Assignments

Assignments are designed to contribute to your final deliverables, including your final thesis paper, presentation, and project. Certain assignments are associated with checkpoints

All assignments are due Mondays at 5pm, uploaded to our shared Google Drive folder (MS-Thesis-Deliverables_yourname) unless specified otherwise. Please make sure NYU users can comment on your assignments.

Your process website should be updated every week, with links to assignments, as well any other relevant information, such as pictures of project progress. More guidelines on maintaining your thesis website can be found here:

Due Week 1:

  • Project Pitch Due

    • Be prepared to share a brief (1 page) project pitch with a classmate for peer edit. This may mean bringing in a hard copy, or making a google doc. Also submit a copy to google drive so that I may review. You will be using this pitch to solicit potential advisors for your project.

Due Week 2:

Class Website Should be Live

  • More guidelines on maintaining your thesis website can be found here:

Proposed method + 10 minute method presentation

  • Based on last week’s methodology workshop, identify a methodology AND related methods that makes sense for your project. Prepare a presentation that introduces and gives a brief background on the methodology, and then explain how you plan to apply it to your project. Include any progress made so far.

  • You should also note how you imagine sharing your work publicly, as per the new requirement, which is 15% of your grade. Not exhuastive, but please check out these docs with tips for what may be considered public presentation in different fields and this list of resources for exhibits, conferences, journals, etc.

List of references

  • Choose a citation style and stick with it. See this link for more info.

  • Submit a Google Doc or Word file with at least 5 references. These can be journal articles, books, essays or websites––but you must have at least 3 that are scholarly publications (books or essays that are critical or theoretical in nature).

  • Annotate each one with a 2-3 sentence description of how this publication informs your work.

For example:

“Haraway, D. J. The companion species manifesto : dogs, people, and significant otherness.

In this essay, Donna Haraway discusses the implosion of nature and culture in the joint lives of dogs and people, who are bonded in ‘significant otherness.’ This text investigates the notions of co-evolution, and is relevant to my project that aims to design a set of objects for interspecies communication for a speculative but not too distant future. “

Your bibliography should include a diversity of sources, including contemporary publications and “canonical,” texts in your field. You should use a mixture of primary and secondary sources, and your sources should be relevant to your topic area. The thoroughness of your final reference section will be a significant factor in your overal paper grade.

Start reaching out to advisors

  • Here will be a list of pre-approved advisors for MS Thesis. Please peruse this carefully, and look at their work. Send polite, and carefully worded pitches to potential advisors directly. (Note, there may new additions to this list up until Friday)

  • If you have another advisor in mind, send me a note so that I may review their credentials before you contact them.

Due Week 3:

Weekly post on your process website

  • highlight any progress toward your project (beyond the writing)

Expanded Outline

  • Compose an expanded outline of your entire paper: it should cover the Abstract, Background, Project, Conclusion and Future Perspectives, with bullets points giving an outline of the content, and subsections and references where appropriate. Refer to the Thesis Paper page for more details on what each of these sections may include. It may feel premature to start outlining, but trust us, it is necessary. The more work you do now, the less stress later.

  • The outline corresponds to your future Table of Contents. Refer to our shared class folder for past IDM papers and their tables of contents.

  • Send your outline to Liz.

  • Bring 2 printed copies to class for our outlining workshop.

Continue reaching out to advisors

  • Here will be a list of pre-approved advisors for MS Thesis. Please peruse this carefully, and look at their work. Send polite, and carefully worded pitches to potential advisors directly. (Note, there may new additions to this list up until Friday)

  • If you have another advisor in mind, send me a note so that I may review their credentials before you contact them.

– You are required to meet with your selected advisor IRL before the end of September. Remember to bring and ask them to sign the advisor agreement form.

Due Week 4:

Weekly post on your process website

  • highlight any progress toward your project (beyond the writing)

Background Section

  • Refer to the Thesis Paper section of the website for details.
    • set up a citation manager of your choice before starting (recommended)
    • Build upon the bibliography you turned in for Week 2 for this section.
    • minimum page requirement: 10 pages, 12pt font, double spaced (15-20 recommended.)
    • All sources must be cited. Background section and references account for 20% of your grade.

Calendar of Production

  • How are you going to make this project happen? Please make a schedule that includes a weekly breakdown of the semester, and milestones you plan to hit toward project production. Please be sure to also note your plans for fulfilling the public-presentation requirement of the thesis.

Due Week 5:

Weekly post on your process website

  • showing progress toward your project

10 minute presentation of your work-in-progress

  • this should feature your progress toward project production. You do not need to include background research, beyond briefly establishing the context.

Committee Form

  • You should have met with your external advisor in person by now, and secured their signature on the advisor agreement.

  • You should also identify 3 potential faculty IDM Faculty Readers: A full-time faculty member at IDM (or within TCS) who will be on the committee.

  • The IDM Faculty Reader will attend the student’s Thesis Defense, and will be given a digital copy of the student’s thesis paper for review at least one week BEFORE the Defense. Additional meetings with students are not required, but are welcome.

  • Please fill out the following form with your preferences: https://forms.gle/g1iFJjMwB3PG7Fsa9 I will do my best to match you with someone on your list.

Due Week 6

Weekly post on your process website

  • showing progress toward your project

Methods and Methodology section due.

  • Refer to the Thesis Paper section of the website for details.
    • set up a citation manager of your choice before starting (recommended)
    • Build upon the methodology presentation you made in Week 2
    • State your research methodology and define it (source required) for example, “Speculative design is an alternative design process that has gained momentum in the last decade as a tool for approaching difficult and abstract problems pertaining to humankind’s future and its relationship to technology and sustainability, (Bleecker, 2009; Candy, 2010; Dunne and Raby, 2013).”
    • Explain your methods for researching and producing your project. These may include your interviews, experiments, tests. Give a detailed account of your protocol. If you conducted an experiment, your description of your method should include enough detail, that another person could replicate it exactly.
    • minimum page requirement: 10 pages, 12pt font, double-spaced
    • All sources must be cited.
    • Where appropriate, leave space for work that will happen later in semester.

Due Week 7

Mid-term presentations

  • Advisors will be present.

  • No more than 10 minutes, please time yourself. These should include a brief overview of your background and method, (you may refer to your earlier paper outline) as well as your progress toward completing your project.