This blog mainly contains my general outline for my piece, as well as part of the script proposal.
My new title for the paper is Should Audio Papers be an alternative to Written Dissertations in the 3rd year of a Level 4 University Course in the arts? A lengthy title but is exactly what the paper is about and is more in the style of what a written dissertation’s title would be like.
In terms of the initial idea for the structure of the piece, I reduced the points I wanted to talk about previously to these sections
- Intro
- What are Audio papers and Written Dissertations?
- Benefits of a written dissertation as a means to prepare and teach students how to formalise their ideas and also acclimatise them to the field of sound arts
- Why I wouldn’t be making an audio paper in my final year
And here is my script proposal which is practically just a part of my script.
Should audio papers be an alternative to written dissertations in a level 4 university course in the arts?
In this paper, what an audio paper and a written dissertation are, will be defined and compared to one another.
Then the reasons why written dissertations could be more useful than audio papers in a formative learning context will be discussed. Finally, this paper will conclude by answering the aforementioned question and why I will not be making an audio paper in my final year.
The audio paper format will be used as an alternative to the classic written dissertation in the third year. While it can seem on the surface that this is a solution to problems with accessibility or that it is a good way to make the dissertation relevant to a course in sound art, problems with fairness, usefulness, and equivalents easily flare up. This paper seeks to understand what an audio paper really is and if it is fit to truly replace the written dissertation or even be a counterpart to it in the environment of an undergraduate course at university.
First, we must define what is being argued. As is the definition in many dictionaries, a dissertation is “a long piece of writing on a particular subject, especially one that is done in order to receive a degree at college or university” [1]. A dissertation can also be characterized in other ways, but many of those characteristics are shown as a mirror of the proposed characteristics of an audio paper from SANNE KROGH GROTH’s and KRISTINE SAMSON’s manifesto in the Seismo graph.
A short definition for an audio paper would be that they “resemble the regular essay or the academic text in that they deal with a certain topic of interest, but presented in the form of an audio production.” [2] such a definition is brief due to its reduction of the differences between the two formats to just a difference in medium. The article goes on to describe those differences.
The first part of this manifesto perfectly highlights the difference between the audio paper and classic dissertations, “The audio paper affords performative aesthetics”. An audio paper is thought to be an experimental format that tries to develop the field of academic writing or works. This would be great to do as a project in an undergraduate course, but maybe not as an alternative to a conventional dissertation.
Fairness, “the quality of treating people equally or in a way that is right or reasonable” [3], a quality important in any standardized academic testing. if an audio paper is practically a performance, akin to a work of art, how can it be judged in the same way as any formal academic writing? Dissertations lack that performative aspect that its competitor has. It can only be judged for its context, how it analyzes, evaluates, and debates its topic, and the references used. With an extra factor in the marketing process of an audio paper in comparison to a dissertation, it would be easy to understand if it was easier to get a higher grade in the audio paper than the dissertation. Even in a sound art course, something like that cannot be called fair, as those who choose to just write are not treated equally to those who choose to speak.
“The audio paper is idiosyncratic.” the second proposed tenant for the format. The writers understand that conventions like the artist being the narrator lends itself 2 a more personal and empirical take on any topic.
Even with this small part of the paper, I’m running into pretty bad timing issues so I will need to cut a lot of the chaff. That chaff probably being the definitions and some of my usual “flare”.