This document should help you prepare your Intelligence in animals
and machines essays. The guidelines are meant for postgraduate
students taking this course.
Formal assessment is by submission of a short term
paper (3500 words) due at the start of the Spring Term (precise date to be provided soon during seminars). Essays will be marked for content and presentation. Below there's a list of items that contribute to the final mark:
a) Content
Clear objectives
Background literature
Quality of problem
Creativity/ Originality
Sophistication.
Self-critique
b) Presentation
Organization
Clarity
References
General presentation
English
And this is a rough description of how final marks
should be interpreted:
70% to 100% -- EXCELLENT
Shows very good understanding supported by evidence
that the student has gone beyond what was taught by extra study, or creative
thought. Work at the top end of this range is of exceptional quality.
60% to 69% -- GOOD
Very competent in all respects, substantially correct
and complete knowledge but not going beyond what was taught.
50% to 59% -- SATISFACTORY
Competent in most respects. Minor gaps in knowledge
but reasonable understanding of fundamental concepts.
40% to 49% -- BORDERLINE
Significant gaps in knowledge but some understanding
of fundamental concepts.
30% to 39% -- FAIL
Inadequate knowledge of the subject. Work is seriously
flawed, displaying major lack of understanding, irrelevance or incoherence.
Below 30%: UNACCEPTABLE (OR UNSUBMITTED)
Work is either not submitted, or - if submitted
- so seriously flawed that it does not constitute a bona-fide script.
PLAGIARISM:
I don't expect to have to clarify the rules on plagiarism at this level, nor to encounter any case. Fortunately, in the past such cases have been extremely few in this course. Please, refer to the rules and guidelines about plagiarism provided in your student's handbook. Any text not written by you, not clearly delimited by quotation marks, and not clearly attributed in the main body of the essay will be considered as a case of plagiarism and referred to the misconduct investigation panel for the decision about appropriate penalties which range from loss of points for this assignment to loss of honours for your degree. Best to avoid the risk.
Proposal:
By the end of week seven you have the
option of submitting a 1-page proposal for your essay topic. You will get
feedback regarding appropriateness of topic, additional literature if necessary,
and general comments. You can hand this in directly to me or send me a
proposal via email.
Advice on Topics
The topic of the essay should relate directly to
some of the topics seen during the course. Ideally, it would combine a
few of the main themes discussed during the seminars. It is strongly advised,
however, that you avoid very general topics such as "animal and machine
consciousness", "the future of AI", "the evolution of mind", etc. These
make the writing of a good essay very difficult. It is much better to narrow
the scope to a tractable size to questions that may be relevant to the
more general topic but can also be approached fruitfully within 3500 words;
for instance, "can animals remember past events, how?", "what would be
the use of a robot model of wasp navigation?", "how can animal social behaviour
inform the design of situated robots?"
There's a list of example topics at the end of
the handout. Please, consider these examples only as suggestions. They are meant for undegraduates and further guidance is provided for them. Much more elaborate proposals and work is expected at Master level.
The essay will be used by the examiners as evidence
that you can integrate a large body of information in a fruitful manner
to support an interesting argument. Original thinking is strongly encouraged,
either in the form of critical analysis and/or suggestions for resolution
of theoretical disputes, design of future experiments and models using
artificial systems, as well as suggestions for biologically-inspired AI.
You will also have to demonstrate that you can anticipate objections and
know the limitations of your arguments. Speculations and opinions are acceptable
as long as they are explicitly presented as such.
The objectives of the essay should be made clear
at the start and the essay should show some advancement towards the resolution
of the opening questions.
Use the course literature to support your arguments.
You can also use additional literature, but try to be economical.
Advice on Writing:
Structure and planning is very important. Spend
some time thinking about what you want to say and how you will build your
argument before you start writing. Stream-of-consciousness styles do not
usually work. There are different writing styles that are valid. Here I'm
just suggesting one possible structure:
Abstract:Short description of the main questions that the essay will address and the main conclusions that it will reach.
Introduction:
Set the stage. Discuss the backdrop to your topic. Present the objectives. Give an outline of your argument and how you will present it in the rest of the essay.
Central body (as many sections as necessary):
Depending on the topic this part may include a very short literature review, presentation of evidence, critical arguments for or against theoretical views, experiments or models, and the central point of the essay. Please, plan this section carefully. Write a first draft, read it critically as one of the papers we've discussed, identify the weak points, check if the text needs to be re-organised, supplemented by more material, qualified, etc., address these problems, re-write it, and start again and go around this loop a few times until you're satisfied you absolutely cannot improve the essay any further.
Conclusions:
Sum up, wrap up, discuss the achievements and limitations of what you've written, open and unresolved issues, and implications and speculations.
References:
List clearly all your sources. Follow a consistent style, (if in doubt use the referencing style of any of the papers we've discussed). Points are deducted for missing information in references (years, page numbers, publishers, date a website was visited, etc.)
If in doubt about any of these guidelines, please
contact me.