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Writing Your Ph.D. Proposal

There is an established format that you need to follow in order towrite a successful Ph.D. proposal. It goes without saying that thisshould be in well structured, grammatical, Standard English, free fromerrors in punctuation and/or spelling.

The structure of the doctoral proposal needs to give a clear outline of what the thesis will cover and how this will be done. The thesisproposal should not be particularly long, however (usually not morethan three thousand words at the most) yet it should say succinctlyexactly what you hope to achieve and the methodology you will apply,as well as giving a brief outline of your reading thus far, perhaps withan embryonic bibliography. You will also need to give a timescale of the stages of completion.

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The basic structure of the thesis proposal in most cases should be as

follows:

• The Thesis Statement – this is self-explanatory in many ways butit needs to be both deep and specific bearing resonance of knowledge of existing research and defining precisely how youintend to add to it. This should not simply be a sentence or twostating vaguely what your thesis is about but rather a clearly

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defined and developed statement of the precise aims andobjectives of your research. You do not need to have adefinitive title at this stage – in fact, most students leave thewording of the title to the end – it is much more important togive a detailed idea of content to achieve success.

• Introduction – this will be different from introductions to your essays, dissertations etc. as you are introducing a much moreextensive thesis. Moreover, you need to bear in mind that atthis stage you are proposing ideas so have in mind all the timethe need for brevity and originality. Your audience here is awell-read, experienced board of academics so you have to beclear and concise whilst engaging them sufficiently with your Ph.D. proposal to recommend its acceptance. The introductionis your first chance to impress, so make sure you open stronglyby developing what you have begun to write about in your thesis statement. As you do not have much space, it is a goodidea to focus very much on the central idea which you hope todevelop, tempting as it is to digress; save development of other areas for the chapter summaries and instead establish your core thesis effectively.

• Chapter Summaries – students are often anxious about how manychapters a thesis should contain. Whilst this is a little like asking,‘How long is a piece of string?’, it is a good ‘rule of thumb’ to

take five as an average, not including your introduction andconclusion. This is not definitive, however, as the number of chapters very much depends on the subject and your methodology. However, you should be aware that five wouldusually be considered to be the minimum number as less wouldnot cover the ground of a Ph.D. thesis sufficiently. Each chapter summary should give a very brief outline of the aspect of thetopic to be covered in each. You should also give someindication of the main texts you will be using in each, perhaps

quoting a key extract with accompanying analysis, if appropriate to your subject area.

• Conclusion – like the conclusions with which you are familiar fromyour academic career thus far, you need to summarise your ideas in your conclusion to your thesis proposal. However, hereyou need also to give a strong idea of areas of research whichyou might cover in the future. This might, in fact, be suggested



by research in progress and the research committee willrecognise this and take it into account when making a decisionabout your work. Notwithstanding, you would be wise to give anindication in your conclusion that your Ph.D. research is not theend of your work but merely a stage of it. This is importantbecause you will not only be indicating how your own academicresearch might progress but also making a statement as to howyour research proposal is suggesting a topic capable of sustaining not just the current scope of the proposal but alsofuture work. This emphasises the importance of the researchand its place within the overall body of knowledge on thesubject (see section on conclusions in this guide).

• Bibliography - it is very important that you supply the researchcommittee with as complete and comprehensive a bibliographyfor your thesis as you can at this stage. Of course, you will notbe expected to supply what will be your ultimate bibliographybecause you will be adding to it as your thesis progresses. Still,evidence of thorough reading which has helped you identifyyour research area will help the research committee to maketheir decision and, it is hoped, decide in your favour so be ascomprehensive as you can be.

Remember throu ghou t the preparation o f you r Ph.D. research

proposal that you need to stress how o riginal and imp ortant

your research wi l l be and how m uch it wi l l add to the body o f know ledge on the subject: you are aiming to impr ess!

Specimen Layout for Thesis Proposal

Title Page Working title (need not be definitive) plus your name,academic institution, date and degree for which the thesis willultimately be entered.

Table of Contents This is self explanatory, just briefly listingcontents of proposal with page numbers.

Abstract This is a concise summary of the proposal andmethodology (no more than one page).

Introduction This should give an outline of how you intend thethesis to be established. You should emphasise how you see thiscontributing uniquely and originally to the body of knowledge on the



subject.

Chapter One A crucial chapter as you should continue smoothlyfrom the introduction, establishing the themes and methodology andopening evidentiary support.

Chapter Two Focus on one aspect of your thesis, supported byexamples of evidence and analysis to be used and developing thegrounding of theme and methodology in chapter one.

Chapter Three Focus on one aspect of your thesis, supported byexamples of evidence and analysis to be used. You can be a littlemore inventive now as your thesis is well founded.

Chapter Four Focus on one aspect of your thesis, supported byexamples of evidence and analysis to be used and begin to turn thethesis towards the conclusion.

Chapter Five Focus on one aspect of your thesis, supported byexamples of evidence and analysis to be used bringing the thesistowards its conclusion at end of this chapter.

Conclusion Summation of your thesis proposal with indication of future possible research; this is very important to the success of your proposal so make it strong.

Bibliography Full list of all texts, correctly referenced, consultedduring the formulation of your proposal (see the section in this guideon bibliographies and referencing correctly).

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