These guidelines were prepared for doctoral students in the Department of Music and Performing Arts in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. They are intended as a supplement to the general handbook for doctoral students issued by the School.
At the Topic Review, doctoral candidates introduce their topic, assert its significance and the need for study, and contextualize their research goals in relation to the scholarly discourse. Presenting their research questions and outlining their methodology, they invite their peers to assess their proposed project.
Preparing for the Topic Review provides an opportunity for doctoral candidates to immerse themselves in their areas of interest and to develop suitable and significant topics for their research. Working to define and focus topics and research questions, students should discuss their ideas with their advisors, mentors, and other students and faculty members.
Before beginning, adopt a style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago Manual, etc.) and format all documents and sources consistently. Doctoral candidates should choose a style guide favored in their field and promoted by its primary journals. Seek input from your advisor. Whatever style is selected, it is crucial to be consistent in the treatment of sources (as in bibliography and footnotes) and the formatting of text. It does not take long to become familiar with a style and it will save considerable time if editorial practices are consistent from the start.
Students are encouraged to prepare an engaging multimedia presentation. The accompanying written document should be no more than ten pages, excluding bibliography, title page, and curriculum vitae. While the Topic Proposal need not include a table of contents, it should include:
Title and title page
Brief statement of the topic
Need for study
Discussion of the supporting literature
Articulation of research design and/or specific research methods
Significance and Contributions to the Field
Bibliography
Curriculum vitae
A topic should emerge from the doctoral candidate’s background, education, expertise, and passionate interest. As doctoral candidates center on a topic, they should examine the viability of that topic from several perspectives, including:
Their interests, expertise, and background
Its significance and importance
Its specificity and scope
The availability of information and sources
Its suitability in relation to their degree program and possible research designs and methods
Interests and abilities should not be confused or equated with one another A student may have an absorbing interest in black holes but lack the background, expertise, and training, to pursue that interest seriously. Interests and skills do not always overlap. Researchers must already have or be willing to acquire skills requisite to conduct their chosen inquiry.
The topic must be contextualized in relation to the extant scholarly discourse. Researchers should consider the dissertation literature; journals in the field and the important articles and critical reviews of literature within these publications; books and monographs; symposia proceedings and conference reports; and online resources. Too often, students focus on books and ignore the dissertations, monographs, and articles in journals that have important bearing on their research and inquiry. Researchers should cast a wide net, but always maintain a critical stance. Be skeptical. Question the material. Look for inconsistencies, contradictions, and flawed arguments. Strong topics often address flaws or gaps in the existing literature.
In the literature review, the doctoral candidate may:
Identify a theoretical grounding for their work, or research on which they seek to expand
Examine the relation between theory and practice
Consider clinical or “real world” applications
Ask:
What issues or information hasn’t been addressed?
Has some of the research missed critical information or, in your own informed opinion, drawn wrong or incomplete conclusions?
Does the present discourse point to the need for further inquiry?
The Literature Review allows the doctoral candidate not only to contextualize their work, but demonstrate their familiarity with the significant researchers, scholars, and practitioners in their field. There is a scholarly dialectic in which scholars respond to and build upon the work of other scholars. Thus there is activity of agreeing with past research or being critical of past efforts, and posing alternative views and findings. Doctoral researchers participate in this dialectic process, contributing to the exchange of ideas and development of knowledge in their field.
The Topic Proposal does not include a lengthy statement on method; this is reserved for the Dissertation Proposal, which will not only fully describe and explicate the method but include a sample analysis or pilot study. The Topic Proposal should include at least a paragraph or two about method. Recommendations may be made concerning the acquiring of certain skills or background in order to adequately conduct the proposed research. There is a distinction to be made between methodology (the study of method per se) and method (a specific technique or set of techniques for gathering, assessing, categorizing and analyzing information). In many ways, the early stage of research is at a level where appropriate methods may have not yet been identified.
Doctoral candidates should take time to become familiar with issues and research designs common to their field. Different methodologies pertain to research projects that are aesthetic, descriptive, historical, experimental, and philosophical. Determining the nature of the inquiry is crucial, as are the implications of quantitative and qualitative methods in relationship to stated research goals.
The guidelines for human subject participation in research may require obtaining releases and following specific protocols. At the proposal stage, doctoral researchers must formally file their proposals with the University's Human Subjects Review Panel for exemption or approval. This applies to any contact with human beings for the purpose of obtaining information. Additionally, for studies that may require access to specific populations, facilities, or archives, it is important to establish contact to solicit support as well as obtain permission to use such resources. The viability of many studies often depends on adhering to this protocol. At this stage, the researcher must establish that they will have sufficient access to information. This might mean securing a written approval or commitment from an archive, a publisher, a museum, or a school. It might mean the acquiring of specific skills such as a language, or statistics, specific analytic skills, or techniques in historical research and writing.
A strong topic will increase knowledge in the field, develop theory, or meet perceived needs in the discipline. Without a deep knowledge of the information already established within the field, it is impossible to demonstrate the significance and importance of any proposed study. Doctoral candidates should be specific and realistic about their proposed contributions to the discipline, specifying the audience for their research and how this audience will benefit the proposed project at hand.
Moving from general interest in a field to a deeper awareness of a need for certain knowledge in that discipline, the topic becomes more specific. The Topic Proposal establishes a specific area of inquiry which will be further refined and developed in the proposal stage.
In becoming specific, you have to consider the element of scope for the proposed topic. The magnitude of the research and the amount of information to be gathered are elements of scope. Researchers consider the number of subjects in an empirical study; the number of works considered in a music-theoretical analysis; and the time necessary to develop and test a new protocol. Scope is entirely relative. Sometimes the difficulty of tracking down information increases the scope of the research, as locating lost documents or sources becomes part of the research problem itself. Sometimes the sheer amount of data can be overwhelming; in other cases, the lack of information can provide different kinds of obstacles.
Including a curriculum vitae at the end of the Topic Proposal allows the faculty and student’s peers a chance to examine the viability of the study in relation to the researcher’s background and expertise. This is one aspect of suitability.
It is good to have this preliminary approval at the topic stage. You will not be expected to provide detail in the Topic Proposal, but if you have established the availability of resources, your work for the proposal will be greatly enhanced. In the proposal, researchers are often required to give evidence of availability and access as well as examples of release forms and questions to be used in an interview or questionnaire.
There is no specific format for the Topic Proposal.