Silences And Sounds: Musicological Paper Structures 101

Wednesday, October 1, 2025

Musicological Paper Structures 101

In a discipline that recognizes that sonata form and all its nuances was a real and useful framework for composers, the need for teaching students how one can structure a paper should be obvious. It wasn’t part of my training, but working out an approach that lets me get the job done has been helpful, and I like to pass it along.

Is such a structure required? No, but it helps the writer to frame an argument, and the reader to digest it. My students have fared well with the template (I’ve had students take a writing prize each of the last five years), and I share the model here in hopes it is useful.

START: BIBLIOGRAPHY AND SCHOLARLY CONTEXT

The big question at the start of any paper is: who am I in conversation with? In my classroom, that driver amounts to having undergraduates – yes, undergraduates – check out about 25 to 30 sources. Do they read them all? Heavens no! But they assess them using AIC reading, focusing on abstract, introduction, and conclusion. I always give them an option of managing by spreadsheet, which is what I often do with my own bibliography. About half of them take me up on it, and they tell me they find the practice useful.

At any rate, using their bibliographic overview of the field, the intro sets up the backdrop to why the work is important, and how it fits into the broader scholarly context.

CONTINUE: DATA SECTIONS

Then there are the data sections. Sometimes students use a couple of different methods; other times, there is one batch of information but it’s explored at length, adding nuance as the paper progresses. A story might help illustrate the point, or not. The student might want to pick up a counterargument. Or not. In other words, the framing is flexible, and fields can be reordered (as the arrows suggest), but it takes the reader from what’s been said (in the field), to some new ways (plural) to think about it, to a conclusion that helps us understand “what it all means,” as my students like to say.

CONCLUDE: SO WHAT, SO WHAT, NOW WHAT

There are many ways to wrap up a paper, of course. One is to talk about who should care. Another is to review the skeleton and then "hang some flesh" on it in terms of its broader implications. One of the easiest strategies for concluding is often the "so what, so what, now what" conclusion. So what did all of this mean? So what does that tell us? Now what should we do/think/say differently? In other words, go to what the implications are, or where the conversation could and should go next, or how the insights might be applied in a different context. It doesn’t have to be big or world-shaking, but it helps the reader walk away with a sense of why the paper was worth reading and where their curiosity might lead them next.

Start of the first of Beethoven's Razumovsky Quartets, Op 59 No 1

CASE STUDY: BEETHOVEN

Think, for example, about Beethoven and deafness. There’s a lot of info out there, but a student who’s been trained in hearing-inclusive techniques could do a lot with the topic. (Drawing on personal/professional expertise is a useful way to find something new to say!). The student could talk about the contrasts of 18th/19th c ideas of deafness with present day practice (data set one). They might then move to the specific detail of, say, the Rasumovsky quartets in a hearing environment, comparing then and now (nuance to the argument).

For section 3 of the paper they could, for instance, turn to their own insights to discuss how players negotiate hearing-inclusive demands (balance, visual cues, tactile feedback). Or, section 3 could look at how narratives about Beethoven’s deafness shape interpretation of the Razumovsky quartets in liner notes, and how those narratives draw in medicalized or heroic tropes. Or… well, there are lots of directions to go.

WHY THIS KIND OF FORMAT / PAPER MODEL IS USEFUL

The point is that this kind of structured writing helps a student to mentally break out their work into sections. It is hard – nigh on impossible! -- to “write a paper,” but to write a paragraph or a section is in the doable realm. Don't write the whole sonata, start with the first theme.

As I’ve said many a time before, little by little by little, and sooner or later it all gets done.

I’ll post on other paper strategies in another few days, but for now, I should go tend to my own writing practice and get at least “a little” of that done before dinner.

Happy writing, everyone!