Oral History School – 5

Compilation of texts requires proficiency over all types of writings

Compiled by: Maryam Assadi Jafari
Translated by: M.B. Khoshnevisan

2024-9-17

According to Oral History Website, Dr. Morteza Rasoulipour in the framework of four online sessions described the topic “Compilation in Oral History” in the second half of the month of Mordad (August 2024). It has been organized by the Iranian History Association. In continuation, a selection of the teaching will be retold:

Compilation in oral history

At the beginning of his speech, Dr. Rasoulipour stressed the necessity of making familiar with the history of compilation in historiography and said, “The output of what has been done so far in Iran in the field of oral history has been less oral. That is, the issue of orality in the set of oral history activities is not complete and the output of oral history is written. Iran's oral activities should be published in the form of books or articles and are not in oral forms. If the discussion of orality existed in all oral history activities, then the issue of compilation in the sense that I will talk about it would not be relevant, but since most of the works are archived, recorded and published in the form of written texts, then the discussion of compilation is of great importance in oral history works. Oral history does not have an independent and separate meaning from history and should be considered under the generality of history. According to it, narratives or sub-narratives that are obtained orally or in writing form about an event are considered as a source of information for historiography. If these sub-narratives can explain the whole of a historical narrative alongside each other, compilation becomes relevant in such a historical work.

Oral history output needs compilation

Writing is the starting point in compilation. Writing is also a kind of information transfer tool that can be used to express and formulate concepts, opinions and ideas. In compilation, we are indebted to the activities that have taken place in the past. In our written texts, compilation has been done and we are somehow indebted to those activities and must use the methods of our predecessors well. Since 1380 (2001), when the activities of oral history found a more logical order, 14 conferences on oral history were held, two of which were dedicated to compilation, but unfortunately, in the topics discussed in those seminars – specially in Bahman 1390 (February 2012), we witnessed a kind of confusion in the presentation of materials and articles and the discussion of compilation was somewhat damaged. Some people confused compilation with the subject of the project and plan and thought that compilation is relevant from the very beginning of the oral history project. On the other hand, when you get a series of information by studying and interviewing, it needs to be compiled and adjusted, and redundant topics should be taken from them and revised, and presented to the society. In a speech at the National Library of Iran, I explained the pitfalls of archival-based oral history activities. That is, we cannot present the set of recorded interviews without compilation and editing and with the intention of publication, and many of these interviews gain value when they are available to the public. Perhaps, the value of these interviews will be lost 50 years later, because each of these interviews has taken place based on a necessity, at that particular time, and it is not correct to allocate the budget of different organizations to these interviews and to archive and lock them up. Why is there so much insistence on recording and archiving oral history interviews? And why don't they pay attention to compilation? I realized that maybe the lack of proficiency over the subject of writing and compiling is the cause of this problem. These people only conduct interviews and when they want to write the same interview, it may change meaning in compiling and many statements may be changed. So writing is a difficult task. A person who wants to write an article should be familiar with different writing styles. Can he put the parts of the sentence in their place? Does he know the difference between memory- writing with daily notes and other types of writing? They need to be trained, and this makes them avoid the discussion of compiling and create justifications for themselves. I consider the topic of compilation very important, because in order to compile the output of oral history activities, we must be familiar with the writing methods, types of writings, and the way of presenting it to the audience.

Familiarity with the rules; the first step for compilation

The oral history interviewer is not a correspondent, because the interviews of correspondents are limited due to time constraints and require press answers, but oral history is in the line of research works. Oral history doesn't even extend to television and political interviews, and it penetrates into intellectual fields a smaller amount. Someone who is involved in oral history must have a qualitative approach to the events. Different centers have compiled oral history according to their taste. In these meetings, we try to propose standard and relatively uniform indicators. Don't simply stigmatize and label. Do not make a single judgment on a social issue or historical event. In my opinion, the best form of this feature is manifested in oral history, which has a humble view of various events and phenomena. It means that it is not easy to reach a judgment about every issue and the factors affecting an event must be examined from different aspects. There is no need to judge in any matter. If some oral history activists think that what they have done now has the final say, this is completely wrong, because all the witnesses of that event can add a new narrative to that event and this means that different narratives with different analyzes are still open and historical files will never be closed. Compilation of texts - both written and oral ones - requires familiarity with a series of prerequisites. The oral history compiler must be familiar with spoken and written language to the best of his ability. Spoken language is different from the written one. Also, he should be somewhat proficient in some types of writing such as: diaries, daily notes, or processing and writing and transcribing the tapes, clarifying the text, and the rules of writing footnotes. Each of these has specific criteria. The books authored by Abolhassan Najafi and Ahmad Samie’e Gilani are among the best ones in the field of writing and editing that we should use. Language is the common point of spoken and written language. Language is basically a means of communication to convey thoughts and feelings. In general, we use language in two ways: one through speech and the other through written language; the rules of each are different. Of course, communication is not limited to language. Although it is true that language is a means of communication, but communicating and conveying feelings can happen in other ways, such as being happy. The general public conveys their meaning through speech and only a limited number of people can convey their ideas through writing. Our goal is to be able to write. Because writing is basically a hard work and has requirements. Among these requirements is to have an order. You must follow the order in writing. Compiling each writing should be orderly, and appropriate words and interpretations should be chosen. The statement should be clear and there must be a reason to prove the claim. We should have moderation in expanding the word. It means that we cannot do the same thing in writing as we sometimes deviate from the main path in speech. We need to get a general understanding of the audience's mental background and know our audience. Does a group of experts want to read your content? Or is it supposed to be read by the general public? There are opportunities in writing that are not in speech. In writing, you can control your pen and speech problems. In this sense, compilation is of great importance.

To be continued…