You must complete at least one main blog entry each week. [You can find the course blog site at: musicbibliography.blogspot.com] These entries need not be formal in tone, but they must be well written and indicate that you’ve thought about the material and listened to the music for the week. Blog entries may address any aspect of the material for the week: your response to the music, questions you have about the weekly material.
You are encouraged to link to other Web pages, incorporate video pertinent to the week, and also to cite the readings. When referencing course readings, for example, please use a parenthetical reference, e.g.: As Sampsel observes about starting a research project, “an encyclopedia or dictionary is a good place to begin with most music research questions” (Sampsel, p. 10). (Sampsel is the author of the book, and the page number is 10. In this case, since we’re all reading Sampsel’s book Music Research, we know what the writer is referencing. If you wanted to find the quote for verification, context, or greater detail, it would be relatively easy.)
A key component of your post are the tags that you assign at the end. A tag is a one-word description that describes something about the purpose or content of the post you’ve written. In the Blogger platform that we are using, tags are called labels. You must assign at least one label to each post, but you can always add more. As we get farther into the term, the labels will help us to isolate emerging themes, reference previous related blog posts, and create a shared vocabulary for categorizing posts.
online-exploratory for posts that respond to the online exploratory assignment (currently due Oct. 9)writing-sample for posts that present a writing sample for the peer-review exercise (responses should be posted as comments)music-writing for posts that relate to the writing about music well discussion, which will be throughout the termclassquestions for posts in which you raise a question about the course contentreview for posts that respond to, review, or critique a resource used in classreadings for posts that respond to specific class readingswriting for posts specifically about writing issues that arisequotes for quotes about music bibliography or from recent news items that touch on course themesBlog posts will be evaluated on:
In addition to your personal blog entry, you must read and comment on at least two other weekly posts.
Each week you may receive up to 5 points for your blogging activity: Each post is worth 3 points, and each response is worth 1 point.
To receive credit for your blog posts (excluding responses), they must be posted before 10pm on Saturday at the end of each week so that others have time to read and respond.
For more on blogging assignments, see: Jude Yew, Faison P. Gibson, and Stephanie D. Teasley, “Learning by Tagging: The Role of Social Tagging in Group Knowledge Formation,” MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching 2 (December 2006), http://jolt.merlot.org/vol2no4/yew.htm.