If Cristian is still following this thread (and I fear his eyes may have glazed over by now) he may be wondering how his original questions - most of which were focussed quite tightly on learning, disseminating and interpretating old material - have led to the present slanging match. It's quite true someone in his situation needs to have a good grasp of what 'tradition' means (and the conflicting ideas about that) but that wasn't his central concern.

>> to write a dissertation on a subject that cant be adequately defined,and then to be marked on it devalues the point of examinations <<

Even if I agreed that 'tradition' can't be adequately defined (there may be arguments about it but that doesn't mean there's no definition), that wouldn't be an argument against researching it. Quite the opposite, I'd say. If Cristian's research leads him to think beyond Baring-Gould and Child and consider football chants then his time won't have been wasted. And I'm sure he's planning to dig a bit deeper than Mudcat.

>> In every other form of music,people are appraised on how they perform, not on what process they used to learn the music <<

But we're talking about 'analysis' here, not 'appraisal'. There are certainly afficionados out there who prefer to listen to 'traditional' rather than 'revival' performers of English folk song, and they've every right to make that choice. As Tom suggested above, there *are* stylistic differences between 'revival' and 'traditional' performance which - though blurred at the edges - might well lead one to either preference. For every Rod Stradling there are a hundred Nic Jones, June Tabor and Kate Rusby fans who like their traditional songs served up in a certain way and might well dismiss Sam Larner as a "croaky old bloke". Each to their own.