Structure of a dissertation proposal

From GSLISWiki

Jump to: navigation, search

This page was originally created from notes taken in 590DRM Doctoral Research Methods in a lecture by Caroline Haythornthwaite. It should be noted that not all faculty members will agree with the structure laid out on this page, so be sure to check this structure with your advisor and your committee before proceeding.

Contents

[edit] What makes a good proposal?

  • Structure - the structure outlined below
    • (Note: this can be simplified to a 3 chapter structure; to some extent, chapters IV. and V. are optional)
  • Content - need to have good content in the Structure. This means that all relevant information must be included, the Method section must be well thought out and the "why" behind all the decisions which were made clearly explained.
  • Ethics - part of method? Two types of ethical concerns: ethical problems, and ethical approaches:
    • Ethical problems are experimental designs which can be fixed.
    • Ethical approaches concern what kind of research you are doing, and how you are approaching it. Whether you should be doing the research in question at all is an ethical approach issue. Any such issues should be resolved long before the proposal stage.
    • You should acknowledge your funding sources.
      • If there is a potential conflict of interest, you need to discuss it.
  • Significance - why is your research important, with respect to the big picture (society, humanity, etc.)?
    • This question basically is: "What's the point?"
    • You don't want to be doing insignificant work.
    • See the Research Questions section below for how Significance is often derived from, related to, or identical to the Big Picture/General Research Question.
  • Relevance - how your work is related to specifics:
    • Relevance to LIS
    • Relevance to your own interests (implicit)
      • This relevance should not be explicitly stated, but rather should emerge implicitly throughout the proposal.
  • Writing - quality of writing: clear, concise, easy to read, good explanations, good narrative flow (properly shaped), etc.

[edit] Research Questions

If you are testing, you need to have a (or several) hypotheses as your research questions.

As you progress, you should continually narrow your research questions to make your thesis manageable:

  1. Big Picture/General Research Question
    • This question should demonstrate the value of your research to society: i.e., its Significance
    • Ex: How is CMC used in Society?
  2. Narrower Research Question
    • Ex: How is CMC used for Distance Education?
  3. Even Narrower Research Question
    • Ex: How is CMC used in the LEEP Program?
  4. Specific Research Question
    • This is the question which determines what methods/methodology will be used and why.
    • Ex: How is CMC used to facilitate interaction between students?

[edit] Structure

[edit] "Executive Summary"

  • Essentially a long abstract
  • 2-4 pages on what you are doing
  • cannot be written until after you've written the rest of it
  • Significance (big picture)

[edit] I. Introduction (to proposal)

This section is an introduction to the whole Dissertation Proposal and should serve as a roadmap that tells the reader what you plan on doing. It should introduce your research, explain its Significance by situating it in the big picture, and say a bit about the analysis/approach.

  • Longer than the "Executive Summary" - what the whole things is about
  • What you can expect in this proposal - roadmap
  • Situate the problem
    • What you are doing
    • Why you are doing it
    • Where in the universe it fits
  • Say a bit about the analysis, approach
  • Significance (big picture)
  • Relevance (to specifics)

[edit] II. Background Literature (intro to field)

Essentially a Literature Review. This section should review all literatures of fields relevant to your dissertation topic.

This section will need to be updated when included in the Thesis, to ensure that all relevant new literature has been accounted for.

  • Review of what other people have done
  • How this leads into your work
  • How your work is different from this other work
  • " What has not been done is …"
    • Either 'filling the hole' or 'extending' or 'testing'
    • New populations, new approaches,
  • Research Questions - hypotheses

[edit] III. Method

Ideally this section will only change tense (from future to past) when ported to your dissertation. Of course, since when do things work according to our ideals?

  1. Methodology (Method)
    • What approach why
    • 'Why' in relation to literature review (the gap)
    • Justify the approach (why it is good)
    • Why is it actually going to address the topics you are interested in?
    • This is one of the major parts of your thesis defence where your committee will catch you if you do not know what you are talking about, or if you have not prepared enough.
  2. Population and Sample
    • Who are you going to talk to?
    • How will you get them?
    • Sampling technique
    • Internal/External Validity
    • How do you know when you are done?
      • ex.: When not hearing anything new
      • ex.: When you have collected data from the [30] people required by the sampling rules for the statistical tests you have chosen to use.
  3. The Method
    • e.g. survey instrument, interview outline, experimental design, etc.
    • (results from a pilot study)

[edit] IV. Analysis (proposed)

  • How will you interpret the data?

[edit] V. What you expect to find

  • Expected results - what kind of results you think you will get.

[edit] Appendices

  • Permission forms (informed consent)
  • IRB approval
  • Full Survey instrument

[edit] Related Pages

Retrieved from "http://www.gslis.org/wiki/Structure_of_a_dissertation_proposal"
Personal tools