1. MPATE-GE 2626: Thesis in Music Technology
Literature Review and Methods

2. Course schedule Mar 6 Status report #2 due Mar 13 Method worksheet due
Apr 3
Data analysis worksheet due
Apr 10
Status report #4 due
Apr 17
Presentation outline due
Apr 22
Thesis due
Apr 24
Practice presentations
May 1
May 8
May 14-16
Thesis defenses

3. In-class activity
Class activity: volunteer to share opening paragraphs worksheet?
In groups of two
(Digitally) exchange your opening paragraphs worksheet
Read each other’s worksheet
Give each other feedback on the clarity of what they are trying to convey
Also make suggestions about how they could be improved

4. Purpose of a literature review
Convey to reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic
The review must be defined by a guiding concept (e.g., your research objective) – should not be just a descriptive list of sources or set of summaries
Should situate your research focus within the context of the wider academic community in your field
Should report your critical review of the relevant literature and identify a gap within that literature that your research addresses
After reading your literature review, it should be clear to the reader that you have up-to-date awareness of the relevant work of others, and that the research question you are asking is relevant

5. Structure and organization
Organize the literature review into sections that present themes or identify trends, including relevant theory
A thematic organization makes it much easier to examine contrasting perspectives, theoretical approaches, methodologies, findings, etc., and to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of previous research

6. Structure and organization
Examples of ways you might structure your literature review:
Chronologically; although be careful not just to list items; you need to write critically, not just descriptively
By theme; this is useful if there are several strands within your topic that can logically be considered separately before being brought together
By contextual topic area: historical background, practice background, methodological background, literary background, etc.
If you are doing a thesis on recommendation systems based on listener emotion, you might have these contextual areas: overview of existing recommendation systems, signal processing/machine-learning techniques relevant to your approach; features for detecting/classifying emotion in audio; perceptual work on music and emotion.
By development of ideas; this could be useful if there are identifiable stages of idea development that can be looked at in turn
By some combination of the above, or another structure you create

7. Structure and organization cont.
There are many possible structures, and you need to establish one that will best fit the “story” you are telling of the reason for your study. Once you have established your structure you need to outline it for your reader
A narrative thread - although you clearly need to write in an academic style, it can be helpful to imagine that you are telling a story

8. Structure and organization cont.
If there is a key article or book that is of major importance to the development of your own research ideas, it is important to give extra space to describing and critiquing that piece of literature in more depth
Similarly, if there are some studies that you will be referring to more than to others, it would be useful to give them a full report and critique at this stage

9. Reviewing your review
Once you have a first draft of your literature review it is possible for you to assess how well you have achieved your aims. Useful questions at this stage include:
What is the balance between description and comment?
Have I missed out any important dimension of the argument, or literature?
Have I supported the development of each step in my argument effectively?
Is the material presented in the most effective order?
Are there places where the reader is left with unanswered questions?

10. Reviewing your review
Is every element of my research question supported by the preceding material?
Have I explained to the reader the relevance of each piece of evidence?
Is there any material that is interesting but which does not contribute to the development of the argument?
Have I explained adequately the justification for this research approach / topic / question?
Are my references up to date?
How effective is my linking of all the elements?

11. In-class activity: Current state of your literature review
In pairs
How much of your review have you written so far?
How much has it changed since your thesis proposal?
What is the structure of your review?

12. Method section
This is where you describe exactly how you approached your thesis project
Precision and details are critical to this section
The idea is that you describe what you did clearly enough so someone can replicate the process
Write in past tense

13. Method section Describe the procedure. It could be about…
Data collection (human or machine-produced data)
Software or hardware development
The creative process
Recording techniques
You should make sure to describe the resources you utilized

14. Method worksheet assignment
Worksheet due next week, March 13
Any concerns or questions about how/what to write?
Read “Writing a Method Section.pdf”) for more information on how to write about experiments with human subjects. This file can be found on the course website, NYU Classes (Method Worksheet assignment attachment) or at this link:

15. References