Peer review for proposal - [Group H]

Peer Review of Taylor Swift's Discography Analysis Plan

1. Clarity of Questions and Plan

The student has clearly outlined their objectives and the analytical plan to explore Taylor Swift's discography. The questions posed are specific and clear. However, the plan could benefit from a more detailed explanation of the analytical methods to be used for correlating audio features with album reception and tracing the evolution of Taylor Swift's musical style. It would be advantageous to specify the statistical techniques or models anticipated for these analyses. To be honest, it is quite difficult to conduct these analyses without proper training in Signal and System Theory or Digital Signal Processing.

2. Suitability of Chosen Plots

While the student's plan mentions using ggplot2 for creating visualizations, it does not specify which types of plots will be utilized to answer the research questions. Maybe it should be stated in the future.

3. Summary of Data Sources

The student provides a summary of the data sources, including the types of data available and their origins. This clarity is crucial for understanding the dataset's scope and potential limitations. However, the number of rows or anything that could be used to discribe the size or scale of the data set more clearly should be elaborated more.

4. Significance of Questions/Insights

The questions aim to uncover the relationship between audio features and album success, as well as tracking the evolution of Taylor Swift’s musical style. These questions are significant as they touch upon the intersection of music, culture, and technology. However, there might be external factors that might influence album reception (such as musical trends) that does not present itself within the data. Further elaboration or good story telling is needed to highlight the selling point of this project 1.

5. Ambition vs. Feasibility

The student's plan is ambitious, aiming to merge datasets and analyze a broad range of variables to draw conclusions about Taylor Swift's music. While commendable, the feasibility of this plan depends on the this group ability to handle and analyze this datasets in R effectively. It is crucial to assess whether the necessary data analysis can be realistically achieved within the project's timeframe. Moreover, as mentioned before, domain knowledge within the field of digital signal processing or music might be required. Additionally, the student should consider going to the library to gain domain knowledge of the data for all variables mentioned, as gaps of knowledge could impact the analysis.

Thank you for your detailed feedback! We very much appreciate your time and knowledge. Here is how we plan to address the issues: 1. Clarity of Questions and Analytical Methods We acknowledge the need for a more precise explanation of the analytical methods. Given our skill set and the tools available, we will focus on: a. Correlation analysis using Pearson's correlation to explore relationships between audio features and album reception. This is achievable with our current understanding and resources. b. Simple linear regression for identifying how individual audio features may predict album success. This method fits our skill level and can be implemented in R without advanced training in Signal and System Theory.

2. Suitability of Chosen Plots To make our visualization plans more explicit, we will use: Question 1: Heatmaps to visualize correlations between audio features and album success. Question 2: Line charts will depict the evolution of Taylor Swift's musical style over time, tracking changes in key audio features by album or year. Furthermore, Scatter plots are used to examine relationships between specific audio features and album success metrics.

3. Summary of Data Sources This is our deficiency, not to create a clearer picture of the dataset's scale. Our dataset includes all of Taylor Swift's albums and singles, including hundreds of her songs. We intend to focus on albums to keep our analysis modest, noting that while this does not cover every aspect of her discography, it still provides a solid foundation.

4. Significance of Questions/Insights We recognise the importance of taking external aspects into account and will do so by contextualising our findings within Taylor Swift's career patterns and events, such as genre switches or essential collaborations. While our information may not reflect external cultural or industry trends directly, we believe our narrative approach can fill some of these gaps.

5. Ambition vs. Feasibility This part is where we want to express our deepest appreciation. Thanks to your feedback, we would reassess the scope of our project to ensure that it remains both ambitious and feasible. In order to simplify our analysis, we have selected to focus on key audio features related to the questions, such as danceability, energy, and valence. We, additionally, are committed to using an incremental approach. We begin with basic analysis and step-by-step introduce more advanced methods as our confidence in the data and tools increases. By doing so, we are able to complete important tasks within the project timeline.

Once again, thank you for your valuable feedback. We look forward to receiving your advice more in the near future. Have a great weekend.

hknguyen20 / COMP4010-TeamA-Project1