| PhD Dissertation Writing Made Easy |
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How to Write a
PhD Dissertation Proposal & a PhD Dissertation
Many aspects of writing a
dissertation are the same as those for preparing a Master’s Thesis. However,
PhD dissertations are somewhat more involved and complex but yet they can be
broken down in stages and completed part by part making them much more
manageable. Just as with a Master’s thesis, a dissertation involves the
assignment of a supervisor, a mentor, or a tutor depending on where you are
going to school. Additionally, there is also a committee that must be selected
which consists of different professors from a variety of disciplines that will
act to review the final dissertation document and approve or disapprove it.
Bear in mind, between your tutor or mentor and the committee, you are going to
deal with a lot of intellectual phlegm from academics who make a career out of
being critical.
That said, just stay focused on
your research project and work on it one stage at a time. The first thing that
you should do is examine the outline of what a completed dissertation should
include. For your benefit I have included a detailed table of contents below
that you can look over to get an idea of the type of work and thesis you must
become familiar with. You would be surprised at how many people enter a PhD
program without any idea of what is involved in terms of the final completed
project which is the dissertation. Just by looking over the various chapters
and stages of the typical dissertation you can get better grasp of what you need to do and where
you should start:
TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE First Subthesis - Heading level Two Second Subthesis - Heading level Two Title Case
Subheading Level Three Title Case
Subheading Level Three - Title Case CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS APPENDIX A: TITLE THAT IDENTIFIES APPENDIX TO THE READER APPENDIX B: INFORMED CONSENT FORM
One of the first things that you
should notice is the level of detail that you must achieve in relation to a
specific thesis and that is where you should first focus you energies on—identifying
an appropriately refined thesis. Basically, if you thesis is specific enough
and, better yet, is one that you are actually interested in then half the
battle is over because you will enjoy doing the project except for dealing with
the bloated heads who you are going to have kowtow to in order to get your
project approved. So, before beginning your dissertation I have detailed some
steps that you should take in preparation for getting started on your PhD
dissertation proposal which is usually the first three chapters, in shortened
form:
*Identify
a narrow thesis that is interesting to you
*Identify
a methodology which is going to be either qualitative or quantitative (Hint: if
you have a choice select a qualitative methodology and go with the case study
or bracketing method if you can. However, if you must choose a quantitative
methodology then utilize descriptive statistics because these are relatively
simple statistical analysis procedures and can be accomplished in Excel. If you
go with a more complex statistical analysis method such as ANOVA or MANOVA then
you will need SPSS or a similar statistical analysis application)
*Do
a brief online database search for similar research reports or articles
These
simple steps will accomplish much in preparing you to formulate your proposal
and crystallize your overall dissertation project.
Your
thesis/dissertation proposal provides an overview of your proposed plan of
work, including the general scope of your project, your basic research
questions, research methodology, and the overall significance of your study. In
short, your proposal explains what
you want to study, how you will
study this thesis, why this thesis
needs to be studied, and (generally) when
you intend to do this work. (Occasionally, you may also need to explain where your study will take place.)
Purpose:
Dissertation/Thesis proposals are
designed to:
* Justify and
plan (or contract for) a research project.
* Show how your
project contributes to existing research.
* Demonstrate to
your advisor and committee that you understand how to conduct
discipline-specific research within an acceptable time-frame.
Audience:
Most proposals are written
specifically for your academic advisor and committee.
Proposal Writing
and Anxiety
General Advice:
* Establish a
writing schedule, preferably writing at the same time and place each day.
* Begin by
free-writing. Remember that no one but you has to see the initial draft.
* Keep a small
notebook with you throughout the day to write down relevant thoughts.
* Say parts of
your writing into a recording device and then play it back to yourself.
* Compose different parts of the
proposal in different computer files or on different index cards to help with
arranging and rearranging.
* Start with more “clear cut” stages
first, rather than with the Introduction, since it may be the most difficult
part to write.
Proposal-Specific Advice:
* Understand that the proposal
will be a negotiated document, so be prepared to draft, redraft, and resubmit
it.
* Think of the proposal as an
introduction to your thesis—not a chapter, not an extensive literature review,
not an opportunity to rehearse the major conflicts in your field. You are
“bridging the gap” between existing work and your work.
* Remember that the proposal is
not a contract that determines what your thesis will demonstrate. You will likely
modify and refine your scope, argument, and methods.
* Remember that your proposal is
not meant to limit your ideas, but to help you think in practical terms about how
you intend to research and write your dissertation.
* Ask colleagues to form a
writing group that you can use to exchange ideas, drafts, and experiences. As
lonely as it may seem sometimes, writing is a social activity.
Because proposal requirements
vary broadly by department, program, and advisor, generalizing them is
difficult. The best advice is the simplest: consult with your advisor, ask to
see past successful proposals, and talk to your colleagues. Using other
proposals to help you generate ideas in not plagiarizing!
The following table provides an
overview of the entire dissertation proposal and dissertation process that you
can check off as you complete each stage or step:
PARTS OF A
PROPOSAL
Despite their
wide differences, proposals across programs generally include at least some
form of the following stages (though you will want to check with your academic
advisor about the specific stages s/he requires): Title, Abstract,
Introduction/Background, Problem Statement, Purpose/Aims/Rationale, Review of
Literature, Methodology, Significance/Implications, Overview of Chapters, Plan
of Work, Bibliography.
Sometimes these stages
may be combined—in some fields, the problem statement, aims, and review of
literature are all part of the introduction. The most common elements are the
introduction/problem statement, review of literature, and methodology (which in
some fields roughly correspond to the first three chapters of the
dissertation).
Title
At this early
stage, you need only provide a working title. You can decide on the exact
wording for your title when you are nearer to completing your dissertation.
Nevertheless, even at the start, aim to create a title that conveys the idea of
your investigation. Normally, a title beginning “A study in . . .” is too
vague; decide whether you want to compare, collate, assess, etc. Also, don’t worry if you compose a long
title. You are preparing to write an academic document, not to devise a snappy
headline for a tabloid newspaper.
A
good title should:
* Orient your readers to the thesis
you will research.
* Indicate the type of study you
will conduct.
Abstract
Not all fields
require abstracts, so check with your advisor to see if you are required to
include one. The abstract should:
* Provide a brief (100-350 word)
overview of the proposal that gives a reader a basic understanding of your
proposal and encourages her or him to read more.
* Summarize Introduction, Statement of the Problem,
Background of the Study, Research Questions or Hypotheses, and Methods and
Procedures.
* (In
some cases, the abstract may need to be very brief—no more than 50 words—in
which case, it will be more descriptive than complete.)
Introduction/Background
The introduction
helps put your project in conversation with other projects on similar thesis. Generally,
the introduction provides necessary background information to your study and
provides readers with some sense of your overall research interest. A good
introduction should:
* Establish the
general territory (real world or research) in which the research is placed.
* Describe the broad foundations
of your study, including some references to existing literature and/or
empirically observable situations. In other words, the introduction needs to
provide sufficient background for readers to understand where your study is
coming from.
* Indicate the general scope of
your project, but do not go into so much detail that later stages
(purpose/literature review) become irrelevant.
* Provide an
overview of the stages that will appear in your proposal (optional).
* Engage the
readers.
Statement
of the Problem
This stage may be incorporated in
your introduction or your purpose stage, or it may stand independently (it
depends on the field). Some proposals start with the statement of the problem,
rather than a more general introduction. Regardless of placement, at some point
you need to clearly identify the problem or knowledge gap that your project is
responding to. This stage should:
* Answer the question: “What is
the gap that needs to be filled?” and/or “What is the problem that needs to be
solved?”
* State the
problem clearly early in a paragraph.
* Limit the
variables you address in stating your problem or question.
You
may want to consider framing your problem “statement” as a question, since you
are really seeking to answer a question (or a set of questions) in your study.
Purpose/Aims/Rationale/Research
Questions
Most proposals
include a clear statement of the research objectives, including a description
of the questions the research seeks to answer or the hypotheses the research
advances. This may be included as part of the introduction, or it may be a
separate stage. Spend significant time brainstorming before and while you draft
this stage. Once you begin your dissertation research, you may find that your
aims change in emphasis or in number. What is essential for you at this point,
though, is to specify for your readers—and for yourself—the precise focus of
your research and to identify key concepts you will be studying.
A
clear statement of purpose will:
* Explain the goals and research
objectives of the study (what do you hope to find?).
* Show the original contributions
of your study by explaining how your research questions or approach are
different from previous research (what will you add to the field of knowledge?).
* Provide a more detailed account
of the points summarized in the introduction.
* Include a rationale for the
study (why should we study this?).
* Be clear about what your study
will not address (this is especially
important if you are applying for competitive funding; narrowly focused studies
are more likely to win funding).
In addition, this stage may:
* Describe
the research questions and/or hypotheses of the study.
* Include a substage defining
important terms, especially if they will be new to some readers or if you will
use them in an unfamiliar way.
* State limitations of the
research.
* Provide a rationale for the
particular subjects of the study.
The literature
review is a critical look at the
existing research that is significant to the work that you are carrying out. Obviously,
at this point you are not likely to have read everything related to your
research questions, but you should still be able to identify the key texts with
which you will be in conversation as you write your dissertation. Literature
reviews often include both the theoretical approaches to your thesis and
research (empirical or analytical) on your thesis.
Writing the literature review
allows you to understand:
* How other scholars have written about
your thesis (in addition to what they
have written).
* The range of
theories scholars use to analyze their primary materials or data
* How other
scholars connect their specific research thesiss to larger issues, questions,
or practices within the field.
* The best
methodologies and research techniques for your particular thesis.
The literature review has four
major functions or rhetorical goals that you should keep in mind as you
write:
* It situates
the current study within a wider disciplinary conversation.
* It illustrates the uniqueness,
importance of and need for your particular project by explaining how your
research questions and approach are different from those of other scholars.
* It justifies methodological
choices.
* It demonstrates your
familiarity with the thesis and appropriate approaches to studying it.
Appropriate
literature reviews should:
* Flesh out the
Introduction’s brief description of the background of your study.
* Critically
assess important research trends or areas of interest relevant to your study.
* Identify
potential gaps in knowledge.
* Establish a
need for current and/or future research projects.
Advice on
drafting your Literature Review:
* Categorize the literature into
recognizable thesis clusters and begin each with a sub-heading. Look for trends
and themes and then synthesize related information. You want to
1) stake
out the various positions that are relevant to your project,
2) build
on conclusions that lead to your project, or
3) demonstrate
the places where the literature is lacking, whether due to a methodology you
think is incomplete or to assumptions you think are flawed.
* Avoid “Smith says X, Jones says Y”
literature reviews. You should be tying the literature you review to specific
facets of your problem, not to review for the sake of reviewing.
* Avoid including all the studies on the
subject or the vast array of scholarship that brought you to the subject. As
tempting as it might be to throw in everything you know, the literature review
is not the place for such demonstration. Stick to those pieces of the
literature directly relevant to your narrowed subject (question or statement of
a problem).
* Avoid polemics, praise, and blame. You
should fight the temptation to strongly express your opinions about about the
previous literature. Your task is to justify your project given the known
scholarship, so polemics, praise, and blame are unnecessary and possibly
distracting.
Point
to Remember: You are entering a scholarly conversation already
in progress. The literature review shows that you’ve been listening in and that
you have something valuable to say. After
assessing the literature in your field, you should be able to answer the
following questions:
* Why
should we study (further) this research thesis/problem?
* What
contributions will my study make to the existing literature?
Methodology
This stage is essential to most
good research proposals. How you study a problem is often as important as the
results you collect. This stage includes
a description of the general means through which the goals of the study will be
achieved: methods, materials, procedures, tasks, etc.
An
appropriate methodology stage should:
* Introduce the overall
methodological approach for each problem or question. Is your study
qualitative or quantitative? Are you going to take a special approach, such as
action research, or use case studies?
* Indicate how the approach
fits the overall research design. Your methods should have a clear
connection with your research questions and/or hypotheses. In other words, make
sure that your methods will actually answer your questions—Don Thackrey notes
that the most common reason for the rejection of professional proposals is that
“the proposed tests, or methods, or scientific procedures are unsuited to the
stated objective.”
* Describe the specific methods
of data collection you are going to use—e.g. surveys, interviews,
questionnaires, observation, archival or traditional library research.
* Explain how you intend to analyze
and interpret your results. Will you use statistical analysis? Will you use
specific theoretical perspectives to help you analyze a text or explain
observed behaviors?
* If necessary, provide
background and rationale for methodologies that are unfamiliar for your
readers. (Typically, the social sciences and humanities require more
explanation/rationale of methods than the hard sciences).
* If applicable, you may also
need to provide a rationale for subject selection (particularly if you have not
already provided one). For instance, if you propose to conduct interviews and
use questionnaires, how do you intend to select the sample population? If you
are analyzing literary texts, which texts have you chosen, and why?
* Address potential
limitations. Are there any practical limitations that could affect your
data collection? How will you attempt to control for potential confounding
variables and errors?
Advice on
drafting your methodology stage:
* Break down
your methodology into easily digestible substages.
* In the physical sciences, these
stages may include subjects, design, apparatus, instrumentation, process,
analysis, etc.
* In the social sciences, these stages
may include selection of participants, interview process, profiles,
interpretive and analytic framework, methods of qualitative analysis, etc.
* In the humanities, these stages
may include scholarly research, archival research, theoretical orientation,
etc.
* Remember that
your methods stage may also require supporting literature.
* Anticipate and
pre-empt the audience’s methodological concerns.
* If the audience might have a problem
with a facet of the methodology, admit this difficulty and justify your
approach.
* If your methodology may lead to
problems you can anticipate (including timeframe problems), state this openly
and show why pursuing the methodology outweighs the risk of these problems
cropping up.
Point
to Remember: If you have demonstrated that you have considered
even the downside of your methods, their advantages will seem more carefully
developed.
Significance/
Implications
Some proposals require a separate
stage stating the significance of the study. A clear statement of significance
may:
* Discuss the methodological,
substantive, and/or theoretical contribution you anticipate making to existing
knowledge in your (sub)field.
* Plainly state the practical
and/or theoretical importance of the problem and/or objectives of your study,
given current knowledge and practices.
* Explain the usefulness or
benefits of the study, if possible (and especially for funding agencies), to
both the outside world and the research community.
Overview of Chapters
Some proposals also include a
brief description of relevant chapters. Check with your advisor to see if this
is required for your proposal. Finally, I have included the following table
that allows you to synthesize the proposal into the final project and to
complete the overall dissertation. Remember, the more detail and effort you put
into your proposal then the less work and effort you will have to put into the
final dissertation:
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