Writing a strong dissertation proposal is like persuading someone that what you are planning is a great idea. This means that your dissertation proposal should be attractive, persuasive, and well-planned, just like a marriage proposal, because the end goal is to get your supervisor to say ‘yes’ to it. So if you are working on your dissertation proposal, you must feel a little overwhelmed while putting it together and you must have some questions such as: What is a dissertation proposal / How to write a dissertation proposal? What should I include in it? What is my supervisor looking for?
In order to help students and answer these questions, we have come up with this guide. This will help clear up any sort of confusion you may have regarding the dissertation proposal and how to go about it to ensure that you hit the mark.
Table of Contents
What is a dissertation proposal?
The dissertation research proposal is literally a written document that conveys what you propose to research. It’s a document where you put all the stuff that you have been thinking about logically and convincingly in a concise format. It is like a table of content for your dissertation and will help you explain what you intend to examine. Because your topic may change somewhat, you will not be required to have everything planned out perfectly, but composing your dissertation proposal should help you better determine the path for your dissertation.
The topic you have chosen for your dissertation should be appropriate to your field of study and should be completed by the end of your course. It should cover the research question you are planning to analyze and how you will conduct your primary and secondary research.
A dissertation proposal should include:
- Introduction to your chosen dissertation topic.
- What are the dissertation’s aims and objectives
- A literature review
- The methodology that will be used.
- The implication of your research
- The limitation that you are facing
- Bibliography
As I have mentioned before, the direction of your dissertation can change slightly or even drastically over the course of your research, so the material in the proposal is not set in stone. Just think of your dissertation as a guide that will help you write your dissertation.
Why is a Dissertation Proposal Important?
A dissertation proposal is very important as it provides a direction and helps shape the overall dissertation, which is considered to be the most important piece of writing for postgraduate students. It is also regarded as the key to postgraduate success as it largely contributes to your grade.
Aside from this, it helps lessen stress about beginning your dissertation. If it is done correctly, then it will help you provide the guidance you can use when writing the main body of the work.
How long should the dissertation proposal be?
As your dissertation proposal gives an outline of the topic of your dissertation, aim for 1000 or more words. Different courses and universities may have different requirements for like length, what structure is preferred and the specific information to include, so make sure that you check what requirements your course and university have.
Steps to take before the Proposal: Reading and choosing a Topic
The first step in your dissertation process is unsurprisingly reading about your subject area and selecting a topic. It sounds simple, but it is a major source of stress for students.
One of the easiest ways to begin searching is to go through all your lecture notes and see if there is a topic that particularly appeals to you or if there is a concept that you think needs a little more work on, then you can do your dissertation on them. If you are still indecisive, then try researching for a personal interest you may have in a topic, and look for relevant journals and publications until you discover a more explicit direction. Just make sure that your topic is something that you will find interesting and fun because you will be reading about it over a long period of time!
However, the way you choose your topic, remember to make notes of all the publications that you use in your research. You will need to include them in your bibliography later on, so taking notes of them will make your life easy. Depending on the referencing style that your university prefers, you will need the following information:
- Journal and book titles
- Author
- Editor
- Chapter title
- Page no
- URL (for online sources only)
- Publisher Name
Things that should be included in a dissertation proposal
Regardless of the dissertation proposal structure, you are following, there are some aspects that your dissertation should have..
All of these are required in order to present a comprehensive dissertation proposal to the supervisor. But what are they? Here’s an explanation to help you get started.
Title
A good dissertation title is what gives the reader an idea of your research/study. What you have to do is describe the purpose of your dissertation proposal in the fewest words possible. A title that is concise and focused appeals to the reader and grabs their attention.
However, with time you can alter or adjust your title as you progress with your writing because your research might add new dimensions to your research.
Abstract
In the abstract, you are required to write a brief executive summary of your proposal if you have been asked to do so in the guidelines. Normally, an abstract of 300 to 400 words is included in the final dissertation. If you are asked to write an abstract for your proposal, the following points must be included:
- Background of your research
- What is your research question?
- Your proposed methods of research will either test the hypothesis or address the research problem.
- State how you think it will add value to the scientific or academic community.
Introduction
The introduction will provide the reader with the central research question and background of the subject. Here you will expand a little more on what you are to convey in your title. It should be engaging and contextually.
First, you will explain your research idea and present the reason behind your chosen topic and present the scope of your research study. Then briefly explain the specific question or problem that your research aims to address. Make sure that the dissertation proposal introduction outlines its structure.
Methodology
Then, you will describe your proposed methodology which will include the structure of your research, whether you will engage in empirical research or more theoretical research or will work on both, and the methods that you will use to analyze and gather the data.
As you have to convince your supervisor that you are through your approach to the research and can carry it out easily, you have to be specific in this section. This section will look quite different and may vary in length as it depends on your field of study.
Aim and Objectives
This is the most crucial section of your proposal paper. Here you will list down the research question or the research objectives that you aim to address. The purpose of this is to provide clarity on the topic that you are doing your dissertation on like what are you expecting the outcome to be? Which element of the topic you are not investigating and why? And how will your research contribute to the field?
Literature Review
The literature review section gives you a chance to make a really good argument about your research and why it is important and then connect it to the key existing research, hypothesis, and theories on the subject. You will list down all the important sources that you have used or will use in your research and how they help you with your own research.
Doing so will give an idea to the supervisor that you have adequately prepared for your proposal and that the sources you have included will only add value to your work.
Limitations
Limitations are the constraint of the study, which means that some aspects of the study are not covered for various reasons. For example, one limitation could be that the study will only look at the material about a certain group of people. Some issues could be related to word count, explaining you will not have a chance or space to address this issue any further. Also, completing this section shows that you have engaged in this field of study and have knowledge of wider concepts than what you are covering.
Ethical Consideration
Ethical considerations in research are a set of rules that guide your research designs and practices. When collecting data from people, you must adhere to a certain code of conduct.
Ethics are very important when working on a dissertation as it will undergo ethical approval if you are working with other participants. It doesn’t matter how profound your research was, it will not leave much of an impression if you have not allowed room for ethical considerations within your research, planning, and preparation phases. It can also lower the credibility of your research if your methods are morally questionable.
The implication of your Research
To conclude your dissertation proposal, you will discuss what you hope to achieve through your research. Obviously, you don’t have any idea about the result and conclusion your research will produce. In this section, you will describe the implications and contributions previous studies on a similar study have made that advanced your field of study and how your research will add to it.
Reference List or Bibliography
It is important that your dissertation proposal, like any academic paper, appropriately references all of the sources you have used. At the end of your proposal, you must add a properly formatted reference list or bibliography. There is a little difference between a reference list and a bibliography: in a reference list, you only add the sources that you cited in your proposal and in a bibliography you can include every source that you have consulted in preparing the proposal, even if you didn’t use anything from those sources. In the dissertation proposal bibliography, you can even include sources that you haven’t read yet but intend to use while writing your dissertation.
Different courses and institutions recommend different referencing formats. Some of the commonly used are Harvard, APA, Vancouver, etc. In case your department doesn’t have specific requirements, you can choose one and work with it.
Hope that with the help of this guide you will be able to compose a dissertation proposal with ease. Good Luck!
