A PhD proposal is a focused document that introduces your PhD study idea and seeks to convince the reader that your idea is interesting, original and viable within the allocated study period and Writing a Good PhD Research Proposal. September DOI: /RG Project: Navigation solutions for autonomous robots with low-cost sensors. Authors: Baseem Altwajre Currently working on submitting my PhD proposal. The professor that would potentially supervise me has asked for an informal proposal, only a couple pages long. I am interested in looking into the "trends" of homicide and punishment throughout history in Greece, and possibly the U.S as well. (I am based in Australia but fluent in Greek)
How to write a PhD proposal that succeeds - The PhD Proofreaders
In this section some ideas are presented about the process of designing a research proposal and the elements that a research proposal preferably contains.
More good phd proposal about designing are to be found in: Verschuren P. Designing a Research Project. Lemma, Utrecht The proposal preferably contains the following six aspects or elements: The product of the research, i. the research objective. data needed to answer the questions, good phd proposal. These six elements should be linked in a logical and understandable way. That is, the task of a research designer is to formulate a clear and feasible objective, to derive research questions from this objective, to decide what data or research material is needed to answer the questions, how he or she plans to process and analyse this research material in order to find these answers, and finally a work plan that tells what activities are planned to do when, with what aimed results, good phd proposal.
All this should be steered and inspired as much as is possible by existing theory and the knowledge the researcher already has. The designing process should be carried out in an iterative way. That is, during the designing process the designer has to go continuously back and forth between the five elements of the design plus existing theory in order to see whether reflections on or a provisional decision as to one element have repercussions for the other elements, good phd proposal.
For instance, in thinking about the research questions after the research objective has been provisionally formulatedthe designer may perceive that he or she failed to notice something when formulating the research objective. Thus it should be reformulated. Make sure that, once you changed the objective, you have to check the rest of the design! This is where iterative designing is about, good phd proposal. Or, in selecting the research material new ideas about research questions may arise or existing ones may change.
If so, the designer has to check whether a change in the research questions asks for a fit of the rest of the design in the making. Designing research thus is a matter of trial and error before the researcher achieves a well-balanced design.
It is impossible to do this adequately in a linear-serial way. You are strongly advised to cooperate with your supervisor in developing your research design in an iterative way. The reason for this is that you need some creativity and fantasy to make the design, and a critical eye as well.
These are easier to realise by brainstorming with another person than doing this all by good phd proposal, behind your desk and an empty paper! Below the six elements of a research design presented above are elaborated. Depending upon your discipline and the research tradition of your group or the particular research area, good phd proposal, in fact the entire designing process may be guided by good phd proposal theory if any, good phd proposal.
For instance, the selection and exact formulation of the research objective may be derived from theory, from a generalisation of results, but also from new ideas.
The same goes for deriving the research questions. This is especially the case if the research issue is not only built up of research questions, but also of hypotheses.
This is called hypothesis testing research. good phd proposal reality, and to what extent they do not, good phd proposal.
This is a much more interesting and fruitful way to write the latter part of a thesis than simply to sum up your findings. They even may make part of your design.
Theory may also be helpful in defining the main concepts, and thus in selecting the empirical data that are needed to cover these concepts and to make it possible to find an answer to the research questions. A research project in principle focuses on one of the three products below.
Of course this main product may force the good phd proposal first to produce one or both of the other products. The project may also generate one or both of the other products as a by product. But in principle the best thing to do is to decide at the beginning on which of the three possible objectives you will put an accent. The production of insights, knowledge or a theory. These may be descriptive how exactly does the phenomenon look like or how is it built up exactly?
or explanatory what are the causes or backgrounds of the phenomenon? What is exactly the phenomenon that you want to describe or explain? What type of insights, knowledge or theory are you aiming at? To formulate and argument recommendations to improve something. What type of recommendations do you want to make? For achieving what exactly? And why is this valuable or useful? Good phd proposal development of a new object, a tool, an instrument, a policy, a plan or something like that.
Describe shortly this object, tool, good phd proposal, instrument, policy, plan to be developed. Give also a short description of what the tool, instrument et cetera is aiming at and what functions, demands and side conditions it exactly has to fulfil.
Warning: Defining the objective of your research only makes sense if you are as clear, concrete and realistic as possible! Please check these three criteria! The development of research questions is by far the most complicated and important part of the designing process, good phd proposal.
You are advised to do this in three steps, followed by checks: 1 Formulate what type of information or knowledge good phd proposal what exactly?
must be produced in order to achieve the research objective. This should be done in such a way that the answers to these sub questions together are the answer to the central question from which they were derived, neither less nor more. This in fact means that you can leave out the central question once you formulated the sub questions.
This may be a nice check on the adequacy of your sub questions. The reader should make clear that an iterative strategy means that this fit may be achieved by adapting either the sub questions, or the central question from which they are derived, or both.
The sub questions form your final research questions. As the reader may check, in fact this how-can type of formulation mostly regards the research objective. For formulating good phd proposal questions you have to derive from the research objective what information, knowledge and insights are needed or useful to achieve this objective.
b Avoid to present desk-decisions as research questions. Examples are: What literature or theory do I need? How must the central concepts be operationalised? What is the optimal sample size? Et cetera, good phd proposal. c Do not formulate questions for an interview instead of research questions. The first ones are afterwards to be derived from the latter ones! d Do not formulate a question starting from scratch, good phd proposal.
If this is not clear for somebody else and or asks for much explanation and elaboration, your research question is not yet clear enough. Continue the process of finding questions that have a clear contribution to achieving your research objective and or adapt the research objective. If these questions can not be answered in a straightforward way, good phd proposal, either the question is not adequate see warnings above or answering good phd proposal is not feasible.
You then have to reformulate your question and thus most probably also your research objective, good phd proposal. Answer the next three questions for each research question!
a What sources of knowledge are you planning to consult experts and literature. b What secondary empirical data do you need? c What empirical data research material do you have to gather or to generate yourself? Where will you find these data and or how are you going to gather or generate these data observation, questioning, and content analysis of written and audio-visual documents?
Describe shortly how from these data the answer to your research questions can be found. Besides you have to answer the next question for the project as a whole, i. for the set of research questions. d How do you plan to select your data sources or data? This is a matter of sampling, either random sampling or strategic sampling. The first alternative regards a quantitative research with many data sourcesthe second fits a qualitative research with only a few cases.
To answer this question you must in any of the two cases define your population of interest, i. the domain about which you exactly want to produce knowledge. Describing carefully the boundaries of this population helps a lot in getting clear where your research exactly is about and what is the reach of it.
Try to be realistic at this point! This forces you to reduce your project to a feasible size, which is a first condition for its success, good phd proposal. Next you define criteria that will be used in the selection process. If you plan to do a quantitative good phd proposal you have good phd proposal specify what type of quantitative research you plan to do one shot survey, a panel research, a trend study, good phd proposal, an experiment and the like.
You also specify what type of data analysis you plan to do and what methods you are going to use multivariate analysis techniques, optimisation methods, etc. In case of a qualitative research please specify what type of research it is a comparative case study, a field research, interpretative research or so. Good phd proposal how do you plan to process and to analyse the research material in order to find an answer to your research questions?
Your research strategy may also consist of building and handling a computer model, gaming simulation with people or computer simulation.
A final aspect of a research design here to be mentioned is a work plan. The art of making a plan for your PhD project is to cut the whole job into pieces, and to do this in a reasonable and realistic way. This plan must make clear what activities should be done within certain time limits. It should also specify what is the product or what are the results of a given time period.
How To Write A Research Proposal For A Dissertation Or Thesis (With Examples)
, time: 41:21How to write a research proposal?
May 21, · What are the Elements of a Good Research Proposal? Are you a PhD candidate gearing up for a research project? Hold on, before you proceed, one of the biggest challenges you need to overcome is submitting an impressive research proposal. While many students are prepared to undertake the research study, very few are well-versed with the concept Proposal Writing Services is the vital step in drafting your dissertation. In fact, to obtain the grade which you have desired. Basically, in the sense of the dissertation process, PhD proposal is the most demanding part that cannot be underestimated. Although, the most significant part of any PhD support application is the proposal Sep 25, · The Good, the Bad and How to Write a PhD Research Proposal At the start of your process, consider what you would like your proposal to do. If you’re putting together a research proposal, you’ll need in order to demonstrate the way the project fits within the discussion of different scholars within the area
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