Useful Guidelines for Dissertation Proposal Writing
A dissertation proposal is what will determine your whole future work in the area and the whole process of writing your dissertation. It will also create a certain image of you in the eyes of your instructors. If you require financing and apply for a grant to be able to conduct your research, your proposal will be the main part of your application and can decide the whole future of your dissertation. This is the turn in your writing that decides everything. That’s why it is of such big importance to write a very good dissertation proposal.
- Step 1 of writing the dissertation proposal: learn your area.
- Read. As much information as you can find related to your topic will only bring you advantages. You will never know which kind of questions related to your field you will need to answer.
- Make notes while reading. It will not only help you to memorize the information better, but you will also have a part of your research ready when you start the actual writing.
- Step 2: show why your research is necessary.
- Step 3: briefly describe what you are going to study in your dissertation.
Simply knowing something about the subject is no longer enough. You will need to show in your proposal that you tend to be a real professional in what you study and what you will be writing about. If you are applying for a grant, you need to show the people why you are the best person to spend their money on.
A very important moment is to show that what you are going to study is actually necessary and will make a serious contribution into the modern science. You cannot let yourself repeat somebody else’s work or study something that has already been known for years. Show the people who will read your proposal, especially if this is some kind of a scholarship committee, why you are doing it in the first place and why what you do will be important for the science or the society.
This will be the hardest part, as you have to retell something you didn’t even write yet. Nobody expects you to present the whole information about your paper on this step. You need to write, first of all, what you expect your future paper to be, which section it will include, which field it will study, which methods you will apply and which findings you are expecting to get.