Music Theory Department

Guidelines for Dissertation Proposals

General Information

This page provides information about specfic procedures in the music theory department. See the music graduate office page on Topic Proposal, Dissertation, and Defense for more general information.

Dissertation topics for students in the Ph.D. program are approved by the full departmental faculty. Topics may develop from a number of areas, including research done in one of the doctoral seminars and independent research. As the ideas for the topic are developing, you should discuss these with one or more faculty members who will provide feedback in focusing your proposal. You should ask one faculty member to serve as research director of the dissertation (who will also chair the student's Research Committee). This is the person you will work with most closely during the proposal, research, and writing stages.

The topic proposal is normally submitted after the written qualifying exams are completed, though may be submitted earlier. In any case, an approved topic proposal is required before the oral exams may be scheduled with the graduate office. The student will present the proposal in a meeting with the departmental faculty. Contact the department chair to schedule this meeting. At least one week before the meeting, the student should provide a printed copy of the proposal for each faculty member. In the proposal presentation, the faculty will likely ask questions about such things as prior work in the area, methodology, scope, and organization of the dissertation. The proposed research director will normally report the department's decision within a day after the meeting.

Proposal Format

The proposal does not need to follow a particular format, but the following information should be included:

• Name, degree
• Research committee desired. This normally includes three members of the department and one from an appropriate outside department. This is often musicology, but need not be.
• Title of proposed dissertation
• Short abstract of the proposed dissertation
• Discussion of the problem: why this is an important topic (1-2 pages)
• A review of the literature sufficient to demonstrate familiarity with the prior research relevant to the topic and to demonstrate that the topic is original and how the proposed research would fit into this body of work (usually 2-4 pages)
• Outline, discussion of methodology, examples (usually 5-8 pages)
  • Outline of the proposed dissertation (usually a chapter breakdown)
  • Discussion of the methodology to be used. This need not include complete analyses or a complete reporting on a statistical program yet, but should give an idea that you have seriously considered methodological issues and have an approach to the problem
  • Possible conclusions
• Bibliography

Students are encouraged to be concise. The proposal is usually 10-15 pages.