MUS10150

This module examines some of the key principles in writing about music. Those principles include style, tone, persuasive argumentation, and appropriate structure. In the initial part of the course students are instructed in these principles through the tasks of writing reviews. Students will receive feedback on a draft version of each assignment and can then revise the draft before submitting it for grading. During the second half of the module students will develop these principles in an academic context through planning, researching, and writing an academic essay of 1,500 words. That task is divided into a number of steps: putting together an annotated bibliography and essay outline; drafting a section of the essay and finally completing it. Formative feedback for the first two steps step (including peer feedback by other students) is intended to improve the final product. In this way the module equips students both with a general understanding of the different ways of writing about music and the more specific techniques necessary to produce good academic work. The options and dangers of using AI tools such as ChatGPT will also be discussed and demonstrated.
This module uses the yellow ("Check") mode of the College of Arts and Humanities "traffic light system" with regard to the use of AI (see https://www.ucd.ie/artshumanities/study/aifutures/trafficlightsystem/). Specifically, its use for correction, translation, citation, improvement, feedback, and brainstorming are permitted (see the webpage for details). However, each use must be documented in an appendix (indicating which AI app was used, the date of access, and citing the specific prompt(s)).
UCD's target to demonstrate its commitment to sustainability in all its varieties will also be contextualised.

Recording a class is not permitted without the lecturer’s approval.
Generative AI can be deployed to suggest literature on a topic, for translation purposes and to straighten out the wording if a student is dyslexic or has a similar registered disability. The general principle should be that the student undertakes the bulk of the conceptual planning and working-out of an assignment’s details with some supportive input from the AI, and never the other way round.
One always has to keep in mind two risks: Generative AI is not a database, it “generates” its results and can get things wrong or even make them up entirely (“hallucinations”). Secondly, one always has to check the results for relevant details that ought to be there yet have somehow been left out – which is only possible on the basis of separate, independent research.
At the end of each assignment there has to be an AI statement. If AI was consulted the student has to indicate in detail at the end which AI it was, when it was used and to what purpose. If AI was not used the student still has to add a statement to that effect, too (without it grades and feedback won’t be released).