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Dissertation Proposal: Understanding Its Essence and Purpose
Writing a dissertation proposal can be quite challenging for a student. However, in effect it implies nothing else than summarizing the research you are going to carry out in a dissertation. This article helps to understand what a purpose of a dissertation proposal is and what to pay attention to when writing it.
The purpose of a dissertation proposal is to present the essence of the research which you are going to carry out to the committee. There are distinctions between a dissertation proposal and a dissertation:
- A dissertation proposal is quite short: about 20-30 pages.
- A dissertation proposal does not cover some material which you will provide in your dissertation. As a rule, the following chapters are included to a dissertation proposal:
- Title
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Problem Statement
- Hypotheses
- Methods
- Limitations
- References
- Appendices
Correspondingly, your dissertation proposal will not include the following sections:
- Findings
- Discussions
- Conclusions
- Recommendations
It is important not to perceive writing a dissertation proposal as a formality. This paper addresses a range of matters: in your dissertation proposal, you should:
- Represent your research so that a committee understands what to expect from your future dissertation.
- Prove that your future dissertation is worth writing. In your dissertation proposal, you should show that:
- an analogical research has not been done
- an answer for the problem you investigate has not been found
- the research is really important, and its results will be applicable
- Demonstrate in your dissertation proposal that though your research has not been completed yet, you already have a clear understanding of the following things:
- what you are going to do (Problem Statement)
- what for (Introduction), and
- how (Methodology)
Logical connection between these three matters is a very important element of your dissertation proposal writing, pay peculiar attention to it.
