Group Presentations

Brief Presentation & Final Presentation Instructions

Purpose: The following is a guide to assist in the preparation of this semester's group presentations. The purpose of these research activities is to afford an opportunity for each group to find information about a composer, performer, or musical composition of interest and pursue an in-depth look at the biographical factors, contemporaneous social conditions, musical influences on compositions of the period, and specific compositional techniques incorporated. This process will:

confirm student knowledge & understanding of our developing musical vocabulary
confirm the level of understanding about individuals integral to the evolution of music, circumstances surrounding their lives, musical style, and compositional practices common to the various style periods
provide an opportunity for the application of newly-acquired knowledge about music to a novel context
allow students to gain experience in communicating with others about music, clearly expressing one's own opinions, beliefs, and preferences

Contents: Each group will present the information they have discovered by preparing a PowerPoint presentation. Presentation length requirements vary for the Brief & Final Presentations. The Brief presentations require a minimum of 15 PowerPoint slides, not including the title slide and reference slide(s). The length of the Final Presentation should be a minimum of 25 slides, also not including the title slide and reference slides. To receive complete credit, the PowerPoint file must be submitted to the appropriate forum on the Moodle site on or before the due date stated in the course syllabus. Every member of the group will be responsible for researching the chosen topic thoroughly and assisting in the creation of a presentation content for the purpose of communicating the information to other members of the class. The presentation should be well-organized & coherent, and each member of the group must actively participate in the research and presentation creation processes. Topics for the Brief Presentations will be assigned by the instructor at least two weeks before the due date (less advance time during summer sessions). For the Final Presentation, each group will decide upon a topic of interest. This topic must be submitted to Dr. Lipscomb on or before the due date stated in the course syllabus as part of the Timeline for Final Presentation assignment. Topics are approved on a "first-come, first-served" basis, and duplicate presentations will not be allowed. (Dr. Lipscomb will confirm approved topics and will notify groups if there is any duplication of topics.) The sooner a group requests a chosen topic, the more likely that it will still be available.

Important Note: due to the student evaluation component associated with the group presentations, the group presentations are excluded from the the 24-hour grace period and must be submitted by the stated deadline (see course syllabus) in order to receive full credit.

Each presentation must include ALL of the following items:

Introduction: provide a brief background (i.e., what musical, biographical, societal, and other influences lead to the contemporaneous musical style); also include a statement of why you find this particular topic - of all that could have been chosen - interesting. Please include a Title Slide with the artist name, a photograph, your group number, and the name of each group member who participated in the creation of the presentation.
Musical Analysis (Final Presentation ONLY): The group must provide an analytical discussion of one specific piece of music, providing a coherent discussion of this selection using our musical elements & structures as a basis. Choose one piece and one piece only by the group/artist you have selected; I expect to see a detailed analysis of this one song, rather than a superficial analysis of two or more songs. Your analysis absolutely must address ALL of the following musical aspects: instrumentation, meter, beat subdivision, texture, and form (using the letter-based system that was presented during the semester). The selected piece must NOT be one of the musical selections analyzed in our class text.
Conclusion: Discuss how this composer, performer, or piece represents (or does not represent) the typical musical style of the given time period; briefly suggest how this individual or musical composition fits into the evolution of rock & roll.
References (in APA format): each member of the group must provide independent references found in the process of researching the chosen topic. For the Brief Presentations, each member must contribute at least one reference. For the Final Presentation, each member much contribute at least three references (e.g., a group consisting of 5 members should have 15 references, i.e., 5 x 3 = 15). References can be books, encyclopedia references, or journal articles; for the Final Presentation, at least one of the references per group member must be a non-Internet source. The text required for this class may not be used as one of these references since all students are expected to have read this material. A complete list of all references used in the preparation of your presentation must be included as the final slide(s) of your PowerPoint file. [Note: the title slide and reference slide(s) do not count toward completion of the presentation length requirements stated above.] As in all scholarly writing, you are expected to cite your sources throughout the presentation, acknowledging the original individual(s) responsible for the ideas communicated. Not doing so opens you to a potential charge of plagiarism; see useful resources about plagiarism described below.
- Reference Style - American Psychological Association (APA) format
  - Purdue's Online Writing Lab (OWL)

In order to facilitate completion of these projects and implement a division of labor, each group member will be asked to assume an assigned "role" in the research process; recommended roles include:

artist biography and rationale for why this topic was selected
musical style: unique and/or innovative elements of the artist’s musical/performance style; how the assigned artist and their musical style fits into the evolution of rock music
influences: music that influenced this artist's style and later artists/groups influenced by the music of the assigned artist
other music of the period (for comparison), especially those that influenced the assigned artist; when appropriate, this should include important social & political events of the period (please focus primarily on those that are most relevant in relation to the artist and/or music created ... do not provide a general overview of the period)

… for groups with five members, two members should be assigned to one of the roles (the groups should make this decision democratically)

... for groups with less than four members, the group should decide how to spread the responsibilities of the unfilled role amongst other members

In addition, in preparation for the Final Presentation, all group members will be expected to participate in the musical analysis task.

I recommend that individual group members assume different roles for the Brief & Final Presentations; however, the group is free to decide how to assign roles, whether to change roles, etc. ... this is intended to be an execise in the democratic, collaborative process.

Group members will be required to deliver their information in advance of the submission date, so that an appointed person (or persons) will have time to create the PowerPoint presentation prior to the deadline.

A Note about Wikipedia

As you are well aware, Wikipedia represents an amazing "crowd source" project, involving hundreds of thousands of contributing individuals ... though without any significant editorial control (by design). While much of the information found on Wikipedia is accurate and reliable, some of it is not ... and there is no way that you - as a user - can know from day-to-day that the information you are finding is reliable to the extent that it is worthy of inclusion as a scholarly resource. Therefore, you may NOT use Wikipedia as a reference for your presentations or other work in this class. However, you can use Wikipedia - as I often do - as a starting point for learning about a topic; pursuing the references cited (original sources of the information) in the Wikipedia entry, as long as those particular resources are evaluated as quality sources of information that is reliable. Determining the quality and reliability of information sources is an absolutely crucial skill that you need to acquire as you pursue your academic goals.

Plagiarism in Scholarly Writing

When writing an academic paper, there are clear rules concerning the use of previously published content or information presented by another individual in the past. The use of quotation marks and citing the original source for such information is an absolute requirement in this class ... both in your written work and in the collaboative presentations you will create with your fellow group members. The great news is that it is perfectly fine - in fact, you are encouraged - to quote the words of previous experts on a given topic ... all you need to do is follow the established rules. Simply put, plagiarism will not be tolerated in this course. To ensure that you have a clear understanding of what constitutes plagiarism and how to avoid any possibilty of venturing into that dangerous realm, I provide the links below:

Definition of Plagiarism - UMN Student Conduct Code (pp. 1-2, 4)
Preventing Plagiarism - UMN Center for Writing
Quoting and Paraphrasing - UW-Madison Writing Center
Avoiding Plagiarism - Purdue Online Writing Lab

Grading:

For the Brief Presentations, a total of 65 points of the grade will be determined by the overall organization (15 points) and content (50 points). Other evaluative factors include: references (25 points) and oral presentation style (10 points).

For the Final Presentations, 50 points will be determined by the organization (10 points) & content (40 points), while 20 points will be determined by the completeness, clarity, and accuracy of the group's musical analysis (as described in #2 above). Other evaluative factors include: references (20 points) and oral presentation style (10 points).

IMPORTANT: when student evaluations of presentations are required, any student who does not submit evaluations of all group presentations other than their own group, will receive a "0" for their own group presentation grade!!

If you have questions about any aspect of this group presentation, feel free to contact me via email (lipscomb 'at' umn 'dot' edu).

NOTE: please be aware that, when oral presentations of these projects is required, I understand that it is impossible to cover all of this material - especially in the Final Project - within the allotted time frame ... and you will be strictly limited to the stated time frame. In the oral presentation, I expect for you to focus on "high points" about the artist/group you present. For the Final Presentation, you will certainly want to ensure there is enough time to demonstrate your knowledge about the required musical analysis. For the grade-based assessment I will perforrm, you can rest assured that I will carefully evaluate all of the content contained in your PowerPoint file.

Grades will be assigned according to the following set of grading rubrics:

Recommendations for effective oral presentations:

thoroughly research your assigned/chosen topic and spend a significant amount of time & effort narrowing down the content to what you consider to be the most significant pieces of information about your artist/group
when oral presentations are required, plan carefully what each group member will cover during the presentation; carefully time your presentation in rehearsals, so that you are able to cover all that you intend within the allotted time frame
- it is up to you how many of your group members actually present the information; some groups like to have everyone take a 2-3 minute segment, others prefer to select 1-2 members who are particularly skilled at verbal presentations and have them present on behalf of the group ... either approach is fine
- prepare in detail what each presenter will say; a rambling, disorganized presentation of information can make even a well-researched topic seem lacking in preparation
DO NOT read word for word what is displayed on each PowerPoint slide
- consider the words on screen an outline to assist you (and us) in following the organization of your presentation ... your job is to elaborate for us upon this skeletal outline
- it is often helpful to have a sheet of paper with a more detailed outline in your hands to facilitate this process of expansion and elaboration
DO NOT read from the screen ... this means your back is to the audience and has a very negative impact

Choose an interesting topic & have fun with it!