LIGN 42 Final Project Guide and Rubric

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LIGN 42 Final Project Guide and Rubric

Will Styler, Revised Winter 2022

For a successful final project, you will be graded on the following dimensions, each contributing in varying degrees to your final grade. They are presented roughly in order of importance, and the four ‘Levels’ of mastery can be thought of as corresponding roughly to ‘95%’, ‘80%’, ‘60%’, and ‘0%’. Your overall grade for the project will be based roughly on your overall level across the categories, adjusting for other factors (unclarity, missing sections, exceptional or low effort, etc).

The Big Thing: Effort Matters

Every year, I get one or two students who attempt to submit exceptionally short, shoddy, or last-minute work, figuring ‘oh well, I’ll probably get a C and that’ll be OK’. And every year, those students are shocked when they realize that they’ve just earned a 15% on something worth 30% of their grade. Papers which do not even come close to meeting the length guidelines, just engage with the rubric in a few, token measures, or show little understanding of course material are really frustrating as an instructor, and are a sign that you simply didn’t try very hard.

So, please, start early, put in effort, and make sure that you’re meeting the standards in the rubric. And if you choose not to do these things, please act with integrity and understanding when you fail the assignment.

Submission Types

Because this is a class on memes, it seems fitting to allow an internet-first final project. As such, you have the option to submit your final project either as an academic paper, or as a website. Although in both cases, you’ll be focusing in on one area of memery, the goals will differ slightly:

1. For an academic paper, your goal will be primarily depth, showing the reader that you not only understand the material we covered, but that you’ve taken your analysis further and deeper than what we did in class.
2. For a website or multimedia project, your goal will be primarily teaching, with the goal of creating a web presence from which somebody could learn about the analysis that you’ve done. Although you may not go much further past what we’ve done in class, you need to make sure that your site provides useful information about this sort of analysis to an interested lay person.

A note on the website or multimedia project: This is a different skillset, and you’re welcome to do anything from a Google Sites or Wix page, to a well-styled static webpage, all the way up to a fully styled interactive web experience. Similarly, you can make a (large) series of TikToks, or a nice big YouTube video, etc. The ‘quality’ or finishing of the site is only going to be graded insofar as it impedes my ability to experience the site. If you don’t feel like you’re capable of making a website, and nobody in your group is, then feel free to choose the paper, or to learn how!

The Rubric will vary slightly below depending which of these options you choose.

Project Topic Discussion

There are many different kinds of project topics, including many I haven’t even thought of yet. So, if you have a passion for a specific research, following that passion is more important than anything else. You’re welcome to meet with me or chat with me before/after class if you have a topic in mind which you’re not sure about, or which you feel might be at the borders of ‘acceptable’. But here are some rough scaffolds which could make a great project.

• Meme Morphology and Semantics: One fruitful way to study the meaning, composition, or productive elements of memes is by making memes and seeing how people react. So, you might create a small survey using Google Forms, showing hand-created memes of a certain type and then asking people to tell you about the meanings which they interpret in them. Doing this, you can ask questions about the meanings of fonts, formats, images, and more.
  • A question like “Do these two templates mean the same thing?” could be answered by putting them both in one context and asking people what the differences are
  • You could also study the impact (heh) of font by creating the same meme with many different fonts and getting different opinions
  • You could also create new memes and let people judge if they’re ‘grammatical’ or ‘make sense’
• Meme History and change: If you’re interested in meme change, you might pick a particular template or family of templates and try and find examples of it, discussing changes in meaning, usage, and more. Note that you’re going to have to provide an order of magnitude more information and investigation than KnowYourMeme to do this right.
• Meme Sociolinguistics: If you’re interested in the social nature of memes, you might consider looking at…
  1. where given templates/ideas/elements occur (different forums, communities, etc)
• Meme Anthropology: This course is situated primarily in the American meme context, but places around the world have memes. So, you could use the sorts of ideas and analyses we’ve discussed in the course to describe and ‘introduce’ your instructor to the memes, templates, and formats found in another place, culture, or subculture on the internet.
• Something else: There’s lot’s more to study, so if you have an idea, let me know and we can talk it out!

Project Proposal

Your project proposal should be 1-2 single spaced pages submitted as a PDF, not including images, providing and discussing the following information:

• Your name
• Who you’re working with (if applicable)
• What research question you’ll address. Things like…
  • “Is there a link between political affiliation and the use of pepe memes?”
  • “What effect does font choice have on meme meaning?”)
• Give an example of what you’re talking about (e.g. share a few memes showing the characteristics you’re interested in)
• Discuss the specific kind(s) of analysis you’re doing, making specific reference to the concepts and ideas from class
• Discuss what will be challenging about this topic
  • “It may be difficult to find people who’ve never seen a trollface meme to test on”
• What medium you’re planning to submit
  • Academic paper, an educational website, or educational video(s)?
• Share the specific conclusions or ‘takeaways’ you’re hoping to get from this paper. Things like…
  • “I hope to get a better sense of when exactly doge memes lost the poor grammar and why”
  • “I hope to understand how the use of papyrus font is understood to change the meaning in memes”
  • “I hope to have more concrete data as to the frequency and nature of pepe memes in different political subcultures”
• Why is this topic interesting to you and your group members?

Grading Rubric

A Masterful proposal will…

• Discuss all of the elements above, providing concrete examples and deliverables
• Provide clear discussion of how you plan to implement this
• Lay out the steps required to complete this project in a clear outline
• Show evidence of careful consideration of the problems and difficulties involved.
• Show clear understanding of the challenges,

An Acceptable proposal will…

• Discuss all of the elements above, but with fewer examples or direct deliverable items
• Provide discussion of how you plan to implement the project, but with some areas of vagueness or large missing steps
• Focus more on deliverables than the process of getting there, with little evidence of planning
• Feel a bit more rushed, or like a rough gesture in the direction, rather than a clear set of plans
• Show understanding of the challenges involved, but doesn’t show how the student(s) are equipped to meet them

A Novice proposal will…

• Discuss most or all of the elements above, but perhaps omitting some examples.
• Provide only vague information about the planned direction
• Promise an outcome with no discussion of the process
• Feel last-minute, under-planned, or show little effort.
• Be substantially shorter than the one to two page target length

A Way Off proposal will…

• Fail to discuss many or all of the elements above.
• Describe only a vague plan, with little differentiating information
• Give no details about the planned process
• Feel like little effort was spent in creating the proposal
• Be substantially shorter than the one page target length

Rough Draft Option

You are encouraged (but not required) to submit a rough draft to me at any point prior to the start of finals week. This should be a largely structurally complete paper, although leaving some schematic areas, pending a question for me (e.g. “Should I go into [subtopic] here?”) is very much acceptable. This is a great opportunity to make sure you’re on the right track, and to check in to make sure you’re executing your topic well. Rough drafts will get general and specific feedback, but of course, there may be issues which I don’t ‘catch’ during that initial read or new issues slipping in, so you’re not guaranteed to be 100% problem free even if you address all my feedback. Most importantly, this is a great way to avoid being ‘surprised’ by a poor final grade on the paper, if you’ve missed a major component of the rubric.

Given that you have the opportunity to submit a draft, as well as to discuss your project with me at any point, your final paper grades are final and non-negotiable. Even if you were ‘way off’ and misunderstood the prompt, rubric, or goals of the assignment, you had ample opportunity to get feedback or submit a draft, so you will not be offered opportunities for a ‘do over’.

Project Rubric

Cover Page

Every project submission should include a cover page with…

• Your name(s) and Group Name/Number
• The title of your project
• How I access your project (in the case that it’s not a paper)
  • The URL of your website
  • A Google Drive or YouTube link to your video
  • The account name of your TikToks
  • Any other information (e.g. the order I should watch videos in, or specific and non-intuitive guidance about where I should go and click to get ‘all the content’)
• A description of who did what on the project
  • This is so I know that everybody played an active role, or in the case that one person wasn’t pulling their weight, this is your place to tell me this.
• Whether you want actual written or spoken feedback on the project, or would just prefer to get a grade
  • If you’re never going to look at the paper again, you can save us both some time!

In the case of the website or video/TikTok submission, a submitted PDF on Canvas with the above information will suffice.

Academic Papers

• Should follow all other rubric items
• Should be submitted on Canvas as a PDF

Websites

• Should be up and online starting at the submission deadline until at least the start of the following quarter
  • You will be graded on your linked site, and if I can’t access it, you will be awarded a zero.
  • Double check that your link works before submitting

Videos (or series of TikToks/Reels/Shorts)

• Can be submitted as a video or folder of videos with clear ordering, or posted publicly.
• Should be ‘up’, publicly accessible without sending requests or adding the account, and online starting at the submission deadline until at least the start of the following quarter
  • “unlisted” YouTube videos are fine, but ‘Private’ are not.
  • You will be graded on your linked work, and if I can’t access it, you will be awarded a zero.
  • Double check that your link works before submitting

Scope of Information

Note that academic papers will be necessarily have a larger scope than sites, as the goal is greater depth, at the cost of some explanation and teaching.

• Masterful: Discusses a question which is suitably complex to merit a final course project and to show depth of learning from the course, but also is sufficiently narrow in scope to be able to come to reasonable conclusions within the bounds of the project. In some cases, this might involve expansion (e.g. “Turns out my topic wasn’t that big, but I expanded it slightly and looked at this related question”) or tuning (“Rather than under-doing my original question, I’ve chosen to focus on just this community”).
• Acceptable: Project is able to address the topic well, generally, but has some feeling of ‘running out of space/time’ or ‘fluffing it up’ a bit to make a final project.
• Novice: Project covers a topic which is either so broad as to be impossible to ‘finish’ in this paper, or so narrow that the paper is overly short or ‘light on substance’
• Way Off: Project asks a question which is hopelessly broad (e.g. ‘How do memes work in society?’), or so narrow as to not be a project (e.g “When did the doge meme first start?”)

Demonstration of Knowledge

• Masterful: Student paper shows considerable and nuanced knowledge and attention to the material from the course, making regular reference to concepts from class and homeworks, fully engaging with the material taught in class, and potentially, goes beyond it into independent research.
• Acceptable: The paper shows attention and engagement with the class materials, but occasionally neglects some important facts or discussions from the course, or occasionally shows confusion with the nature, functioning or limitations of some of the analysis discussed.
• Novice: The paper makes occasional reference to the concepts discussed in class, but repeatedly shows failures of understanding of the concepts discussed or their applicability to the questions at hand.
• Way Off: Writeup largely fails to demonstrate attention to or knowledge of the material from the course, instead giving explanations so superficial as to be available even to those who haven’t taken LIGN 42.

Richness

• Masterful: Project engages with the question with depth and nuance, considering not just the main question, but related issues, and show clear consideration of the best analytical ways to address those questions. Masterful projects also ‘go a step beyond’, addressing, considering, or at least showing consideration towards additional questions which arise as a result of the research being done.
• Acceptable: Project engages well with the main question, addressing it (nearly) completely, but without any additional depth or sophistication.
• Novice: Project engages with the main question in only a basic, ‘watered down’ sense, perhaps answering it only in a specific context (without justification for doing so) or answering it in an incomplete manner.
• Way Off: The project is exceedingly shallow, barely engaging with the research question, or only discussing it at a superficial level.

Formatting and Length

To do this assignment well as a paper, expect to write 3500 words or so. Note that students with strong command of the material might be able to excel in a bit less, and students who are struggling could easily provide 10,000 words without showing their knowledge. Note that papers submitted by groups will be expected to have a greater scope and detail than individual papers, so a 3500 word paper from five people would be considered ‘suspiciously short’, but it’d be fine from a single person. Additionally, feel free to use APA or MLA formatting as a baseline, particularly for citations, and you should use hierarchical formatting (e.g. labeled sections, subsections, subsubsections), but I will not be grading on deviations from an arbitrary set of formatting laws, because we both have better things to do with our lives.

For a website, this is meant to be a longer read, and you’ll probably have an equivalent 3500 words. Whether this is done across several pages, or one page with interactivity, doesn’t matter so much. In terms of formatting, please feel free to be creative or memey, but please keep it readable.

For a video or series of videos, I’m expecting at least 20 minutes of content, showing clear evidence of the entire group’s involvement.

• Masterful: The project is sufficiently long to demonstrate knowledge, richness of the question, and show proper scope, but without dragging or feeling like words are being added for the sake of talking. Formatting is reasonable, readable, and enhances the text. Citations, where given, are reasonably formatted and contain the information needed to be followable (e.g. URLs).
• Acceptable: Project length is sufficient, although perhaps a bit too brief or too wordy. Formatting is acceptable, if occasionally distracting or adding difficulties.
• Novice: Project is ‘a bit too short’ to accomplish the needed demonstration of knowledge and address the question, or buries lack of knowledge in a mountain of text. This could also apply if the formatting is distracting, problematic, or hurtful to the argumentation.
• Way Off: The project is so short as to be unable to address the appear ‘last minute’ or ‘low effort’, and not given enough space to demonstrate knowledge. Or is presented without formatting or sectioning, or citations are missing crucial information

Structure and Organization

Please structure your project with numbered sections, subsections, and subsubsections (where needed), to make things easier both in reference and readability. Don’t worry about ‘transitions’, just as long as the organization is OK.

For sites and videos, remember that the structure tells a story. Links, page divisions, and more should be in service of the content.

• Masterful: The project is well organized, with the introduction discussing the structure of the paper to guide the reader. Sections are clear and cross-referenced throughout the paper where needed. Transitions between sections are clear, and the sections make sense.
• Acceptable: Structure of the project is acceptable, if somewhat difficult to understand or poorly explained. The reader has a rough understanding what’s going on, even if it’s never explained.
• Novice: The project’s structure is counterintuitive and not understandable, with the structure (or lack thereof) hurting the argumentation considerably.
• Way Off: The project has no discernible structure nor organization, or student does not use basic structural elements like sentences, paragraphs, or sections/subsections.

Language and Argumentation

Note that things like your language proficiency and register (e.g. ‘how academic you sound’) are graded here only to the extent that they hinder your ability to be understood. Particularly if you’re newer to English, I get that you may have typos or grammatical issues, but I won’t mark you off for them unless it’s to the point where I cannot understand what you’re trying to say or where it introduces massive ambiguity.

For websites and video content, please make sure that you’re teaching, not just telling. So, explain linguistic terms, go a step further to make things clear, and much like both the Backstreet Boys and Math professors, tell me why. A website which is understandable only to people who have taken the class will be Novice at best.

• Masterful: Student language use is consistently clear and understandable, with a reasonable level of formality for academic writing. Additionally, the project was clearly proofread, with typoes and English language grammar issues relatively rare and not considerably affecting the argumentation.
• Acceptable: Student language use is largely understandable, but in places unclear, or with a sufficient number of typoes or English language grammar issues as to start to hinder my understanding of the argumentation.
• Novice: The argumentation is regularly unclear, and my ability to understand the content of the project is considerably hindered by typoes, difficult to understand argumentation, or English language grammar issues.
• Way Off: The project is not written in English, is largely incomprehensible, or shows evidence of automatic machine translation.

Academic Integrity and Citation

Note that plagiarism or other academic integrity issues will result in an automatic ‘0’ on the paper.

Also note that I understand that ‘citing’ a meme is very difficult, as these are necessarily viral, emergent, and there’s no ‘canonical surprised pikachu’ to cite. So long as you make references to specific concepts as clear as you can, and I can click links to find websites that you’re discussing, that’s fine.

Note as well that some of your data may come from private communities. These are difficult to cite, and may involve logins or paywalls. I’m happy to have something like (UCSD’s LingUA Discord Server, Private Server on Discord.com, Accessed March 19 2022) as a citation. Make sure that you have consent before using specific memes or information from private spaces, and remove identifying information.

For websites, you’ll still want to cite your sources, but you can use [1] style citations instead. And formatting should follow web conventions.

[1] John’s house of Iguana Memes <iguanamemes.com>

• Masterful: All direct quotes or external references are cited, with the source given clearly in a ‘Works Cited’ section or elsewhere, in the format of your choice (APA is a fine default) including the necessary information to track down the resource. All other words are your own.
• Acceptable: All direct quotes or external references are cited, but the citations do not include enough information for the reader to locate the original resource.
• Novice: All direct quotes or external references are cited, but the citations do not include additional information.
• Way Off: Sources are not cited, or there is evidence of academic dishonesty. Be careful to cite all your sources and quotes (outside of the class material).