I’m Emily, a second year English Literature student. This summer, despite having no previous experience in academic research, I decided to undertake a Collaborative Research Internship. My Research Project was ‘Rethinking George Orwell: New Letters by a Major Author’, which was organized by Dr Nathan Waddell. Throughout the six weeks, two other students and I spent time transcribing and annotating Orwell’s letters to Brenda Salkeld and Eleanour Jacques.
This research project was so beneficial as it gave me a huge insight into editing within the academic world. We dealt as a group with issues of transcription and how one letter can be transcribed in multiple different ways depending on the person. Whilst previously I assumed activities like transcription were straightforward, I began to develop an understanding of how complicated it truly is. As a team, we learnt how different illustrations and symbols could be transcribed in multiple ways. It was enjoyable to be able to resolve these complications in a group effort through Zoom lead by the advice of Dr Nathan Waddel who is an expert in Orwell.
Before undertaking this project, I was nervous about speaking to academic staff as I found their expertise intimidating. However, through the research project I developed more confidence interacting with academics due the friendliness of Nathan. His enthusiasm for Orwell and research in general lead me to use websites I had never encountered before such as the British Newspaper Archives.
It was also satisfying to really be able to delve into a singular author on a very specific niche, which was his letters. To aid the annotating of letters, I read two biographies on Orwell and felt that I had a much better grasp on who he was as a person and how his work developed overtime. Before, I had only ever encountered him as a highly successful author renowned for 1984 and Animal Farm, shrouded as an almost mystical figure with the creation of ‘Orwellian’ politics. Yet within his letters he came off as childish, misogynistic, and even unlikeable; therefore, it was interesting to see how academic research enables somebody to uncover the myths of an author.
The second part of the project was annotating the letters which I found very thought-provoking as there were many questions that I encountered. For example, I found myself asking what words should we annotate? How much detail should one go into when annotating and how much should an editor intervene? Prior to undertaking this project, I assumed that perhaps only names and places would have needed to be annotated but I found myself annotating things such as species of birds or even clothes. We discussed as a team how different people may think differently to what needs to be annotated, for example someone from Orwell’s generation would understand references to certain brands, unlike our generation.
I really enjoyed this research project and the challenges we encountered only lead me to have an increased appreciation for the editing world. I am very grateful that I got the opportunity to work with a great group of people in a positive environment where we were encouraged to ask questions and state what we found challenging. It was also really fun to delve into an author who I had only ever encountered briefly. I would highly recommend this experience to anyone who is curious about academic research, no matter their expertise.
Emily Cornish, BA English