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Lack of Awareness on Students-Supervisors Responsibilities Lead to Poor

Research Proposal

Dr. Nancy Agens, Head,

Technical Operations, Tutorsindia

info@ tutorsindia.com

In Brief

To make a responsiveness amongst

students and supervisors about their

duties in making a dissertation research

proposal. The identification and

formulation of objectives towards a

specific problem must be done in an

appropriate manner in any research

proposal writing.

Keywords: Dissertation Research

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I. INTRODUCTION

Dissertation research proposal writing is

indeed essential for any student who wish

to be engaged in research. In fact, the

primary stage of research starts with

identifying the research area and preparing

a proposal on the topic chosen. An

organized proposal is mandatory so that it

is approved by the designated committee.

A proposal is constructed as a group of

sections containing theoretic/ hypothetical

background, objective, a set of

questionnaire that provide solution to the

focused problem, a narrative and

validation of technique involved to

accomplish the goal, and inference. The

supervisor is supposed to refer various

literatures to authenticate the methods

available and guide to include innovations

on the feasible technique. In that case, the

responsibility has to be borne by both the

student and the supervisor. Also, they must

be conscious about the research ethics. A

proposal seeking any funding from

agencies/organizations should also include

a clear budget inclusive of contingencies.

Moreover a time-chart should be added to

assess the probable finishing time of the

research. It is noticed out of experience

that students face troubles while writing a

research/ thesis proposal as they do not

figure out the vital components of a

proposal. It is also found that the lack of

awareness on students as well as

supervisors on how to write a proposal

simply leads to rejection. This article

emphasizes on the key elements of good

research proposal.

II. TOPIC OF RESEARCH

As mentioned earlier, the crucial part of

research proposal is finding an appropriate

research topic. But then literatures may not

be explored as such for choosing a topic

rather it has to be derived from the range

of interest. The students for this purpose

can explore the literatures on the wider

subject areas of their interest. They should

analyze the available problem in a

particular domain, understand the

methodologies/technologies used,

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investigate the negativities or limitations

of the methods applied , identify the part

of the problem left-out in a particular

research and acquaint themselves with the

subject field. Afterwards, they can

compress the subject area leaving the

widely accessed portions where there is no

scope of improvement. Then, they can

expand on the methods/techniques which

may possibly be applied for the problem in

a better way. Finally, they can add new

methods with the existing methods or they

can find similar new methods to improvise

the result. The wide subject area will now

condense to a needy problem of current

scenario with novel methods. The student

then should seek the help of the supervisor

about the feasibility of the method through

discussion. Thus, the topic of research in

present trend can be identified and

consolidated by the student and supervisor.

III. OBJECTIVES AND

QUESTIONNAIRE

The next significant stage is setting clear

goals for the research. In order to attain the

prime objective, a few small-term goals

may be fixed. By doing this, we could

progress in a streamlined manner. This

could perhaps satisfy the supervisor about

the work progress of the student. The

small-term goals may be formed as

questionnaire so that it is in a presentable

format. The committee who looks into the

questionnaire will understand the nature

and possible progress of one’s work. The

questions that are formed should be

concrete and substantiate the dissertation

work and should convey a perception to

the supervisor and the committee in such a

way that the research must be carried out.

Literature exploration is must in every

stage or section of thesis /dissertation

research proposal, which would add value

to the entire research. It is like

learning/knowing by the experience of

other’s experiences. The questionnaire of

other proposals similar to the intended

research may be explored to get an idea of

how to frame the questions but definitely

new and relevant questions are to be

defined to authenticate the new research.

IV. TECHNIQUES/METHODOLOGIES

The important next stage is the knowledge

towards the present trend. Though we have

similar problems the technology or

methodology what we apply could make

our work innovative. And definitely, one

particular method will not suit a specific

problem under all constraints. So, a

thorough investigation on various new

techniques is needed for successfully

achieving the objective. In most of the

cases, more than one particular method can

be suggested or more methods can be

hybridized or combined to give a better

solution. The method well suiting for a

particular situation should be properly

stated in the research proposal. All the

constraints or boundaries under which the

research is to be carried out is to be visibly

specified. This is not only enhancing the

quality of the research but also provides

scope of improvement of one’s research at

various stages or by various researchers. In

this stage, the data collection and analysis

may be added pertaining to the research.

The technique or method adopted will

definitely improve the final quality of the

proposal. It is the technique/method which

offers space for narration and

improvement.

V. RESEARCH ETHICS

Even though, there are many ethics related

to research, the plagiarism and authorship

are the main concerns. Once, the research

proposal is well structured, before

submitting the committee, the plagiarism

of the writing should checked with the

help of the supervisor in order to avoid

potential rejection. There are many tools

and mechanisms available to check the

similarity of the content written and one of

such reliable tool may be used to refine the

proposal work with negligible similarity.

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While writing dissertation proposal at

Master’s level, sometimes more than one

person will be involved. In such a

situation, the agreement with co-author

should be clearly defined. Also, if any

statistical or other data are being used for

research there should not be any

fabrication or falsification, which will

make the students’ repute in stake. Though

the ethics part is not going to affect the

work progress, this is the most important

component in legal aspect and it makes the

work undisputed. Moreover, the

recommendation committee might have

framed a set of rules relating to research

ethics, which cannot be violated at any

point of time. The overall general structure

of flow of research proposal is illustrated

through the flow-diagram shown in Fig.1.

Fig.1. Research Proposal Writing: Flow Diagram

After suitably sequencing the various

sections of the dissertation proposals with

the help of the supervisor and similarity

checking of the writing the same must be

submitted to the committee for

recommendation. The writing should also

contain a conclusion part stating the

apparent work progress and should include

the inference.

VI. CONCLUSION

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There are many responsibilities for the

students who are likely to carry their

research. The spine of the research is its

proposal writing. Many struggle to submit

a proposal due to lack of awareness on

how to write it. The student and the

supervisor should know one’s

responsibility while writing a proposal

without overburdening each other. There

are stages in writing at which student and

supervisor meet together to write and

refine the writing. This article describes

how a proposal writing to be progressed. It

also throws light on the importance of

selecting a topic that are presently in trend

and of social/technical attention. It also

emphasizes on how a major objective may

be defined with a help of set of goals in

questionnaire format.

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