lead to increased unemployment in the region.1

After reading the section about footnotes, you can guess that a corresponding Oxford footnotes example will look this way:

1. Robin Cottrell, Causes and effects of the Recent Drop in Literacy Rates (Oxford: University Press, 2015).

Oxford Referencing List

How to “Oxford reference”? What is the main difference between a footnote and a reference? Let’s find out. For the bibliography page, add the names of the writers, title, and publication date as well as the publisher and location. It is critical to mention all the sources used in the footnotes in the proper numerical order (in the order of their appearance). Add the sources that were not cited but still contribute to your research. There is no need, of course, to quote or paraphrase absolutely everything.

Develop a separate blank page for your references. It is possible to copy-paste the entries from your footnotes to speed up the process; make sure to edit some nuances before submitting the paper. The names of the contributors should appear differently.

The title of the bibliography page should be “Reference List.” The main difference between a footnote entry and reference page entry is that the author’s last name goes first instead of the first one. You should list the sources in alphabetical order by surname. For the articles and separate chapters of the books or journals, make sure to insert specific page ranges for your citations. The professor should be able to find the quotes you used in the original sources to tell whether you have mastered a subject.

Finally, here is an example of the bibliography entry held in Oxford referencing style: Cottrell, Robin, Causes, and effects of the Recent Drop in Literacy Rates (Oxford: University Press, 2015).

Applying Oxford style successfully involves a lot of moves to be made. As complicated as this first appears, the more understandable and clearer this task becomes when one looks closer — through the instrumentality of our instructions and effective recommendations. Approach the formatting stage diligently, and we hope you will deal with that easily!

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Free English Lessons

Fce (b2 first) writing exam (essay) – video.

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In this lesson you can learn how to write an essay for the Cambridge FCE exam , step by step.

You’ll see exactly what to do at each stage in the fce writing essay section, and how to get the best possible fce score ., there are four steps to the writing process. you’ll see what to do at each step, then you’ll learn how the writing is assessed., 1. how to analyse your fce writing essay task.

First, you need to read the FCE writing essay task and identify exactly what needs to be included.

Let’s look at a sample question:

You’ve recently had a discussion in English class about society. Now your teacher has asked you to write an essay. Write an essay using all the notes and give reasons for your point of view.

University should be free for everyone. Do you agree or disagree? Notes 1. Taxes 2. Opportunity 3. Your own idea

So, what do you need to do? Most importantly, you need to say if you agree or disagree that university should be free for everyone.

You also need to use all the notes and give reasons for your point of view. That means your essay needs to include three central ideas: taxes, opportunity, and one other.

It also means that you need to reach a clear, justified conclusion. You can’t just say, ‘I agree’, or ‘I disagree.’ Think of it like this: you need to convince the examiner that your conclusion is correct.

You might think at this point, ‘yeah, obvious, thanks for the help, Kasia!’ Trust me; it’s harder than it sounds. Many FCE essays that we see don’t get these basic things right. It’s very easy to leave something out, or to go in the wrong direction.

Next, you’re writing this answer for your teacher so what style do you think it will be in? Formal or informal?

An essay should be formal. What does that mean?

Formal writing doesn’t use contractions, like ‘I’d’, ‘you’re’ or ‘don’t’. Write the full forms. You should also avoid using slang, colloquial vocabulary, or anything which sounds very conversational.

Next, think: what do you need to include?

You need to talk about taxes, opportunity, and you also need to add your own idea.

Even the ideas which are given to you—taxes and opportunity—are quite vague. That means you need to decide exactly what to talk about.

You also need to think about how to connect your ideas.

For example, with taxes you could say that if you pay taxes, then this should go back into society to benefit everyone. You could add to this by pointing out that having equal opportunities also benefits society. And for your own idea, you could talk about how people with higher education are more likely to be economically productive.

This is just one example, of course! There are many paths you could take.

Let’s talk about that in more detail.

2. How to Plan Your FCE Writing

Here’s what you need to do when you plan your writing for the FCE writing essay.

First, you need to decide what your conclusion is going to be. Are you going to agree or disagree that university should be free for everyone?

Decide your conclusion first, because everything else in your essay needs to lead to it.

Secondly, you need to plan how many paragraphs you’re going to have, and what you’ll put in each one.

Thirdly, you need to make sure your paragraphs are connected to your conclusion.

Let’s see an example:

• Taxes – parents pay taxes so children should get education. Children will pay taxes in the future.
• Opportunity – education creates more equal society. Higher standard of living for everyone.
• Economy – educated workforce helps the economy grow.
• Conc. – agree with statement

Pause the video if you want some more time to read the plan.

You can see that we use the key idea of ‘education’ in the notes for each paragraph. Doing this can help you to stay focused and on-topic, because you’re connecting each paragraph back to the main idea of the question.

When you plan, make sure that each paragraph has a clear focus.

Every good paragraph starts with a topic sentence, which summarises the main point of the paragraph.

The sentences which follow are called supporting sentences. These include reasons and examples to support your topic sentence.

A good exercise during planning is to take a paragraph and think to yourself: “What’s this paragraph about?”

If you can answer that question in one simple sentence, then that’s a good sign. Hopefully, your plan is clear. However, if you can’t answer that question, that shows that your plan isn’t totally clear in your head.

Once you’ve finished your plan, you’re ready to write your answer!

3. How to Write Your Answer

In your candidate answer book, you will now write your essay.

Let’s look at a model answer:

• There are many factors to consider when deciding if the university should be free or not. Among these are taxes, equality of opportunity, and the economy.
• Firstly, a proportion of taxes should go to education. Some might say if you can afford university, then you should pay for it. But, this doesn’t take into account the fact that higher earners pay higher income tax so they are already contributing more.
• Secondly, by making university free for all, it creates more opportunitys for those from low-income backgrounds. Although they may still have difficulty meeting other costs such as accommodation it makes the playing field more level.
• In addition, having an educated workforce is proven to help the economy grow. The more people with degrees there are, the higher the standard of living for everyone. So, more people will be able to pay taxes to fund the education of future generations.
• In conclusion, free university ultimately benefits all members of society.

Pause the video to read, and start again when you’re ready.

First question: have we answered the question?

Yes: the conclusion states that ‘free university benefits all members of society.’ This shows that we agree that university should be free for everyone.

Next: have we used topic sentences?

Yes, we have. The first sentence of the essay tells you what the entire essay will be about.

Then, each paragraph’s topic sentence contains a key word from our plan. We have ‘taxes,’ ‘opportunities’ and ‘economy’.

Also, the topic sentences and paragraphs all reference the idea of ‘education’, either directly or indirectly. This shows that our points are relevant and connected to the task.

So, now you’re finished, right? No–there’s one more step. This answer is not bad, but it could be better.

4. How to Check and Improve Your Answer

The final step is to check your answer.

What type of things do you think you should look for?

Grammar, of course, but what else?

Check for spelling mistakes. Check for style—have you used any conversational language which doesn’t fit the tone of an essay like this?

Check your use of linking words and phrases. Many students overuse them; don’t use a linking word like nevertheless unless you’re sure it fits.

Check for repetition of vocabulary. Could you replace any simple vocabulary with something more advanced?

Look at our model answer again:

• There are many factors to consider when deciding if the university should be free or not. Among these are taxes, equality of opportunity and the economy.
• Secondly, by making university free for all, it creates more opportunitys for those from low-income backgrounds. Although they may still have difficulty meeting other costs such as accommodation * it makes the playing field more level.

The bold words are either mistakes, or they could be improved somehow.

How would you improve this? Pause the video while you read and decide.

The first problem is with grammar. Unless you’re talking about one specific university, you don’t use the.

Okay, what’s wrong with doesn’t? We’ve used a contraction! Don’t use contractions in your essay. So, it should be does not.

The next problem is a spelling mistake. When a word ends in ‘y’, it changes to ‘ies’ in the plural: opportunities .

Next is a punctuation mistake. There’s a comma missing. There are two clauses in this sentence and they need to be separated by a comma.

There’s nothing wrong with people with degrees but it’s quite basic. What else could you say?

You could say educated people, or even highly-educated people, either of which is slightly more elegant.

So is not a mistake, but we used so in the second paragraph already. You want to show the examiner your range of language, so here you could use something more precise like consequently.

Our conclusion is only one sentence, so let’s add an extra point. We’re still under the maximum word count. This could help us to state our opinion more clearly.

Let’s change it to:

• In conclusion, free university should be free for everyone. It makes economic sense and ultimately benefits all members of society.

Here’s the final version of our essay:

• There are many factors to consider when deciding if university should be free or not. Among these are taxes, equality of opportunity, and the economy.
• Firstly, a proportion of taxes should go to education. Some might say if you can afford university, then you should pay for it. But, this does not take into account the fact that higher earners pay higher income tax so they are already contributing more.
• Secondly, by making university free for all, it creates more opportunities for those from low-income backgrounds. Although they may still have difficulty meeting other costs such as accommodation, it makes the playing field more level.
• In addition, having an educated workforce is proven to help the economy grow. The more highly-educated people there are, the higher the standard of living for everyone. Consequently, more people will be able to pay taxes to fund the education of future generations.

At this point, it’s looking good! Next, let’s focus on what you can do to produce a good FCE writing essay which will get a high score in your exam.

5. How to Improve Your Score

Your essay score is made up of four parts. For each part, you get a score from zero to five.

• Content – how well the candidate has fulfilled the task
• Communicative Achievement – how appropriate the writing is for the task
• Organisation – how well the writing is put together
• Language – focuses on vocabulary and grammar

First there’s Content . The mark scheme says this “focuses on how well you have fulfilled the task”. In other words, have you done everything you were asked to do?

This corresponds to step one of our writing process. Analyse the task carefully and make sure you do everything it asks you to. A good tip is to underline the key words in the task to help you identify what you need to do.

Next there’s Communicative Achievement . This “focuses on how appropriate your writing is for the task”.

Have you used the correct register? Have you used contractions? Basically: does your essay look and sound like an essay?

Then we have Organisation . This looks at “how the writing is put together”. Is it logical and organised? By planning your writing carefully, it will already be organised. Remember to plan your paragraphs carefully and write a clear topic sentence at the beginning of each paragraph.

You can also use linking words and phrases to make the connections between paragraphs even clearer.

In our essay, we used many linking words, including firstly, secondly, in addition, although, consequently and in conclusion. Look through the essay again, and note how the linking words and phrases are used. Can you find any more examples of linking words in the essay?

Finally, you have Language : vocabulary and grammar. The examiners will be looking for a range of language as well as how accurate it is. In step four, you saw how checking your essay can improve your language.

Are you worried that making mistakes will affect your mark? Of course, making a lot of mistakes will lower your mark, but remember this is only one part of your score.

For B2 level, the Cambridge mark scheme says, ‘Occasional errors may be present but do not impede communication.’ That means you can still score 5 from 5, even with some small mistakes.

But, hopefully, you’ll catch most of them when you’re on step four – checking and improving your answer.

You’ve seen how to write an essay for FCE, but you can use the same process for other Cambridge exams, including the CAE and CPE when you get that far.

Good luck with your exam preparation and let us know when you pass! Thanks for watching!

Keep practicing with more Free English Writing Lessons from Oxford Online English!

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• How to write a C1 Advanced Essay

• Posted on 26/02/2020
• Categories: Blog
• Tags: C1 Advanced , Cambridge Exams , Writing

The Cambridge C1 Advanced is an excellent qualification to aim for if you’re thinking of studying or working abroad. It’s recognised by universities and governments all over the world and also helps you prove your language skills to future employers.

One of the most demanding parts of the exam is Part 1 of the Writing paper, which includes writing an essay. For many of you, this won’t come naturally… especially in another language.

So, to give you the best chance at success, we’ve created this in-depth guide full of Cambridge C1 Advanced Writing tips and useful language to get you producing excellent essays in no time.

So, pick up your pen, and let’s get started!

If you’d like to get more help with the C1 Advanced, consider our exam preparation class!

C1 Advanced Writing Requirements

The C1 Advanced Writing exam has two writing parts, which you must complete in 90 minutes. Both parts have a word limit of between 220-260 words. We recommend getting lots of writing practice under these conditions!

Part 1 is always a discursive essay . It requires you to think about arguments for and against a topic.

Part 2 is a situationally based writing task. This could be a letter , an email , a report , a proposal or a review and you have three options to choose from.

Today, we’ll be looking at how to do your best in part 1.

Before you begin

When you turn over the paper and begin Writing Part 1, take some time to read the task instructions. Identify all parts of the question, underlining which parts are obligatory and noting which parts are optional.

Let’s take a look at an example question!

Remember, you don’t have to use the opinions expressed in the box, but they may help you to get the ball rolling . Also, you only have to talk about two of the options given, not all three.

Make a plan

Take ten minutes to lay out your ideas. Make a pros and cons list for each of the three options and then decide which two you feel most confident with. Here’s some things you might come up with, can you think of any more?

Structure your essay

The essence of a good essay is a clear structure.

Introduction

Here you want to introduce the topic in your own words. Your first line should also grab the reader’s attention, then you should paraphrase the question. Finally, try using a statistic or a rhetorical question. This will make them want to read on, right?

Paragraph 1

Discuss the first option you’ve chosen. Include a good topic sentence and remember to give reasons for your answer. Describe some of the advantages, and even some of the disadvantages too. This will give a well-balanced argument.

Paragraph 2

Here’s where you introduce the second option. Again, try to present both sides of the argument and give reasons for your ideas. Gradually work towards the conclusion.

State your final opinion. This should be a summary of the rest of the essay and point clearly to which option you think is the most important. Do not introduce any new arguments at this stage. The conclusion is where you tie-up any loose ends .

This is an advanced piece of writing, so make sure your choice of language reflects it. You will get marked for accuracy, however, occasional errors can still be present as long as they do not impede understanding. So don’t play it too safe . This is your opportunity to show what you can do, so take some risks and have fun with it!

In the writing paper you should use a range of vocabulary, including less common lexis. Brainstorm some vocabulary related to the topic. Take your time to think of nouns and compound nouns that you know at C1 level. Really let your vocabulary sparkle .

No one likes a broken record . Find synonyms for simple words. You want to use a variety of language, and try not to repeat yourself too much. Check out these different ways of saying the same thing:

advantage = benefit, positive, upside

disadvantage = downside, drawback

effect = influence, impact, result, outcome

problem = issue, challenge, difficulty, obstacle, setback, complication

important = valuable, essential, beneficial

expensive = costly, dear, high-priced, extortionate

cheap = inexpensive, affordable, economical

big = great, large, sizeable, considerable, wide, vast

small = slight, tiny, little

Quick tip: Visit Thesaurus.com to study more synonyms!

Experiment with different grammatical forms. At this level you’re expected to have a good grasp on the grammar. You should use a range of simple and complex grammatical forms with control and flexibility. So challenge yourself with some of these…

• Participle clauses
• Conditionals
• Modal verbs
• Passive with reporting verbs
• Cleft sentences
• Comparatives
• Relative clauses

Useful expressions

To make your essay flow it’s best to use some key phrases. These will link all your ideas together, and help it sound semi-formal. Take a look at the expressions below. Why not use some in your next essay?

Introduction:

It is often said that…

Many people feel that…

We live in an age when..

More and more…

Introducing & Addition:

Firstly, secondly, thirdly…

On the one hand…

In addition…

What is more…

For example…

For instance…

As a case in point…

Contrasting:

In contrast…

On the other hand…

Alternatively…

However…

Conclusion:

All things considered…

As far as I’m concerned…

In light of the above…

What the examiners are looking for

When writing your essay, bear in mind what you’ll be marked on:

Have you answered all parts of the question? Is everything relevant to the question?

Communicative Achievement

Is the style and tone appropriate? Remember it should be semi-formal and neutral.

Organisation

Does it follow a logical order? Have you used paragraphs and linking devices?

Are you using a variety of grammar and vocabulary? Is it accurate?

Now your masterpiece has come together. Remember to take time to check your work. Here’s the official Writing Checklist from Cambridge Assessment English . And our list of the most common mistakes:

• subject + verb agreement
• singulars / plurals
• question formation
• variety of tenses
• dependent prepositions

Some final tips

Avoid contractions (I’m, they’re, we’re) as this is a formal writing.

Don’t use first person pronouns (I, my, our, us).

Practise under timed conditions.

Use model answers to practise fixed expressions.

——

Looking for more help with your Cambridge C1 Advanced exam? Here are our other guides from our blog:

C1 Advanced Reading and Use of English – Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3

And if you are not sure if you’re ready for the C1 Advanced, check out our article Am I ready for the C1 Advanced exam? to find out!

Glossary for Language Learners

Find the following words in the article and then write down any new ones you didn’t know.

Get the ball rolling (exp) : to start something.

Lay out (v): to explain something in detail.

Paraphrase (v): to say the same thing in a different way.

Tie-up any loose ends (exp): to resolve issues.

Play it safe (exp): to act cautiously.

A broken record (exp): when someone repeats themself.

Sparkle (v) : to shine.

Good grasp (exp): a good knowledge.

Bear in mind (exp) : to consider.

Masterpiece (n): an incredible work of art.

exp = expression

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Small Talk For Business English

• By: oxfordadmin
• Posted on 19/02/2020

Your Guide To Moving To The USA

• Posted on 04/03/2020

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The word ‘get’ is one of the most common and versatile verbs in English. It can be used in lots of different ways, a... Read More

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Continue Studying Online At Ox

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The feast of Sant Jordi is one of Barcelona’s most popular and enduring celebrations. Sant Jordi is the patron saint o... Read More

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Important Information –

Dear students, Due to the recent emergency measures from the Government concerning COVID-19, Oxford House premises wi... Read More

7 Books You Should Read To Imp

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So that’s it! It’s decided, you’re moving to the USA. It’s time to hike the soaring mountains, listen to country... Read More

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When it comes to exams, preparation is the key to success - and the IELTS Writing Paper Part 2 is no exception! It is wo... Read More

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Congratulations! You’ve passed your Cambridge B2 First exam. It was a hard road but you did it. Now what’s next? Som... Read More

Ireland is known as the Emerald Isle. When you see its lush green landscape and breathtaking views, it’s easy to see w... Read More

How SMART Goals Can Help You I

New year, new you. As one year ends and another begins, many of us like to set ourselves goals in order to make our live... Read More

15 New English Words You Need

Each year new words enter the English language. Some are added to dictionaries like . Others are old words that are give... Read More

Our Year In Review: Top 10 Blo

2019 went by in a flash - and what a year it’s been! We’re just as excited to be looking back on the past 12 months ... Read More

Telephone Interviews In Englis

Telephone interviews in English can seem scary. Employers often use them to filter-out candidates before the face-to-fa... Read More

How to Write a Great Article i

Writing in your only language can be a challenge, but writing in another language can be a complete nightmare ! Where do... Read More

A Black Friday Guide to Shoppi

Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving. Traditionally, it signals the start of the Christmas shopping period. Expect... Read More

Passing C1 Advanced: Part 3 Re

The (CAE) is a high-level qualification, designed to show that candidates are confident and flexible language users who... Read More

AI Translators: The Future Of

Many people believe that artificial intelligence (AI) translators are surpassing human translators in their ability to a... Read More

8 Of The Best Apps For Learnin

Apps are a great tool for learning English. They are quick, easy to access and fun. It’s almost like having a mini cla... Read More

6 Ways To Improve Your Speakin

There are four linguistic skills that you utilise when learning a new language: reading, writing speaking and listening.... Read More

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So, you’ve moved onto Part 3, and after completing Part 2 it’s probably a welcome relief to be given some help with ... Read More

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Whether it’s in meetings, telephone conversations or networking events, you’ll find specific vocabulary and buzzword... Read More

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It’s time for some back-to-school motivation. The new school year is about to start and everyone is feeling refreshed ... Read More

Our 10 Favourite YouTubers To

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4 Past Tenses and When to Use

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How To Write A Review: Cambrid

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Challenge Yourself This Summer

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These 5 Soft Skills Will Boost

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The Haunted History And Terrib

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Which English Course Is Right

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Here’s Why You Should Move T

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World Cup Vocabulary: Let’s

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Exam Day Tips: The Written Pap

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10 Reasons to Study English at

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Shadowing: A New Way to Improv

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15 Useful English Expressions

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Love them or hate them, at some point we all have to give a business presentation. Occasionally we have to deliver them ... Read More

10 phrasal verbs to help you b

A lot of students think English is easy to learn - that is until they encounter phrasal verbs! We are sure you have hear... Read More

6 Unbelievably British Easter

Have you heard of these fascinating British Easter traditions? Great Britain is an ancient island, full of superstition... Read More

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Writing an effective essay: Ca

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Essential Ski Vocabulary [Info

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10 False Friends in English an

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How to Improve your English wi

If you’ve been studying English for a long time, you’ve probably tried lots of different ways of learning the langua... Read More

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Every year is the same. We promise ourselves to eat more healthily, exercise more and save money. It all seems very easy... Read More

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Languages are constantly on the move and English is no exception! As technology, culture and politics evolve, we’re fa... Read More

Catalan Christmas Vs British C

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You’ve heard about the four skills: reading, writing, and . Some might be more important to you than others. Although... Read More

How to Write the Perfect Busin

Business is all about communication. Whether it’s colleagues, clients or suppliers, we spend a big chunk of our workin... Read More

10 Phrasal Verbs You Should Le

Why are phrasal verbs so frustrating? It’s like they’ve been sent from the devil to destroy the morale of English la... Read More

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Exams are terrifying! The big day is here and after all that studying and hard work, it’s finally time to show what y... Read More

7 Podcasts To Improve Your Lis

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Learning English is more fun when you do it in a fantastic location like Barcelona. Find out why we think this is the pe... Read More

FAQ Cambridge courses and Exam

  Is it better to do the paper-based or the computer-based exam? We recommend the computer-based exam to our stud... Read More

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Referencing styles

Author-date citations (Harvard) Numbered notes Numbered reference citations (Vancouver) OSCOLA

Introduction

Source references are vital to academic works (both print and digital) and so it is essential that they are clear, complete, and consistently formatted. Online bibliographical material is hyperlinked to provide readers with instant access to relevant sources or additional information.

Reference styles vary greatly across disciplines. This section details the main reference styles supported by OUP (Harvard, Vancouver, and OSCOLA) and provides examples that you can follow. If you are in doubt, your OUP editorial contact will be able to advise you on the best citation system for your text.

Author-date citations (Harvard)

The author-date style is an efficient and clear method of providing citations to published sources, which appear in a reference list at the end of the chapter or book. No superscripts are used, which means that reordering of the text does not require renumbering of notes. Instead of superscript numbers, a parenthetical citation (consisting of author name and date of publication) appears in the text and leads the reader to a full entry in a reference list that appears at the end of the chapter or book.

The method works particularly well when most of your citations are to published books or journal articles. It works less well if you are citing a lot of unauthored material or untraditional sources. Unlike numbered notes, author-date citations cannot accommodate translations or commentary outside the main text, although it is possible to combine author-date citations (for bibliographic citations) with numbered notes (for explanatory text).

In-text citation

References are cited within the text by including the author’s last name and a date parenthetically. A page number can be added if needed. If the author’s name appears in the sentence containing the citation, you need only use the date. Complete bibliographical reference information is listed at the end of the chapter or text.

Up to two author names can be used in the in-text citation. When citing a work with three or more authors, use the first author’s last name plus ‘et al.’

If you cite multiple references by the same author that were published in the same year, distinguish between them by adding labels (e.g. ‘a’ and ‘b’) to the year, in both the citation and the reference list.

Structure of the reference list

The reference list appears at the end of the chapter or text in alphabetical order. The name of the first author is inverted. In science literature, initials are often used in place of author first names.

The bibliographic elements listed below are required for the most common types of reference citations. Additional elements are mentioned that may be optional or to be used in only certain instances (e.g. a page number or other locator that is required if you are quoting a precise part of a large work, but not if the reference is to the work as a whole). Consistency in application is important.

Do not use long dashes (“—") to substitute for the name of an author who is identified in the bibliography due to how that entry will be linked in digital versions. Because the entry may not appear immediately following the entry with the full name, repeat the name in full.

Examples of author-date references in British style

Authored book.

Required elements

Lastname, Firstname/initials. Year of Publication. Title of Work .

With optional elements

Lastname, Firstname/initials, and Firstname/initials Lastname. Year of Publication. Title of Work , 2nd ed. City of Publication: Publisher.

Chapter in an edited book

Lastname, Firstname/initials, Year of Publication. ‘Title of Chapter in an Edited Book’. In Title of Edited Volume , edited by Firstname Lastname.

Lastname, Firstname/initials, and Firstname/initials Lastname. Year of Publication. ‘Title of Chapter in an Edited Book’. In Title of Edited Volume , edited by Firstname Lastname, page number(s) [or alternative locator info]. 2nd ed. City of Publication: Publisher.

Journal article

Lastname, Firstname/initials,Year of Publication. ‘Title of Article’. Name of Journal vol. number: start page.

Lastname, Firstname/initials, and Firstname/initials Lastname. Year of Publication. ‘Title of Article’. Name of Journal vol. number (issue number) (Month or Season): start page–end page. doi: DOI [or stable URL].

Magazine article

Lastname, Firstname/initials, Year of Publication. ‘Title of Article’. Day and Month of Pub. doi: DOI [or stable URL].

Lastname, Firstname/initials, and Firstname/initials Lastname. Year of Publication. ‘Title of Article’. Name of Magazine , Day and Month of Pub. doi: DOI [or stable URL].

Required elements if a magazine article has no stated author

‘Title of Article’. Year of Publication. Name of Magazine , Month of Pub. doi: DOI [or stable URL].

Website or other source

Include as much of the following as possible in your bibliographic entry: author; title or description of the content; owner/publisher; month and/or day of publication, most recent revision (or, failing that, date accessed); and URL. The year of publication should be the second element in the entry.

Some flexibility is acceptable to accommodate the wide variety of content available, particularly online.

Website names are usually set in roman type, but the names of online magazines and books are italicized (like their print counterparts).

As you write ...

Example: author–date citation with a reference list and further reading —british style.

Psychoanalytic studies, along with other literary and cultural texts, not only contribute to the new discourse of the jungle but also reflect the imperialist history that brings West Europeans and Americans into contact with the geographic jungles of India, Africa, and other parts of the world (Rogers et al. 2010, 1). This colonial context needs to be sketched here as well in order to reveal how the birth of the jungle eventually produces new constructions of sexuality in the United States. Billops (1999a) notes that the word ‘jungle’ comes from the Hindi and Marathi word jangal, meaning ‘desert’, ‘waste’, ‘forest’; as well as from the Sanskrit jangala, meaning ‘dry’, ‘dry ground’, or ‘desert’. Its first appearance in English is in 1776, with its meaning already shifted towards what might be more recognizable today: ‘Land overgrown with underwood, long grass, or tangled vegetation; also, the luxuriant and often almost impenetrable growth of vegetation covering such a tract’ (Dreft and Smithers 1978, 87). Brought into English as a result of an imperialist presence in India, ‘jungle’ is intimately related to the larger rise of Western imperialism around the world, particularly in the nineteenth century (Billops 1999b). Western powers such as Britain and France went from controlling 35 per cent of the earth’s surface in 1800 to, by 1914, ‘a grand total of roughly 85 per cent of the earth as colonies, protectorates, dependencies, dominions, and commonwealths’ (Said 1993, ch.2, ‘Colonial impacts’).

Reference list

Billops, Camille. 1999a. ‘Indo-European Loan Words’. Annals of Linguistics 21 (4): pp. 38–44.

Billops, Camille. 1999b. ‘Indo-European Vowel Shift: Evidence and Interpretation’. Annals of Linguistics 21 (4): p. 45.

Dreft, Edward, and Susan Smithers. 1978. ‘Words Working’. International Journal of American Linguistics 62 (3): pp. 227–263. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1978.tb25475.x.

Rogers, Jason, Millicent Eng, and Rene Woo. 2010. ‘English-Based African Creoles’. In Spreading the People: Colonizing Languages in the Raj , edited by Jason Rogers, pp. 310–330. 2nd ed. London: Verso.

Said, Eleanor. 1993. The European Dream of Africa . New York: Random House.

Further reading

Bickerton, Derek. 2008. Bastard Tongues: A Trail-Blazing Linguist Finds Clues to Our Common Humanity in the World’s Lowliest Languages . New York: Hill and Wang.

‘Evolutionary Linguistics’. 2012. Wikipedia. Updated 4 November. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_linguistics.

Mfuti, Miriam. 2001. ‘Pidgin Town’. In The Oxford Handbook of Pidgins and Creoles , edited by Alain Smet, pp. 107–112. New York: Oxford University Press.

Rambow, John. 2007. ‘Will This Demon Fit in My Carry-On?’ Bangalore Monkey blog. 21 December. http://www.bangaloremonkey. com/2007/12/will-this-demon-fit-in-my-carry-on.html.

Examples of author-date references in US style

Lastname, Firstname/initials, Year of Publication.  Title of Work .

Lastname, Firstname/initials, and Firstname Lastname/initials. Year of Publication.  Title of Work , 2nd ed. City of Publication: Publisher.

Lastname, Firstname/initials, Year of Publication. “Title of Chapter in an Edited Book.” In  Title of Edited Volume , edited by Firstname Lastname.

Lastname, Firstname/initials, and Firstname Lastname/initials. Year of Publication. “Title of Chapter in an Edited Book.” In  Title of Edited Volume , edited by Firstname Lastname, page number(s) [or alternative locator info]. 2nd ed. City of Publication: Publisher.

Lastname, Firstname/initials,Year of Publication. “Title of Article.”  Name of Journal  vol. number, start page.

Lastname, Firstname/initials, and Firstname Lastname/initials. Year of Publication. “Title of Article.”  Name of Journal  vol. number (issue number) (Month or Season Year): start page–end page. doi: DOI [or stable URL].

Lastname, Firstname/initials, Year of Publication. “Title of Article.”  Name of Magazine , Month of Pub.

Lastname, Firstname/initials, and Firstname Lastname/initials. Year of Publication. “Title of Article.”  Name of Magazine , Month and Day of Pub. doi: DOI [or stable URL].

Required elements If a magazine article has no stated author:

“Title of Article.” Year of Publication.  Name of Magazine , Month of Pub.

 “Title of Article.” Year of Publication.  Name of Magazine , Month and Day of Pub, doi: DOI [or stable URL].

Include as much of the following as possible in your bibliographic entry: author; title or description of the content; owner/publisher; month and/or day of publication, most recent revision (or, failing that, date accessed); and URL. The year of publication should be the second element in the entry. Some flexibility is acceptable to accommodate the wide variety of content available, particularly online.

The names of websites are usually set in roman type, but the names of online magazines and books are italicized (like their print counterparts).

Reference list vs. bibliography

Note that a reference list in the author-date system can contain only items that are actually cited in the work. The reference list must contain all of those items. This differs from a bibliography in the numbered-note system, which can contain both cited items and items of interest that have not been specifically cited. If there are uncited works that you would like to draw to the reader’s attention, these can be placed after the references in a separate listed titled ‘Further reading’.

Example: author–date citation with a reference list and further reading—US style

Psychoanalytic studies, along with other literary and cultural texts, not only contribute to the new discourse of the jungle but also reflect the imperialist history that brings West Europeans and Americans into contact with the geographic jungles of India, Africa, and other parts of the world (Rogers et al. 2010, 1). This colonial context needs to be sketched here as well in order to reveal how the birth of the jungle eventually produces new constructions of sexuality in the United States. Billops (1999a) notes that the word “jungle” comes from the Hindi and Marathi word jangal, meaning “desert,” “waste,” “forest”; as well as from the Sanskrit jangala, meaning “dry,” “dry ground,” or “desert.” Its first appearance in English is in 1776, with its meaning already shifted toward what might be more recognizable today: “Land overgrown with underwood, long grass, or tangled vegetation; also, the luxuriant and often almost impenetrable growth of vegetation covering such a tract” (Dreft and Smithers 1978, 87). Brought into English as a result of an imperialist presence in India, “jungle” is intimately related to the larger rise of Western imperialism around the world, particularly in the nineteenth century (Billops 1999b). Western powers such as Britain and France went from controlling 35 percent of the earth’s surface in 1800 to, by 1914, “a grand total of roughly 85 percent of the earth as colonies, protectorates, dependencies, dominions, and commonwealths” (Said 1993, ch.2, “Colonial impacts”).

Billops, Camille. 1999a. “Indo-European Loan Words.” Annals of Linguistics 21 (4): pp. 38–44.

Billops, Camille. 1999b. “Indo-European Vowel Shift: Evidence and Interpretation.” Annals of Linguistics 21 (4): p. 45.

Dreft, Edward, and Susan Smithers. 1978. “Words Working.” International Journal of American Linguistics 62 (3): pp. 227–263. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1978.tb25475.x.

Rogers, Jason, Millicent Eng, and Rene Woo. 2010. “English-Based African Creoles.” In Spreading the People: Colonizing Languages in the Raj , edited by Jason Rogers, pp. 310–330. 2nd ed. London: Verso.

“Evolutionary Linguistics.” 2012. Wikipedia. Updated November 4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_linguistics.

Mfuti, Miriam. 2001. “Pidgin Town.” In The Oxford Handbook of Pidgins and Creoles , edited by Alain Smet, pp. 107–112. New York: Oxford University Press.

Rambow, John. 2007. “Will This Demon Fit in My Carry-On?” Bangalore Monkey blog. December 21. http://www.bangaloremonkey. com/2007/12/will-this-demon-fit-in-my-carry-on.html.

Numbered notes

Using numbered notes is a common method of citing sources, particularly in the humanities. Sequential superscript numbers appear in the text to direct the reader to bibliographic or explanatory information that appears in a note.

This is a flexible style that allows authors to combine bibliographic information with annotation, translation, or other commentary. Scholars who frequently cite unpublished material will find numbered notes more useful than author-date citations.

Endnotes or footnotes?

In print publishing, notes can be placed at the bottom of the page as footnotes or at the end of a chapter or book in a separate section as endnotes.

Footnotes are preferred in cases where the information in the note is important enough that readers need it to fully engage with the material. Please note that in a digital context, footnotes in the traditional sense are not possible. Depending on the format, footnotes can appear at the end of a section or chapter, or they may be viewed by clicking or hovering over the superscript numbers in the text to display individual footnotes.

Endnotes are a better choice in print if the material in the notes does not need immediate engagement by the reader. For digital publications where individual chapters may be made available to readers, the notes should appear with the chapter, rather than separately at the end of the work. This varies according to discipline, so please consult your OUP editorial contact if you are unsure.

The formatting of bibliographic information is identical for footnotes and endnotes.

Please use the following guidance:

• Numbered notes appear sequentially in the text as superscripts, ideally at the end of a sentence, following the closing punctuation.
• Use Arabic numerals.
• Numbers should restart at 1 at the beginning of each chapter and run consecutively to the end of each chapter. Do not start renumbering within a chapter (e.g. per page or per double-page spread) or use asterisks, as this will cause confusion in a digital environment.
• Do not number the notes continuously throughout a book, because a later change would necessitate extensive renumbering.

Note structure and format

Required bibliographic elements are given below for the most common types of reference citations, along with optional elements that if used, must be consistent.

• Page numbers are useful locators when referencing in print publications.
• Give page ranges using the fewest number of figures as possible (e.g. pp. 126–27, not pp. 126–127).
• When referencing a digital publication, you may not have access to a print page number. Cite a specific locator (e.g. chapter titles and sub-headings). Do not use location numbers from a proprietary e-reader (e.g. Kindle location numbers).
• Edition numbers are not required when citing a first edition but are necessary for subsequent editions.

Numbered notes in British style

Firstname Lastname, Title of Work (Year of Publication).

Firstname Lastname, Title of Work , 2nd ed. (City of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication), page number(s) [or alternative locator info].

• Michael Murray, Climate Change at the Poles (New York: Scribner, 2007), p. 9.
• Darian Ibrahim and Carol Marche, Financing the Next Silicon Valley , 3rd ed. (San Francisco: Upbeat Press, 2010).

Edited book

Firstname Lastname, ed., Title of Work (Year of Publication).

Firstname Lastname, eds., Title of Work , 2nd ed. (City of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication), page number(s) [or alternative locator info].

• Anton Smirov, ed., Eastern Europe After the Iron Curtain (London: Chatto and Windus, 2012).

Firstname Lastname, ‘Title of Chapter in an Edited Volume’, in Title of Edited Volume , edited by Firstname Lastname (Year of Publication).

Firstname Lastname, ‘Title of Chapter in an Edited Volume’, in Title of Edited Volume , edited by Firstname Lastname (City of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication), page number(s) [or alternative locator info].

Hanna Growiszc, ‘Far Right Ideologies in Czech Literature’, in Eastern Europe After the Iron Curtain , edited by Anton Smirov (London: Chatto and Windus, 2012), ch. 7.

Authored book with an editor or translator

Firstname Lastname, Title of Work , ed./trans. Firstname Lastname, (Year of Publication).

Firstname Lastname, Title of Work , ed./trans. Firstname Lastname, 2nd ed. (City of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication), page number(s) [or alternative locator info].

• Günter Grass, The Tin Drum , trans. Breon Mitchell (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2009).

 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , ed. and trans. Terence Irwin (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1999).

Multi-volume work

References to multi-volume book citations can take a variety of forms, depending on whether an individual volume or the entire work is being cited, and the authorship of the work.  

Citing one volume of a multi-volume work

• Robert Caro, The Path to Power , vol. 1, The Years of Lyndon Johnson (New York: Knopf, 1982), p. 267.

Citing a multi-volume work as a whole

Robert Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson , 4 vols (New York: Knopf, 1982–2012).

Allison Wyste, ed. Indian and Tibetan Cooking , vol. 6, Cuisines of Asia, ed. Robert Trautmann (London: Brill Books, 2007).

Multi-volume work with series editor and individual author/editors

Whenever possible, include a DOI (preferred) or a stable URL for citations to journal articles. However, a URL or DOI is not sufficient to stand alone as a reference.

Firstname Lastname, ‘Title of Article’, Name of Journal vol. number, (Year): start page.

Firstname Lastname, ‘Title of Article’, Name of Journal vol. number, issue number (Month or Season Year): start page–end page, doi: DOI [or stable URL].

Barbara Eckstein, ‘The Body, the Word, and the State: J. M. Coetzee’s “Waiting for the Barbarians”’, Novel: A Forum on Fiction 22, no. 2 (Winter 1989): pp. 175–198, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1345802.

David Hyun-Su Kim, ‘The Brahmsian Hairpin’, 19th Century Music 36, no. 1 (Summer 2012): pp. 46–47, doi:10.1525/ncm.2012.36.1.046. 

A DOI or URL can be included for articles that you consulted online. The citations for online-only magazines follow the same pattern as print-based magazines, with the addition of URLs. If an online journal or magazine has a stable home page that allows a user to search for articles by title or author, it is acceptable to include the URL for that page (rather than the longer, more specific URL).

‘Title of Article’, Name of Magazine , Month of Pub, Year.

Firstname Lastname, ‘Title of Article’, Name of Magazine , Month and Day of Pub, Year, doi: DOI [or stable URL].

Mary Rose Himler, ‘Religious Books as Best Sellers’, Publishers Weekly , 19 February 1927.

‘Amazon Best Books 2012 Revealed’, Publishers Weekly , 13 November 2012, http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/54738-amazon-best-books-2012-revealed.html.

Fritz Allhoff, ‘The Paradox of Nonlethal Weapons’, Slate , 13 November 2012, http://www.slate.com.

Law citation styles vary widely depending on jurisdiction. The following examples are for citing law cases in a non-specialist academic context. If you are writing specialist legal content, see ‘Citing of Legal Materials’ for detailed citation information.

Case Number Name of Case [Year] Report VolNo-FirstPageNo

Case C-34/89 P Smith v EC Commission [1993] ECR I-454

Name of Case [Year] VolNo Report, PageNo

Ridge v Baldwin [1964] AC 40, 78

Name of Case , VolNo Reporter SeriesNo (Year)

Name of Case , VolNo Reporter SeriesNo (Name of Court Year)

Bowers v Hardwick 478 US 186 (1986).

Unpublished or informally published content

The titles of unpublished works are set in quotation marks rather than italics. In place of a publisher, location or institutional information can be given.

Troy Thibodeaux, ‘Modernism in Greenwich Village, 1908–1929’ (PhD dissertation, New York University, 1999), p. 59.

Mary Koo, ‘Prakriti and Purusha: Dualism in the Yoga of Patanjali’ (lecture, Theosophical Society, Chennai, India, 17 May 2008).

To cite a website or other source that does not fall within those covered here, include as much of the following as possible (in this order) in your citation: author; title or description of the content; owner/publisher; date of publication or most recent revision (or, failing that, date accessed); and URL. Some flexibility is acceptable to accommodate the wide variety of content available, especially online.

The names of websites are usually set in roman type but the names of online magazines and books are italicized (like their print counterparts).

• ‘The Board of Directors of the Coca-Cola Company Authorizes New Share Repurchase Program’, Coca- Cola Company, 18 October 2012, http://www.coca-colacompany.com/media-center/press-releases/the-board-of-directors-of-the-coca-cola-company-authorizes-new-share-repurchase-program.
• John Rambow, ‘Will This Demon Fit in My Carry-On?’, Bangalore Monkey blog, 21 December 2007, http://www.bangaloremonkey.com/2007/12/will-this-demon-fit-in-my-carry-on.html.
• Wikimedia privacy policy, Wikimedia Foundation, accessed 26 November 2010, http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/ Privacy policy.

Numbered notes in US style

Firstname Lastname, Title of Work , (Year of Publication).

Firstname Lastname, eds., Title of Work , (Year of Publication).

• Hanna Growiszc, “Far Right Ideologies in Czech Literature,” in Eastern Europe After the Iron Curtain , edited by Anton Smirov (London: Chatto and Windus, 2012), ch. 7.
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , ed. and trans. Terence Irwin (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1999).

Multi-volume book citations can take a variety of forms, depending on whether an individual volume or the work as a whole is being cited, and on how the multi-volume work was authored or edited.

• Robert Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson , 4 vols. (New York: Knopf, 1982–2012).
• Allison Wyste, Indian and Tibetan Cooking , vol. 6, Cuisines of Asia, ed. Robert Trautmann (London: Brill Books, 2007).

Firstname Lastname, “Title of Chapter in an Edited Volume,” in Title of Edited Volume , edited by Firstname Lastname (Year of Publication).

Firstname Lastname, “Title of Chapter in an Edited Volume,” in Title of Edited Volume , edited by Firstname Lastname (City of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication), page number(s) [or alternative locator info].

Firstname Lastname, “Title of Article,” Name of Journal vol. number, (Year): start page.

Firstname Lastname, “Title of Article,” Name of Journal vol. number, issue number (Month or Season Year): start page–end page, doi: DOI [or stable URL].

• Barbara Eckstein, “The Body, the Word, and the State: J. M. Coetzee’s ‘Waiting for the Barbarians,’” Novel: A Forum on Fiction 22, no. 2 (Winter 1989): pp. 175–198, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1345802.
• David Hyun-Su Kim, “The Brahmsian Hairpin,” 19th Century Music 36, no. 1 (Summer 2012): pp. 46–47, doi:10.1525/ncm.2012.36.1.046.

A DOI or URL can be included for articles that you consulted online. Online-only magazines follow the same pattern as print-based magazines, with the addition of URLs. If an online journal or magazine has a stable home page that allows a user to search for articles by title or author, it is acceptable to cite that page rather than a longer, more specific URL.

“Title of Article,” Name of Magazine , Month of Pub, Year.

Firstname Lastname, “Title of Article,” Name of Magazine, Month and Day of Pub, Year, doi: DOI [or stable URL].

• Mary Rose Himler, “Religious Books as Best Sellers,” Publishers Weekly , February 19, 1927.
• “Amazon Best Books 2012 Revealed,” Publishers Weekly , November 13, 2012, http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/54738-amazon-best-books-2012-revealed.html.
• Fritz Allhoff, “The Paradox of Nonlethal Weapons,” Slate , November 13, 2012, http://www.slate.com.

Law - case law

Law citation styles can vary widely depending on jurisdiction. These examples are for citing legal case law in a non-specialist academic context. If you are writing specialist legal content, see ‘Citing of legal materials’ for detailed information on law citation.

Name of Case [Year] VolNo Report PageNo

Ridge v. Baldwin [1964] AC 40, 78

Name of Case , Vol No. Reporter Series No. (Year)

Bowers v Hardwick , 478 U.S. 186 (1986)

Name of Case , Vol No. Reporter Series No. (Name of Court Year)

Bowers v. Hardwick 478 U.S. 186 (1986)

The titles of unpublished works are set in quotation marks rather than italics. Since there is no publisher, location or institutional information can be cited.

• Troy Thibodeaux, “Modernism in Greenwich Village, 1908–1929” (PhD dissertation, New York University, 1999), p. 59.
• Mary Koo, “Prakriti and Purusha: Dualism in the Yoga of Patanjali’ (lecture, Theosophical Society, Chennai, India, May 17, 2008).

If you need to cite a website or other source that does not fall within those covered here, include as much of the following as possible (in this order): author; title or description of the content; owner/publisher; date of publication or most recent revision (or, failing that, date accessed); and URL. Some flexibility is acceptable to accommodate the wide variety of content available, especially online.

• “The Board of Directors of the Coca-Cola Company Authorizes New Share Repurchase Program,” Coca-Cola Company, October 18, 2012, http://www.coca-colacompany.com/media-center/press-releases/the-board-of-directors-of-the-coca-cola-company-authorizes-new-share-repurchase-program.
• John Rambow, “Will This Demon Fit in My Carry-On?,” Bangalore Monkey blog, December 21, 2007, http://www.bangaloremonkey. com/2007/12/will-this-demon-fit-in-my-carry-on.html.
• Wikimedia privacy policy, Wikimedia Foundation, accessed November 26, 2010, http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/ Privacy_policy.

Short citations

When a work is cited for the first time in a chapter, full bibliographic information should be given (for an alternative, see ‘Numbered notes in combination with a bibliography’). Subsequent citations should be shortened as in the following examples.

Legal short citations

Give the first mention of legal cases in full. Subsequent mentions within the same article or chapter can be shortened to the case name alone, given in italics (even if italics are not used in the original citation)

• Case C–34/89 P Smith v EC Commission [1993] ECR I–454
• P Smith v EC Commission.

Example: short citations in US style

• See, for example, Alan Hess, Googie: Fifties Coffee Shop Architecture (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1985) and Noah Sheldon, Ranch House (New York: Harry S. Abrams, 2004).
• Sheldon, Ranch House , p. 207.
• Ashraf Salama, “Evolutionary Paradigms in Mosque Architecture,” Faith & Form 40, no. 1 (2007): pp. 16–17.
• Salama, “Evolutionary Paradigms.”
• Hess, Googie , p. 21.
• Wikimedia privacy policy, para. 16.

Numbered notes in combination with a bibliography

It is possible to combine notes and bibliography so that all the notes, including the first reference, are short citations that lead the reader to a full citation in the bibliography. This system results in shorter notes and less work for the reader, since complete information is easily available in the alphabetical bibliography and need not be hunted for through all the chapter notes. This requires that all cited sources appear in a bibliography, which can also contain works that are not cited but are germane to the topic.

Structure of a bibliography entry

Bibliographies are structured similarly to notes, but there are some important differences. The first author name (and only the first) is inverted for alphabetization. Punctuation format also varies slightly between notes and bibliographic entries.

Do not use long dashes (e.g. “—") to substitute for an author’s name if it is repeated in the bibliography. Repeat the name in full because in a digital version, the shortened entry may not follow the complete one immediately.

Bibliography entries in British Style

Lastname, Firstname, Title of Work , (Year of Publication).

Lastname, Firstname, and Firstname Lastname. Title of Work , 2nd ed. (City of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication).

Lastname, Firstname. ‘Title of Chapter in an Edited Book’. In Title of Edited Volume , edited by Firstname Lastname (Year of Publication).

Lastname, Firstname, and Firstname Lastname. ‘Title of Chapter in an Edited Book’. In Title of Edited Volume , edited by Firstname Lastname (City of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication), page number(s) [or alternative locator info].

Lastname, Firstname,‘Title of Article’. Name of Journal vol. number, no. X (Year): start page.

Lastname, Firstname, and Firstname Lastname. ‘Title of Article’. Name of Journal vol. number, no. X (Month or Season Year): start page–end page. doi: DOI [or stable URL].

‘Title of Article’. Name of Magazine , Month Year of Pub.

Lastname, Firstname, and Firstname Lastname. ‘Title of Article’. Name of Magazine , Day Month Year of Pub, doi: DOI [or stable URL].

If you need to cite a website or other source that does not fall within those covered here, include as much of the following as possible (in this order): author; title or description of the content; owner/publisher; date of publication, most recent revision (or, failing that, date accessed); and URL. Some flexibility is acceptable to accommodate the wide variety of content available, especially online.

Sample bibliography

Growiszc, Hanna. ‘Far Right Ideologies in Czech Literature’. In Eastern Europe After the Iron Curtain , edited by Anton Smirov (London: Chatto and Windus, 2012), ch. 7.

Himler, Mary Rose. ‘Religious Books as Best Sellers’. Publishers Weekly , 19 February 1927.

Khan, Imran, and Richard Collins. ‘True Belief: Hindu Metanarratives in Bollywood’. Journal of Cinema Studies 7, no. 4 (2009): pp. 104–115. doi:10.1086/jcs113.3.752.

Murray, Michael. ‘The Antarctic Summer Lengthens’. Journal of Climate Studies 20, no. 9 (2011): p. 203.

Murray, Michael. Climate Change at the Poles (New York: Scribner, 2007).

Rambow, John. ‘Will This Demon Fit in My Carry-On?’ Bangalore Monkey blog. 21 December 2007. http://www.bangaloremonkey.com/2007/12/will-this-demon-fit-in-my-carry-on.html.

Bibliography entries in US style

Lastname, Firstname, “Title of Chapter in an Edited Book.” In Title of Edited Volume , edited by Firstname Lastname (Year of Publication).

Lastname, Firstname, and Firstname Lastname. “Title of Chapter in an Edited Book.” In Title of Edited Volume , edited by Firstname Lastname (City of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication), page number(s) [or alternative locator info].

Lastname, Firstname,“Title of Article.” Name of Journal vol. number, no. X (Year): start page.

Lastname, Firstname, and Firstname Lastname. “Title of Article.” Name of Journal vol. number, no. X (Month or Season Year): start page–end page. doi: DOI [or stable URL].

“Title of Article.” Name of Magazine , Month of Pub, Year.

Lastname, Firstname, and Firstname Lastname. “Title of Article.” Name of Magazine , Month and Day of Pub, Year, doi: DOI [or stable URL].

Growiszc, Hanna. “Far Right Ideologies in Czech Literature.” In Eastern Europe After the Iron Curtain, edited by Anton Smirov (London: Chatto and Windus, 2012), ch. 7.

Himler, Mary Rose. “Religious Books as Best Sellers.” Publishers Weekly, February 19, 1927.

Khan, Imran, and Richard Collins. “True Belief: Hindu Metanarratives in Bollywood.” Journal of Cinema Studies 7, no. 4 (2009): pp. 104–115. doi:10.1086/jcs113.3.752.

Murray, Michael. “The Antarctic Summer Lengthens.” Journal of Climate Studies 20, no. 9 (2011): p. 203.

Rambow, John. “Will This Demon Fit in My Carry-On?” Bangalore Monkey blog. December 21, 2007. http://www.bangaloremonkey.com/2007/12/will-this-demon-fit-in-my-carry-on.html.

Numbered reference citations (Vancouver)

Numbered reference citations (also known as author–number or Vancouver references) are used in scientific and medical texts. In this system, each reference used is assigned a number. When that reference is cited in the text, its number appears, either in parentheses or brackets or as a superscript. All cited references appear in a numbered reference list at the end of the chapter or book.

An advantage of numbered references over the author–date style is that less space in the main text is required for in-text citations. The system also avoids ambiguity in the case of two works by the same author published the same year, an occasional issue in author–date citations. A disadvantage is that late addition or removal of references usually requires renumbering of both the reference list and the citations. Numbered reference citations cannot be used to provide commentary or other explanatory material to the text.

References are cited within the text by using a number in a superscript, in parentheses, or in square brackets. Although each of these variants is acceptable, only one can be used in a single text. The examples in this guide will enclose citation numbers in parentheses. Note that although citations are numbered in the order of their first appearance in the text, non-consecutive note numbers are possible, to allow references to be cited more than once. Citations can take the form of a range: for example (4–7) would cite references 4, 5, 6, and 7 simultaneously. If it is necessary to cite specific page numbers that are not present in the reference list, page numbers can be inserted into the citation: for example (4p6, 5pp1–11).

Please note the following:

• Author first names are usually given as initials only, with no full stops (e.g. “AN” not “A.N.”) between initials. In the case of multiple authors, you can list up to six full names; for more than six authors, list the first three plus ‘et al’. All author names are inverted (i.e. last name, first name).
• Names of journals can be abbreviated, as in the examples in this section, but must follow the standard abbreviations used by PubMed. Journal article titles are given without quotation marks and in sentence-style capitalization.
• Do not use long dashes (e.g. “—") to substitute for the name of an author whose name is repeated in the bibliography. Repeat the name in full because linking in a digital publication may not immediately follow the entry with the full name.
• Citations are numbered in the order in which they first appear in the text.

Required bibliographic elements are given below for the most common types of reference citations, along with optional elements (if used, be consistent). Other elements below are required if applicable (for example, you need a page number or other locator if you are quoting a precise part of a large work, but you can skip it if the reference is to the work as a whole).

Numbered reference citations in British style

Lastname FI, Title of Work , Year of Publication.

Lastname FI, Lastname FI, Lastname FI. Title of Work , 2nd ed. City of Publication: Publisher; Year of Publication: startpage–endpage [or alternative locator info].

Unauthored book (books published by committee, agency, or group)

Title of Work . Year of Publication.

Title of Work . 16th ed. City of Publication: Publisher; Year of Publication: startpage–endpage [or alternative locator info].

Lastname FI. Title of chapter in sentence case. In: Lastname FI, eds. Title of Work. Year of Publication.

Lastname FI, Lastname FI, Lastname FI. Title of chapter in sentence case. In: Lastname FI, Lastname FI, Lastname FI, eds. Title of Work . 2nd ed. City of Publication: Publisher; Year of Publication: startpage–endpage [or alternative locator info].

Lastname FI, Title of article in sentence case. Abbreviated Journal Title . Year of Publication; Volume No.

Lastname FI, Lastname FI, Lastname FI, et al. Title of article in sentence case. Abbreviated Journal Title . Year of Publication; Volume No. (Issue No.) (Supplement No.): startpage–endpage [or alternative locator info]. doi: DOI [or stable URL].

Magazine or newspaper article

Lastname FI. Title of article in sentence case. Magazine or Newspaper Title . Month and Year of Publication.

Lastname FI. Title of article in sentence case. Magazine or Newspaper Title . Day Month and Year of Publication: startpage–endpage. doi: DOI [or stable URL].

If the article has no stated author:

Title of article in sentence case. Magazine or Newspaper Title . Month and Year of Publication.

Title of article in sentence case. Magazine or Newspaper Title . Day Month and Year of Publication: startpage–endpage. doi: DOI [or stable URL].

Include of the following (in this order) in your bibliographic entry: author; title or description of the content; owner/publisher; date of publication or most recent revision (or, failing that, date accessed); and URL. Some flexibility is acceptable to accommodate the wide variety of content available online and in non-traditional formats. Follow the capitalization and italicization patterns of the examples here as much as possible.

If the nature of the material you are citing is not clear from the bibliographic information, you can provide a descriptor in brackets after the first element of the reference.

Example: Numbered reference citations and reference list—British style

Colorectal cancer (cRc) is one of the most common malignancies and the second leading cause of death from cancer in Europe and North America (1). While early stage cRc is associated with an excellent 5-year survival rate (90% for localized disease), approximately 20% of patients present with metastatic disease, and many patients diagnosed with stage ii or iii cancer will experience a recurrence and develop distant metastases (2). At present, established clinico-pathological criteria are used to estimate risks of recurrence in stage ii and iii disease, and this is routinely used in the selection of patients or adjuvant systemic therapy following surgical resection. The clinical outcome of patients who receive such adjuvant treatment can, however, vary widely, when additional molecular factors are taken into consideration. Identification of novel prognostic markers is, therefore, vital in improving the prognosis of this disease (3). One of the recently described substances important for angiogenesis is endoglin. Endoglin, also known as cD105, is a receptor for transforming growth factor-ß1 molecule, which binds preferentially to the activated endothelial cells that participate in tumour angiogenesis, with weak or negative expression in vascular endothelium of normal tissues. Endoglin is induced by hypoxia. Therefore, it is very useful for assessment of neo-angiogenesis of malignant neoplasms (4–6). Many reports indicate that endoglin assessed immunohistochemically in colorectal cancer correlates not only with tumour microvessel density, but also with survival. It has also been reported as a valuable parameter predicting patients having an increased risk of developing metastatic disease. Endoglin is expressed not only on cell surfaces since its soluble form (sol-end) can be detected also in blood (4–7). A few studies evaluated the clinical significance of elevated sol-end levels in colorectal cancer patients (7).

1. Ferlay J, Autier P, Boniol M, Heanue M, Colombet M, Boyle P. Estimates of the cancer incidence and mortality in Europe in 2006. Ann Oncol . 2007; 18: pp. 581–592.

2. Meyerhardt JA, Mayer RJ. Systemic therapy for colorectal cancer. In: Boniol M, Smith J, eds. Oncological Research Reviews . 16th ed. New York, NY: Dekker; 2005; pp. 476–487.

3. Allegra CJ, Paik S, Colangelo LH, et al. Prognostic value of thymidylate synthase, Ki-67, and p53 in patients with Dukes’ B and C colon cancer: a National Cancer Institute-National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project collaborative study. J Clin Oncol. 2003; 21: pp. 241–250.

4. Drug Topics Red Book . Montvale, NJ: Thomson Healthcare, 2009: p. 232.

5. FDA approves new treatment for advanced colorectal cancer. 2012. US Food and Drug Administration website. 27 September. http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm321271.htm.

6. Stivarga [package insert]. Wayne, NJ: Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals, 2012.

7. Mysliwiec P, Pawlak K, Kuklinski A, Kedra B. Combined perioperative plasma endoglin and vegF-a assessment in colorectal cancer patients. Folia Histochem Cytobiol . 2008; 46(2)(suppl. 1): pp. 487–49.

Numbered reference citations and reference list in US style

Lastname FI, Lastname FI, Lastname FI. Title of Work , 2nd ed. City of Publication: Publisher; Year of Publication.

Title of Work. Year of Publication.

Title of Work. 16th ed. City of Publication: Publisher; Year of Publication: startpage–endpage [or alternative locator info].

Lastname FI, Title of chapter in sentence case. In: Lastname FI, ed. Title of Work. Year of Publication.

Lastname FI, Lastname FI, Lastname FI. Title of chapter in sentence case. In: Lastname FI, Lastname FI, Lastname FI, eds. Title of Work. 2nd ed. City of Publication: Publisher; Year of Publication: startpage–endpage [or alternative locator info].

Lastname FI, Title of article in sentence case. Abbreviated Journal Title. Year of Publication; Volume No. (Issue No.)

Lastname FI, Lastname FI, Lastname FI, et al. Title of article in sentence case. Abbreviated Journal Title. Year of Publication; Volume No. (Issue No.)(SupplementNo): startpage–endpage [or alternative locator info]. doi: DOI [or stable URL].

Lastname FI. Title of article in sentence case. Magazine or Newspaper Title. Month, Day, and Year of Publication.

Lastname FI. Title of article in sentence case. Magazine or Newspaper Title. Month, Day, and Year of Publication: startpage–endpage. doi: DOI [or stable URL].

Title of article in sentence case. Magazine or Newspaper Title. Month, Day, and Year of Publication.

Title of article in sentence case. Magazine or Newspaper Title. Month, Day, and Year of Publication: startpage–endpage. doi: DOI [or stable URL].

Include as much of the following as possible in your bibliographic entry (in this order): author; title or description of the content; owner/publisher; date of publication or most recent revision, or, failing that, date accessed; and URL if available. Some flexibility is acceptable to accommodate the wide variety of content available online and in non-traditional formats. Follow the capitalization and italicization patterns of these examples.

Example: Numbered reference citations and reference list—US style

Colorectal cancer (cRc) is one of the most common malignancies and the second leading cause of death from cancer in Europe and North America (1). While early stage cRc is associated with an excellent 5-year survival rate (90% for localized disease), approximately 20% of patients present with metastatic disease, and many patients diagnosed with stage ii or iii cancer will experience a recurrence and develop distant metastases (2). At present, established clinico-pathological criteria are used to estimate risks of recurrence in stage ii and iii disease, and this is routinely used in the selection of patients or adjuvant systemic therapy following surgical resection. The clinical outcome of patients who receive such adjuvant treatment can, however, vary widely, when additional molecular factors are taken into consideration. Identification of novel prognostic markers is, therefore, vital in improving the prognosis of this disease (3). One of the recently described substances important for angiogenesis is endoglin. Endoglin, also known as cD105, is a receptor for transforming growth factor-ß1 molecule, which binds preferentially to the activated endothelial cells that participate in tumor angiogenesis, with weak or negative expression in vascular endothelium of normal tissues. Endoglin is induced by hypoxia. Therefore it is very useful for assessment of neo-angiogenesis of malignant neoplasms (4–6). Many reports indicate that endoglin assessed immunohistochemically in colorectal cancer correlates not only with tumor microvessel density, but also with survival. It has also been reported as a valuable parameter predicting patients having an increased risk of developing metastatic disease. Endoglin is expressed not only on cell surfaces, since its soluble form (sol-end) can be detected also in blood (4–7). A few studies evaluated the clinical significance of elevated sol-end levels in colorectal cancer patients (7).

1. Ferlay J, Autier P, Boniol M, Heanue M, Colombet M, Boyle P. Estimates of the cancer incidence and mortality in Europe in 2006. Ann Oncol. 2007; 18: pp. 581–592.

2. Meyerhardt JA, Mayer RJ. Systemic therapy for colorectal cancer. In: Boniol M, Smith J, eds. Oncological Research Reviews. 16th ed. New York, NY: Dekker; 2005; pp. 476–487.

3. Allegra CJ, Paik S, Colangelo LH, et al. Prognostic value of thymidylate synthase, Ki-67, and p. 53 in patients with Dukes’ B and C colon cancer: a National Cancer Institute-National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project collaborative study. J Clin Oncol. 2003; 21: pp. 241–250.

4. Drug Topics Red Book. Montvale, NJ: Thomson Healthcare, 2009: p. 232.

5. FDA approves new treatment for advanced colorectal cancer. US Food and Drug Administration website. September 27, 2012. http://www.fda. gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm321271.htm.

7. Mysliwiec P, Pawlak K, Kuklinski A, Kedra B. Combined perioperative plasma endoglin and vegF-a assessment in colorectal cancer patients. Folia Histochem Cytobiol. 2008; 46(2)(suppl. 1): pp. 487–492.

For legal works, we recommend that you follow The Oxford University Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA). The fourth edition (published in 2012) covers International Law. The full set of guidance can be found at https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/migrated/oscola_4th_edn_hart_2012.pdf

Information on how to apply OSCOLA style in EndNote, Latex, Refworks and Zotero can be found at https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/publications/oscola-styles-endnote-latek-refworks-and-zotero

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Essay  COMPETITION

2024 global essay prize, registrations are now open all essayists must register  here  before friday 31 may, 2024.

The John Locke Institute encourages young people to cultivate the characteristics that turn good students into great writers: independent thought, depth of knowledge, clear reasoning, critical analysis and persuasive style. Our Essay Competition invites students to explore a wide range of challenging and interesting questions beyond the confines of the school curriculum.

Entering an essay in our competition can build knowledge, and refine skills of argumentation. It also gives students the chance to have their work assessed by experts. All of our essay prizes are judged by a panel of senior academics drawn from leading universities including Oxford and Princeton, under the leadership of the Chairman of Examiners, former Cambridge philosopher, Dr Jamie Whyte.

The judges will choose their favourite essay from each of seven subject categories - Philosophy, Politics, Economics, History, Psychology, Theology and Law - and then select the winner of the Grand Prize for the best entry in any subject. There is also a separate prize awarded for the best essay in the junior category, for under 15s.

Q1. Do we have any good reasons to trust our moral intuition?

Q2. Do girls have a (moral) right to compete in sporting contests that exclude boys?

Q3. Should I be held responsible for what I believe?

Q1. Is there such a thing as too much democracy?

Q2. Is peace in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip possible?

Q3. When is compliance complicity?

Q1. What is the optimal global population?  

Q2. Accurate news reporting is a public good. Does it follow that news agencies should be funded from taxation?

Q3. Do successful business people benefit others when making their money, when spending it, both, or neither?

Q1. Why was sustained economic growth so rare before the later 18th century and why did this change?

Q2. Has music ever significantly changed the course of history?

Q3. Why do civilisations collapse? Is our civilisation in danger?

Q1. When, if ever, should a company be permitted to refuse to do business with a person because of that person’s public statements?

Q2. In the last five years British police have arrested several thousand people for things they posted on social media. Is the UK becoming a police state?

Q3. Your parents say that 11pm is your bedtime. But they don’t punish you if you don’t go to bed by 11pm. Is 11pm really your bedtime?

Q1. According to a study by researchers at four British universities, for each 15-point increase in IQ, the likelihood of getting married increases by around 35% for a man but decreases by around 58% for a woman. Why?

In the original version of this question we misstated a statistic. This was caused by reproducing an error that appeared in several media summaries of the study. We are grateful to one of our contestants, Xinyi Zhang, who helped us to see (with humility and courtesy) why we should take more care to check our sources. We corrected the text on 4 April. Happily, the correction does not in any way alter the thrust of the question.

Q2. There is an unprecedented epidemic of depression and anxiety among young people. Can we fix this? How?

Q3. What is the difference between a psychiatric illness and a character flaw?

Q1. “I am not religious, but I am spiritual.” What could the speaker mean by “spiritual”?

Q2. Is it reasonable to thank God for protection from some natural harm if He is responsible for causing the harm?

Q3. Does God reward those who believe in him? If so, why?

JUNIOR prize

Q1. Does winning a free and fair election automatically confer a mandate for governing?

Q2. Has the anti-racism movement reduced racism?

Q3. Is there life after death?

Q4. How did it happen that governments came to own and run most high schools, while leaving food production to private enterprise? 

Q5. When will advancing technology make most of us unemployable? What should we do about this?

Q6. Should we trust fourteen-year-olds to make decisions about their own bodies? 

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS & FURTHER DETAILS

Please read the following carefully.

Entry to the John Locke Institute Essay Competition 2024 is open to students from any country.

Registration  

Only candidates who registered before the registration deadline of Friday, 31 May 2024 may enter this year's competition. To register, click here .  

All entries must be submitted by 11.59 pm BST on  the submission deadline: Sunday, 30 June 2024 .  Candidates must be eighteen years old, or younger, on that date. (Candidates for the Junior Prize must be fourteen years old, or younger, on that date.)

Entry is free.

Each essay must address only one of the questions in your chosen subject category, and must not exceed 2000 words (not counting diagrams, tables of data, endnotes, bibliography or authorship declaration). 

The filename of your pdf must be in this format: FirstName-LastName-Category-QuestionNumber.pdf; so, for instance, Alexander Popham would submit his answer to question 2 in the Psychology category with the following file name:

Alexander-Popham-Psychology-2.pdf

Essays with filenames which are not in this format will be rejected.

The candidate's name should NOT appear within the document itself. 

Candidates should NOT add footnotes. They may, however, add endnotes and/or a Bibliography that is clearly titled as such.

Each candidate will be required to provide the email address of an academic referee who is familiar with the candidate's written academic work. This should be a school teacher, if possible, or another responsible adult who is not a relation of the candidate. The John Locke Institute will email referees to verify that the essays submitted are indeed the original work of the candidates.

Submissions may be made as soon as registration opens in April. We recommend that you submit your essay well in advance of th e deadline to avoid any last-minute complications.

Acceptance of your essay depends on your granting us permission to use your data for the purposes of receiving and processing your entry as well as communicating with you about the Awards Ceremony Dinner, the academic conference, and other events and programmes of the John Locke Institute and its associated entities.  

Late entries

If for any reason you miss the 30 June deadline you will have an opportunity to make a late entry, under two conditions:

a) A late entry fee of 20.00 USD must be paid by credit card within twenty-four hours of the original deadline; and

b) Your essay must be submitted  before 11.59 pm BST on Wednesday, 10 July 2024.

To pay for late entry, a registrant need only log into his or her account, select the relevant option and provide the requested payment information.

Our grading system is proprietary. Essayists may be asked to discuss their entry with a member of the John Locke Institute’s faculty. We use various means to identify plagiarism, contract cheating, the use of AI and other forms of fraud . Our determinations in all such matters are final.

Essays will be judged on knowledge and understanding of the relevant material, the competent use of evidence, quality of argumentation, originality, structure, writing style and persuasive force. The very best essays are likely to be those which would be capable of changing somebody's mind. Essays which ignore or fail to address the strongest objections and counter-arguments are unlikely to be successful .

Candidates are advised to answer the question as precisely and directly as possible.

The writers of the best essays will receive a commendation and be shortlisted for a prize. Writers of shortlisted essays will be notified by 11.59 pm BST on Wednesday, 31 July. They will also be invited to London for an invitation-only academic conference and awards dinner in September, where the prize-winners will be announced. Unlike the competition itself, the academic conference and awards dinner are not free. Please be aware that n obody is required to attend either the academic conference or the prize ceremony. You can win a prize without travelling to London.

All short-listed candidates, including prize-winners, will be able to download eCertificates that acknowledge their achievement. If you win First, Second or Third Prize, and you travel to London for the ceremony, you will receive a signed certificate. 

There is a prize for the best essay in each category. The prize for each winner of a subject category, and the winner of the Junior category, is a scholarship worth US$2000 towards the cost of attending any John Locke Institute programme, and the essays will be published on the Institute's website. Prize-giving ceremonies will take place in London, at which winners and runners-up will be able to meet some of the judges and other faculty members of the John Locke Institute. Family, friends, and teachers are also welcome.

The candidate who submits the best essay overall will be awarded an honorary John Locke Institute Junior Fellowship, which comes with a US$10,000 scholarship to attend one or more of our summer schools and/or visiting scholars programmes. 

The judges' decisions are final, and no correspondence will be entered into.

R egistration opens: 1 April, 2024.

Registration deadline: 31 May, 2024. (Registration is required by this date for subsequent submission.)

Submission deadline: 30 June, 2024.

Late entry deadline: 10 July, 2024. (Late entries are subject to a 20.00 USD charge, payable by 1 July.)

Notification of short-listed essayists: 31 July, 2024.

Academic conference: 20 - 22 September, 2024.

Awards dinner: 21 September, 2024.

Any queries regarding the essay competition should be sent to [email protected] . Please be aware that, due to the large volume of correspondence we receive, we cannot guarantee to answer every query. In particular, regrettably, we are unable to respond to questions whose answers can be found on our website.

If you would like to receive helpful tips  from our examiners about what makes for a winning essay or reminders of upcoming key dates for the 2024  essay competition, please provide your email here to be added to our contact list. .

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The John Locke Institute's Global Essay Prize is acknowledged as the world's most prestigious essay competition. 

We welcome tens of thousands of submissions from ambitious students in more than 150 countries, and our examiners - including distinguished philosophers, political scientists, economists, historians, psychologists, theologians, and legal scholars - read and carefully assess every entry. 

I encourage you to register for this competition, not only for the hope of winning a prize or commendation, and not only for the chance to join the very best contestants at our academic conference and gala ceremony in London, but equally for the opportunity to engage in the serious scholarly enterprise of researching, reflecting on, writing about, and editing an answer to one of the important and provocative questions in this year's Global Essay Prize. 

We believe that the skills you will acquire in the process will make you a better thinker and a more effective advocate for the ideas that matter most to you.

I hope to see you in September!

Best wishes,

Jamie Whyte, Ph.D. (C ANTAB ) 

Chairman of Examiners

Q. I missed the registration deadline. May I still register or submit an essay?

A. No. Only candidates who registered before 31 May will be able to submit an essay. 

Q. Are footnote s, endnotes, a bibliography or references counted towards the word limit?

A. No. Only the body of the essay is counted. 

Q. Are in-text citations counted towards the word limit? ​

A. If you are using an in-text based referencing format, such as APA, your in-text citations are included in the word limit.

Q. Is it necessary to include foo tnotes or endnotes in an essay? ​

A. You  may not  include footnotes, but you may include in-text citations or endnotes. You should give your sources of any factual claims you make, and you should ackn owledge any other authors on whom you rely.​

Q. I am interested in a question that seems ambiguous. How should I interpret it?

A. You may interpret a question as you deem appropriate, clarifying your interpretation if necessary. Having done so, you must answer the question as directly as possible.

Q. How strict are  the age eligibility criteria?

A. Only students whose nineteenth birthday falls after 30 June 2024 will be eligible for a prize or a commendation. In the case of the Junior category, only students whose fifteenth birthday falls after 30 June 2024 will be eligible for a prize or a commendation. 

Q. May I submit more than one essay?

A. Yes, you may submit as many essays as you please in any or all categories.

Q. If I am eligible to compete in the Junior category, may I also (or instead) compete in another category?

A. Yes, you may.

Q. May I team up with someone else to write an essay?  

A. No. Each submitted essay must be entirely the work of a single individual.

Q. May I use AI, such as ChatGPT or the like, in writing my essay?

A. All essays will be checked for the use of AI. If we find that any content is generated by AI, your essay will be disqualified. We will also ask you, upon submission of your essay, whether you used AI for  any  purpose related to the writing of your essay, and if so, you will be required to provide details. In that case, if, in our judgement, you have not provided full and accurate details of your use of AI, your essay will be disqualified. 

Since any use of AI (that does not result in disqualification) can only negatively affect our assessment of your work relative to that of work that is done without using AI, your safest course of action is simply not to use it at all. If, however, you choose to use it for any purpose, we reserve the right to make relevant judgements on a case-by-case basis and we will not enter into any correspondence. 

Q. May I have someone else edit, or otherwise help me with, my essay?

A. You may of course discuss your essay with others, and it is perfectly acceptable for them to offer general advice and point out errors or weaknesses in your writing or content, leaving you to address them.

However, no part of your essay may be written by anyone else. This means that you must edit your own work and that while a proofreader may point out errors, you as the essayist must be the one to correct them. 

Q. Do I have to attend the awards ceremony to win a prize? ​

A. Nobody is required to attend the prize ceremony. You can win a prize without travelling to London. But if we invite you to London it is because your essay was good enough - in the opinion of the First Round judges - to be at least a contender for First, Second or Third Prize. Normally the Second Round judges will agree that the short-listed essays are worth at least a commendation.

Q. Is there an entry fee?

A. No. There is no charge to enter our global essay competition unless you submit your essay after the normal deadline, in which case there is a fee of 20.00 USD .

Q. Can I receive a certificate for my participation in your essay competition if I wasn't shortlisted? 

A. No. Certificates are awarded only for shortlisted essays. Short-listed contestants who attend the award ceremony in London will receive a paper certificate. If you cannot travel to London, you will be able to download your eCertificate.

Q. Can I receive feedba ck on my essay? 

A. We would love to be able to give individual feedback on essays but, unfortunately, we receive too many entries to be able to comment on particular essays.

Q. The deadline for publishing the names of short-listed essayists has passed but I did not receive an email to tell me whether I was short-listed.

A. Log into your account and check "Shortlist Status" for (each of) your essay(s).

Q. Why isn't the awards ceremony in Oxford this year?

A. Last year, many shortlisted finalists who applied to join our invitation-only academic conference missed the opportunity because of capacity constraints at Oxford's largest venues. This year, the conference will be held in central London and the gala awards dinner will take place in an iconic London ballroom. 

TECHNICAL FAQ s

Q. The system will not accept my essay. I have checked the filename and it has the correct format. What should I do?  

A. You have almost certainly added a space before or after one of your names in your profile. Edit it accordingly and try to submit again.

Q. The profile page shows my birth date to be wrong by a day, even after I edit it. What should I do?

A. Ignore it. The date that you typed has been correctly input to our database. ​ ​

Q. How can I be sure that my registration for the essay competition was successful? Will I receive a confirmation email?

A. You will not receive a confirmation email. Rather, you can at any time log in to the account that you created and see that your registration details are present and correct.

TROUBLESHOOTING YOUR SUBMISSION

If you are unable to submit your essay to the John Locke Institute’s global essay competition, your problem is almost certainly one of the following.

If so, please proceed as indicated.

1) PROBLEM: I receive the ‘registrations are now closed’ message when I enter my email and verification code. SOLUTION. You did not register for the essay competition and create your account. If you think you did, you probably only provided us with your email to receive updates from us about the competition or otherwise. You may not enter the competition this year.

2) PROBLEM I do not receive a login code after I enter my email to enter my account. SOLUTION. Enter your email address again, checking that you do so correctly. If this fails, restart your browser using an incognito window; clear your cache, and try again. Wait for a few minutes for the code. If this still fails, restart your machine and try one more time. If this still fails, send an email to [email protected] with “No verification code – [your name]” in the subject line.

SUBMITTING AN ESSAY

3) PROBLEM: The filename of my essay is in the correct format but it is rejected. SOLUTION: Use “Edit Profile” to check that you did not add a space before or after either of your names. If you did, delete it. Whether you did or did not, try again to submit your essay. If submission fails again, email [email protected] with “Filename format – [your name]” in the subject line.

4) PROBLEM: When trying to view my submitted essay, a .txt file is downloaded – not the .pdf file that I submitted. SOLUTION: Delete the essay. Logout of your account; log back in, and resubmit. If resubmission fails, email [email protected] with “File extension problem – [your name]” in the subject line.

5) PROBLEM: When I try to submit, the submission form just reloads without giving me an error message. SOLUTION. Log out of your account. Open a new browser; clear the cache; log back in, and resubmit. If resubmission fails, email [email protected] with “Submission form problem – [your name]” in the subject line.

6) PROBLEM: I receive an “Unexpected Error” when trying to submit. SOLUTION. Logout of your account; log back in, and resubmit. If this resubmission fails, email [email protected] with “Unexpected error – [your name]” in thesubject line. Your email must tell us e xactly where in the submission process you received this error.

7) PROBLEM: I have a problem with submitting and it is not addressed above on this list. SOLUTION: Restart your machine. Clear your browser’s cache. Try to submit again. If this fails, email [email protected] with “Unlisted problem – [your name]” in the subject line. Your email must tell us exactly the nature of your problem with relevant screen caps.

READ THIS BEFORE YOU EMAIL US.

Do not email us before you have tried the specified solutions to your problem.

Do not email us more than once about a single problem. We will respond to your email within 72 hours. Only if you have not heard from us in that time may you contact us again to ask for an update.

If you email us regarding a problem, you must include relevant screen-shots and information on both your operating system and your browser. You must also declare that you have tried the solutions presented above and had a good connection to the internet when you did so.

If you have tried the relevant solution to your problem outlined above, have emailed us, and are still unable to submit before the 30 June deadline on account of any fault of the John Locke Institute or our systems, please do not worry: we will have a way to accept your essay in that case. However, if there is no fault on our side, we will not accept your essay if it is not submitted on time – whatever your reason: we will not make exceptions for IT issues for which we are not responsible.

We reserve the right to disqualify the entries of essayists who do not follow all provided instructions, including those concerning technical matters.

Leana S. Wen

Washington, d.c..

Education: California State University, Los Angeles, BS; Washington University School of Medicine, MD; University of Oxford, MSc

The Checkup With Dr. Wen: Readers recall the suffering of vaccine-preventable diseases

These stories are essential to convincing people to vaccinate their children.

Why the spread of bird flu to a Texas dairy worker is so alarming

After jumping from cattle to a person, the disease should be taken seriously.

The Checkup With Dr. Wen: How covid-19 might have improved public health infrastructure

A new coalition is bridging the divide between public health and health care.

One woman’s story of agony shows why childhood immunizations are so crucial

Ina Pinkney explains why childhood immunizations are so crucial.

The Checkup With Dr. Wen: Why cancer rates are rising among younger people

Even though overall cancer rates are falling, young people are at greater risk.

Too few people are screened for colon cancer. This new test might help.

Colorectal cancer is one of the deadliest cancers, yet 1 in 3 eligible people have never been tested for it.

The Checkup With Dr. Wen: Do you know a vaccine skeptic? Here are 10 simple responses.

Parents are just trying to do what’s best for their kids. Here’s how to help them.

How to counter vaccine misinformation in political discourse

Childhood immunizations should not be a partisan talking point.

The Checkup With Dr. Wen: Nutrition isn’t just about what you eat, but also when and how

Three tips for healthier eating habits to improve heart health.

She suffered extreme fatigue for years. So she offered her illness to science.

One woman’s struggle with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome might help millions of Americans.

The New Rules of Political Journalism

In this election, the reporting strategies of the past will not be enough.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.

In our digitally chaotic world, relying on the election-reporting strategies of the past is like bringing the rules of chess to the Thunderdome.

First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic :

• The October 7 rape denialists
• Finding justice in Palestine
• Biden’s safe, polite campaign stop in Scranton

This past weekend, I was on a panel at the annual conference of the International Symposium on Online Journalism, in beautiful downtown Austin. Several journalists discussed the question: Are we going to get it right this time? Have the media learned their lessons, and are journalists ready for the vertiginous slog of the 2024 campaign?

My answer: only if we realize how profoundly the rules of the game have changed.

Lest we need reminding, this year’s election features a candidate who incited an insurrection, called for terminating sections of the Constitution, was found liable for what a federal judge says was “rape” as it is commonly understood, faces 88 felony charges, and—I’m tempted to add “etcetera” here, but that’s the problem, isn’t it? The volume and enormity of it all is impossible to take in.

The man is neither a riddle nor an enigma. He lays it all out there: his fawning over the world’s authoritarians, his threats to abandon our allies, his contempt for the rule of law, his intention to use the federal government as an instrument of retribution . Journalists must be careful not to give in to what Brian Klaas has called the “ Banality of Crazy .” As I’ve written in the past, there have been so many outrages and so many assaults on decency that it’s easy to become numbed by the cascade of awfulness.

The former White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer points out a recent example in his newsletter: On a radio show earlier this month, Donald Trump bizarrely suggested that Joe Biden was high on cocaine when he delivered his energetic State of the Union address. It was a startling moment, yet several major national media outlets did not cover the story.

And when Trump called for the execution of General Mark Milley, it didn’t have nearly the explosive effect it should have. “I had expected every website and all the cable news shows to lead with a story about Trump demanding the execution of the highest military officer in the country,” this magazine’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, told The Washington Post . “If Barack Obama or George W. Bush had done so, I’m sure [the news media] would have been all over it.” (Trump’s threats against Milley came after The Atlantic published a profile of Milley by Goldberg.)

In our digitally chaotic world, relying on the reporting strategies of the past is like bringing the rules of chess to the Thunderdome. There has, of course, been some progress. The major cable networks no longer carry Trump’s rallies live without context, but they still broadcast town-hall meetings and interviews with the former president, which boost ratings. NBC’s abortive decision to hire Ronna McDaniel, a former chair of the Republican National Committee, as a contributor, despite her role in spreading lies about the 2020 election, highlighted the disconnect between this moment and much of the national media.

And then there is the internet. It is certainly possible that richer, more insightful media will emerge from the digital revolution, but we’re obviously not there now. Back in 2016, we worried that social media had become a vector for disinformation and bigotry, but since then, we’ve seen Elon Musk’s extraordinary enshittification of X. In 2016, we worried (too late) about foreign interference and bots. In 2024, we are going to have to contend with deepfakes created by AI.

This year will see some of the best journalism of our lifetime. (You’ll find much of it here in The Atlantic .) But because both the media and their audiences are badly fractured, much of that reporting is siloed off from the voters who need it most. Because millions of Americans are locked in information bubbles, half of the country either won’t see important journalism about the dangers of a second Trump term or won’t believe it.

As Paul Farhi notes in The Atlantic , MAGA-friendly websites have experienced massive drops in traffic, but social media continues to thrive on negativity and providing dopamine hits of anger and fear. And of distraction—last week, the most-liked videos on TikTok about the presidential race included a video of a man singing to Biden and Trump’s visit to a Chick-fil-A .

To put it mildly, the arc of social media does not bend toward Edward R. Murrow–style journalism.

So what’s to be done? I don’t have any easy answers, because I don’t think they exist. Getting it right this time does not mean that journalists need to pull their punches in covering Biden or become slavish defenders of his administration’s policies. In fact, that would only make matters worse. But perhaps we could start with some modest proposals.

First, we should redefine newsworthy . Klaas argues that journalists need to emphasize the magnitude rather than simply the novelty of political events. Trump’s ongoing attacks on democracy may not be new, but they define the stakes of 2024. So although live coverage of Trump rallies without any accompanying analysis remains a spectacularly bad idea, it’s important to neither ignore nor mute the dark message that Trump delivers at every event. As a recent headline in The Guardian put it, “Trump’s Bizarre, Vindictive Incoherence Has to Be Heard in Full to Be Believed.”

Why not relentlessly emphasize the truth, and publish more fact-checked transcripts that highlight his wilder and more unhinged rants? (Emphasizing magnitude is, of course, a tremendous challenge for journalists when the amplification mechanisms of the modern web—that is, social-media algorithms—are set by companies that have proved to be hostile to the distribution of information from reputable news outlets.)

The media challenge will be to emphasize the abnormality of Donald Trump without succumbing to a reactionary ideological tribalism, which would simply drive audiences further into their silos. Put another way: Media outlets will need all the credibility they can muster when they try to sound the alarm that none of this is normal . And it is far more important to get it right than to get it fast, because every lapse will be weaponized.

The commitment to “fairness” should not, however, mean creating false equivalencies or fake balance. (An exaggerated report about Biden’s memory lapses , for example, should not be a bigger story than Trump’s invitation to Vladimir Putin to invade European countries .)

In the age of Trump, it is also important that members of the media not be distracted by theatrics generally. (This includes Trump’s trial drama, the party conventions, and even— as David Frum points out in The Atlantic —the debates.) Relatedly, the stakes are simply too high to wallow in vibes, memes, or an obsessive focus on within-the-margin-of-error polls. Democracy can indeed be crushed by authoritarianism. But it can also be suffocated by the sort of trivia that often dominates social media.

And, finally, the Prime Directive of 2024: Never, ever become numbed by the endless drumbeat of outrages.

• Political analysis needs more witchcraft.
• Right-wing media are in trouble.

Today’s News

• The Senate dismissed the articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and ruled that they were unconstitutional, ending his trial before it got under way.
• House Speaker Mike Johnson will proceed with a plan, backed by President Joe Biden, to vote on separate bills to provide aid to Ukraine, Israel, and U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific. The proposed move has raised criticism from some conservative representatives.
• Four Columbia University officials, including the president, Nemat Shafik, testified in a congressional committee hearing about student safety, free speech, and anti-Semitism on campus.
• The Trump Trials : The first days of the criminal case against Donald Trump have been mundane, even boring—and that’s remarkable, George T. Conway III writes.
• The Weekly Planet : The cocoa shortage could make chocolate more expensive forever, Yasmin Tayag writes.

Explore all of our newsletters here.

Evening Read

Something Weird Is Happening With Caesar Salads

By Ellen Cushing

On a November evening in Brooklyn, in 2023, I was in trouble (hungry). I ordered a kale Caesar at a place I like. Instead, I got: a tangle of kale, pickled red onion, and “sweet and spicy almonds,” dressed in a thinnish, vaguely savory liquid and topped with a glob of crème fraîche roughly the size and vibe of a golf ball. It was a pretty weird food. We are living through an age of unchecked Caesar-salad fraud. Putative Caesars are dressed with yogurt or miso or tequila or lemongrass; they are served with zucchini, orange zest, pig ear, kimchi, poached duck egg, roasted fennel, fried chickpeas, buffalo-cauliflower fritters, tōgarashi -dusted rice crackers. They are missing anchovies, or croutons, or even lettuce … Molly Baz is a chef, a cookbook author, and a bit of a Caesar obsessive—she owns a pair of sneakers with “CAE” on one tongue and “SAL” on the other—and she put it succinctly when she told me, “There’s been a lot of liberties taken, for better or for worse.”

Read the full article.

More From The Atlantic

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Look. These photos , compiled by our photo editor, show the importance of bicycles in World War II.

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Stephanie Bai contributed to this newsletter.

When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic .

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NPR suspends veteran editor as it grapples with his public criticism

David Folkenflik

NPR suspended senior editor Uri Berliner for five days without pay after he wrote an essay accusing the network of losing the public's trust and appeared on a podcast to explain his argument. Uri Berliner hide caption

NPR suspended senior editor Uri Berliner for five days without pay after he wrote an essay accusing the network of losing the public's trust and appeared on a podcast to explain his argument.

NPR has formally punished Uri Berliner, the senior editor who publicly argued a week ago that the network had "lost America's trust" by approaching news stories with a rigidly progressive mindset.

Berliner's five-day suspension without pay, which began last Friday, has not been previously reported.

Yet the public radio network is grappling in other ways with the fallout from Berliner's essay for the online news site The Free Press . It angered many of his colleagues, led NPR leaders to announce monthly internal reviews of the network's coverage, and gave fresh ammunition to conservative and partisan Republican critics of NPR, including former President Donald Trump.

Conservative activist Christopher Rufo is among those now targeting NPR's new chief executive, Katherine Maher, for messages she posted to social media years before joining the network. Among others, those posts include a 2020 tweet that called Trump racist and another that appeared to minimize rioting during social justice protests that year. Maher took the job at NPR last month — her first at a news organization .

In a statement Monday about the messages she had posted, Maher praised the integrity of NPR's journalists and underscored the independence of their reporting.

"In America everyone is entitled to free speech as a private citizen," she said. "What matters is NPR's work and my commitment as its CEO: public service, editorial independence, and the mission to serve all of the American public. NPR is independent, beholden to no party, and without commercial interests."

The network noted that "the CEO is not involved in editorial decisions."

In an interview with me later on Monday, Berliner said the social media posts demonstrated Maher was all but incapable of being the person best poised to direct the organization.

"We're looking for a leader right now who's going to be unifying and bring more people into the tent and have a broader perspective on, sort of, what America is all about," Berliner said. "And this seems to be the opposite of that."

Conservative critics of NPR are now targeting its new chief executive, Katherine Maher, for messages she posted to social media years before joining the public radio network last month. Stephen Voss/Stephen Voss hide caption

Conservative critics of NPR are now targeting its new chief executive, Katherine Maher, for messages she posted to social media years before joining the public radio network last month.

He said that he tried repeatedly to make his concerns over NPR's coverage known to news leaders and to Maher's predecessor as chief executive before publishing his essay.

Berliner has singled out coverage of several issues dominating the 2020s for criticism, including trans rights, the Israel-Hamas war and COVID. Berliner says he sees the same problems at other news organizations, but argues NPR, as a mission-driven institution, has a greater obligation to fairness.

"I love NPR and feel it's a national trust," Berliner says. "We have great journalists here. If they shed their opinions and did the great journalism they're capable of, this would be a much more interesting and fulfilling organization for our listeners."

A "final warning"

The circumstances surrounding the interview were singular.

Berliner provided me with a copy of the formal rebuke to review. NPR did not confirm or comment upon his suspension for this article.

In presenting Berliner's suspension Thursday afternoon, the organization told the editor he had failed to secure its approval for outside work for other news outlets, as is required of NPR journalists. It called the letter a "final warning," saying Berliner would be fired if he violated NPR's policy again. Berliner is a dues-paying member of NPR's newsroom union but says he is not appealing the punishment.

The Free Press is a site that has become a haven for journalists who believe that mainstream media outlets have become too liberal. In addition to his essay, Berliner appeared in an episode of its podcast Honestly with Bari Weiss.

A few hours after the essay appeared online, NPR chief business editor Pallavi Gogoi reminded Berliner of the requirement that he secure approval before appearing in outside press, according to a copy of the note provided by Berliner.

In its formal rebuke, NPR did not cite Berliner's appearance on Chris Cuomo's NewsNation program last Tuesday night, for which NPR gave him the green light. (NPR's chief communications officer told Berliner to focus on his own experience and not share proprietary information.) The NPR letter also did not cite his remarks to The New York Times , which ran its article mid-afternoon Thursday, shortly before the reprimand was sent. Berliner says he did not seek approval before talking with the Times .

NPR defends its journalism after senior editor says it has lost the public's trust

Berliner says he did not get permission from NPR to speak with me for this story but that he was not worried about the consequences: "Talking to an NPR journalist and being fired for that would be extraordinary, I think."

Berliner is a member of NPR's business desk, as am I, and he has helped to edit many of my stories. He had no involvement in the preparation of this article and did not see it before it was posted publicly.

In rebuking Berliner, NPR said he had also publicly released proprietary information about audience demographics, which it considers confidential. He said those figures "were essentially marketing material. If they had been really good, they probably would have distributed them and sent them out to the world."

Feelings of anger and betrayal inside the newsroom

His essay and subsequent public remarks stirred deep anger and dismay within NPR. Colleagues contend Berliner cherry-picked examples to fit his arguments and challenge the accuracy of his accounts. They also note he did not seek comment from the journalists involved in the work he cited.

Morning Edition host Michel Martin told me some colleagues at the network share Berliner's concerns that coverage is frequently presented through an ideological or idealistic prism that can alienate listeners.

"The way to address that is through training and mentorship," says Martin, herself a veteran of nearly two decades at the network who has also reported for The Wall Street Journal and ABC News. "It's not by blowing the place up, by trashing your colleagues, in full view of people who don't really care about it anyway."

Several NPR journalists told me they are no longer willing to work with Berliner as they no longer have confidence that he will keep private their internal musings about stories as they work through coverage.

"Newsrooms run on trust," NPR political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben tweeted last week, without mentioning Berliner by name. "If you violate everyone's trust by going to another outlet and sh--ing on your colleagues (while doing a bad job journalistically, for that matter), I don't know how you do your job now."

Berliner rejected that critique, saying nothing in his essay or subsequent remarks betrayed private observations or arguments about coverage.

Other newsrooms are also grappling with questions over news judgment and confidentiality. On Monday, New York Times Executive Editor Joseph Kahn announced to his staff that the newspaper's inquiry into who leaked internal dissent over a planned episode of its podcast The Daily to another news outlet proved inconclusive. The episode was to focus on a December report on the use of sexual assault as part of the Hamas attack on Israel in October. Audio staffers aired doubts over how well the reporting stood up to scrutiny.

"We work together with trust and collegiality everyday on everything we produce, and I have every expectation that this incident will prove to be a singular exception to an important rule," Kahn wrote to Times staffers.

At NPR, some of Berliner's colleagues have weighed in online against his claim that the network has focused on diversifying its workforce without a concomitant commitment to diversity of viewpoint. Recently retired Chief Executive John Lansing has referred to this pursuit of diversity within NPR's workforce as its " North Star ," a moral imperative and chief business strategy.

In his essay, Berliner tagged the strategy as a failure, citing the drop in NPR's broadcast audiences and its struggle to attract more Black and Latino listeners in particular.

"During most of my tenure here, an open-minded, curious culture prevailed. We were nerdy, but not knee-jerk, activist, or scolding," Berliner writes. "In recent years, however, that has changed."

Berliner writes, "For NPR, which purports to consider all things, it's devastating both for its journalism and its business model."

NPR investigative reporter Chiara Eisner wrote in a comment for this story: "Minorities do not all think the same and do not report the same. Good reporters and editors should know that by now. It's embarrassing to me as a reporter at NPR that a senior editor here missed that point in 2024."

Some colleagues drafted a letter to Maher and NPR's chief news executive, Edith Chapin, seeking greater clarity on NPR's standards for its coverage and the behavior of its journalists — clearly pointed at Berliner.

A plan for "healthy discussion"

On Friday, CEO Maher stood up for the network's mission and the journalism, taking issue with Berliner's critique, though never mentioning him by name. Among her chief issues, she said Berliner's essay offered "a criticism of our people on the basis of who we are."

Berliner took great exception to that, saying she had denigrated him. He said that he supported diversifying NPR's workforce to look more like the U.S. population at large. She did not address that in a subsequent private exchange he shared with me for this story. (An NPR spokesperson declined further comment.)

Late Monday afternoon, Chapin announced to the newsroom that Executive Editor Eva Rodriguez would lead monthly meetings to review coverage.

"Among the questions we'll ask of ourselves each month: Did we capture the diversity of this country — racial, ethnic, religious, economic, political geographic, etc — in all of its complexity and in a way that helped listeners and readers recognize themselves and their communities?" Chapin wrote in the memo. "Did we offer coverage that helped them understand — even if just a bit better — those neighbors with whom they share little in common?"

Berliner said he welcomed the announcement but would withhold judgment until those meetings played out.

In a text for this story, Chapin said such sessions had been discussed since Lansing unified the news and programming divisions under her acting leadership last year.

"Now seemed [the] time to deliver if we were going to do it," Chapin said. "Healthy discussion is something we need more of."

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editor Gerry Holmes. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.

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Daniel C. Dennett, Widely Read and Fiercely Debated Philosopher, 82, Dies

Espousing his ideas in best sellers, he insisted that religion was an illusion, free will was a fantasy and evolution could only be explained by natural selection.

By Jonathan Kandell

Daniel C. Dennett, one of the most widely read and debated American philosophers, whose prolific works explored consciousness, free will, religion and evolutionary biology, died on Friday in Portland, Maine. He was 82.

His death, at Maine Medical Center, was caused by complications of interstitial lung disease, his wife, Susan Bell Dennett, said. He lived in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.

Mr. Dennett combined a wide range of knowledge with an easy, often playful writing style to reach a lay public, avoiding the impenetrable concepts and turgid prose of many other contemporary philosophers. Beyond his more than 20 books and scores of essays, his writings even made their way into the theater and onto the concert stage.

But Mr. Dennett, who never shirked controversy, often crossed swords with other famed scholars and thinkers.

An outspoken atheist, he at times seemed to denigrate religion. “There’s simply no polite way to tell people they’ve dedicated their lives to an illusion,” he said in a 2013 interview with The New York Times .

According to Mr. Dennett, the human mind is no more than a brain operating as a series of algorithmic functions, akin to a computer. To believe otherwise is “profoundly naïve and anti-scientific,” he told The Times.

For Mr. Dennett, random chance played a greater role in decision-making than did motives, passions, reasoning, character or values. Free will is a fantasy, but a necessary one to gain people’s acceptance of rules that govern society, he said.

Mr. Dennett irked some scientists by asserting that natural selection alone determined evolution. He was especially disdainful of the eminent paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould , whose ideas on other factors of evolution were summarily dismissed by Mr. Dennett as “goulding.”

Not surprisingly, Mr. Dennett’s writings could elicit strong criticism as well — to which he sometimes reacted with fury.

Daniel Clement Dennett III was born on March 28, 1942, in Boston, the son of Daniel Clement Dennett Jr. and Ruth Marjorie (Leck) Dennett. His sister, Charlotte Dennett, was a lawyer and journalist.

Mr. Dennett spent part of his childhood in Beirut, Lebanon, where his father was a covert intelligence agent posing as a cultural attaché in the United States Embassy, while his mother taught English at the American Community School.

He graduated from Harvard University in 1963 and two years later earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from Oxford University. His dissertation began a lifelong quest to use empirical research as the basis of a philosophy of the mind.

Mr. Dennett taught philosophy at the University of California, Irvine, from 1965 to 1971. He then spent almost his entire career on the faculty of Tufts University , where he was director of its Center for Cognitive Studies and most recently an emeritus professor.

His first book to attract widespread scholarly notice was “Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology,” published in 1978.

In it, Mr. Dennett asserted that multiple decisions resulted in a moral choice and that these prior, random deliberations contributed more to the way an individual acted than did the ultimate moral decision itself. Or, as he explained:

“I am faced with an important decision to make, and after a certain amount of deliberation, I say to myself: ‘That’s enough. I’ve considered this matter enough and now I’m going to act,’ in the full knowledge that I could have considered further, in the full knowledge that the eventualities may prove that I decided in error, but with the acceptance of responsibility in any case.”

Some leading libertarians criticized Mr. Dennett’s model as undermining the concept of free will: If random decisions determine ultimate choice, they argued, then individuals aren’t liable for their actions.

Mr. Dennett responded that free will — like consciousness — was based on the outdated notion that the mind should be considered separate from the physical brain. Still, he asserted, free will was a necessary illusion to maintain a stable, functioning society.

“We couldn’t live the way we do without it,” he wrote in his 2017 book, “From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds.” “If — because free will is an illusion — no one is ever responsible for what they do, should we abolish yellow and red cards in soccer, the penalty box in ice hockey and all the other penalty systems in sports?”

Already with the 1991 publication of his book, “Consciousness Explained,” Mr. Dennett had expounded his belief that consciousness could be explained only by an understanding of the physiology of the brain, which he viewed as a kind of supercomputer.

“All varieties of perception — indeed all varieties of thought or mental activity — are accomplished in the brain by parallel, multitrack processes of interpretation and elaboration of sensory inputs,” he wrote. “Information entering the nervous system is under continuous ‘editorial revision.’”

By the 1990s, Mr. Dennett had increasingly sought to explain the development of the brain — and illusions of a separate consciousness and free will — in terms of the evolution of human beings from other animal life.

He believed that natural selection was the overwhelming factor in this evolution. And he insisted that physical and behavioral traits of organisms evolved primarily through their beneficial effects on survival or reproduction, thus enhancing an organism’s fitness in its environment.

Critics, like Mr. Gould, cautioned that while natural selection was important, evolution would also have to be explained by random genetic mutations that were neutral or even somewhat damaging to organisms, but that had become fixed in a population. In Mr. Gould’s view, evolution is marked by long periods of little or no change punctuated by short, rapid bursts of significant change, while Mr. Dennett defended a more gradualist view.

Underlying the increasingly acrimonious debate between the scholars was a natural friction in the scientific and philosophical communities over which side merited more credibility on the subject of evolution.

Mr. Dennett also plunged into controversy with his strident views on atheism. He and a colleague, Linda LaScola, researched and published a book in 2013, “Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind,” based on interviews with clerics of various denominations who were secret atheists. They defended their decision to continue preaching because it provided comfort and needed ritual to their congregations.

Interviews with clergy from the book became the basis of a play by Marin Gazzaniga, “ The Unbelieving ,” which was staged Off Broadway in 2022.

Eight years earlier, Mr. Dennett’s views on evolutionary biology and religion were the subject of “Mind Out of Matter,” a 75-minute-long musical composition by Scott Johnson performed in a seven-part concert at a theater in Montclair, N.J. The composer used recordings from Mr. Dennett’s lectures and interviews.

Mr. Dennett’s fame and following extended to both sides of the Atlantic. As he grew older, he was accompanied by his wife on his lecture tours abroad. In addition to his wife, his survivors include a daughter, Andrea Dennett Wardwell; a son, Peter; two sisters, Cynthia Yee and Charlotte Dennett; and six grandchildren.

While Mr. Dennett never held back in contradicting the views of other scholars, he bristled at harsh comments about his own work. This was especially the case when Leon Wieseltier, a well-known writer on politics, religion and culture, strongly criticized Mr. Dennett’s 2006 best seller, “Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon,” in The New York Times Book Review .

Contending that Mr. Dennett was intolerant of people who didn’t share his basic belief that science could explain all human conditions, Mr. Wieseltier concluded: “Dennett is the sort of rationalist who gives reason a bad name.”

In a lengthy, angry rebuttal , Mr. Dennett denounced Mr. Wieseltier for “flagrant falsehoods” that demonstrated a “visceral repugnance that fairly haunts Wieseltier’s railing (without arguments) against my arguments.”

An earlier, more positive appraisal of another of his best sellers, “Kinds of Minds: Toward an Understanding of Consciousness” (1996), that ran in New Scientist magazine might have come closest to explaining Mr. Dennett’s enduring appeal.

While he admitted that many of the questions he raises in his work “cannot yet be answered,” wrote the reviewer, Mr. Dennett “argues that putting the right questions is a crucial step forward.”

Kellina Moore contributed reporting.

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‘I now know that anything is possible’: from a women’s shelter to Cambridge University

No matter how low you sink, your dreams can still come true: one woman’s inspirational story

As a woman with decades of business experience, a Cambridge graduate with a fulfilling career running my own company, alongside a joy-filled family life, few would guess from looking at me today how close I came to having a very different story.

From the outside, my childhood was idyllic – my family lived in Nigeria until I was 11, before moving to London. I went to Sunday school at church every week and I aspired to be a doctor, just like my cousin. I envisaged having a beautiful house, a fulfilling career, a nice husband, kids, and, most of all, making my parents proud.

My mum and dad worked so hard to give us the brightest future possible, but that also came with a lot of rules and expectations. Looking back, I can see that those rules were there to protect my siblings and me, especially when we moved from Nigeria to an entirely new world and culture in London.

As a teenager, though, it felt like control – and I wanted none of it. I was an extremely shy and introverted child, so I bottled up my emotions for the most part, until it all came to the fore one day. After a blazing row with my parents, I ran away from home.

I fell in with the wrong crowd and things spiralled very quickly. In a little over a year, I was using drugs and had dropped out of sixth form. I was unable to keep down a real job, let alone a permanent address. I had never thought my fight with my parents, and subsequent flight for freedom, would lead me to this homeless and hopeless mess in which I felt more trapped than ever before.

The moment that would go on to change my life forever arrived by chance: I found myself in a dark and dingy room with a friend who had suggested I go with her to see a guy about a job. It soon transpired that that “guy” was a pimp, and the “job” was sex work.

The reality of my situation hit me like a ton of bricks as I stood in that dank, foul-smelling flat. The main thought running through my head was: “I can’t do this… I just can’t do this.”

The man standing in front of me seemed to read my mind. He looked at me with obvious fury and disgust and asked: “What choice do people like you have, anyway?” I closed my eyes tight, fighting back hot tears. I think a slap in the face would have hurt less.

He was right. The painful truth was that I was a complete mess. I had ruined my life and let down everyone who cared about me. I had nothing to my name and no one to call. Even so, I knew I couldn’t go through with it. I had sunk so low, but there was still some sense of my true self deep within.

In that moment, I was struck by a sudden thought: “This is not who you are meant to be. You are meant for so much more!” Somehow, that small piece of inner guidance gave me the courage I needed to peel my feet off the floor, turn around and run full speed out of the flat and into the freezing cold Soho street outside.

As soon as I made the firm decision to trust that inner guidance, something shifted. Even though I had given up on many of my dreams, friendships and family members, I wasn’t ready to give up on myself. At that moment, I decided I would do whatever it took to rebuild my life again.

In spite of my terrible A-level grades, through clearing I managed to get into the University of Wales Bangor to study banking and finance. This move would not only help me get back into the school system, but get my life back on track too – the almost 300-mile distance between Bangor and London meant I would be far away from anyone who could pull me back into what I hoped would quickly become my old ways.

I made my way to a women’s shelter to get help for the basics, before returning to my family to apologise and attempt to reconcile with them. I was overwhelmed with joy and deep regret for how I had treated them as they welcomed me back with love and open arms, no questions asked.

On the day I was to leave London to go to Bangor to start university, my mum and dad came along to Euston station to see me off. They were so proud. I cried nonstop as they helped me get my bags on to the train, hugged me, then got back on to the platform where they waved for as long as they could, even as we pulled away.

Gradually, I managed to break free of so many of the crazy habits that had been normal in my life to this point and I began to thrive again. The university had such a profound impact on me. Based on the recommendation of one of my professors, I was accepted for a year-long internship at an international bank between the second and third years of my degree. The internship went phenomenally well and I secured a job offer to work with the bank after I graduated before I’d even started my final year at university.

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Eventually, I graduated with a first and won the Jack Revell Prize for the highest-scoring banking and finance dissertation in my year. I began a career in finance, first as a credit risk analyst, then as a credit risk consultant. By the age of 25, however, I started to get an itch for something more, or at least different. I just wasn’t sure what.

For months, I suppressed the itch. “ Life is good, Maxine, don’t rock the boat,” I would think to myself, while trying to forget about it. Except I couldn’t. I wondered what was wrong with me. I knew how lucky I was: the company I worked for was great, as were my colleagues; the money was good, and the job came with all kinds of perks, but when I was alone, away from all the noise and advice of friends and family, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing.

It took a chance meeting to put those missing pieces together. I happened to be introduced to Obi Arinze – she is from Obosi, the same village in Nigeria as my mum. A recent Harvard MBA graduate, she agreed to have a mentoring conversation with me.

I told her about my career and my feelings of uncertainty on what to do next. She suggested, based on my track record, that it was probably a good time to invest in an MBA, and I ought to apply for a school like Harvard.

I fell silent at her words and my heart sank. People like me don’t get into schools like that. Before I could politely cut the call with Obi, she interrupted my train of thought, offering to mentor me through the process. I couldn’t believe that she believed me capable of getting into a top university, but I also knew that, if she was going to invest her time in me, I wouldn’t let her down.

Over the next nine months, she coached me through the detailed and intense application process. The first major hurdle was the GMAT exam. With Obi’s help, I ended up scoring in the top 2% of all those who took the exam globally. Then there were the application essays, references and interviews. Through it all, she gave me the support I needed to put in the monumental and stellar effort that finally got me admitted into the Cambridge MBA class of 2007.

As a child growing up in Nigeria, the only two international universities I had ever heard of were Oxford and Cambridge. For some reason, I took more of a liking to Cambridge and dreamed that, one day, it might be nice to go there.

After my life took a detour in my teens, that dream died and I forgot all about it. It was no longer anywhere near my radar. Even after I got my life back on track, I would never in a million years have believed Cambridge was possible for me – until I met Obi.

I now know that anything is possible, which is why I have devoted my career to helping other people find their own direction. Their many success stories have convinced me that no matter what life looks like now, it is possible to create a life beyond your wildest dreams.

Maxine Nwaneri is the author of The Future is Greater, A Working Mother’s Guide to Finding Balance published by HarperCollins HQ at £16.99. Order it for £14.95 at guardianbookshop.com

• Self and wellbeing

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Problems completing your assessment

There are a number of University processes in place to help you if you find that illness or other personal circumstances are affecting your ability to attend exams or submit assignments.

It is your responsibility to take action if you experience problems. This page includes details about the different processes available.

More detailed guidance including FAQs is available in the more detailed  Student guidance  on problems submitting work or attending an exam.

You can’t submit coursework on time

Self-certification up to 7 days

You can apply directly for an extension of 7 calendar days (1 week) without providing independent evidence. This will normally be because of a short term illness or flare up of a chronic condition. You can apply via Student Self Service  (go to 'My exams', select 'extension requests' and click on 'start self certification application'). Details on how to use the online form can be found in the coursework extensions quick reference guide . 

There are limits on applications, you can only:

• self-certify once per submission.
• make two applications using self-certification per academic year. An application may include more than one submission if it is due in the same working week.
• apply up to 2 weeks in advance and up to 24 hours after the deadline.

Further extensions, or applications made later than 24 hours after the deadline, will require independent evidence and will need to be applied for via your college (or your department if you don’t have a college).

All other applications for extensions must be applied for via your college (or department if you don’t have a college) and must be supported by independent evidence. The Proctors grant extensions to allow for time lost through ‘illness or other urgent cause that was unforeseeable, unavoidable and/or insurmountable’.

• Your college can apply for an extension up to 4 weeks before the submission deadline. Wherever possible applications should be submitted in good time before the deadline.
• The amount of additional time you can ask for should be proportionate to the time you have lost through ‘illness or other urgent cause that was unforeseeable, unavoidable and/or insurmountable’ and, it has to be supported by the evidence you can provide – see the Student Guidance to find out what evidence you need.
• The maximum total length of extensions that can be granted for the same assignment is 12 weeks.  
• If there is a reason outside of your control why a request couldn’t be made within 14 days of the deadline, your college or department may be able to make an exceptional dispensation request to Education Committee to have your original application considered. 
• If you decide to submit your assignment before you have had a decision, and your request is later granted, you will be given one opportunity to re-submit your assignment before the new deadline.
• If your request is declined the Proctors will give you a reason why it has been declined and you will have an opportunity to appeal via Education Committee.

If you need more time to submit an assignment due to a disability or chronic condition, you should discuss with your college or department as there are different options available.

Submitting late

You are expected to submit your coursework on time. If you submit after the deadline the examiners will apply a late penalty, deducting marks in line with the examination conventions for your course.

If you couldn’t submit on time due to ‘illness or other urgent cause that was unforeseeable, unavoidable and insurmountable', you can apply to have the late penalty removed:

• Your college (or department if you don’t have a college) must apply to the Proctors within 14 days of your deadline. If you have submitted late contact your college immediately to make an application.
• You will need to provide evidence, see the Student Guidance to find out what you need to provide.
• If there is a reason outside of your control why a request couldn’t be made within 14 days of the deadline, your college or department may be able to make an exceptional dispensation request to Education Committee to have your original application considered.

Incorrect submissions

Information on what to do if you have submitted your work to the incorrect location, or have submitted the wrong document is available on the  Submissions  page.

You can’t attend an exam (online or in-person)

If you can’t attend an exam due to ‘illness or other urgent cause that is unforeseeable, unavoidable and/or insurmountable’   your college (or department if you don’t have a college) can submit an application for you to be excused from attending:

• Your college/department can apply up to 4 weeks before the date of the exam and within 14 days after.
• You will need to provide evidence as to why you can’t attend, see the Student Guidance to find out what you need to provide.

If your request is granted the exam board will decide whether you can be classified on the work you have completed or whether you need to take the exam at a later date.

You cannot be excused from an exam if you have attended any part of the exam or if you have accessed an open book exam paper. If you become unwell during an exam you should submit a mitigating circumstances notice to the examiners.

If your preparation or revision for the exam has been affected by illness or other urgent cause you should attend the exam (if you are well enough to do so) and submit a mitigating circumstances notice to the examiners.

Problems with online exams

Submitting late - for online exams that require an uploaded response(s)

If the mode of completion for your online exam is 'Typed answers with supplementary uploads' or 'Uploaded answers only', all or part of your exam response will be uploaded into Inspera. For example, a question may require you to hand draw a diagram, scan it and then upload it to Inspera. To allow you to do so, your exam board will have incorporated technical time into your overall exam time in Inspera. You are expected to use this technical time to upload your exam response(s), as required, within the exam duration - you must not leave it until the last few minutes to do so. 

If you experience difficulties – either acute illness or technical problems – that mean you are unable to upload your response(s) to Inspera before the end of the exam:

• As soon as you are able to you should complete the  Online Exams Help form and attach the missing exam response files. 
• You do not need to provide an explanation why your response is late or attach evidence to the form.
• Your exam response will either be accepted and sent for marking, or referred to the Proctors.
• If your late response is referred to the Proctors you will be asked to provide more information about why your exam response(s) are late and supporting evidence – see the Student Guidance to find out what you need to provide.
• Exams responses more than 24 hours late will not be considered. 
• If you late response is not accepted by the Proctors, only the work that you submitted before the end of the exam duration will be marked (if no work was submitted you will receive a mark of 0).

Replacing an incorrect exam response - for online exams that require an uploaded response(s)

You are expected to check you exam response(s) carefully before you press the ‘submit now’ button. Further guidance can be found on the  Online Exams  page.   

If you do identify a substantive error in a file or files you have uploaded (e.g. you have uploaded the wrong file, there are missing pages to your scan or the scan is blurry), you may submit a replacement within 30 minutes of the end of your exam duration:

• You must immediately complete the Online Exams Help form and attach the correct files to the form.  

There is no mechanism to replace an incorrect or incomplete file from 30 mins onwards. The work you uploaded will be marked.  

Online exams with typed answers only

If the mode of completion for your online exam is 'Typed answers', you are expected to type your answers directly into Inspera, where they will be automatically saved.  

If you decide to work outside of Inspera, with the intention of copying and pasting your answer into Inspera before the end of the exam duration, you do so at your own risk. Any work not entered into Inspera by the time your exam ends cannot be accepted for marking. Only the text saved within Inspera at the end of the exam duration will be marked.

If you lose your internet connection during a typed online exam, you can continue to type into Inspera. If you are offline when the exam ends, do not close your browser window . You will be able to download a record of your exam responses as a .ia file. This is an un-editable file which contains only answers completed within your exam duration and is therefore not considered a late upload. You should then contact the Online Exams Support Desk, by completing the  Online Exams Help form .  

Further guidance for online exams can be found on the  Online Exams  page.   

Starting an online exam late

You are expected to start your exam promptly at the published start time. However, for exams with a short exam duration (less than 8-hours), the exam will be available in a slightly extended exam window. This means that, if you are prevented from starting your exam on time, you will not lose time from your exam duration if you start within 30 minutes of the scheduled start time. If you start more than 30 minutes late, you will not be penalised but you will have a proportionately reduced exam duration. 

Mitigating circumstances notices to examiners (MCE)

If you believe your performance in assessment has been seriously affected by illness or personal circumstances you can submit a mitigating circumstances notice to your examiners (MCE) to let them know, and to allow them to consider whether your outcome for affected papers or outcome overall should be adjusted.

You can submit an MCE either directly or via your college or your department if you are a non-matriculated student.

You should read the student guide to MCE before you submit a notice to understand the process, what information you should provide, and what the range of possible outcomes are.

Submitting an MCE

Before submitting your notice you can seek advice from your college office or your department if you don’t have a college. For technical instructions on submitting an MCE notice please refer to the  Student self service manual , section 7.7. 

• You may submit an MCE directly in Student Self Service.
• You can also submit an MCE via your college, or department if you don’t have a college, if you need the MCE to be raised on your behalf, but you will need to supply them with your statement and supporting evidence.
• You are encouraged to submit one main MCE for each University Examination (e.g. FPE, FHS, formal Part of the FHS, whole of a PGT course etc.), however you can submit a further MCE if new circumstances have arisen since you submitted your first.
• You should submit a statement in support of your MCE to explain in a clear and concise manner how your performance in assessment has been impacted (either in the box provided or as an attachment) along with supporting evidence. Evidence could include – medical certificates or letters, statements from college officers or tutors, statements from a counsellor or other support person. The student guide provides more information on what to include.
• Any additional information should be uploaded as supporting documentation (2MB file limit per document). Please make sure that any supporting documentation submitted with your notice is not password protected as this will prevent your notice from being processed.
• Notices should be submitted as soon as possible after completing the affected assessments and must be received prior to noon on the day before the exam board.
• The examiners will consider your mitigating circumstances and any supporting documentation and decide what, if any, action they can take.
• You will be able to view the outcome of your MCE via the results screen in Student Self Service when your year outcome has been released.

Academic appeals

• If you have concerns about the conduct of university exams - raise these initially with your senior tutor or department if you don’t have a college.
• If you are a graduate research student you should raise your concerns with your director of graduate studies
• If, following such a discussion with your department or senior tutor, you have a concern about procedures not being correctly followed during an exam, or you have reason to believe that your exam was not conducted fairly, you may make an  academic appeal  to the Proctors.

Complaints 

If you have concerns about circumstances that have affected the teaching or tutorial support on your course you should raise these with your department/faculty under the complaints procedures .

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