Aleena, I just wanted to say that I love Google scholar as well, it's the best for searching out articles and has nice filters as well. On another note, the challenge of definition is huge and it is so cool that you are trying to go underneath almost to search for deeper meanings and cultural trends. 

1. Some challenges I have often faced as I look for new sources is in terms of language barriers. In specific, the fact that I can't understand newspaper articles in Serbian or Hungarian, and that I can't track aesthetic developments of music in German or French, makes it more difficult. thankfully many things are translated into english, but sometimes I'll be reading a book in the library and they'll be an article or a letter printed in it I can't even hope to understand.

2. The most useful research resource for me was the MoMA library, which i've visited to find more books about my artist Katalin Ladik, because they have an extensive collection of critical books about contemporary art in particular. They also have many exhibition catalogues from other contemporary art museums, difficult to find anywhere else in the city, that are helpful in getting even more information. 

I think the divide between archives and valuing contemporary experiences/modern media is you talk about really important, because I agree that there definitely is a bias in academia that sees analyzing books/archives as more rigorous. I hope studying modern/nontraditional forms of media will be more accepted by academia as time goes on. 

1. My expectations for my research are, at least for this month in the first phase of the project, i want an annotated bibliography of my secondary sources on the topic that I can draw on for the future. I also do want to write a short bit about the primary sources and artwork I am working with, and put them in conversation with my secondary sources, not with the goal of creating a full, complete research paper, but just to synthesize my ideas a bit  and connect the dots of what I've been thinking about.

2. I think my work matters in terms of how I'm looking at an area of music research that's understudied, as music research often focuses on a very specific type of music and very specific type of composer that is "qualified" enough to be considered suitable for research. Going outside that, involving music creators that don't quite fit the "standard" bill, that are marginalized due to gender or national origin, is important.

I think your second answer is really interesting how a government policy like stop-and-frisk can have several different alternative ways of studying it- be it more public health related or more from a historical viewpoint. Different disciplines can examine the impact of the policy on health and historical development, and come to a fuller understanding of its negative impact.

1. One ethical issue I have in my research is always a possible issue in Humanities research, but I find especially when studying modern artists, musicians, etc., it is difficult to not overanalyze them and over-assume their intentions because we have so much information about the context they lived in. It is important as a scholar that I don't mix up what I think their work means to me with what they think about it, so I don't misrepresent them. Especially with still-living artists, you don't want to box them in and be aware of your own biases and background. 

2. It's been really interesting at least in the field of music to consider alternative critiques from beyond the Western world of the subjects and concepts that standard Western classical music theory takes for granted. Considering these other thoughts really allows me to realize the complexities of what I am studying, and how it might be more widely relevant. 

I really resonated with your second point about how research and structuring research looks different for everyone. This is an important thing to even keep in mind also for my own expectations of myself. I should not always give myself the expectation that what I output will look exactly the same every week. There might also be times where I spend a lot of time on sources, but get less results, so it's important to always step back, appreciate what I have done, set smaller goals, and see research as a process. 

1. My project is an individual research project, and as I am researching music in its historical/artistic context my research requires me to go into other fields like History/art History in order to make a point— I can't just stay within the one song I'm working on. Talking to other Laidlaw students about how they are using archives, for example, or what they do with their sources has been incredibly helpful, because learning approaches from other disciplines allows me to think outside the box on my topic. I'm also interested in learning from students that have research projects at the complete other end from what I'm working on, in STEM disciplines like Physics or Neuroscience. This is because hearing someone who is passionate about their field talk about their research gives me a different and more engaging side of physics, for example, than I had to learn in high school textbooks, 

2. One discussion that really remains important for me are the discussions the faculty were having at their roundtable about creating a research project, the difficulty of narrowing an issue down, and the way fields and disciplines change over time. As I sift through academic articles, trying to decide which ones are relevant, and seeing how the conversation really depends on the place and date of origin of the articles, it reminds me of what they were saying.