A Dissertation Proposal Stated in Plain Terms

by Mary Goldwin Freelance Writer

A dissertation proposal is a document submitted to the university's dissertation committee as the first formal step for a dissertation writing project. The purpose of a dissertation proposal is to convince the committee that a tractable research question exists which is worth to be pursued and you are in a good position to be able to pursue it. A good dissertation proposal should demonstrate the following elements:

an interesting research question that has already been defined and delimited
you are able to explain how important the question is in the subject of area even to a scholar who is not intimately familiar with it
testable hypotheses are formulated
a detailed plan for testing the hypotheses mentioned above

You are not expected to receive every piece of work written which may be relevant to your topic when you are just in the initial dissertation writing process. In this stage, you should at least be familiar with the concept that applies to your topic. Later on, especially as you are going through the process of investigation and analysis, you should have already developed a full understanding of the problem that you plan on addressing. This can only be achieved by studying a lot of resources such as books, journal articles and transcripts, all of which you are expected to locate.

In submitting your literature review as part of the dissertation proposal, you should consult with your dissertation supervisor whether this needs to be a comprehensive summary already of all relevant research and findings about your topic or whether a short description will do. In any case, this should already contain what is already known or generally believed about the problem you are investigating, the significant and lasting contributions achieved by the each study as well as its shortcomings and how you plan to address these shortcomings, if applicable within your study.