Thesis Proposal Lab
NMDS 5952
School of Media Studies
The New School
Fall 2025
Course webpage is here: http://peterasaro.net/courses/2025FThesis.html
Course blog is here: http://thesis2025.wordpress.com/
Course Description
This course supports students working on their Masters Thesis project Proposals for the Master of Arts in Media Studies degree.
Open only to M.A. degree candidates who have completed sufficent credits the semester prior. Students refine their project and begin research and production. The class mixes group workshops, in which students give progress reports and receive feedback, and one-on-one meetings with the Tutorial instructor and thesis advisors. By the end of the semester each student will have produced the final draft of a thesis proposal, in order to continue work on the thesis during the subsequent semester(s).
OFFICE HOURS: By Appointment
Please email me to setup an appointment.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS & GRADING:
Thesis Proposal is a Pass/Fail course, which is graded based on successful completion of the Thesis Proposal. The essential elements of this are: 1) To suecure the commitment of a Thesis Advisor and Second Reader toe guide your thesis project, among eligible faculty. 2) To clearly state your Research Question. 3) To articulate how you will Operationalize answering/responding to the Research Question. 4) Successfully motivate and describe the Research Methods to be used in the Thesis. 5) To initiate a Literature Review that captures the theoretical frameworks, discourses and key authors and concepts needed to articulate your Research Question and Methods.
Welcome to Thesis Proposal
The goal of Thesis Proposal is to develop your Thesis Proposal, and get it approved and signed by your First Reader (Thesis Advisor) and Second Reader, and submitted to School of Media Studies. You shuld already have discussed the project with potential faculty memebers to serve these roles. Please contact me immediately if you have not. Because every Thesis is different, the structure of Thesis Proposal is one of guided peer-learning and sharing. Which means students mainly share their research projects, questions, methods, strategies, issues and challenges with each other and receive helpful criticism and feedback from each other, as well as guidance and feedback from myself as the instructor.
This course has both on-line and on-site sections, which will be meeting in a hybrid setting. This will consist of Zoom on-line class sessions, and an opprtunity for in-person presentations of your thesis projects.
This course is graded Pass/Fail, and in order to Pass you must continue to meet with your Thesis Advisor (First Reader) and make progress on your Thesis, and complete ALL of the Tutorial Lab requirements: 1) One-on-one Meeting with me 2) Initial (Overview) Presentation of your Thesis Project to the group 3) Research Question written Exercise 4) Final (Research Question & Methods) Presentations of your Thesis Project to the group 5) Engage with and respond to peer presentations
You will have two short written assignments. In the first, you will write out your Research Question as clearly and succinctly as possible. You will then describe how you will Operationalize your Research Question, and the Research Methods you will deploy to answer it. You will also be expected to write a revised version of this assignment based on my feedback. The second assignment will be to draft an initial Literature Review, which captures key authors, text, concepts and dieas needed to both explicate your Research Question, and to contextualize your Thesis within a larger historical discourse or practice of research, scholarship or media produciton.
I strongly recommend that you review the readings for Week 4 "The Research Question: Formulation and Operationalization" of my research methods course Designing Methods for Media, which examines various ways of mixing methods to answer research questions about media, and prepares students to write a Thesis Proposal. Depending on your project, the readings for the other weeks may also be helpful for you as you think about your methods.
A major theme of the Methods course is that your research question and methods will, and should, evolve as you get deeper into you research project. This is true at the Proposal stage, but also as you begin to conduct the research during Thesis Tutorial. The iterative improvement of your research question and methods, based on feedback and initial results and discovery, are key to any successful research project.
You will be expected to make 2 presentations of your Thesis project to this class during the semester, once towards the beginning and again at the end of the semester. Details for the objectives of each presentation are below.I will schedule a time and space for these on campus (for on-site students) or on-line in either real-time Zoom sessions or pre-recorded digital presentations (for on-line students). Hopefully, on-line students will be able to participate as audience for the on-site sessions and vice versa.
You will all also have one-on-one meetings with me to discuss your Thesis projects and progress. The first presentation of your Thesis project will be by the end of September. If you are on-line we can meet via Zoom, and make arrangements for you to present your work on-line. The second presentation date will be before the end of the Semester.
Your Research Question Assignment, stating your research question and methods, will be due March 10.
Both presentations will be recorded in order to share with our on-line students, and on-line students will provide feedback. Presentations should aim to be 10 minutes long, with 5 minutes for questions. That is not much time so try to be concise and to the point, and recognize what your audience might already know and what you need to tell them. Practice your presentation for time. Powerpoints and other visuals are optional, but most students tend to use them.
Key Objectives for the First Presentation:What is your research topic and why is it interesting?
Key Objectives for the Second Presentation:
What is your research question and why is it relevant? What is the value of answering it?
What results/impact do you expect from this project?What methods will you use in your research?
Why are these methods appropriate, and why will they lead to greater understanding?
How are you going to operationalize your research question, and develop a practical research plan?
How do you plan to interpret your results? How do you plan to present your results?
What challenges do you foresee in completing the research?
By the end of this semester, you should be prepared to write your thesis, and register for Thesis Supervision.
Electronic Devices Policy
The use of electronic devices (phones, tablets, laptops, cameras, etc.) is permitted when the device is being used in relation to the course's work. All other uses are prohibited in the classroom and devices should be turned off before class starts.
Generative AI Policy
You are expected to do your own writing for this class. While you may use generative AI creatively in you final project, you must carefully describe its use and your own original conrtibutions to your final project as part of your proposal and final paper. You may also use generative AI to correct and improve your grammar and use of language, but the ideas and arugments of your texts should be yours. Your weekly blog posts should be your own writing and ideas. Any and all use of generative AI should be disclosed in the assignment when you turn it in. Violation of this policy will be treated as plagarism.
Academic Honesty and Integrity
Compromising your academic integrity may lead to serious consequences, including (but not limited to) one or more of the following: failure of the assignment, failure of the course, academic warning, disciplinary probation, suspension from the university, or dismissal from the university.
Students are responsible for understanding the University’s policy on academic honesty and integrity and must make use of proper citations of sources for writing papers, creating, presenting, and performing their work, taking examinations, and doing research. It is the responsibility of students to learn the procedures specific to their discipline for correctly and appropriately differentiating their own work from that of others. The full text of the policy, including adjudication procedures, is found at http://www.newschool.edu/policies/# Resources regarding what plagiarism is and how to avoid it can be found on the Learning Center’s website: http://www.newschool.edu/university-learning-center/student-resources/
The New School views “academic honesty and integrity” as the duty of every member of an academic community to claim authorship for his or her own work and only for that work, and to recognize the contributions of others accurately and completely. This obligation is fundamental to the integrity of intellectual debate, and creative and academic pursuits. Academic honesty and integrity includes accurate use of quotations, as well as appropriate and explicit citation of sources in instances of paraphrasing and describing ideas, or reporting on research findings or any aspect of the work of others (including that of faculty members and other students). Academic dishonesty results from infractions of this “accurate use”. The standards of academic honesty and integrity, and citation of sources, apply to all forms of academic work, including submissions of drafts of final papers or projects. All members of the University community are expected to conduct themselves in accord with the standards of academic honesty and integrity. Please see the complete policy here.Intellectual Property Rights
If you have concerns over the intellectual property rights for your thesis work, please refer to the University policies here: https://www.newschool.edu/provost/faculty-policies/# .
Week of Monday, September 1
LABOR DAY: NO CLASSWeek 1: September 8
The Research Question: Formulation and Operationalization (ONLINE)Required:
Martyn Shuttleworth, "Operationalization," Experiment-Resource.com
"Conducting Research," Purdue OWL, Purdue University.
Recommended:
"Formulating the Research Question: Step by Step"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operationalization
Week 2: September 15
Research Question Assignment Due (NO CLASS MEETING)Week 3: September 29
(Online) Thesis Formats & Literature ReviewRequired:
"Scientific Writing: Literature Review," The New School Writing Center.
"Scientific Writing: Research Proposals," The New School Writing Center.
"Artist's Statement," Wikipedia.org.
"Literature Review," Wikipedia.org.
"Literature Reviews," University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Writing Center..
Recommended:
"Handouts," The New School, University Learning Center..
"A Guide to Writing and Formatting Gallery Text," Denver Art Museum.
Week 4: October 6
One-on-One Meetings (NO CLASS!)Week of October 13: NO CLASS!
Week of October 20: NO CLASS!
Week 5: October 27
Thesis Project Presentations: Research Question (In-Person & ONLINE)Week 6: November 3
One-on-One Meetings (NO CLASS!)Week of November 3: NO CLASS!
Week of November 10: NO CLASS!
Week 7: November 24
Thesis Project Presentations: Research Methods (ONLINE)Week 9: December 1
Draft Thesis Proposals DUE! (NO CLASS!)Week 8: December 8
One-on-One Meetings (NO CLASS!)Week 9: December 15
Final Thesis Proposals DUE! (NO CLASS!)