Overview and Grading

This course introduces students to the basic processes of ethnomusicological fieldwork through a combination of practical exercises, readings, guest lecturers, and a major research project.  The grade in the course will be based on assignments completed throughout the quarter (35% -- 15% on legal assignment, 20% on ethnography assignment), on a final written ethnography based on intensive fieldwork (50%), on a 250-word abstract of the final paper suitable for submission to a conference (5%), and on a timed oral presentation on the subject of the final paper (10%).  Regular class attendance and participation is also expected.  If a grade is borderline, the student's participation in class may also be taken into account.  In addition to scheduled in-class time, students must meet at times TBA for orientation to the equipment available in the lab.

In this course I award letter grades (A, A-, etc.). The final grade is worked out by averaging the grades for the whole course according to the percentages given above.  For the purposes of averaging the grades, A+ = 98% -100%, A = 93-97%, A- = 90- 92%, B+ = 88- 89%, B = 83-87%, B- = 80-82%. (The C range is the same as the B range, but covers 70-79%; F = 50%.)

The instructor reserves the right to make minor adjustments to the syllabus during the course of the semester.  This is most likely to affect readings and class visitors.

Please contact the instructor immediately, preferably by e-mail, if you have any difficulty doing the work or coming to a class.

All papers should follow the citation and bibliographic format of Ethnomusicology.

The research project
The core requirement for the course is the design and execution of a major research project based on fieldwork in the local community.  It is expected that the research, to be conducted over a ten-week period from April to June, 2005, will be based on participant-observation of a minimum of three events and three interviews with people involved in those events.  Preferably, the interviews should involve one key informant, though they could be with up to three different people.  The results of the research must be written up as a musical ethnography of 20 to 40 pages and may be supported by sound recordings, videotapes, and still photographs.  All submissions are due by 5:00 PM Thursday June 13th, 2008.

The conference-style abstract
The purpose of this assignment is to help you practice an essential professional skill, and to focus on the bare essentials of your project.  The 250-word abstract is due by 12 noon on Wednesday, 4 June 2005, but I urge you to run one or more drafts past me well in advance. 

Drafts
I strongly recommend that you submit drafts of assignments and/or papers to me in advance if you have any doubts about your writing or other skills, although I am not as good an editor as Professor Rees.  Any help I may be able to give you before the due date will not lower your grade.  Please note that, while I am happy to look at drafts, I expect them to be stylistically polished drafts: a draft should represent your best effort at a certain stage.  I shall not work on drafts that include many typos, broken lines, and other careless errors that you can easily catch yourself.

One purpose of running your drafts past me first is to avoid the unfortunate situation in which such flaws as poor presentation (including faulty English grammar, punctuation, vocabulary usage, etc.) or argumentation lower your grade.  Another purpose is to help you develop the professional skills you need to succeed in this field.  In the case of seriously flawed assignments and papers turned in on the due date, students may choose either to accept the grade the flawed paper warrants, or to rewrite the assignment or paper in order to qualify for a higher grade.  If a final paper is handed in on the due date with serious flaws of this nature, the student will have the option either to accept the grade warranted by the paper in its flawed state, or to take a course grade of incomplete and rewrite the paper to be turned in by the first day of fall quarter 2008.  Students should indicate on the final paper which option they will select if their paper falls into this category.  If no option is indicated, I shall award the grade warranted.

Late submissions
Late submissions, unless due to medical or other serious problems (substantiated by a doctor's note or similar documentation for non-medical problems), will be subject to a grade reduction of at least one mark (A to A-, for example).  In addition, unless serious documented medical problems intervene, please note the following:

The legal and ethnography assignments will not be accepted at all if handed in more than two weeks after their due dates; any rewrites for these papers must be completed within two weeks of the due dates. Any rewrite of the final paper and/or its abstract must be handed in by the first day of fall quarter 2008.

If you are not present to perform your oral report, you will lose the 10% that it is worth.  You are also obligated to attend both oral presentation sessions (one in the final class, one during the final exam period) in order to support your classmates and participate in the question and answer sessions that will follow each paper.  Absence from your classmates' papers will result in a deduction of one grade from your final grade (e.g., A to A-), unless I am informed in advance of some extraordinarily good reason (e.g., a family funeral, or the need to depart for a summer FLAS language course, etc.).

Students with disabilities
If you have registered with the Office for Students with Disabilities and need special accommodations made, please inform me within the first week of class.  The website for OSD is http://www.saonet.ucla.edu/osd/.

Cheating
Plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty will not be tolerated.  Please consult the Student Guide to Academic Integrity, available from the Office of the Dean of Students (1206 Murphy Hall, tel. 825-3871).

Books to purchase
I suggest you purchase A Manual for Documentation, Fieldwork and Preservation for Ethnomusicologists.  2nd edition.  Bloomington, IN: Society for Ethnomusicology, 2001.  You can go to the SEM website for a discounted rate for this if you are an SEM member.
--The course reader may be purchased from Course Reader Material (Westwood Boulevard, tel. 310/443-3303, email crm2020@aol.com). 
--In addition, if you do not already have copies, I recommend purchase of the most recent editions of the Chicago Manual of Style and Strunk and White's Elements of Style.  We shall probably refer to these two reference works frequently during the course.