Notes on the composition of scientific papers / by T. Clifford Allbutt.

  • Thomas Clifford Allbutt
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Notes on the composition of scientific papers / by T. Clifford Allbutt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    function to teach our students to think, and of this accomplishment the thesis or essay is the chief evidence. Thus it is that the Faculty of Medicine in Cambridge regards the theses as necessary parts of the exercises for degrees ; their use being two- fold : to train the mind, and to show how far it has been trained. The theses for M.B. are on the whole remarkably good; some of them indeed reveal no inconsiderable power of thought and research: if at this stage, however, we are content with a fair measure of industry and intelligence, from the candidate for M.D. or D.Sc, for a Fellow- ship or Studentship, for one of the larger University prizes, or for the graduation of an 'Advanced Student,' more is expected; from such a candidate we expect some maturity of thought, some wealth of personal experience, something of the art of putting his thoughts; and indeed some originality. He must have made the subject his own; his treatment of it must bear the characters of personal observation and reflexion which raise an essay above the level of ordinary compilation, and the powers of handling ideas and principles which distinguish, or should distinguish, University train- ing as contrasted with technical instruction. A man, says Sir Thomas Browne, should be some- thing that all men are not, and individual in some- what beside his proper name. If in such essays we find the cardinal qualities, we are lenient in respect of some slovenliness of arrangement, or some inaccuracy of language, unbecoming as such faults may be.
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