A new brochure from the School of Emergent Priorities introduces the Pencil-Mark Key, which sorts every mark in a community choir's folders into one of five kinds, each with its own ruling on erasure.
A new brochure sets out the Pencil-Mark Key, which decides who may rub out a breath, an entry, a dynamic, a reminder or a doodle
Five words cover every pencil mark a choir has ever made: breath, entry, dynamic, reminder and doodle. The Pencil-Mark Key, introduced in a new brochure from the School of Emergent Priorities, sorts each mark in a community choir’s shared folders into one of those five kinds, and the University now applies its rulings to every folder kept in its own rehearsal rooms.
Nobody asked the pencil to be consistent, so we agreed to be consistent on its behalf.
— Dr Ronja Oyelaran, Senior Lecturer, School of Emergent Priorities
Under the Key, a mark’s kind decides who may rub it out, and at which rehearsal. Breath marks stay with the section that drew them. Entry marks need a second signature and a witness from another part. Doodles may go at any time, provided the fact is written in the season register. At season’s end the marks ruled worth keeping are carried by hand onto the next copy, and a register of what travelled is published for every partner choir.
The brochure is addressed to supporters and to choirs considering the Key, and sets it beside seven earlier University studies of how ordinary things come to be sorted and ruled. Dr Renke Sabel, Senior Lecturer and Convenor of the Indicator Commons, called the work “a pleasure to put in front of the people who actually turn the pages.”
The University is glad to have given the humble pencil mark a standing procedure. The full brochure is available from the University’s research repository under an open licence, doi:10.5555/slop.7xjldx.