The objective in writing a proposal is to describe what you will do, why it should be done, how you will do it and what you expect will result. Being clear about these things from the beginning will help you complete your thesis in a timely fashion. A vague, weak or fuzzy proposal can lead to a long, painful, and often unsuccessful thesis writing exercise. A clean, well thought-out, proposal forms the backbone for the thesis itself. The structures are identical and through the miracle of word-processing, your proposal will probably become your thesis.
A good thesis proposal hinges on a good idea. Once you have a good idea, you can draft the proposal in an evening. Getting a good idea hinges on familiarity with the topic. This assumes a longer preparatory period of reading, observation, discussion, and incubation. Read everything that you can in your area of interest. Figure out what are the important and missing parts of our understanding. Figure out how to build/discover those pieces. Live and breathe the topic. Talk about it with anyone who is interested. Then just write the important parts as the proposal. Filling in the things that we do not know and that will help us know more: that is what research is all about.
Proposals help you estimate the size of a project. Don't make the project too big. Our MA program statement used to say that a thesis is equivalent to a published paper in scope. These days, sixty double spaced pages, with figures, tables and bibliography, would be a long paper. Your proposal will be shorter, perhaps five pages and certainly no more than fifteen pages. (For perspective, the NSF limits the length of proposal narratives to 15 pages, even when the request might be for multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars.) The merit of the proposal counts, not the weight. Shoot for five pithy pages that indicate to a relatively well-informed audience that you know the topic and how its logic hangs together, rather than fifteen or twenty pages that indicate that you have read a lot of things but not yet boiled it down to a set of prioritized linked questions
Primary Components of a Research Proposal
Proposals for sponsored activities generally follow a similar format; variations depend upon whether the proposer is seeking support for a research grant, a training grant, or a conference or curriculum development project. The following outline covers the primary components of a research proposal. Your proposal will be a variation on this basic theme.
Title Page: Most sponsoring agencies specify the format for the title page, and some provide special forms to summarize basic administrative and fiscal data for the project. Titles are brief but comprehensive enough to indicate the nature of the proposed work.
Abstract: The funder may use the abstract to make preliminary decisions about the proposal. Therefore, an effective summary states the problem addressed by the applicant, identifies the solution, and specifies the objectives and methods of the project. This summary should also outline funding requirements and describe the applicant’s ability.
Table of Contents: Brief proposals with few sections usually do not need a table of contents. Long and detailed proposals may require, in addition to a table of contents, a list of illustrations (or figures) and a list of tables. If all of these sections are included, they should follow the order mentioned, and each should be numbered with lower-case Roman numerals. The table of contents lists all major parts and divisions, including the abstract.
Introduction (including Statement of Problem, Purpose of Research, and Significance of Research): The introduction of a proposal begins with a capsule statement and then proceeds to introduce the subject to a stranger. It should give enough background to enable an informed lay person to place your particular research problem in a context of common knowledge and should show how its solution will advance the field or be important for some other work. The statement describes the significance of the problem(s), referring to appropriate studies or statistics.
Background (including Literature Survey): Be sure to (1) make clear what the research problem is and exactly what has been accomplished; (2) to give evidence of your own competence in the field; and (3) to show why the previous work needs to be continued. The literature review should be selective and critical. Discussions of work done by others should lead the reader to a clear idea of how you will build upon past research and also how your work differs from theirs.
Description of Proposed Research (including Method or Approach): The comprehensive explanation of the proposed research is addressed to other specialists in your field. This section is the heart of the proposal and is the primary concern of the technical reviewers. Remember as you lay out the research design to:
- Be realistic about what can be accomplished.
- Be explicit about any assumptions or hypotheses the research method rests upon.
- Be clear about the focus of the research.
- Be as detailed as possible about the schedule of the proposed work.
- Be specific about the means of evaluating the data or the conclusions.
- Be certain that the connection between the research objectives and the research method is evident.
- Spell out preliminary work developing an analytical method or laying groundwork as Phase 1.
At the end of this phase you will be able to report that you have accomplished something and are ready to undertake Phase 2.
Description of Relevant Institutional Resources: Generally this section details the resources available to the proposed project and, if possible, shows why the sponsor should select this University and this investigator for this particular research. Some relevant points may be:
- the institution's demonstrated skill in the related research area
- its abundance of experts in related areas that may indirectly benefit the project
- its supportive services that will directly benefit the project
- and the institution's unique or unusual research facilities or resources available to the project
List of References: The style of the bibliographical item itself depends on the disciplinary field. The main consideration is consistency; whatever style is chosen should be followed carefully throughout the proposal.
Personnel: This section usually consists of two parts: (1) an explanation of the proposed personnel arrangements and (2) the biographical data sheets for each of the main contributors to the project. The explanation should specify how many persons at what percentage of time and in what academic categories will be participating in the project. If the program is complex and involves people from other departments or colleges, make clear the organization of the staff and the lines of responsibility. Any student participation, paid or unpaid, should be mentioned, and the nature of the proposed contribution detailed. If any persons must be hired for the project, say so, and explain why, unless the need for persons not already available within the University is self-evident.
Budget: Sponsors customarily specify how budgets should be presented and what costs are allowable. The budget lays out the costs to be met by the funding source, including personnel, non-personnel, administrative, and overhead expenses. The budget also specifies items paid for by other funding sources. Includes explanations for requested expenses.
Tips and Tricks
Read. Read everything you can find in your area of interest. Read. Read. Read. Take notes, and talk to your advisor about the topic. If your advisor won't talk to you, find another one or rely on 'the net' for intellectual interaction. Email has the advantage of forcing you to get your thoughts into written words that can be refined, edited and improved. It also gets time stamped records of when you submitted what to your advisor and how long it took to get a response.
Write about the topic a lot, and don't be afraid to tear up (delete) passages that just don't work. Often you can re-think and re-type faster than than you can edit your way out of a hopeless mess. The advantage is in the re-thinking.
Very early on, generate the research question, critical observation, interpretations of the possible outcomes, and the expected results. These are the core of the project and will help focus your reading and thinking. Modify them as needed as your understanding increases.
Use some systematic way of recording notes and bibliographic information from the very beginning. The classic approach is a deck of index cards. You can sort, regroup, layout spatial arrangements and work on the beach. Possibly a slight improvement is to use a word-processor file that contains bibliographic reference information and notes, quotes etc. that you take from the source. This can be sorted, searched, diced and sliced in your familiar word-processor. You may even print the index cards from the word-processor if you like the ability to physically re-arrange things.
Even better for some, is to use specialized bibliographic database software. Papyrus, EndNote, and other packages are available for PCs and MacIntoshs. The bib-refer and bibTex software on UNIX computers are also very handy and have the advantage of working with plain ASCII text files (no need to worry about getting at your information when the wordprocessor is several generations along). All of these tools link to various word-processors to make constructing and formating your final bibliography easier, but you won't do that many times anyway. If they help you organize your notes and thinking, that is the benefit.
Another pointer is to keep in mind from the outset that this project is neither the last nor the greatest thing you will do in your life. It is just one step along the way. Get it done and get on with the next one. The length to shoot for is "equivalent to a published paper", sixty pages of double spaced text, plus figures tables, table of contents, references, etc. is probably all you need. In practice, most theses try to do too much and become too long. Cover your topic, but don't confuse it with too many loosely relevant side lines.