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Writing a dissertation proposal.

What is a dissertation proposal?

Dissertation proposals are like the table of contents for your research project , and will help you explain what it is you intend to examine, and roughly, how you intend to go about collecting and analysing your data. You won’t be required to have everything planned out exactly, as your topic may change slightly in the course of your research, but for the most part, writing your proposal should help you better identify the direction for your dissertation.

When you’ve chosen a topic for your dissertation , you’ll need to make sure that it is both appropriate to your field of study and narrow enough to be completed by the end of your course. Your dissertation proposal will help you define and determine both of these things and will also allow your department and instructors to make sure that you are being advised by the best person to help you complete your research.

A dissertation proposal should include:

• An introduction to your dissertation topic
• Aims and objectives of your dissertation
• A literature review of the current research undertaken in your field
• Proposed methodology to be used
• Implications of your research
• Limitations of your research
• Bibliography 

Although this content all needs to be included in your dissertation proposal, the content isn’t set in stone so it can be changed later if necessary, depending on your topic of study, university or degree. Think of your dissertation proposal as more of a guide to writing your dissertation rather than something to be strictly adhered to – this will be discussed later. 

Why is a dissertation proposal important?

A dissertation proposal is very important because it helps shape the actual dissertation, which is arguably the most important piece of writing a postgraduate student will undertake. By having a well-structured dissertation proposal, you will have a strong foundation for your dissertation and a good template to follow. The dissertation itself is key to postgraduate success as it will contribute to your overall grade . Writing your dissertation will also help you to develop research and communication skills, which could become invaluable in your employment success and future career. By making sure you’re fully briefed on the current research available in your chosen dissertation topic, as well as keeping details of your bibliography up to date, you will be in a great position to write an excellent dissertation.

Next, we’ll be outlining things you can do to help you produce the best postgraduate dissertation proposal possible.

How to begin your dissertation proposal

1. Narrow the topic down  

It’s important that when you sit down to draft your proposal, you’ve carefully thought out your topic and are able to narrow it down enough to present a clear and succinct understanding of what you aim to do and hope to accomplish in your dissertation.

How do I decide on a dissertation topic?

A simple way to begin choosing a topic for your dissertation is to go back through your assignments and lectures. Was there a topic that stood out to you? Was there an idea that wasn’t fully explored? If the answer to either of these questions is yes, then you have a great starting point! If not, then consider one of your more personal interests. Use Google Scholar to explore studies and journals on your topic to find any areas that could go into more detail or explore a more niche topic within your personal interest. 

Keep track of all publications

It’s important to keep track of all the publications that you use while you research. You can use this in your literature review.

You need to keep track of:

• The title of the study/research paper/book/journal
• Who wrote/took part in the study/research paper
• Chapter title
• Page number(s)

The more research you do, the more you should be able to narrow down your topic and find an interesting area to focus on. You’ll also be able to write about everything you find in your literature review which will make your proposal stronger.

While doing your research, consider the following:

• When was your source published? Is the information outdated? Has new information come to light since?
• Can you determine if any of the methodologies could have been carried out more efficiently? Are there any errors or gaps?
• Are there any ethical concerns that should be considered in future studies on the same topic?
• Could anything external (for example new events happening) have influenced the research?

Read more about picking a topic for your dissertation . 

How long should the dissertation proposal be?

There is usually no set length for a dissertation proposal, but you should aim for 1,000 words or more. Your dissertation proposal will give an outline of the topic of your dissertation, some of the questions you hope to answer with your research, what sort of studies and type of data you aim to employ in your research, and the sort of analysis you will carry out.

Different courses may have different requirements for things like length and the specific information to include, as well as what structure is preferred, so be sure to check what special requirements your course has.  

2. What should I include in a dissertation proposal?

Your dissertation proposal should have several key aspects regardless of the structure. The introduction, the methodology, aims and objectives, the literature review, and the constraints of your research all need to be included to ensure that you provide your supervisor with a comprehensive proposal. But what are they? Here's a checklist to get you started.

• Introduction

The introduction will state your central research question and give background on the subject, as well as relating it contextually to any broader issues surrounding it. 

The dissertation proposal introduction should outline exactly what you intend to investigate in your final research project.

Make sure you outline the structure of the dissertation proposal in your introduction, i.e. part one covers methodology, part two covers a literature review, part three covers research limitations, and so forth.

Your introduction should also include the working title for your dissertation – although don't worry if you want to change this at a later stage as your supervisors will not expect this to be set in stone.

Dissertation methodology

The dissertation methodology will break down what sources you aim to use for your research and what sort of data you will collect from it, either quantitative or qualitative. You may also want to include how you will analyse the data you gather and what, if any, bias there may be in your chosen methods.

Depending on the level of detail that your specific course requires, you may also want to explain why your chosen approaches to gathering data are more appropriate to your research than others.

Consider and explain how you will conduct empirical research. For example, will you use interviews? Surveys? Observation? Lab experiments?

In your dissertation methodology, outline the variables that you will measure in your research and how you will select your data or participant sample to ensure valid results.

Finally, are there any specific tools that you will use for your methodology? If so, make sure you provide this information in the methodology section of your dissertation proposal.

• Aims and objectives

Your aim should not be too broad but should equally not be too specific.

An example of a dissertation aim could be: ‘To examine the key content features and social contexts that construct successful viral marketing content distribution on X’.

In comparison, an example of a dissertation aim that is perhaps too broad would be: ‘To investigate how things go viral on X’.

The aim of your dissertation proposal should relate directly to your research question.

• Literature review

The literature review will list the books and materials that you will be using to do your research. This is where you can list materials that gave you more background on your topic, or contain research carried out previously that you referred to in your own studies. 

The literature review is also a good place to demonstrate how your research connects to previous academic studies and how your methods may differ from or build upon those used by other researchers. While it’s important to give enough information about the materials to show that you have read and understood them, don’t forget to include your analysis of their value to your work.

Where there are shortfalls in other pieces of academic work, identify these and address how you will overcome these shortcomings in your own research.

Constraints and limitations of your research

Lastly, you will also need to include the constraints of your research. Many topics will have broad links to numerous larger and more complex issues, so by clearly stating the constraints of your research, you are displaying your understanding and acknowledgment of these larger issues, and the role they play by focusing your research on just one section or part of the subject.

In this section it is important to Include examples of possible limitations, for example, issues with sample size, participant drop out, lack of existing research on the topic, time constraints, and other factors that may affect your study.

• Ethical considerations

Confidentiality and ethical concerns are an important part of any research.

Ethics are key, as your dissertation will need to undergo ethical approval if you are working with participants. This means that it’s important to allow for and explain ethical considerations in your dissertation proposal.

Keep confidentiality in mind and keep your participants informed, so they are aware of how the data provided is being used and are assured that all personal information is being kept confidential.

Consider how involved your patients will be with your research, this will help you think about what ethical considerations to take and discuss them fully in your dissertation proposal. For example, face-to-face participant interview methods could require more ethical measures and confidentiality considerations than methods that do not require participants, such as corpus data (a collection of existing written texts) analysis. 

3. Dissertation proposal example

Once you know what sections you need or do not need to include, it may help focus your writing to break the proposal up into separate headings, and tackle each piece individually. You may also want to consider including a title. Writing a title for your proposal will help you make sure that your topic is narrow enough, as well as help keep your writing focused and on topic.

One example of a dissertation proposal structure is using the following headings, either broken up into sections or chapters depending on the required word count:

• Methodology
• Research constraints

In any dissertation proposal example, you’ll want to make it clear why you’re doing the research and what positives could come from your contribution. 

Dissertation proposal example table

This table outlines the various stages of your dissertation proposal.

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How to Write a Dissertation Proposal | A Step-by-Step Guide

Published on 14 February 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on 11 November 2022.

A dissertation proposal describes the research you want to do: what it’s about, how you’ll conduct it, and why it’s worthwhile. You will probably have to write a proposal before starting your dissertation as an undergraduate or postgraduate student.

A dissertation proposal should generally include:

• An introduction to your topic and aims
• A literature review  of the current state of knowledge
• An outline of your proposed methodology
• A discussion of the possible implications of the research
• A bibliography  of relevant sources

Dissertation proposals vary a lot in terms of length and structure, so make sure to follow any guidelines given to you by your institution, and check with your supervisor when you’re unsure.

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Table of contents

Step 1: coming up with an idea, step 2: presenting your idea in the introduction, step 3: exploring related research in the literature review, step 4: describing your methodology, step 5: outlining the potential implications of your research, step 6: creating a reference list or bibliography.

Before writing your proposal, it’s important to come up with a strong idea for your dissertation.

Find an area of your field that interests you and do some preliminary reading in that area. What are the key concerns of other researchers? What do they suggest as areas for further research, and what strikes you personally as an interesting gap in the field?

Once you have an idea, consider how to narrow it down and the best way to frame it. Don’t be too ambitious or too vague – a dissertation topic needs to be specific enough to be feasible. Move from a broad field of interest to a specific niche:

• Russian literature 19th century Russian literature The novels of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky
• Social media Mental health effects of social media Influence of social media on young adults suffering from anxiety

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Like most academic texts, a dissertation proposal begins with an introduction . This is where you introduce the topic of your research, provide some background, and most importantly, present your aim , objectives and research question(s) .

Try to dive straight into your chosen topic: What’s at stake in your research? Why is it interesting? Don’t spend too long on generalisations or grand statements:

• Social media is the most important technological trend of the 21st century. It has changed the world and influences our lives every day.
• Psychologists generally agree that the ubiquity of social media in the lives of young adults today has a profound impact on their mental health. However, the exact nature of this impact needs further investigation.

Once your area of research is clear, you can present more background and context. What does the reader need to know to understand your proposed questions? What’s the current state of research on this topic, and what will your dissertation contribute to the field?

If you’re including a literature review, you don’t need to go into too much detail at this point, but give the reader a general sense of the debates that you’re intervening in.

This leads you into the most important part of the introduction: your aim, objectives and research question(s) . These should be clearly identifiable and stand out from the text – for example, you could present them using bullet points or bold font.

Make sure that your research questions are specific and workable – something you can reasonably answer within the scope of your dissertation. Avoid being too broad or having too many different questions. Remember that your goal in a dissertation proposal is to convince the reader that your research is valuable and feasible:

• Does social media harm mental health?
• What is the impact of daily social media use on 18– to 25–year–olds suffering from general anxiety disorder?

Now that your topic is clear, it’s time to explore existing research covering similar ideas. This is important because it shows you what is missing from other research in the field and ensures that you’re not asking a question someone else has already answered.

You’ve probably already done some preliminary reading, but now that your topic is more clearly defined, you need to thoroughly analyse and evaluate the most relevant sources in your literature review .

Here you should summarise the findings of other researchers and comment on gaps and problems in their studies. There may be a lot of research to cover, so make effective use of paraphrasing to write concisely:

• Smith and Prakash state that ‘our results indicate a 25% decrease in the incidence of mechanical failure after the new formula was applied’.
• Smith and Prakash’s formula reduced mechanical failures by 25%.

The point is to identify findings and theories that will influence your own research, but also to highlight gaps and limitations in previous research which your dissertation can address:

• Subsequent research has failed to replicate this result, however, suggesting a flaw in Smith and Prakash’s methods. It is likely that the failure resulted from…

Next, you’ll describe your proposed methodology : the specific things you hope to do, the structure of your research and the methods that you will use to gather and analyse data.

You should get quite specific in this section – you need to convince your supervisor that you’ve thought through your approach to the research and can realistically carry it out. This section will look quite different, and vary in length, depending on your field of study.

You may be engaged in more empirical research, focusing on data collection and discovering new information, or more theoretical research, attempting to develop a new conceptual model or add nuance to an existing one.

Dissertation research often involves both, but the content of your methodology section will vary according to how important each approach is to your dissertation.

Empirical research

Empirical research involves collecting new data and analysing it in order to answer your research questions. It can be quantitative (focused on numbers), qualitative (focused on words and meanings), or a combination of both.

With empirical research, it’s important to describe in detail how you plan to collect your data:

• Will you use surveys ? A lab experiment ? Interviews?
• What variables will you measure?
• How will you select a representative sample ?
• If other people will participate in your research, what measures will you take to ensure they are treated ethically?
• What tools (conceptual and physical) will you use, and why?

It’s appropriate to cite other research here. When you need to justify your choice of a particular research method or tool, for example, you can cite a text describing the advantages and appropriate usage of that method.

Don’t overdo this, though; you don’t need to reiterate the whole theoretical literature, just what’s relevant to the choices you have made.

Moreover, your research will necessarily involve analysing the data after you have collected it. Though you don’t know yet what the data will look like, it’s important to know what you’re looking for and indicate what methods (e.g. statistical tests , thematic analysis ) you will use.

Theoretical research

You can also do theoretical research that doesn’t involve original data collection. In this case, your methodology section will focus more on the theory you plan to work with in your dissertation: relevant conceptual models and the approach you intend to take.

For example, a literary analysis dissertation rarely involves collecting new data, but it’s still necessary to explain the theoretical approach that will be taken to the text(s) under discussion, as well as which parts of the text(s) you will focus on:

• This dissertation will utilise Foucault’s theory of panopticism to explore the theme of surveillance in Orwell’s 1984 and Kafka’s The Trial…

Here, you may refer to the same theorists you have already discussed in the literature review. In this case, the emphasis is placed on how you plan to use their contributions in your own research.

You’ll usually conclude your dissertation proposal with a section discussing what you expect your research to achieve.

You obviously can’t be too sure: you don’t know yet what your results and conclusions will be. Instead, you should describe the projected implications and contribution to knowledge of your dissertation.

First, consider the potential implications of your research. Will you:

• Develop or test a theory?
• Provide new information to governments or businesses?
• Challenge a commonly held belief?
• Suggest an improvement to a specific process?

Describe the intended result of your research and the theoretical or practical impact it will have:

Finally, it’s sensible to conclude by briefly restating the contribution to knowledge you hope to make: the specific question(s) you hope to answer and the gap the answer(s) will fill in existing knowledge:

Like any academic text, it’s important that your dissertation proposal effectively references all the sources you have used. You need to include a properly formatted reference list or bibliography at the end of your proposal.

Different institutions recommend different styles of referencing – commonly used styles include Harvard , Vancouver , APA , or MHRA . If your department does not have specific requirements, choose a style and apply it consistently.

A reference list includes only the sources that you cited in your proposal. A bibliography is slightly different: it can include every source you consulted in preparing the proposal, even if you didn’t mention it in the text. In the case of a dissertation proposal, a bibliography may also list relevant sources that you haven’t yet read, but that you intend to use during the research itself.

Check with your supervisor what type of bibliography or reference list you should include.

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How to Write a Dissertation Proposal - Template & Examples

Home >> Blog >> How to Write a Dissertation Proposal - Template & Examples

Dissertation writing is an important academic assignment for your bachelor’s and master’s degrees. It is considered the most demanding and daunting assignment because it involves extensive research and analysis.

Professors usually assign this task to students to evaluate their research and writing skills. Thus, the writing process is indeed challenging and time-consuming. From choosing the right topic to writing all the sections of a dissertation, it needs a lot of effort.

Before submitting a dissertation, a dissertation proposal is written for approval. When the proposal is approved, the research on the topic begins. Learn how to write a professional dissertation proposal by going through this detailed guide.

What is a Dissertation Proposal?

Dissertation proposal outline, how to write a dissertation proposal, dissertation proposal examples.

• Writing the Dissertation Proposal - Dos and Don’ts

A dissertation proposal is similar to a research proposal. It is written to comprehend a statement on the nature of the student’s research interest. This proposed idea must be submitted to the dissertation advisor, who can either approve or reject it.

Moreover, a dissertation proposal presentation includes the methods for data collection and describes hypothetical outcomes. It is mainly used to convince the experts that your research is worthy enough to make a difference in the field. Therefore, make sure to write an impressive and well-structured proposal.

A dissertation proposal is a major step in your master’s or doctoral degree. It provides an outline of the future work you will do to complete that degree.

The length of a dissertation proposal varies from field to field. However, a lengthy proposal usually takes up to 20 pages, while the shorter one is around 9 to 10 pages.

What is the Purpose of a Dissertation Proposal?

A proposal is a document that explains what your research project is and how you plan to do it. You will submit your proposal to your committee for review. After you have presented your proposal, the committee will ask you questions about it.

The committee wants to know that your research questions are important and you have chosen the right methods to answer them.

Why is a Dissertation Proposal Important?

The proposal will provide you with a strong foundation for your work. It also helps to set expectations about what is expected from it.

The dissertation is very important for your success in getting a postgraduate degree. Writing the dissertation will help you develop research and communication skills that will be very useful in your future career.

For a great dissertation, you need to stay up-to-date on the latest research related to your topic. Make sure to keep track of all the sources you use for your dissertation. This will help you write an excellent proposal.

(back to top)

Below is a detailed dissertation proposal outline for you to follow while writing your own:

Chapter 1 - Introduction

• Significance of Problem
• Theoretical Framework
• Problem Statement
• Research Questions

Chapter 2 - Literature Review

• Historical Background
• Relevant Theoretical Models

Chapter 3 - Research Methodology

• Participants
• Research Design
• Data Analysis

Chapter 4 - Results

• Descriptive Statistics
• Numerical Statistics
• Tables And Figures

Chapter 5 - Discussion

• Limitations
• Recommendations for Future Research

Chapter 6 - References

Chapter 7 - Appendices

Check out the following document to understand the dissertation proposal format.

Dissertation Proposal Template (PDF)

How do you write a dissertation proposal?

A dissertation proposal describes what you want to do, what the study is about, and how you will conduct it. It includes the steps given below.

• 1. Come Up With an Idea

Before starting to write a proposal, you should come up with a strong dissertation topic or idea. It is better to find an area of your field that may interest you. Also, conduct thorough research work before utilizing the idea and consider the following questions.

• What are the major concerns of other research experts?
• How do they suggest the areas for future research?
• Why has a literature gap grabbed your attention?

After you finalize the idea, narrow it down. Never work on a vague theme and be as specific as possible.

For Example

Russian literature - 19th-century Russian literature - The novels of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky

• 2. Present the Idea in the Introduction

Like other academic assignments, a dissertation proposal also starts with an introduction. A dissertation introduction introduces the topic, provides background information, and presents objectives and research questions.

Consider writing a hook statement related to your chosen topic. Present more background and area context to understand the proposed questions. Also, discuss the existing research on the topic idea and what your dissertation will contribute to the field area.

Remember, if you are planning to include a literature review, avoid adding too much detail at this point. Instead, just provide a brief overview of the research study.

Furthermore, the research aims and objectives must be identifiable and specific. Avoid too broad and too many questions.

• 3. Explore Research in the Literature Review

In this section, explore existing research work and identify what is missing from the literature. Ensure that you are not working on something that has already been discussed.

When working on the literature review , thoroughly analyze the relevant sources in your review. Also, summarize other researchers' findings and highlight the limitations in the previous work.

• 4. Describe the Methodology

Describe the proposed methods to collect and analyze data. Make sure to convince the reader that your dissertation methodology is realistic to carry out. However, this section will vary in length depending on the field of your study.

A writer can use the following research types to collect the data.

• Empirical Research

This type involves collecting data and analyzing it to answer a specific question. It can be quantitative, qualitative, or a combination of both.

You will collect data via surveys, lab experiments, and interviews. Nevertheless, consider the variable that you will measure and the sample size before conducting empirical research.

• Theoretical Research

Theoretical research does not involve collecting original data. Instead, the method focuses on the theory you have planned to work with. You can also refer to the same theorists that you have discussed in the review. But here, the emphasis must be placed on how you will use their contributions in your study.

• 5. Outline the Implications of Your Research

Conclude the proposal by discussing what you expect the research work to achieve. If you are unsure about the final results, consider your dissertation's possible implications, including;

• Develop or test a theory.
• Providing new data to the organizations.
• Challenge a common belief.
• Suggest a future recommendation.
• 6. Create a Referencing List

Lastly; you must reference all sources that you have used in your dissertation proposal. For this, include a properly formatted reference list at the end.

Different educational institutions have different referencing styles, including Harvard, APA, MLA, and Chicago. If the professor does not specify the requirements, choose a style yourself, and apply it. But before doing it, you must know how to cite a dissertation in a proper format.

Refer to the following dissertation proposal examples to write your own.

Masters Dissertation Proposal Example (PDF)

Sample Dissertation Proposal in Education (PDF)

Nursing Dissertation Proposal Example (PDF)

HR Dissertation Proposal Example (PDF)

Undergraduate Dissertation Proposal Example (PDF)

PhD Dissertation Proposal Example (PDF)

Corporate Social Responsibility Dissertation Proposal (PDF)

Writing the Dissertation Proposal - Do’s and Don’ts

Here are the dos and don’ts of writing a dissertation proposal.

• The structure of the dissertation is very important. Always present your idea in a hierarchic order with the most important opinions placed first.
• Identify the topic at the beginning of the proposal and state the central argument.
• Make sure to distinguish between the central questions and the subsidiary ones.
• Identify the main interest of the reader to find out how the writer will address the topic.
• Do not present the topic in multiple versions. Instead, state it clearly and concisely at the start.
• Always identify what is missing in the existing literature and how your research will contribute to the field.
• State a clear connection between the how and what of the presented topic.
• Give enough historical background of the topic for the readers to understand.
• Limit the scope of the research work because too many goals will not be easy to accomplish in the future.
• Never forget to write a dissertation abstract that will relate the opening paragraph to the final outcomes.

Now you must have understood the structure and the writing process of a dissertation proposal. We understand that drafting a perfect dissertation is a daunting task for many students.

The grades and degrees solely depend on this academic assignment. Nevertheless, some get overburdened and end up producing low-quality work.

Therefore, it is better to get professional assistance from GradSchoolGenius . The expert writers provide the best dissertation writing services to guide students. All you have to do is just specify your requirements, and we will do the best we can.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long is a dissertation proposal.

A dissertation proposal must not be less than 10 pages. However, the average length of a Ph.D. dissertation is from 15 to 20 pages.

What is a Ph.D. dissertation proposal?

A Ph.D. proposal is like a plan for your project. The proposal needs to say why this is something new and how it relates to the existing literature in the field.

How many pages should a Ph.D. proposal be?

A Ph.D. research proposal should include many different sections. The minimum requirement is 25 pages, but you can write up to 40 pages.

How much time does it take to write a Ph.D. proposal?

Usually, doctoral research proposals take longer than other proposals. They take about 4 to 6 months while others only take 2 months.

What should be in a dissertation proposal?

Below are some things that you should include in a dissertation proposal.

• Research question
• Previous research
• Outcome of discussion
• Introduction

What makes a good dissertation proposal?

A good dissertation proposal contains an introduction, literature review (to provide background), and methodology.

What are the core elements of a dissertation?

The core elements of the dissertation are;

• Literature review
• Research plan

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Proposal Overview and Format

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Students are urged to begin thinking about a dissertation topic early in their degree program. Concentrated work on a dissertation proposal normally begins after successful completion of the Second-Year Review, which often includes a “mini” proposal, an extended literature review, or a theoretical essay, plus advancement to doctoral candidacy. In defining a dissertation topic, the student collaborates with their faculty advisor or dissertation advisor (if one is selected) in the choice of a topic for the dissertation.

The dissertation proposal is a comprehensive statement on the extent and nature of the student’s dissertation research interests. Students submit a draft of the proposal to their dissertation advisor between the end of the seventh and middle of the ninth quarters. The student must provide a written copy of the proposal to the faculty committee no later than two weeks prior to the date of the proposal hearing. Committee members could require an earlier deadline (e.g., four weeks before the hearing).

The major components of the proposal are as follows, with some variations across Areas and disciplines:

• A detailed statement of the problem that is to be studied and the context within which it is to be seen. This should include a justification of the importance of the problem on both theoretical and educational grounds.
• A thorough review of the literature pertinent to the research problem. This review should provide proof that the relevant literature in the field has been thoroughly researched. Good research is cumulative; it builds on the thoughts, findings, and mistakes of others.
• its general explanatory interest
• the overall theoretical framework within which this interest is to be pursued
• the model or hypotheses to be tested or the research questions to be answered
• a discussion of the conceptual and operational properties of the variables
• an overview of strategies for collecting appropriate evidence (sampling, instrumentation, data collection, data reduction, data analysis)
• a discussion of how the evidence is to be interpreted (This aspect of the proposal will be somewhat different in fields such as history and philosophy of education.)
• If applicable, students should complete a request for approval of research with human subjects, using the Human Subjects Review Form ( http://humansubjects.stanford.edu/ ). Except for pilot work, the University requires the approval of the Administrative Panel on Human Subjects in Behavioral Science Research before any data can be collected from human subjects.

Registration (i.e., enrollment) is required for any quarter during which a degree requirement is completed, including the dissertation proposal. Refer to the Registration or Enrollment for Milestone Completion section for more details.

As students progress through the program, their interests may change. There is no commitment on the part of the student’s advisor to automatically serve as the dissertation chair. Based on the student’s interests and the dissertation topic, many students approach other GSE professors to serve as the dissertation advisor, if appropriate.

A dissertation proposal committee is comprised of three academic council faculty members, one of whom will serve as the major dissertation advisor. Whether or not the student’s general program advisor serves on the dissertation proposal committee and later the reading committee will depend on the relevance of that faculty member’s expertise to the topic of the dissertation, and their availability. There is no requirement that a program advisor serve, although very often they do. Members of the dissertation proposal committee may be drawn from other area committees within the GSE, from other departments in the University, or from emeriti faculty. At least one person serving on the proposal committee must be from the student’s area committee (CTE, DAPS, SHIPS). All three members must be on the Academic Council; if the student desires the expertise of a non-Academic Council member, it may be possible to petition. After the hearing, a memorandum listing the changes to be made will be written and submitted with the signed proposal cover sheet and a copy of the proposal itself to the Doctoral Programs Officer.

Review and approval of the dissertation proposal occurs normally during the third year. The proposal hearing seeks to review the quality and feasibility of the proposal. The Second-Year Review and the Proposal Hearing are separate milestones and may not occur as part of the same hearing or meeting.

The student and the dissertation advisor are responsible for scheduling a formal meeting or hearing to review the proposal; the student and proposal committee convene for this evaluative period. Normally, all must be present at the meeting either in person or via conference phone call.

At the end of this meeting, the dissertation proposal committee members should sign the Cover Sheet for Dissertation Proposal and indicate their approval or rejection of the proposal. This signed form should be submitted to the Doctoral Programs Officer. If the student is required to make revisions, an addendum is required with the written approval of each member of the committee stating that the proposal has been revised to their satisfaction.

After submitting the Proposal Hearing material to the Doctoral Programs Officer, the student should make arrangements with three faculty members to serve on their Dissertation Reading Committee. The Doctoral Dissertation Reading Committee form should be completed and given to the Doctoral Programs Officer to enter in the University student records system. Note: The proposal hearing committee and the reading committee do not have to be the same three faculty members. Normally, the proposal hearing precedes the designation of a Dissertation Reading Committee, and faculty on either committee may differ (except for the primary dissertation advisor). However, some students may advance to Terminal Graduate Registration (TGR) status before completing their dissertation proposal hearing if they have established a dissertation reading committee. In these cases, it is acceptable for the student to form a reading committee prior to the dissertation proposal hearing. The reading committee then serves as the proposal committee.

The proposal and reading committee forms and related instructions are on the GSE website, under current students>forms.

Printing Credit for Use in GSE Labs

Upon completion of their doctoral dissertation proposal, GSE students are eligible for a $300 printing credit redeemable in any of the GSE computer labs where students are normally charged for print jobs. Only one $300 credit per student will be issued, but it is usable throughout the remainder of her or his doctoral program until the balance is exhausted. The print credit can be used only at the printers in Cubberley basement and CERAS, and cannot be used toward copying.

After submitting the signed dissertation proposal cover sheet to the Doctoral Programs Officer indicating approval (see above), students can submit a HELP SU ticket online at helpsu.stanford.edu to request the credit. When submitting the help ticket, the following should be selected from the drop-down menus for HELP SU:

Request Category :  Computer, Handhelds (PDAs), Printers, Servers Request Type :  Printer Operating System : (whatever system is used by the student, e.g., Windows XP.)

The help ticket will be routed to the GSE's IT Group for processing; they will in turn notify the student via email when the credit is available.

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Examples of research proposals

How to write your research proposal, with examples of good proposals.

Research proposals

Your research proposal is a key part of your application. It tells us about the question you want to answer through your research. It is a chance for you to show your knowledge of the subject area and tell us about the methods you want to use.

We use your research proposal to match you with a supervisor or team of supervisors.

In your proposal, please tell us if you have an interest in the work of a specific academic at York St John. You can get in touch with this academic to discuss your proposal. You can also speak to one of our Research Leads. There is a list of our Research Leads on the Apply page.

When you write your proposal you need to:

• Highlight how it is original or significant
• Explain how it will develop or challenge current knowledge of your subject
• Identify the importance of your research
• Show why you are the right person to do this research
• Research Proposal Example 1 (DOC, 49kB)
• Research Proposal Example 2 (DOC, 0.9MB)
• Research Proposal Example 3 (DOC, 55.5kB)
• Research Proposal Example 4 (DOC, 49.5kB)

Subject specific guidance

• Writing a Humanities PhD Proposal (PDF, 0.1MB)
• Writing a Creative Writing PhD Proposal (PDF, 0.1MB)
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How to Write a Dissertation or Thesis Proposal: Structure, Steps & Examples

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A dissertation proposal offer a brief agenda of a research project that a student intends to conduct in order to obtain a doctoral degree. It requires students to meticulously plan and organize a future study. The purpose of the dissertation proposal is to demonstrate the feasibility and value of the proposed study. It is written to obtain approval from a committee before organizing research.

If you're wondering how to tackle your Ph.D. or Master's thesis proposal, this article lays out the basics of producing a successful one. Continue reading through this article to understand the key steps on how to write your thesis or dissertation proposal, its definition, and its importance. Before penning down your project, we will walk you through its structure and make you aware of what you should know. In addition, we will explain its format as well as provide thesis and dissertation proposals examples, writing tips, and a checklist to help you stay on track. Read on if you are eager to impress committee members with an incredible proposal! Or shop for dissertation proposal help at StudyCrumb to save nerves and time!

What Is a Dissertation Proposal?

A dissertation proposal is a document written to present the main objectives and questions that a researcher will cover in a research project, meaning that this proposal is the foundation of your study. It offers an overview of what you plan to do and how you approach researching a topic and provides a roadmap for composing your thesis.  Writing a dissertation proposal aims to explain how your dissertation will investigate a research problem, describe the methods used, as well as justify the research. Another objective of a dissertation or thesis proposal is to demonstrate that your research problem is significant, relevant, and worth exploring. In addition, its purpose is to show how the thesis will be structured and provide a timeline for completion.

Importance of Thesis/ Dissertation Proposals

A strong thesis or dissertation proposal is critical to the success of your study. Writing and correctly presenting it can give you an edge when applying for a thesis project. Below is a list of why proposals for your dissertation are essential:

• Allows researchers to explore and define a study topic of interest.
• Helps you gain approval from supervisors, thesis committees, and boards.
• Assists in clearly defining your research question and planning how to tackle the research.
• Enables you to identify potential sources of information and plan how to use them effectively.
• Serves as a template to guide you through the writing process.
• Aids you in securing funding for your project.
• Useful when planning for the thesis proposal defense.

How Long Should a Dissertation Proposal Be?

Dissertation proposal length varies depending on the level of study. Proposals for Ph.D. dissertations can range from 15-20 pages, sometimes even up to 30 pages. The number of pages depends on every discipline and topic, as well as other requirements stated in provided instructions. Master's thesis proposal is a bit shorter and generally ranges between 4-8 pages.  The reason for these differences is that a Ph.D. dissertation proposal requires more in-depth research and has a broader scope than a Master's one. The length also depends on the type of thesis you are writing. For example, scientific research thesis typically has methodological approaches, while humanities Ph.D. proposals use qualitative and quantitative methods, depending on the field of investigation.

Dissertation Proposal Structure

The structure of a dissertation or thesis proposal varies depending on the discipline and how you plan to approach researching that subject. Variation may also result from different research methodologies used. However, you should generally include several standard components when writing a dissertation proposal. These are as follows:

• Introduction Provides an overview of the proposed study and how it fits within your field of investigation.
• Aims and objectives Justify what you hope to achieve and how you plan to do it.
• Literature review Discusses how other researchers have approached the topic under investigation and how your thesis will contribute to the discipline under scrutiny.
• Study Design and Research Methodology Describes how you strategize to conduct your research, what methods you will use, and how the data will be collected and analyzed. Also, include any ethical considerations.
• Implications Evaluate how your dissertation will contribute to the broader field and how it can be helpful for future studies.
• Limitations Examine how your research may not be able to answer some questions and how to address those shortcomings. In other words, how to minimize the effect of identified drawbacks.
• Budget Budget is optional and required only if funding is needed. Here, you need to offer an estimate of how much the investigation will cost and your financing plans.
• References Give a complete list of all sources used throughout the paper.

Following these steps on how to write a proposal for a thesis or dissertation aids you in structuring your proposal, which will help you present a clear and concise outline of how you intend to conduct your research. As a result, it allows you to secure approval and gain support for your project.

Thesis/ Dissertation Proposal Template Outline

A template for a dissertation proposal outline can help create your work. Students can efficiently structure their thesis proposal using this template and ensure it meets the required guidelines. Templates are incredibly useful in streamlining your writing process so that you can concentrate on the proposal's content without stressing over format. In addition, templates should include the main components of a dissertation proposal, with each part delineated and explained clearly. Additionally, formatting should be consistent.  The following is an example of a dissertation proposal outline:

• Background/ context of the investigation
• Problem statement
• Purpose of the study
• Research questions
• Significance of the research
• Overview of existing literature
• Gap in literature
• Design of the study
• Data collection and analysis
• Contribution to the field
• Limitations of the research
• Budget (if applicable)

Things to Know Before Writing a Dissertation Proposal

Before writing your dissertation proposal, one must understand the purpose of crafting one. A student must cover these questions in a proposal: what, why, where, who, and how. In other words, it needs to answer questions such as:

• What is the research topic ?
• Why is it important to study this topic?
• Where will the investigation take place?
• Who are the participants involved?
• How will the project be conducted and analyzed?

Answering these inquiries will help you comprehensively write a dissertation or thesis proposal that outlines your paper's purpose, aims, and objectives. Before composing, it is crucial also to consider any ethical concerns or issues that may arise with your work. For example, you should be aware of potential risks as well as ensure that you have the necessary procedures to protect your participants.

How to Write a Dissertation Proposal?

When writing thesis and dissertation proposal, it is crucial to cover the critical elements of how one should approach writing such a document. A thesis proposal is a roadmap for how the researcher plans to conduct their research. A clear structure can only make organizing one's thoughts and ideas easy. Without a clear guideline, your advisor or supervisor might reject your proposal, or you may fail to acquire funding or support. To ensure you compose a satisfying proposal, follow the below step-by-step illustration of how to write a proposal for a dissertation and thesis.

1. Decide on a Title

Deciding on a title for your dissertation proposal is essential in creating a clear, concise, and attractive document. Your dissertation topic should reflect the main focus of your research. Excellent titles should be easy to understand because it is the first thing people see.  An outstanding title also helps grab potential readers' attention and encourages them to read the paper. In addition, students should craft their titles for dissertation and Ph.D. thesis proposals in a way that succinctly portrays the theme of the study.  To decide on a good topic, consult information available online and in academic journals so that title is reflective of the current investigation.  The following is an example of a title for a thesis proposal: 

Impact of Technology on the Education System in America.

2. Write a Dissertation Proposal Introduction

A thesis proposal introduction is an important section of a document that sets the tone for the entire paper, and you should write this part clearly and concisely. Start a dissertation proposal for your research with an introduction that distills the pertinent central question, providing contextualized background information as well as any broader implications. This section is a condensed version of a complete dissertation introduction , which you will need to compose upon topic approval.  Affirming the problem statement in your introduction will give more direction to your study objectives, and people will be able to understand the purpose of why you are conducting this exploration. As you craft your introduction, ensure to outline the structure of your paper. Include which sections cover methodology, literature review, research limitations, as well as any other subsections that are relevant. These are critical parts of a dissertation proposal, and outlining them will help keep readers orientated throughout your document and allow them to comprehend the discussion better. Example of dissertation proposal introduction

This dissertation proposal sets out to investigate how technology has changed the education system in America and its impact on student learning outcomes. The research objectives of this study are to examine the development of technology in the American education environment, analyze its impact on learners' studying outcomes as well as evaluate how teachers have adapted their teaching techniques to incorporate technology. This thesis also explores the challenges technology has posed for teachers in America's school system and how to address them. By exploring these issues, this research seeks to provide a comprehensive understanding of the role of technology in American education and its subsequent implications. Finally, this thesis will discuss the technological consequences for educational institutions and policymakers.

3. State Your Aims, Objectives, and Purpose 

When writing a thesis proposal, your paper's aims, objectives, and purpose are the cornerstones of a successful document. Your aims, objectives, and purpose should be concise and clear.  When writing your aims , include the primary goal of your undergraduate or doctoral project as well as what you expect to achieve. Objectives should address the what, why, and how of your study while also explaining all outcomes you anticipate accomplishing. Finally, your purpose should be closely related to your aims and objectives and provide a succinct description of objectives you are trying to undertake.  The reason is that aims and objectives are the starting points in crafting a dissertation proposal, as they provide a focus for your investigation. The purpose will help develop the reader's understanding of your work. Examples of dissertation proposals aims and objectives

This thesis proposal aims to study technology implementation in American education and its impact on student learning outcomes. The objectives are to investigate the development and utilization of technology in America's schooling environment, analyze its impact on student studying outcomes, evaluate how teachers have adapted their teaching techniques to incorporate technology as well as explore the challenges it has posed for school instructors. Additionally, the objectives are to examine how these challenges can be addressed, evaluate the implications of technology for educational institutions and policymakers, and provide recommendations for future research on the use and application of technology in American education.

4. Provide a Literature Review

Literature review of a dissertation or Ph.D. thesis proposal is one of the most critical aspects of a project because it serves as the foundation for your research. This part should include an overview and analysis of existing literature related to your topic and conclude how it relates to the current study question.  When composing a literature review for your Ph.D. dissertation proposals, you should search for scholarly articles, books, government reports, websites, and other relevant sources to inform your writing. Additionally, you should use a systematic approach in organizing literature and creating your reviews, such as a thematic, theoretical, or methodological approach. Refer to our guide to find a literature review outline example of each of these approaches.  Finally, it is crucial to critically analyze available literature and how it connects to your research topic. This could involve examining how existing research has shaped your study question, how it has advanced the field of investigation, and how experts might use it in practice or policy making. Consulting with professionals in your area may be a great way to get additional insights on how to write a thesis and dissertation proposal literature review.

5. Discuss Your Methodology

Writing a proposal for your dissertation or thesis involves developing a methodology section, which outlines a set of techniques and strategies you plan to apply when conducting your study. Dissertation methodology should include: 

• Description of your data collection and analysis methods
• Discussion of the research design
• Sampling techniques that are planned to be used
• Explanation of the variables or factors studied
• Outline of how you intend to analyze the data.

Methodology should also provide a rationale for why you have chosen your methods and any ethical considerations that might come with them. Writing a research proposal for a dissertation study will involve discussing how you propose to address any potential limitations of your investigation and how they may affect the validity of its results. Finally, it is essential to outline a timeline for the completion of your project. When describing research methods, it is crucial to be as detailed and specific as possible. You should also demonstrate that you have a well-developed understanding of research methods you strategize to use and the potential implications of their application.  When crafting your dissertations proposals, use understandable language as well as avoid technical wording or jargon. Also, you should include a brief description of how the dissemination of results from your study will be so that policymakers or other stakeholders can use them in a meaningful way. Example: Dissertation proposal methodology

For my dissertation, I plan to undertake a qualitative case study of technology's role in American education. Specifically, I will look at implementing technology-based learning environments in three urban school districts. I will use a combination of surveys and interviews with teachers, administrators, parents, and students to gather data. The surveys will focus on attitudes towards technology in the classroom, resource access, and comfort with using technology for studying. The interviews will dig deeper into these topics and allow me to gain more insight into the implementation of technology-based education. Additionally, I plan to observe classrooms and document how technology facilitates knowledge gain. Data will be analyzed using a combination of thematic and content analysis. All findings will be documented in writing and shared publicly through a final report, website, presentations, and other appropriate outlets. All participants will remain anonymous, and the collection of data will be in a secure manner.

6. Mention Implications and Possible Limitations

Considering any potential limitations and implications of the study is an integral part of writing a dissertation or thesis research proposal. When discussing your research's repercussions and possible shortcomings, it is essential to consider how you will handle unforeseen outcomes, errors, or biases that may arise during your investigation.  Writers should identify and mention how they'll address the limitations as they prepare a dissertation proposal. This section should include a discussion of how to use results of your study to inform policy decisions or other initiatives.  Being honest and realistic in the descriptions of any potential drawbacks that could impact the validity of your results is an advisable way for you to do a thesis or dissertation proposal. Consider any possible ethical considerations that could arise during your research and how to deal with them. Sample of dissertation proposal implications

The implications of this study are twofold. First, it will provide valuable insight into how technology can be utilized most effectively in urban classrooms to improve the quality of education. The results will provide policymakers and other stakeholders with the information necessary to guide decisions regarding technology use in urban schools. Second, this investigation will provide teachers and other educators with a better understanding of the challenges they may face when implementing technology. This will allow educators to better prepare for and respond to these challenges, resulting in more effective implementation of technology-based learning environments. The research will add to the ongoing conversation about the use of technology in education and will contribute to a better understanding of how to use it effectively.

7. List Your References

The last step illustrating how to write a thesis proposal is providing a list of references consulted throughout the writing process. Bibliographies should include scholarly articles, books, and journals, among others, that have informed the research question, literature review, methodology, and other sources mentioned in any part of the proposal.  It is crucial to ensure that sources you list are accurate, up-to-date, and appropriate for your dissertation topic proposal.  In this section, students should format their references according to the specific style guidelines required by your university. Remember to meet the required total number of citations for your dissertation research proposal as guided. Keep in mind that not all sources are credible for thesis research proposal.  You should also provide a copy of any ethics approval forms or permissions granted by your institution to conduct your research.

Dissertation Proposal Format

The dissertation and thesis proposal format will depend on the discipline and field of study. Generally, thesis proposals should follow the exact structure of any scholarly paper on the same subject. Typical dissertation proposal formats include:

• American Psychological Association (APA)
• Modern Language Association (MLA)
• Chicago Manual of Style

The format for writing dissertation proposals may vary according to the style used because each has certain conventions that must be adhered to accordingly. It is important to note that formatting should be consistent throughout your document.  Before beginning the writing process, it is imperative to be familiar with all guidelines and requirements of an academic thesis proposal format. View the following guides on the most common styles to make sure you format your proposal properly:

• How to format an APA paper ?
• How to write in MLA format ?
• What is Chicago style format ?

Lastly, back up your work with evidence as well as sources demonstrating potential for success.

Thesis / Dissertation Proposal Examples

When writing your paper, reviewing thesis or dissertation proposal samples is crucial. These samples can provide an understanding of the structure, style, and expected content. They can also provide insight into the research methods and analysis techniques used throughout the thesis or dissertation process.  We encourage you to check sample dissertation proposals found online or in public libraries. Many YouTube videos produced to offer clarity and reference are also available. Additionally, thesis proposals may be available through individual academic institutions.  Below are samples for you to refer to: Thesis proposal example

Dissertation proposal example 1

Dissertation proposal sample 2

Dissertation Proposal Writing Tips

Writing a proposal for a dissertation requires you to stay focused and organized, as well as produce excellent work in a timely and efficient manner. To ensure the successful completion of your dissertation proposal, here are some valuable tips to keep in mind:

• Research thoroughly It is vital to take the time to research and reference all relevant material while writing your paper.
• Develop a timeline Developing a timeline and plan for completing each task is crucial because it helps keep you on track and ensure you meet all milestones promptly and effectively.
• Be organized Keeping your project well organized will make it easier to read and understand.
• Proofread Before submitting your paper, it is important to proofread and edit for any mistakes to ensure it is high quality and free from any errors.
• Check for free samples Consulting from any professional sample dissertation proposal by other students and experts is crucial before composing yours.
• References Lastly, ensure the credibility and accuracy of your document by referencing all sources used. Provide a bibliography list on the last page or pages of your paper.

Listed above dissertation and thesis proposal writing tips will help you to deliver an outstanding project that is well-planned, accurate as well as high quality.

Dissertation Proposal Checklist

A checklist is necessary to ensure you write a good proposal for a dissertation. This list should include all main topics that are critical to your paper. Here are some essential points to consider when writing a thesis proposal:

• checkbox I formulated an exact statement of purpose.
• checkbox I have presented a clear introduction and background information.
• checkbox I made my research on objectives and questions.
• checkbox I can say that my literature review includes enough information related to my topic.
• checkbox My research methodology includes all the necessary methods I used in my research.
• checkbox I have made all data analysis techniques.
• checkbox I made all calculations for the budget and timeline.
• checkbox My dissertation proposal contains an outline of the expected results.
• checkbox I am sure that I chose the right format for references and bibliography.
• checkbox I have checked the writing style and conventions.
• checkbox My dissertation proposal contains an acknowledgment section.
• checkbox I spent enough time proofreading and editing.

Considering the above items, you can ensure that you include all necessary elements in your research proposal . This will help you write an excellent thesis and get your work funded or accepted by your advisor.

Bottom Line on How to Write a Proposal For a Dissertation or Thesis

This article discussed in depth how to write a dissertation proposal. It has provided you with definition of a dissertation proposal, outlined its importance, length and structure, and how to write it. This blog also discussed the outline of a thesis proposal and listed things you should know before starting to write your own. We provided a step-by-step illustration of how to write and format your work. In addition, we provided thesis and dissertation proposal examples, tips, as well as a checklist of items to consider when crafting your project.  Following the guidelines provided in this article should help you write an excellent work that meets your advisor's expectations. Once your topic is approved, make sure to check how to write a dissertation .

If you still struggle with crafting your proposal, our  dissertation writing services  are your best option. Our academic writers hold PhD degree and deliver top-quality studies within given deadlines.

FAQ About Thesis/ Dissertation Proposals

1. what is a thesis proposal.

A thesis proposal is a document that outlines the topic, defines issues that the paper will address, and explains why the subject is significant. The proposal aims to demonstrate that thesis topic addresses a critical educational problem, outlines a detailed plan for the research, and provides a practical approach for gathering and analyzing data.

2. How long should a thesis proposal be?

Crafting a thesis proposal requires time and dedication, but the length of your project can vary dramatically. While typically 15-20 pages (or up to 30) are needed for most proposals, Master's students may find they only need between 4-8 pages long due to the narrow scope of their research topic. The exact number of pages will mainly depend on which discipline you study as well as the focused nature of your investigation.

3. What is the difference between a dissertation and a proposal?

A dissertation is the main body of work that you produce for your degree, usually based on evidence gathered from research and experiments. On the other hand, a proposal outlines the research you plan to undertake and offers an overview of the topics covered in your thesis.

4. Should I include schedule in a dissertation proposal?

Yes, if you are applying for a grant or funding for the thesis project. In that case, including a schedule in your dissertation proposal outlining the timeline for research, data collection and analysis, and writing is necessary. This will help demonstrate how you plan to complete your project within the required timeframe.

Joe Eckel is an expert on Dissertations writing. He makes sure that each student gets precious insights on composing A-grade academic writing.

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What (Exactly) Is A Research Proposal?

A simple explainer with examples + free template.

By: Derek Jansen (MBA) | Reviewed By: Dr Eunice Rautenbach | June 2020 (Updated April 2023)

Whether you’re nearing the end of your degree and your dissertation is on the horizon, or you’re planning to apply for a PhD program, chances are you’ll need to craft a convincing research proposal . If you’re on this page, you’re probably unsure exactly what the research proposal is all about. Well, you’ve come to the right place.

Overview: Research Proposal Basics

• What a research proposal is
• What a research proposal needs to cover
• How to structure your research proposal
• Example /sample proposals
• Proposal writing FAQs
• Key takeaways & additional resources

What is a research proposal?

Simply put, a research proposal is a structured, formal document that explains what you plan to research (your research topic), why it’s worth researching (your justification), and how  you plan to investigate it (your methodology). 

The purpose of the research proposal (its job, so to speak) is to convince  your research supervisor, committee or university that your research is  suitable  (for the requirements of the degree program) and  manageable  (given the time and resource constraints you will face). 

The most important word here is “ convince ” – in other words, your research proposal needs to  sell  your research idea (to whoever is going to approve it). If it doesn’t convince them (of its suitability and manageability), you’ll need to revise and resubmit . This will cost you valuable time, which will either delay the start of your research or eat into its time allowance (which is bad news). 

What goes into a research proposal?

A good dissertation or thesis proposal needs to cover the “ what “, “ why ” and” how ” of the proposed study. Let’s look at each of these attributes in a little more detail:

Your proposal needs to clearly articulate your research topic . This needs to be specific and unambiguous . Your research topic should make it clear exactly what you plan to research and in what context. Here’s an example of a well-articulated research topic:

An investigation into the factors which impact female Generation Y consumer’s likelihood to promote a specific makeup brand to their peers: a British context

As you can see, this topic is extremely clear. From this one line we can see exactly:

• What’s being investigated – factors that make people promote or advocate for a brand of a specific makeup brand
• Who it involves – female Gen-Y consumers
• In what context – the United Kingdom

So, make sure that your research proposal provides a detailed explanation of your research topic . If possible, also briefly outline your research aims and objectives , and perhaps even your research questions (although in some cases you’ll only develop these at a later stage). Needless to say, don’t start writing your proposal until you have a clear topic in mind , or you’ll end up waffling and your research proposal will suffer as a result of this.

Need a helping hand?

As we touched on earlier, it’s not good enough to simply propose a research topic – you need to justify why your topic is original . In other words, what makes it  unique ? What gap in the current literature does it fill? If it’s simply a rehash of the existing research, it’s probably not going to get approval – it needs to be fresh.

But,  originality  alone is not enough. Once you’ve ticked that box, you also need to justify why your proposed topic is  important . In other words, what value will it add to the world if you achieve your research aims?

As an example, let’s look at the sample research topic we mentioned earlier (factors impacting brand advocacy). In this case, if the research could uncover relevant factors, these findings would be very useful to marketers in the cosmetics industry, and would, therefore, have commercial value . That is a clear justification for the research.

So, when you’re crafting your research proposal, remember that it’s not enough for a topic to simply be unique. It needs to be useful and value-creating – and you need to convey that value in your proposal. If you’re struggling to find a research topic that makes the cut, watch  our video covering how to find a research topic .

It’s all good and well to have a great topic that’s original and valuable, but you’re not going to convince anyone to approve it without discussing the practicalities – in other words:

• How will you actually undertake your research (i.e., your methodology)?
• Is your research methodology appropriate given your research aims?
• Is your approach manageable given your constraints (time, money, etc.)?

While it’s generally not expected that you’ll have a fully fleshed-out methodology at the proposal stage, you’ll likely still need to provide a high-level overview of your research methodology . Here are some important questions you’ll need to address in your research proposal:

• Will you take a qualitative , quantitative or mixed -method approach?
• What sampling strategy will you adopt?
• How will you collect your data (e.g., interviews , surveys, etc)?
• How will you analyse your data (e.g., descriptive and inferential statistics , content analysis, discourse analysis, etc, .)?
• What potential limitations will your methodology carry?

So, be sure to give some thought to the practicalities of your research and have at least a basic methodological plan before you start writing up your proposal. If this all sounds rather intimidating, the video below provides a good introduction to research methodology and the key choices you’ll need to make.

How To Structure A Research Proposal

Now that we’ve covered the key points that need to be addressed in a proposal, you may be wondering, “ But how is a research proposal structured? “.

While the exact structure and format required for a research proposal differs from university to university, there are four “essential ingredients” that commonly make up the structure of a research proposal:

• A rich introduction and background to the proposed research
• An initial literature review covering the existing research
• An overview of the proposed research methodology
• A discussion regarding the practicalities (project plans, timelines, etc.)

In the video below, we unpack each of these four sections, step by step.

Research Proposal Examples/Samples

In the video below, we provide a detailed walkthrough of two successful research proposals (Master’s and PhD-level), as well as our popular free proposal template.

Proposal Writing FAQs

How long should a research proposal be.

This varies tremendously, depending on the university, the field of study (e.g., social sciences vs natural sciences), and the level of the degree (e.g. undergraduate, Masters or PhD) – so it’s always best to check with your university what their specific requirements are before you start planning your proposal.

As a rough guide, a formal research proposal at Masters-level often ranges between 2000-3000 words, while a PhD-level proposal can be far more detailed, ranging from 5000-8000 words. In some cases, a rough outline of the topic is all that’s needed, while in other cases, universities expect a very detailed proposal that essentially forms the first three chapters of the dissertation or thesis.

The takeaway – be sure to check with your institution before you start writing.

How do I choose a topic for my research proposal?

Finding a good research topic is a process that involves multiple steps. We cover the topic ideation process in this video post.

How do I write a literature review for my proposal?

While you typically won’t need a comprehensive literature review at the proposal stage, you still need to demonstrate that you’re familiar with the key literature and are able to synthesise it. We explain the literature review process here.

How do I create a timeline and budget for my proposal?

We explain how to craft a project plan/timeline and budget in Research Proposal Bootcamp .

Which referencing format should I use in my research proposal?

The expectations and requirements regarding formatting and referencing vary from institution to institution. Therefore, you’ll need to check this information with your university.

What common proposal writing mistakes do I need to look out for?

We’ve create a video post about some of the most common mistakes students make when writing a proposal – you can access that here . If you’re short on time, here’s a quick summary:

• The research topic is too broad (or just poorly articulated).
• The research aims, objectives and questions don’t align.
• The research topic is not well justified.
• The study has a weak theoretical foundation.
• The research design is not well articulated well enough.
• Poor writing and sloppy presentation.
• Poor project planning and risk management.
• Not following the university’s specific criteria.

Key Takeaways & Additional Resources

As you write up your research proposal, remember the all-important core purpose:  to convince . Your research proposal needs to sell your study in terms of suitability and viability. So, focus on crafting a convincing narrative to ensure a strong proposal.

At the same time, pay close attention to your university’s requirements. While we’ve covered the essentials here, every institution has its own set of expectations and it’s essential that you follow these to maximise your chances of approval.

By the way, we’ve got plenty more resources to help you fast-track your research proposal. Here are some of our most popular resources to get you started:

• Proposal Writing 101 : A Introductory Webinar
• Research Proposal Bootcamp : The Ultimate Online Course
• Template : A basic template to help you craft your proposal

If you’re looking for 1-on-1 support with your research proposal, be sure to check out our private coaching service , where we hold your hand through the proposal development process (and the entire research journey), step by step.

Psst… there’s more!

This post is an extract from our bestselling short course, Research Proposal Bootcamp . If you want to work smart, you don't want to miss this .

52 Comments

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You’re most welcome. We don’t have any research proposals that we can share (the students own the intellectual property), but you might find our research proposal template useful: https://gradcoach.com/research-proposal-template/

Cheruiyot Moses Kipyegon

Thanks alot. It was an eye opener that came timely enough before my imminent proposal defense. Thanks, again

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Thank you. This is a great insight. I am a student preparing for a PhD program. I am requested to write my Research Proposal as part of what I am required to submit before my unconditional admission. I am grateful having listened to this video which will go a long way in helping me to actually choose a topic of interest and not just any topic as well as to narrow down the topic and be specific about it. I indeed need more of this especially as am trying to choose a topic suitable for a DBA am about embarking on. Thank you once more. The video is indeed helpful.

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Research Proposal Examples & Samples To Help You Get Started

A research proposal or a dissertation proposal is a document that provides an overview and background to your research topic. It presents the key research objectives or research questions and proposes the methods of investigation. A proposal also includes the methods of research, a summary of the theoretical and conceptual frameworks, and ends with a timeline of the project.

On this page, you will find free dissertation examples for a range of academic subjects including sustainability, environment, business, project management, engineering, human resources, entrepreneurship, education, finance, law, marketing and more. Use these samples to see how a dissertation proposal should be structured before you start conducting research.

Interested in hiring a writer to complete a similar research proposal on any topic of your choice?

Find out how we can help. Prices start from just £17.74 for undergraduate level.

Business & Management Dissertation Proposal Examples

Challenges of strategic human resource management (shrm) in project based public organisations in trade and industry sectors of uk.

The proposed research will be based on an exploratory and interpretive paradigm to understand the challenges faced in strategic human resource management (SHRM), with a particular focus on public organisations of the UK in trade and industry divisions of the UK government.

Academic Level: PHD

Quality: 1st / 58%

Faculty: Business and Management

Strategic Human Resource Management of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Airline Industry

The proposed research’s primary aim is to evaluate the strategic human resource management of ethnic and culturally diverse workforce in Dubai’s airline industry, a well-known diverse region.

Academic Level: Undergraduate

Quality: 1st / 64%

The Role of Strategic Management in Altering Organizational Culture Without Affecting Employee’s Performance – A Case of Large Multinational Organizations in Malta

This research aims to analyze the role of strategic management in altering the organizational culture without affecting employees’ performance in large multinational organizations in Malta.

Quality: 1st / 67%

Entrepreneur’s Attitudes and Understanding towards Human Resources Applications in Saudi Arabia

This research will assess how the entrepreneur views and understands human resources applications and how the entrepreneur attributes human resources applications as the catalyst for the success of their business organisation. This research will also assess the most appropriate way for start-up companies and S.M.E.s to implement human resources applications effectively.

Quality: 1st / 61%

Assess the Impact of the Influence of Social Media on Consumer Purchasing Decisions in Industrial Countries: A Detailed Study

the present research focuses on investigating the role of social media and other factors on the consumer purchasing decisions within the cosmetics and fashion industry in dual countries. It examines how social media can influence the consumer’s intention to buy and identify the impact of social media celebrities on buying cosmetics and fashion products. The study will benefit marketers and organisations in industrial countries as it would enable them to know which factors are more important in influencing consumers’ purchasing decisions.

Quality: 1st / 60%

To Examine the Strategies of Achieving Best Value in Private Finance Initiative Project Procurement

The research proposal is focused on examining strategies for achieving the best value in project finance initiative procurement. The public-private partnership (PPP) mainly includes private finance initiatives (PFI), which are preferred as alternatives for obtaining additional resources and procurement for the big projects that mostly belong to the private sector (Akbiyikli and Eaton, 2006).

Academic Level: Master

Quality: 1st / 63%

Examining Project Selection Frameworks and Methods for Reducing Risks for new Product Development

By studying the current models and frameworks for project selection, newer and improved models can minimise risk. This is especially important in engineering companies looking to market their products for both private and corporate consumers. With the constant evolution of technology, engineering companies need to ensure that they can deliver products to clients to aid them with current needs. Hence, selecting projects that provide new products becomes extremely important to survive in an ever-increasing competitive market.

Quality: 1st / 74%

Impacts of Globalisation and Cultural Diversity on Business Performance

Tons of articles have been published on the difficulties, threats, and prospects that the globalisation of organisations offers. Furthermore, substantial research has been carried out on the diverse implications of globalisation on cultural variegation. However, to the best of the research’s knowledge, there is minimal work done on the combined effect of globalisation and cultural diversity on the organisational outcome. Given this, the research will fill this lacuna by evaluating whether or not the two elements have a synergistic effect on international business outcomes. This dissertation proposal analyses the impact of globalization and a culturally variegated workforce on the performance of MNCs.

The role of Influencer Marketing in increasing sales in the UK

This research aims to the role of influencer marketing in increasing sales. In this way, the researcher will investigate how Influencer Marketers impact the customer’s perception in the UK.

Quality: 1st / 76%

Impact of E-Business Adoption and Factors of Globalisation on the Development of SMEs in Developing Countries

The research proposal studies the impact of e-commerce or e-business adoption and globalisation on small and medium enterprises’ development, predominantly in developing countries. For this purpose, the research is particularly focused on understanding several external or macro-economic factors that influence SMEs to adopt e-business for their development and expansion in the future. In addition to this, the present research study is also aimed at studying all the potential benefits of e-commerce adoption by SMEs for their future growth and development within developing countries’ economies. For the mentioned purpose, the case of small and medium enterprises in developing countries has been selected to examine the impact of e-business adoption on SMEs’ development.

Quality: 1st / 71%

Research Proposal Examples In Engineering

Material selection for innovative design of automotive component interim report.

This research study investigates three innovative materials for the design of an automobile chassis.

1. Analyze the three materials for impact on cost and environment using the lifecycle analysis model. 2. Analyze the chassis’ quality and its impact on the entire automobile product using an innovative material in the design. 3. Analyze the impact of safety and the reduction of safety defects through innovative material in the design of chassis.

Faculty: Engineering

Mobile Intelligent Remote Health Care Monitoring System

This project aims to develop an automated healthcare system based on NTC technology. The system will use smartphone technologies such as mobile phones, PDAs, tablets, and the Internet. The security and safety of patients are also considered in developing the project. The system will enable patients and doctors to access data remotely, with the data being maintained within a centralized cloud server. The intelligent system will also enable doctors to monitor healthcare facilities and operations remotely to access the data remotely.

Quality: 1st / 62%

Performance Measurement of Green Automation Assembly in Aviation Industry

To see how well the aviation industry can sustain the balance in our environment, the study on their automation assembly will be carried in this research. The processes and supply chain involved in its operation will be investigated further. The process of automation assembly systems will be examined to obtain a clear vision of how they balance the effectiveness in aviation product’s functionality while minimizing the effect on the environment.

Quality: 1st / 72%

Assessing Implications and Effectiveness of Drones- A Qualitative Assessment of Drones Developed for Lethal Surveillance and Biodiversity Conservation

The current research aims to assess the implications and effectiveness of drones for lethal surveillance and biodiversity conservation. The objectives of the study are:

1. To shed light on the historical evolution of drones and their intended purposes. 2. To determine the significance of drones in biodiversity conservation. 3. To evaluate the effectiveness and increasing use of drones for lethal observations. 3. To recommend how effectively drones can be used for other diverse industries.

Quality: 1st / 75%

An Experimental Study On The Effectiveness Of Using Admixtures In Concrete Compared To Traditional Mix Materials; Ultimately Impacting Workability And Compressive Strength

This research proposal aims to:

(1) Study the damages associated with concrete on structures without admixtures due to its slow setting nature. (2) Study of admixtures and their uses in the construction industry. O hydration process and chemical reaction between admixtures and cement. O improving the rate of hardening without compromising the concrete strength. (3) Experimental investigation and analysis of mix designs with and without admixtures testing compressive strength and workability. (4) Evaluate the feasibility of admixtures in the modern-day construction industry

Quality: 1st / 79%

Building Information Modeling (BIM); Is this the Key to a Sustainable Future?

Much research has been performed on BIM utilization as it is a powerful tool for modelling and analysis, which provides integrative and collaborative processes. However, the aspect on which this research will focus will be the critical factors of the utilization of BIM for enhanced project management, saving cost, and construction time. Therefore this research will examine the use of technology in project management related to cost estimation of sustainable construction projects, particularly in Australia.

Quality: 1st / 69%

Exploring the Impact of BIM on Sustainable Construction Processes and its Opportunities in China’s Construction Sector from Project Management Point of View

The primary aim of this research project will be to investigate the extent to which the BIM has been able to support project management, and if it has the potential to influence the Chinese construction market and the implications for project managers (It will also review eh extend to which this system is being utilized in this region – if any). Hence, this research study intends to establish whether the use of BIM in the Chinese construction industry can help shape up the country’s sustainable future and explore the opportunities it will present to the stakeholders, as it has presumably done in developed countries?

Sustainable Architectural Designs

Sustainable Architecture has established a contemporary methodology in the engineering of material selection planning and sustainable designs. This section of the paper presents an exclusive summary of the material’s productivity for sustainable architecture (Ekins, 2007). Economic developments, social effects, ecological impacts and environmental issues will also be presented in this section. The main contents of the paper include;

(1) The concept of research (2) The adopted methodology of research, and (3) The influential parameters covered in the report.

Thesis Proposal Samples For Education & Teaching Students

Using sustainable ict in education: a phenomenological case study of professional development experiences of elt faculty at tertiary level in the united arab emirates (uae).

Professional Development Experiences of ELT Faculty at Tertiary Level in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) The proposed study’s primary aim is to examine how ICT deployments in educational institutions can be made sustainable to aid ELT instructors in English language instruction in the UAE. To achieve this aim, the proposed study has developed the following primary research question; how can ICT efforts in tertiary level education be made sustainable for English language training?

Faculty: Education & Teaching

Transnational Crime and Security – Background and Possible Structures of Transnational Cyber Attacks

The research’s main purpose revolves around the transnational cybercrimes that are taking place around the world today. This research intends to understand the various concepts related to cybercrimes and investigate the presence of cybercrimes across the countries.

A Phenomenological Case Study of Professional Development Experience of ELT Faculty at Tertiary Level in the United Arab Emirates (UAE)

The proposed study’s primary aim is to examine how ICT deployments in educational institutions can be made sustainable to aid ELT instructors in English language instruction in the UAE.

Finance Proposal Samples

An analysis of the impact of financial volatility estimates and option pricing methods on the returns and risk assessment in the saudi stock market.

This study research aims to evaluate the influence of financial validity extremists and option pricing methods on the returns and risk assessment in the Saudi Stock Market. The research objectives include analysis of the significance of financial volatility modelling and estimates in the Saudi stock market.

Faculty: Finance

Impact Of the Global Financial Crisis 2008-2009 on the Uk Construction Industry and Quantity Surveyors

The study’s primary aim is to analyse the impact of the financial crisis on the construction industry in the UK and quantity surveyors to understand the challenges and issues they faced to survive.

Quality: 1st / 65%

Investment and Decision Making, examining the role of personal characteristics and cultural expectations

This dissertation proposal aims to address the key questions, including, what is the paramount importance of investment and decision-making, how important is the role of personal characteristics of the decision-makers and how important do cultural expectations of the people play a role?

Brexit and How it Will Affect the UK Financial Services Sector

Brexit had created uncertainty in the UK financial environment. The likely impact of it on the UK’s financial services industry has been a focus of researchers since then. Researchers have given special attention to finding the likely impacts of Brexit on the UK financial services and banking sector. The complexities which can occur in response to Brexit are discussed and debated by different researchers. Various researches have been performed to determine the effect of the decision on the UK’s financial services sector; the disadvantages and negative impact of Brexit are highlighted. However, future outcomes and negative impacts may not be obvious at the moment and may appear later. Therefore, research is still required to thoroughly analyze the future impacts of Brexit on the UK financial services sector once the withdrawal from the EU is completed, and new policies will be enforced to regulate the financial and banking transactions between the UK and the EU. Given this, the proposed research is useful as it is likely to light on the likely future outcomes of Brexit on the UK’s financial services sector.

Role of E-commerce in flourishing the business: A case study of Wal-Mart

In a research study put forward by Lissitsa and Kol (2016), it has been stated that there has been an increase in the use of the internet among the young generation, resulting in an increased preference for online shopping. It has been specified in the research study of Lee et al. (2017) that consumers provide preference to convenience over traditional methods of shopping via the use of e-commerce. However, there is a lack of literature on the role of e-commerce in flourishing the business in terms of financial growth and market share. In this regard, the study will be able to identify the role of e-commerce in flourishing the business in the context of Wal-Mart.

Quality: 1st / 68%

Law Dissertation Proposal Examples

Constructing legal discourse at the un security council related to refugee crisis and countries’ refusal to enter migrants.

The migrant crisis in Europe is ongoing and will continue to grow until and unless policy measures are taken by the EU and the United Nations General Council. The UN Security Council plays a more active role in the crisis and its root cause. Therefore, the major research question is, Is the International community, specifically the EU and UK, collectively violate human rights against refugees?.

Quality: 1st / 77%

Faculty: Law

Quality: 1st / 73%

Examples Of Research Proposals In Marketing

Suggesting marketing communication strategies to retain and improve the number of alumni associated with télécom paris alumni.

The research problem of this study is related to identifying the digital marketing strategy which the TPA and Télécom Paris can implement to retain the alumni of TPA and increasing their number and involvement with TPA and Télécom Paris. In view of this, ingthis study’s research question is focused on finding out the effectiveness of social media marketing strategy in retaining and increasing the involvement of the former students of TPA and Télécom Paris.

Quality: 1st / 66%

Faculty: Marketing

The Impact of Airport Terminal Expansion on Customer Services at the Incheon Airport

This proposal studies how the expansion of Incheon Airport will impact customer services where customers travel through this airport. Also, previous studies have mostly focused on the expansion effect of Heathrow airport (Redondi and Gudmundsson, 2016, p.287; Smith, 2017, p.4). Hence, this study focuses on airport expansion impact at Incheon’s airport customer services.

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Nursing & Medicine Proposal Samples

Association between toxoplasma gondii and mental disorders in taif region.

This study aims to investigate the association between latent Toxoplasma gondii infection and various mental illnesses in Taif, KSA.

Quality: 1st / 70%

Faculty: Nursing and Medicine

Investigating the Impact of Tube Feeding

This study’s primary aim is to explore the impact of tube feeding on the quality of life of individuals with dementia and eating problems from their caregivers’ views.

Critical Analysis of Factors Affecting Public Health Promotion: A Case Study of Saudi Arabia

This research proposal’s main aim is to analyse the influence of public health on the health promotion intervention within the case of Saudi Arabia as a developing country.

Dissertation Proposal Samples In Sociology

Assessing gender roles in family- have they changed over the past ten years.

Faculty: Sociology

Technology Thesis Proposal Samples

The impact of digital transformation (technology) in improving asset integrity and reliability in oil and gas industry.

This dissertation proposal aims:

(1). To identify, highlight and reflect the trends in technological innovation in Angola. (2). To identify the asset integrity of products and services provided by organisations. (3). To evaluate the motivating forces for the development of new technologies and solutions. (4). To highlight technology processes from the oil and gas service providers ‘ point of view. (5). To measure considerations and obstacles to progress in producing innovative technological solutions in the organisation in Angola.

Faculty: Technology

Cyber Security

This research compares computational models such as ML and DL, making NIDS more efficient against cyber-attacks.

This study will address the following questions:

(1). What is the role of Cryptocurrecny in financial inclusion? (2). What are the advantages and disadvantages of using Cryptocurrecny for financial transactions? (3). What do financial and technical experts around the world think about the role of Cryptocurrecny in financial inclusion? (4). What changes does, according to the experts’ cryptocurrency require for a place in the modern financial world?

Tourism & Hospitality Dissertation Proposals

Importance of sustainable tourism in the developing countries: analysis of practices and challenges in the case study of thailand.

(1). This thesis proposal analyses the importance of sustainable tourism in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Following research objectives have been highlighted that will support the researcher to achieve the main aim of the study:

(2). Tananalyse the factors or challenges that are affecting the management of sustainable tourism in Chiang Mai. (3). To examine the importance of sustainable tourism in Chiang Mai and how the director of the Chiang Mai branch of the Tourism Authority of Thailand manages the tourism industry’s sustainability. (4). To provide recommendations to the director of the Chiang Mai branch of the Tourism Authority of Thailand on how they can address the issues and promote sustainable tourism management.

Faculty: Tourism & Hospitality

Managing Tourism Attractiveness of India

The purpose of the dissertation was to examine and explore the impact of the tourism industry on India’s overall economy.

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How These Research Proposal Samples Can Help You

A research proposal is the first step towards completing your dissertation project. It can have a substantial effect on your overall grade, and therefore it is crucial that you take the necessary steps to set the stage for a successful thesis project.

You can structure your dissertation proposal in many ways. However, the format or template you choose for your proposal should be the one provided by your university in the thesis handbook. Undergraduate dissertation proposals are shorter in length as compared to Masters and PHD programmes.

The word count of an undergraduate dissertation proposal is 500-1000 words whereas Masters and PHD level thesis proposals can be anywhere between 1500-3000 words in length. The dissertation proposals examples we have provided on this page follow the standard structure which include the introduction, problem statement, aim and objectives, literature review, methodology, expected results, gantt chart and a list of references.

Use these proposal examples for free to master the art of writing a first class dissertation proposal. These subject specific samples will enable you to write your own research proposal according to the best practices.

Free Dissertation Proposal Samples For All Academic Levels

The academic level these dissertation proposal examples have been written to, include undergraduate, Masters and PHD. So regardless of your study level, you will find samples on this page that are in line with your needs.

PHD dissertation proposal examples

The PHD level samples will be a minimum of 2000 words long. They will follow the standard PHD dissertation proposal template which involves a detailed literature review and methodology.

Masters research proposal samples

Masters level thesis proposal examples provided on this page are unique and created by our experts from scratch to reflect the quality of the work we are capable of providing when you place an order for our research proposal writing service.

Undergraduate proposal examples

Our undergraduate dissertation proposal examples are also crafted by subject specialists. They were written to the unique specifications provided by our clients. They are 500 words to 1500 words long.

Frequently Ask Questions?

How our proposal samples can help you.

We have published numerous samples here to showcase our abilities, but also to help you become familiar with the construction, requirements, and layout of a dissertation proposal.

The proposal outlines what you plan to research and what you’re looking to achieve through the exploration. Thus, it is also called a research proposal. It’s a small version of what the full dissertation might eventually become.

It is a relatively short but comprehensive paper that describes the specifics of the research you intend to conduct. The ideal proposal will contain certain research elements and will adhere to a specific structure.

This structure requires the proposal to contain certain sections: research aims and objectives, the significance of the research, and the methodology you plan to use. As such, the proposal should include abstracts from the initial three chapters of a dissertation: the introduction, literature review, and methodology.

This is where our samples will really help you. You will be able to learn more about the essential elements of this kind of document and understand how the three sections are incorporated into it. As well as helping you learn about the proposal structure, you can use them as writing guides. Writing a dissertation is very different to writing an essay or coursework.

One main difference is the language and writing style, another is the depth of research required. Examining our proposal samples should demonstrate to you how to make effective transitions between sections, it can also ensure your statements are supported by appropriate references.

Reviewing our proposal examples, you will observe that all research aims and objectives are clearly and concisely stated, also, the importance and rationale of the research are explained at length.

The introduction section helps readers understand the importance of your topic and your perspective on conducting the research. Then the methodology chapter lays out the method of research you plan to use.

This section may include a timeline, known as the Gantt chart, which indicates the time you require for research. Finally, you should include a reference list where you cite any theory or other quoted works. You should also use in-text citations as with any academic work.

If you are still unsure how to write a first-class proposal, it would really be beneficial for you to make use of our proposal writing service. Our writers will adhere to your specifications for the proposal.

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Our dissertation proposal writing services are created to help undergraduate, Masters, and Ph.D. students with all aspects of their dissertation papers. The service includes the following;

• The writer we will assign to your proposal order will have the matching qualifications and expertise.
• Your completed proposal paper will be checked against our strict quality control procedures and academic standards.
• The service includes unlimited free amendments until you are fully satisfied with the work delivered. Our writers are always happy to resolve any issues that you identify in their work.
• The completed paper will be delivered along with a free anti-plagiarism report which is generated with our in-house plagiarism software. We guarantee 100% unique writing or your money back. It’s that simple!

What happens after you have received your Dissertation Proposal?

On receiving your dissertation proposal, read it and become familiar with it. Then you can present it to your supervisor or the graduate committee to apply for its approval. Once your proposal has been approved, the writer can start work on your dissertation immediately if that’s what you want.

Do you provide Ph.D. Proposal Help?

Yes, we can help you write your proposal. For a proposal at this level, it is a job for only the most experienced and qualified. With our Ph.D. proposal writing service, the work will be completed by an expert writer who holds a Ph.D. You would be paired with this writer so that you can explain all the specifics you want your proposal to contain. We’ve published some example proposals here on the site for you to inspect.

Can I use these dissertation proposal examples for free?

Yes, you can use these proposal examples for free for inspiration and to get started with your dissertation project. We provide free proposal samples to students of all academic levels and countries.

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We can write a new dissertation proposal paper on any topic of your choice. As a matter of fact, our services include free topic suggestions. The proposal we will create will be 100% unique and customised to your university's requirements.

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How To Write A Dissertation Proposal: Learn With Guides And Tips

Don’t know how to write a dissertation proposal? Don’t worry about it! In this blog post, you will learn everything there is to know about the dissertation proposal. We will show you what it is and why it is important to write one correctly. We will discuss the dissertation proposal format in great detail and show you a dissertation proposal outline that works great for most topics. In addition, you will get an example of dissertation proposal for free.

To help you write a great proposal, we have also included a step by step guide on how to write a proposal for dissertation. Finally, we have compiled a list of tips, tricks and advice that should help you do an even better job. Are you ready to start writing a dissertation proposal? Read on!

Table of Contents

What is a dissertation proposal, why is the dissertation proposal important, a simple dissertation proposal outline, how to write dissertation proposal: a step by step guide, tips, tricks and advice, a free dissertation proposal sample.

So, what is a dissertation proposal? Why is it important? Why would you want to write one? A dissertation proposal is a document that outlines the proposed research project that a student intends to undertake as part of their doctoral program. The purpose of the proposal is to convince the student’s academic committee that the proposed research is worthwhile, feasible and original. The proposal typically includes:

An introduction Literature review Research methodology Research aims and objectives Expected outcomes A timeline for completion

The proposal should also address any potential ethical considerations or limitations of the study, and should provide a justification for the significance of the research. Once the proposal is accepted, the student can begin working on their dissertation, which will be a more extensive and detailed version of the proposal.

Before we show you how to write a proposal for a dissertation, we want to make sure you understand just how important this paper is. A proposal is important because it:

Provides a framework for the research project. The proposal outlines the structure of the research project, including the research questions, methodology, and expected outcomes. Demonstrates the student’s readiness for the research. The proposal requires the student to undertake a rigorous review of the literature and develop a research plan. Helps to identify potential issues. The proposal provides an opportunity to identify any potential issues or limitations with the research project before it even begins. Facilitates feedback and discussion. The proposal is typically reviewed and critiqued by the student’s academic committee.

If you’re looking for an example proposal dissertation, you’re in luck. The thesis proposal format is not overly difficult, but you should definitely take a look at our outline to get a feel of how you should structure your paper:

I. Introduction Introduce the topic of the dissertation and provide background information. Write a clear research question or statement of the problem that the study aims to address. Explain the significance of your research and discuss the contribution it will make to the field of study. II. Literature Review Review and critically evaluate relevant literature in the field of study. Identify gaps or inconsistencies in the literature; gaps that the research project will address. Demonstrate how the proposed research fits into and advances the existing body of knowledge. III. Methodology Describe the research design and methodology that will be used to collect and analyze data. Justify the choice of methodology and explain how it aims to answer the research question. Address potential limitations and ethical considerations related to the methodology. IV. Research Aims and Objectives Clearly state the research aims and objectives that the study will address. Explain how these aims and objectives are linked to the research question and contribute to advancing the body of knowledge on the matter. V. Expected Outcomes Talk about the expected outcomes of your research. Explain how these outcomes will contribute to the existing body of knowledge and address the research question. VI. Timeline for Completion Provide a detailed timeline for completing the research project. Clearly present key milestones and deadlines, including the expected completion date for the dissertation. VII. Conclusion Summarize the main ideas in your proposal. Reinforce the significance of the research project. Indicate the potential implications of your findings.

If you want to learn how to write dissertation proposal quickly, the best way to do it is to follow a reliable step by step guide. The good news is that our experts have written one such guide for you. Here is exactly what you need to do to write dissertation proposal papers the right way:

Choose a topic. Start by choosing a topic that interests you and that is relevant to your field of study. The topic should be specific enough to allow you to conduct focused research and broad enough to allow for adequate exploration. Research existing literature. Conduct a review of all of the existing literature on the topic you’ve chosen. This will help you identify any gaps in knowledge that you can address in your research. Define your research questions. Based on the literature review, develop specific research questions that you will address in your dissertation. Your research questions should be clear and concise. Remember that you will need to answer these questions. Develop the research methodology. Choose a research methodology that is appropriate for your research questions. You can use qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods. Be sure to justify your choice of methodology so that the committee doesn’t ask for clarifications. Write the introduction. Start your proposal with an introduction that provides an overview of your research topic, research questions and methodology. You should include the thesis in the introduction. Write the literature review. Next, write a literature review that summarizes existing research on your topic. Identify any gaps in knowledge that you will address in your research. Present your methodology. Describe your research methodology in detail, including your data collection methods and data analysis techniques. Another researcher should be able to replicate your experiments and get the same results after reading your methodology. Define your expected results. Based on your research questions and methodology, define the expected results of your research. Be very specific about what you aim to demonstrate with your paper. Develop a timeline for writing a proposal for dissertation. Create a timeline that outlines the different stages of your research, from data collection to analysis and writing. Also, don’t forget to include the date on which you expect the paper to be completed. Write the conclusion. End your proposal with a conclusion that summarizes your research topic, research questions, methodology, and expected results. Show your readers why your research is important. Edit and proofread your work. Before submitting your proposal, be sure to edit and proofread it carefully to ensure that it is free of errors and presents your research clearly. You want your proposal to be perfect in every way.

It is usually a good idea to have your friends and family take a look at the proposal and give you some feedback. You’d be surprised by how many things can be improved this way. Even better, you could get in touch with our expert editors and proofreaders and have them revise your work. This is a sure way to ensure that your proposal is top notch.

Before we get to the dissertation proposal example, we want to share some effective tips, tricks and advice that will help you do a better job writing your paper:

Start early. Give yourself plenty of time to write your dissertation proposal. It’s a complex document that requires careful planning, research, and writing, so don’t leave it until the last minute. Get feedback. Before submitting your proposal, share it with your supervisor or another academic who can provide feedback. Be clear and concise. Use clear and concise language to communicate your research topic, questions and methodology. Provide context. Provide context for your research by explaining why it’s important and how it fits into existing research in your field. Justify your methodology. Be sure to explain why you have chosen a particular methodology and how it will help you answer your research questions. Be realistic. Make sure your proposed research is feasible given your time, resources and skills. Avoid proposing research that is too broad or ambitious, as this can make it difficult to complete your dissertation on time. Follow guidelines. Follow the guidelines provided by your university or department for formatting, length, and content. This will help you avoid unnecessary revisions and ensure that your proposal meets the requirements. Keep it organized. Use clear headings, subheadings and sections to organize your proposal. This will make it easier for your readers to follow your argument and find the information they need. Use citations. Use citations to acknowledge the work of other researchers and to support your own arguments. This will demonstrate that you have done your research and are aware of existing literature on your topic.

Are you looking for an excellent dissertation proposal template that you can follow? Our experts are here to help you with your school projects. We have written a great dissertation proposal sample that you can use for free. You can use this example to learn how PhD dissertation proposals are written, but you should avoid copying content from the sample because a plagiarism detector can flag your paper. If you need more than the following example of a dissertation proposal, get in touch with our experts:

Background of the Problem Employee performance is a significant concern of any organization because it determines business performance. According to Fachrunnisa, Adhiatma & Mutamimah (2014), employees achieve the desired level of performance when they are effectively engaged or involved in the management of the organization. However, the impact of organizational culture on both the engagement and performance of employees has not been measured distinctively using empirical evidence, as illustrated by Breevaart, Bakker, Demerouti & Derks (2016). Statement of the Problem Organizations provide their employees with requirements related to expected level of participation in work activities and performance. However, business leaders and managers often forget that they must create a supportive organizational culture that will inspire employee engagement and motivate performance. Purpose of the Study The purpose of the proposed investigation is to determine how organizational culture influences employee engagement and their performance at work. The study aims at providing business leaders and managers with evidence-based insights for establishing organizational cultures that inspire employee engagement and motivate performance. Research Objectives To assess the impact of organizational mission, vision and values on employee engagement in the service sector. To determine how organizational culture influences job performance in the service sector. To establish the relationship between the consistency of organizational culture and employee engagement and job performance in the service sector Research Questions To what extent do the mission, vision and values of organizations in the service sector influence employee engagement? How does organizational culture influence job performance in the service sector? How does the consistency of organizational culture shape employee engagement and job performance in the service sector? Significance of the Study The proposed study is significant to business management practice. It will specifically provide business leaders and managers with practical reasons for establishing supportive organizational cultures that are meant to improve the level of employee engagement and improve their performance at work. Methodology Research Design A descriptive research design will be applied in carrying out the proposed investigation. This design will allow for description of the characteristics of work environments under study in terms of working culture, employee engagement and motivation for performance. Descriptive studies are also useful in establishing relationships existing between research variables (Sekaran & Bougie, 2016). Study Population The population of the proposed study is composed of members of organizations within the service sector. This includes the business leaders, managers and employees of these organizations. Sampling Stratified sampling will be applied in selecting a representative sample from the study population to participate in the research process. The selected sampling technique is useful in categorizing members of a study population into homogenous subgroups, from which participants are randomly selected (Bryman & Bell, 2015). A sample of 120 participants, including business leaders, managers and employees of 10 organizations in the service sector will be selected and engaged in the research process. Data Collection Methods Self-administered questionnaires will be used to gather data for the study. Questionnaires are preferred because they are standardized, efficient and cost-effective data collection tools (Sekaran & Bougie, 2016). The questionnaires will have open and closed ended questions pertaining to the background information of participants, the culture of their organizations, employee engagement strategies and employee performance. Data Analysis Descriptive statistics will be applied in the analysis of research data. Through descriptive statistics, research data will be organized and interpreted in line with the relationship between organizational culture, employee engagement and performance.

Get Quick Help Writing A Dissertation Proposal

Do you need fast online dissertation help? Our experts are ready to spring into action and write you the best possible PhD dissertation proposal. Our writers have extensive experience with such projects as writing a thesis proposal or academic papers, so you will receive a high quality, custom paper written according to your specifications.

All our writers have at least one PhD degree and they are all ENL native English speakers. We can write a proposal for any undergraduate or graduate student in any college or university. In addition, we can help high school, college and uni students with 100% original essays and research papers for any class.

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Find more interesting content related to thesis writing below:

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Below, you can find answers to the most frequently asked questions regarding the dissertation proposal:

Can I make changes to my dissertation proposal after it is approved?

It is possible to make changes to the dissertation proposal after it is approved, but any significant changes may require additional review.

How long should a dissertation proposal be?

The length of a dissertation proposal can vary depending on the requirements of the program. Most proposals are typically between 10 and 20 pages.

Who reviews the dissertation proposal?

The dissertation proposal is typically reviewed by the student’s academic committee.

How long does it take to write a dissertation proposal?

On average, it can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months to write a good dissertation proposal. You need professional help if you are about to miss the deadline.

What if my dissertation proposal is not approved?

If the dissertation proposal is not approved, the student will need to revise and resubmit it for review. You can get editing help from an online dissertation writing service , so you have no reason to stress!

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Are you looking to review a Dissertation Proposal Sample and explore what a dissertation proposal looks like?

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The samples of the dissertation proposals provided here can be downloaded in a pdf format, so you can read the full draft at the time of your convenience or while drafting your dissertation proposal.

A good quality dissertation proposal sample includes the following sections;

• A detailed introduction to the topic
• Dissertation research aims, research objectives and research gaps
• Detailed literature review on the subject of your research.
• Justified research methodology, data collection and analysis methods, including presenting any research limitations
• List of 20+ quality references resources

The dissertation proposal samples shared here have been mostly drafted for UK students. However, students who are studying in different countries can also use these resources for their dissertations or thesis papers.

To assist students further with dissertation proposal examples, we have published dissertation proposal examples in the following categories;

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It is important to note that the length of a dissertation proposal draft, in terms of the required number of pages or words, depends on the dissertation brief or the instructions provided by the university or the module supervisors.

For example, an undergraduate dissertation proposal sample can be of around 1,000 words or 4 to 6 pages, an MSC dissertation proposal sample can be of around 2,000 words or 8 to 10 pages, and a doctoral or PHD dissertation proposal sample can be of around 5,000 words or 20 to 22 pages.

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Speaker 1: Hi, my name is Shady Atia. I'm going to present today a presentation on writing a research proposal. This is a very important presentation for postgraduates in order to learn how to write a research proposal. My presentation will go through four main axes. I will present how to write a what is actually a research proposal, how to define your topic, how to organize your research proposal and finally how to write it technically and presented. Well, let's see the first question. What is a research proposal? A research proposal is a statement of intent where you describe your intentions and simply we can describe it into a motivational intention manuscript where you declare your intentions and show your motivations and it's very important in this sense that you define the scope of your topic, the subject enough it has to be specific enough and you have to have a specific aim and objective related to your topic and definitely it would reflect your interest and it should be your own research so therefore you should also explain why is this topic better than other topics and you have to show that this is the first time subject that will be innovative you not previously addressed in a way and that you will carry that responsibility and present it through the research proposal. Well, the next question comes to what are the types of research proposal that we have. Many people get confused about that. We have a research proposal that is mainly under a thesis. A thesis is mainly a manuscript that you write for a master degree and it answers a research question based on existing knowledge. And here we are looking to your capacity to critical think and analyze deep information and process that and presented as new knowledge. While there is another type of manuscript that is called dissertations, the dissertations that are mainly for PhD doctoral degrees and in this sense you have to create a significant new contribution to knowledge and you have to come up with a new solution for a problem or a cure for a certain contextual problem. Well there is a third type of research proposal that you could write for funding grants like the Belgian research institutes or you write it for national research organizations in order to go through a competition process to win a funding to cover research topic okay well these are the three type of proposal that you can write next I will move to the second important question how to define your topic this is a not an easy task because you are most probably not having large experience with doing research and sometimes it's very difficult to do that so in this sense you have to define your topic and the process should start by identifying a general idea or an area of research and then develop it and focus on a certain research question so you have to ask yourself the following question is the topic related to real life because we are looking to applied science we are looking applied research So you have to make sure that this is related to real life. When you answer this question, you have to come to the next question. Is your topic related to societal problem? Is it a real problem in the society that your research is addressing? Is your topic going to be useful and interesting or did someone before answer it? So you must make sure that the topic is useful and interesting. Is your topic focused and specific or is it very broad and large? The more the topic is large and generic, the more it's difficult to come up with something new, it's difficult to process the work. Can your idea fill a gap in research? Do we have a problem or a topic that was not addressed previously by another researcher? So you have also to make sure that your research topic is not a kind of common topic that has been processed by many people. Always you must look for a gap or something that is missing and make sure that your research will cover that area and definitely you should ask yourself will this study generate new knowledge and this is very important because when you generate new knowledge then you have a real contribution and your research is worthy and you should also ask would the benefit from it the architects the engineers the professional in your field is it going to advance the understanding or influence policy this is very important and definitely finally should ask yourself Will this study fill a gap in existing knowledge or resolve current controversies? So these kind of series of questions, you can use them as a kind of checklist, as a starting approach, after defining a general topic you are interested in, and go step by step trying to answer them until you can define and shape your research topic. Well, there are some golden rules you should keep in mind while defining your research topic. You must be passionate about the topic because it should come from you. It should be your interest that you are related. You might ask your supervisor or follow a previously developed idea or concept from your supervisor or your professor. But in the same time, you must have the passion related to this topic. So this is very important. The second Gordon rule is related to the discoveries. Could the topic lead to discoveries? you should not promise to guarantee a discovery, but you should have a kind of estimation this could topic lead to discoveries or not. And you have to make sure that this is catchy topic. It catch the attention. People will be interested in it. It's grabby. It's really related to society. People will really would like to listen to what you are going to present and read it through your manuscripts. And definitely you have to formulate very clearly your objectives and aims so that you are focused in your research and having a very specific topic. And finally, you should select a supervisor, he or she that can help you through this process and has the ability and the skills to guide you through the process. So these are kind of five golden rules I would like to highlight. You must follow them to make sure that you are on the right track. Now, after describing what is a research proposal and how to do it, I would start to talk about the content. The content is very important. Many people don't know how to write a proposal, what should be the order of the information. And here are kind of 10 major elements you should focus on in writing a research proposal. You should cover issues related to the title and the keywords related to your research topic, brief abstract describing your topic, a problem statement, aims and objectives, the significance and importance of your topic and the audience that your research is catering for, the state of the art, the methodologies, your expected results and definitely you should describe the project outline and the impact and the biography of your research. Well let's start with this and and I'm going to describe everyone into detail. Well, when I'm talking about title and keywords, this is very important. Why? Because a title and a keyword is not an easy task. A title in general should be catchy and should be precise. So these are some rules that you should follow to have a good title. It has to be a specific title, accurate, not too long, catchy, and it has to contain the main idea. I should read the title and figure out most probably what is this thesis about or what is this dissertation about. So you have to look at the title in a way and revise it and think about it and most of the time good titles start with an action verb let's say like simulation of comparison of assessment of these are all examples that you can look at and start with them your title. Once you have an action verb it shows already that you are trying to do something to cater or to address a certain problem and most of the time a researcher doing a master thesis or a PhD thesis or even a research for grant proposals he or she should look at these verbs as a starting to identify and formulate their title well once you are done with your title that's not enough you have to define next to the title keywords well you will ask what's the point I just defined the topic and I have a title now why should I use keywords well keywords are very important they should not exceed six to eight words and actually we use terminologies or we will use words that are not in the title in this sense you are helping the search engine to extend the topic so I let me let me give you an example. My topic of my research is called Dynamic Building Kit for Adaptable and Reusable Wall Solutions. That's the title. The title is talking about developing a building kit that could be adaptable, that could be assembled and disassembled for materials or building components that could be reused, okay, and specifically on walls. This is the title and I understand it like that? Well, I can add to that some keywords. These keywords can help me to describe more. I can say that I'm talking about design solutions. I'm talking specifically on post-war housing. I can add a context or a city to describe where I am, Liège in this case. I can add the keyword energy efficiency renovation like that I am extending my title and amending additional words that can help in the understanding of topic and once you do a research with these keywords the topic will pop up in the search engine much much easier so actually this is very important to define your keywords associated with your topic and in this sense they are very complementary well the next step is to move to the abstract well the abstract is one of the things you do at the end so you don't start with an abstract but let me tell you first what is an abstract an abstract simply is a text a piece of text that is not longer than 250 words and it describes simply your topic the research problem the objectives the methodology your results and the audience and the impact of your work so simply the abstract should be read by somebody in less than 3-4 minutes he or she can directly grasp the whole overview of your topic so you summarize the essence of your whole master thesis or PhD thesis in 250 words and therefore it should be really well thought well written and following this structure well let me give you an example here is a topic related to health the topic title is called the effect of exposure to natural environment on health inequalities and observational population study. As we can see those words are not exceeding 250 words, we have a background statement just two sentences, we have a methodology fully described where it has been done, what is the population, the population size, the sampling and finally we find the findings talking about this observational study results with some statistical analysis and the rates of the study that the rates of the study and finally we have to look at the final two sentences talking about interpretation in this sense this is an abstract it's compact but it's describing the whole study into a systematical approach so this is actually you do when you finish your thesis you write your abstract in order to communicate to people and actually when you publish your work on your abstract will be an open source and then after that when a researcher looking on internet they will be interested by your topic by title by keywords then when they will go through your abstract if they find the topic interesting they find interesting findings and interpretation they come up with the idea of investing in reading the whole manuscript or ordering the master thesis from another library or from another country okay so this is very important to start with after having defining the title and the keyword the third step is mainly related to the problem statement and here we are really starting the real work the serious work related to the research proposal well what is a problem statement you must start in your problem statement to contextualize your problem and you have to be concise you have to define exactly what's the what's the problem and most of the time it's good to link your background problem with authorities. So you start by saying the European Union has this objective, the national government has this objective, the region or the province or the city has these objectives. So you relate your background and the problem with political, governmental or non-governmental the United Nations, the World Health Organization, whatever authority that is stating something related to the topic. Also it's important to quantify this information and quantify the background. So it's advised here to define the problem into numbers, give some statistics, some figures related to the issue and you must also contain an overview of most relevant work. You should also try to cover others work saying in this context of this problem those stakeholders are doing that or doing that or covering this problem or addressing it from an angle or another. It's also important here to describe clearly your hypothesis that you have been done and how you are going to enter to propose the problem. Well, after describing this background and preparing the reader for the topic, you can directly now start to propose the problem and you have to show a really significant problem that is related to a a topic. So you should not make the reader get lost on the opposite. You should start to define a statement clearly and make sure that it's a societal problem in a certain context. Well this is an example. Just remember that at the end of the day a research proposal maybe in a master's thesis or a dissertation you will get funding or sometimes you don't get funding you do it work for free but at the end no one will fund a research proposal or find it reasonable as long as it's not solving a local or global problem. So my advice in writing a research proposal, make sure that your problem definition is by default solving a local or a global problem, trying to solve it in a way or another, linking to reality, linking to statistics, putting some figures, variables, and contextualizing the problem, describing it in a way that is viable, up-to-date, related to our current practice. Once you are done with that, you can start to define your aim and objectives. And you should take into account that an aim is not an objective. An aim is like a bullet. It's very important to define your aim. Once you define a good aim, you are sure that you will do a good research. So, aim well and you should hit your target cleanly. If you don't write a clear aim that is targeting a specific goal, you'll not succeed in doing your research. And simply you have to say what you want to simply and directly want to say. You have to explain what is this research going to do and who will benefit from it. I will give you some examples related to aims, but keep into account it has to be short, it has to be to the point, and it's like a bullet. you don't need to write a lot. It's the shorter the better. Well, what's the definition of an aim? An aim simply provides an answer to a general problem. So, so far we are not talking about the specific problem. This is the objective. In an aim I'm talking about the general problem. And the aim goes along with an adjective. It has to be concise. You should be aware that your grandmother can read the aim and understand it. And you should also keep in mind that it should be related to what's motivating you so this is very important and it should assist on improving the decision lead this is very important some examples of aims you can have a look lowering the dependency or the dependence on fossil fuel increasing the energy efficiency of improving the situation of increasing renovation rate dissemination knowledge sharing information general overall aims related to a serious problem and in this sense you don't need to write it more than one sentence maximum and then you are describing the topic in general in a sense in an aim that a non-technical person can understand it when I say here my aim of my research is to increase energy efficiency in the building sector this is a very broad generic aim anybody can understand and that's the purpose you should have this aim now once you define the aim you cannot be more specific and focus on the objective. But let me tell you what's the objective. The objective is more specific to your study, it's more accurate than the aim, and it's operational. So there is an action in it, you have to do something in it. In the aim, in the objective also it has to correspond to what you will try to produce and generate. So it has to be very precise in description, it has to focus on the central research question, and often contextualize it to a specific climate, context, country, region. Very important and these are some examples for objectives. So here I'm saying my objective to develop a software or a program to calculate turbulent nonlinear equation. Here the objective became very clear. Analyze the reason of low renovation rate identify barriers understand study the impact of assess compare so the objective has to be very clear very precise to the point talking about a specific aspect so in general it should be combined with the aim but let me give you an example with a good description of an aim with an objective well have a a look and read this sentence sorry just have a look I have a aim here the main aim of this research is this to disseminate technological knowledge on adaptive facade at a European level that's the overall aim very general I want to spread or share information related to a specific type of building facades in Europe and do it on a European level so this is a very broad aim and this is very successful one sentence like a bullet now how I'm going to do this aim I need to describe at least three four objectives to do this aim first of all I'm aiming to increase knowledge sharing secondly I'm looking to develop a new knowledge thirdly I'm starting new collaboration so in this sense I am precisely describing how I'm going to achieve this aim through operational tactical objectives. Another example could be interesting here, have a look at that. The project is aiming to improving building energy labeling schemes. So I would like to improve the labeling of buildings, so like you buy any food product you have a label telling what's the ingredients, I want to improve the labeling of buildings. But how I'm going to do that? These are the objectives that I'm going to do. I'm going to review different building labeling. I'm going to review different performance indicators. I will investigate possibilities for developing other labels. I will choose some case studies. I will examine the robustness of labeling schemes. I will evaluate their social acceptance. I will analyze the results. I will create a fair framework. Directly, you can see that we have here at least something around eight objectives serving one aim. So it's very important in your research proposal to keep this structure in your writing. You have an overall overarching aim with a very specific objectives that serves to achieve this aim and they as I told you it has to be operational with adjectives. Also a criteria to make sure that your objectives are well or right good written we call objective smart smart stands for specific measurable attainable realistic and time bound every reviewer reading your research proposal he or she will look at these objectives are the objectives specific are they measurable are they attainable realistic and time bound and this is very important you have to make sure that you have a pointed topic you are covering it you can measure the objective and measure what you are doing you must make sure that you can reach this objectives and that you have a realistic objective it's not a dream you have calculated the time and the effort and you can do it and definitely it should be time bound so you must put it in a frame of a deadline with a certain start and an end date once you make sure sure that your objectives are smart you can pass now and validate your topic and in this sense you can look to the topic and say I have smart objectives and you need some time to do it it's not easy to write it but you need just to take some time brainstorm your topic once you defined well the problem you can then define good the aim and from the aim you can break it down into specific objective. This is how it works. Another final advice for the aim and objective, don't forget to frame it. You need always to frame it. So these are the questions you should ask yourself at the end of writing your aim and objective. So first question, is it worth it answering your research question and the aim? What will benefit, am I going to benefit from it? Is the society, the community, the professional or the scientific community going to benefit from it? Is it specific, your aim and objective? Are they answerable? Can we answer them in this frame of thesis or dissertation? Is the topic original? Is it contribution to knowledge? Did somebody else do it or I'm really doing something new? What about the outcomes? Are they appropriate? Do they think ahead are the expected outcomes really achievable this is very important and finally you should ask yourself is this topic interesting to you there is many students who start a thesis and after a while they say I don't like this problem I don't like this topic they stop this means that you are not certain that you are motivated you are passionate and this topic is for your own personal interest is triggering you so these are some important advices to validate and to make sure that your aims and objectives are well written and this is a very fast example you can have a look for a winning proposal. This is simply an example showing the specific measurable and attainable realistic time-bound objectives. You can see here I have a precise problem. Agriculture is the backbone of Belgium's economy for example and it's central to the government development strategy but although the agricultural sector employs more than 75% of countries workforce and accounts both directly and indirectly for approximately 51% of countries Belgium's gross domestic product little is known about the scale of livestock farming livestock diversity distribution of livestock farms so here I have a problem very specific well described it's contextual there is a background on the national level I find some figures and statistics and the researcher simply wanted to say one thing we don't have information about the livestock farming in this country but instead of writing it directly he put a context he gives some numbers he put some figures he shows the importance of the topic and right after he will or she starts to write the objective. So the objective here is not a aim, he is directly talking about operational specific tasks. A team of eight researchers defining who will do that, eight researchers at the livestock research unit of Agricultural College for example at Liège University will research the types and extent of livestock farming in the country. A comprehensive report will be published and an online database and website will be created the project will be presented in its entirely four years after the start of the project at the sub-saharan agricultural summit in Botswana in November 2016 so you have here a very clear objective operational with steps following up and I can measure it it's specific it's attainable it's realistic it's time bound so this is the way how to write a good research aim and a research objective and this will be the start of your research proposal and just to remind you keep in mind that in the beginning of your search proposal you have to have a catchy and informative title the summary and the abstract leave it for the end you will not do it when you start this is after you finish write your six eight keywords that are not included in your title make sure that you have a good problem statement description with a problem related to contextual societal issues, define an overall aim and go for your operational step-by-step specific objectives. In this way if you keep this slide in mind while developing your first part of your proposal you are on the road to success. Well I'm done with the aims and objectives and I will move to the fifth component or element which is the significance and audience. It's very important in research to define why is this research important and who are the users of this research, who are the end users who should benefit from this study. Am I doing this study for myself, for fun? You should not do that in university. Even though that some people try to do explorational work, you can do it, but you should just succeed in translating your own interest into a common interest. Once you did it, you are on the track. So significance is meant the importance the importance here so you have to make sure and describe in your text what is the added value what is original about this work why is it important even if some people are not finding it important you have to defend the work and present it and write it in a way that is important something you should show that this is something never that was never did before and once you contextualize your topic you succeed to have a significance For example, if I'm talking about renovation using prefabricated units or if I'm talking about prefabricated housing. Once you open or would like to research the topic, you might get some feedback saying, yeah, but prefabricated construction, there is many countries who do it in the United States, in Canada, it's nothing new. But once you contextualize it, you can make it new. If you say studying prefabricated housing in Liège or in Wallonia or in Belgium or in the province X or in the region X or for residential housing or for a specific context, for a specific region. Once you contextualize a topic, you directly make it original. So there is many topics in your society, in our context here at Liège universities. Maybe there is advancement in Finland or in other European countries, but they are not contextualized. So you can also borrow ideas from abroad, from other researchers, and contextualizing and study how to implement them in our context here. Once you do that, your topic becomes significant and important and becomes unique because we don't have answers for that. Also, it's important that it does not mean that the question is new, but never approached like you. even some researchers they select a topic that has been selected or researched by many people before but you can show that how you will do it in a unique way how you will go through personal endeavor that looks differently to process the topic so don't be afraid and saying yeah I when you look at the depository of previous master seasons if you find somebody else before you did the same topic that you are interested in, you should not stop. Take the topic, read it well and see how you can do it different. Once you define this difference and set it as a significant, as added value, you can guarantee that your research topic is significant and important. Also, your topic should lead to added value. At the end of the day, you should add value and make sure that you have important and significance has to take into account of the principal aim. It should be at the end related to your principal aim. Some other questions you could look at. Questions have to be open in general when you describe your topic. Here you can add a list of keywords not included in the title and the motivation is linked to the context. Well, defining the significance is important. Now you defined your problem, your title, your aim, your objective, why is this topic important, how is it significant. Now comes a very important topic people forget about and I think personally you might start by that. The audience. Why are you doing this study? Who is going to benefit from this study? Who you want to reach? Define your target audience very clearly and from the beginning. The easier the target audience is described, the easier you can do your research. Many people forget that it could be politicians your target, your target could be professional community, it could be the research community, it could be managers, it could be whoever, community or stakeholders. But leaving your research proposal without defining the audience, there is no meaning. Because many people do interesting studies, but then they don't contact their audience. If I'm doing a study, for example, about the green area spaces in Liège city, so I want to know how much green area per square meter per citizen is in the city of Liège. And I did a very beautiful analysis and I went through the neighborhoods of Liège and And I then identified through my analysis how much square meter of green spaces are available for the citizens of Liège. If at the end of this study I did not contact the community or the local authority of Liège city or the province and tell them here is my work, how can you benefit from them? If I didn't go and do an interview with them, if I didn't contact them to make sure that the municipality is benefiting from the study, then I failed to connect my research to the audience. So you must always to make sure what's the research and ask yourself, what's the relation between my research topic and the audience? And did I allow the audience to intervene in my study? In this sense, I should have maybe went to the municipality and asked the urbanism sector or unit and tell them, I'm doing a study about Liège. Can you help me with this information? Is this information for you helpful? How can this information, can I modify it to meet a kind of certain requirement from your side? So it's very important to define the audience and not to define it theoretically on paper. No, you have to go engage with those people, contact them before starting your study, during your study, and after your study. You can even invite them to your defense. If you don't do this step, our research will have no impact. It will be just theoretical research hidden in research university without having any impact on society. So therefore, make sure always what is the audience of your research. Get in contact with these people. And as I told, why you have to reach those people? Because you have to consider your motives and why you feel this group should be targeted. You have to know why you want to reach a particular group. And you should provide insight that will help develop effective study. and you should say also why should they be interested in my research this is very important once you define that you can start now your research I'm moving now to the step number six but I would say that this is the first chunk of your research proposal it does not need to be more than one or two pages defining clearly from the title going to the keywords talking about your problem statement and the background defining the aim and objective the significance of your work and finally the audience once you define this one or two pages i can guarantee you that you have a good topic well defined and make sure that you revise it with your supervisor well you are now ready to embark and start your topic more clearly but you have to describe another additional component in your proposal? The state of the art or the literature review. What is the state of the art? Why do we do a research related to state of the art? Why do we review literature for a research proposal? Number one, you have to improve your own understanding. You have to understand, you have to become an expert because now you are talking about a topic, you don't know enough information about it. So you have to understand what has been done before and you have to read literature so number one why we do a literature review to improve the understanding number two you have to build your expertise in the specific domain number three you have to demonstrate knowledge and show that you understand a specific knowledge related to the topic and you have to update the reader with the state of the art because at the end of the of the end of the day the master thesis or the phd you will submit it to a jury or a reader or you will set it online and you would like the community to read it. Once they read it, they must make sure that they are up to date to the latest information related to this topic and therefore we should do a literature review. To do a good literature review, you must guarantee that you have good resources. You should look at major published work, you should look at a narrow specific topic and you should start your review. The review should cover the major concepts, snapshots relationships classifications and extractions so the literature review actually is like an essence you go through different publications different sources and you extract the most important information and you provide me with a snapshot with a pattern image describing what has been done before what are the major publication related to this topic and like that you can put me up-to-date related to the topic. Does one of the criteria that anybody would like a professor will look at a research proposal will ask does the proposal advance the state of the art? Does it introduce innovative approaches? This is very important and the more you go into this a PhD or a grant proposal the more the answer for these questions is very important. If the proposal shows it does it show a good understanding of the major work? Does it identify the gaps of existing knowledge and so on so this is very important and you should also say what is currently available in Liège in Belgium in Europe and worldwide so this is the aim of the literature review to make sure what is done also in the North America what's done in Asia to make sure that I am up-to-date related to this topic well you should also capture the major concept and ideas related to research and finally you should ask yourself how is your research you are doing compared with similar research in other contexts so you should not only describe your research topic and forget that others maybe did the same idea 90% of ideas are not new we are processing others ideas so 90% of ideas are not new So you should keep in mind, put an assumption in your mind, that maybe somebody else, someone, somewhere else, tried to address the same problem. What about looking, exploring, how did those other people do my work? So this is the aim of literature review, to make sure that I cover the literature, I am up to date, I am covering the major concepts and publications that describe the topic, and also similar studies related to my research topic. once you did that you can move to the methodology and the methodology should describe how you are going to do your research in the proposal and this could not should not be a long text it could be a couple of paragraphs or maybe maximum three paragraphs describing how we are going to do your research there is in general different methodologies you can do strategic research you can do applied research you can do experimental research and these are all examples of researchers that you can do if you like to do lab work and monitoring then it's experimental work if you would like to do applied then it's more like simulation case studies system analysis comparison analysis if you are looking to develop concepts model standards prototypes solutions you are more into strategical basic research and definitely if you are looking for developing things beyond applied research, pure basic research, a theory, an equation, a philosophy, then you are looking at basic research. So you should define clearly what is your methodology and these are all examples for different methodologies as you can see and every researcher and every specialization, every group of specialization has its own collection of methodologies they use. People in social sciences, we know that they use a lot interview and they use surveying techniques. This is their methodology they come up with. People working in engineering, for example, they go more for experimentation and so on and so forth. So you must make sure your domain, your expertise, your field of expertise, what are the common methodology. In the field of architecture or buildings in general, we use analysis research, development research, we do a lot of case studies research, evidence-based design, parametric research, optimization, also participatory or action research, operational research, post-occupancy evaluation, lab research, and system analysis research. So just you must be familiar with these types of methodology and describe them in your research proposals and now I will move to another thing which is called a method which means that like in the aims and objective there is an aim and there is an objective here there is something called methodology and method. A method is a small action of research done to achieve a methodology for example I can have a case study as a methodology but in order to achieve this methodology, I have several methods that I can do. I can do some drawings, photography, videotaping, visualization, sketching, mapping, process analysis, technology review, history review. These are all methods that I can use in my research to achieve my methodology. So it's very important in your research proposal that you define in the beginning your research methodological on this level. Is it basic research, is it strategical, is it applied, is it experimental. Then you pick up a methodology and don't hesitate, you can have several methodology in a research. You can combine evidence-based design with case studies, there is no problem at all. But once you define your methodology, you have to pick up a collection of methods. A systematic review is a method, data analysis is a method, GIS or simulation, visualizing, classification and categorization, These are all methods. So your research proposal should address these methods and simply your methodology in general should describe how are you going to approach your work. So as I said you start with a literature review and from the literature review you see what has been done by previous researchers. You have to outline the instrument, fix boundaries of diseases and we should look at different methodology, describe them well, make sure that you have qualitative and quantitative approaches for your methodology, and make sure how you will collect the information, how this information will be robust. I give you a very important example here you should keep into account. When we talk about methodology, one of the big problems we see today in research, the methodology should be replicable, which means that any independent researcher is going to do the same research you have been doing, he or she should be able to repeat the same methodology and come up with the same research. One of the problems we find today in research, very common, that researchers, they do the research without describing it well, without a clear methodology, and as a consequence, the results are fake, because they didn't have a methodology. And once you describe your methodology, keep into account that it should be replicable and repeatable by others. So this is very important. And how to present a methodology, this is how to do it. You have to come up with a study design. A study design is simply a specific plan or a protocol for conducting the study. and it allows you to investigate and translate the conceptual hypothesis into operational research. So actually in this section of methodology I should see this overview design. I'm saying that my methodology is based on quantitative and qualitative research methods. I have here case studies and so on and so forth and I here have my own other quantitative approaches and you draw it into a sort of diagram and this is another representation I have descriptive analysis I have analytical here I'm going to do a survey here I'm going to do experiment here I'm going to do a cross-sectional analysis once you think about your methodology and represented in a graph like that and describe it into a couple of paragraphs you are done with the methodology it's accessible and I have a very interesting document you can ask me for it it describes the different research methodologies in architecture. So you can go from theoretical research, interpretative research, experimental, survey, simulation, qualitative, even action research, and for each of these methodologies there are different ontological assumptions, epistemological assumptions also, methodologies, how you validate, how you have examples for each of those so this is very important very helpful you might use it and I would like to ask you to start your methodology by sketching drawing thinking about picking up some methods making sure how you will address it you have to define your method your sample your case studies what are the target users are you going to use equipment analysis this is very important and you can draw a study design scheme for that and the study design scheme like I showed you based on this analysis using this Excel or this table I provided previously. Make sure that you draw a study design scheme and integrate it in your proposal, discuss it with your supervisor, explain why it is the most appropriate to effectively answer your research question and you have also to explain what alternatives have been considered when and why these have been disregarded. So these are the golden rules for the methodology. Don't forget you have to come up with a study design scheme, describe your methodology on the level of what is the strategical level of your research, what is the methodologies you are using, what are the methods and summarize it into a scheme and present it and describe it. Well now I would like to move to the expected results even in a research proposal before doing your research you should describe your expected results this is very important and how are you going to do that it's mainly based on your literature review if you are going to read some major publication related to your topic you can be able to expect what will be the results of your work you may fragment you may grab fragments from other studies but you can predict possible outcomes and that's all what you are expected to report in this sense. You have to be based on the literature review, linked to the aims and objectives, explain what you will be producing, something concrete, evidence-based with numbers, you have to define how is it going to be usable, is it some rules of thumb, is it findings, is it guidelines, is it advice, is it a strategy, what it is and for example you can say I'm going to come up with a prototype, with a design concept, with a solution. These are all important to define in the expected results. So it's not here meant that you will say exactly what will come out from the study but you will define what parameters, what outcomes you are looking at and these are examples of outcomes you must keep into account that you answer this question very important in your research proposal because if you are just putting facts they are called data if you are classifying them they can become information they will become only knowledge if you are adding an analysis and interpretation kind of working the information into a useful information and once you have knowledge you can help in decisions and actually that's the cycle of knowledge so your thesis is mainly looking to collect the data and information and process them to generate knowledge so that this knowledge can help the community and the decision makers to take decision and become more informed, more knowledgeable. Well, what could be examples of outcomes? This is a series of outcomes. It could be a product, rules of thumb, guidelines, a manual, a website, an application, even an app. Don't hesitate to develop an app for your master's thesis. This could be interesting, a map, a tool, a website, a program, a book, an infographic, a cartographic guide, equation, model, benchmark, simulation, a checklist, sometimes some students come up with their master outcome, a checklist, a policy, a strategy, a theory. You must be sure that you come up with a concrete outcome that you will present at the end of your thesis and you link this outcome to the audience as described previously. So this is very important and to validate that you have good expected result describe how the work will be validated. You must make sure that your outcomes and what you are going to present will be compared with results published and other works. Are you going to use a user group or a case study to test this outcome because it's not enough to tell me I will come up with a map or a tool and then it was not used by anyone or it was not tested by anyone. Make sure that you have a validation process and in the validation process you have some groups or users who make sure that your outcome that you use was developed for them in a useful way and you should look for internal and external validity of your result. If this research is repeated by someone else, would they get the same results you did or not? Is your work accurate enough? Do you have a systematic approach? Can the result be generalized in another similar context? These are interesting discussion questions that you can use to develop your final conclusion later in the thesis, but also you could address them in your proposal writing to make sure that you are not only looking to produce an information and through it without making sure that it works that it function that will have an effect and impact well by that I am approaching almost the end now you are described you have described those major topics from the keywords until the research results and outcomes now it's time to talk about outline and talk in the language of professional language professional language this is not a research topic this is more related to professionalism and any institution should talk about it. Once you go through any professional document you must develop an organizational chart. Organizational chart it's a chart that tells me what are the parts and the component of your research or your research thesis. In this sense you should have a description of your chapters maybe you can put your chapters you can put the topics you are talking about and it should represent your work and it should predict the possible progress of your work. So here I'm drawing all the component of my research in one diagram. In French we call it Organigramme, in English it's called the organizational chart and any research proposal must include an organizational chart to describe the components of the work and the main work packages that you will do and in every work packages I have associated activities. This is very important to clarify the topic. I have many master students, they come up at the end of their master thesis and they are not able even to write a structure or a table of content of their own thesis. Why? Because they didn't do an organizational chart. Once you do it early enough, you know that you will start with an introduction chapter, you will have something about a methodology, what are your case studies, your results, what would be the validation part, what would be your conclusion part, the discussion. So therefore it's very important it's also important to be added you can add it in the annex of your research proposal don't hesitate to do that and you should do use it also to discuss with your supervisor in the beginning how are you going to proceed with your master's thesis or your PhD dissertation very important to include it another important organizational chart related to the professional work the Gantt chart. Any master student graduating from Liège University he or she must know what is a Gantt chart because without that you are not going to be able to process tasks on long term. A Gantt chart is a professional diagram it is a methodology used to define milestones and work packages and activities and in this sense you describe your work in sufficient details and you set up deliverables, steps, deadlines. Very important. More detail than the organizational chart. So if you look at the organization chart, it's mainly chunky. It's looking at big scale component of your research. While here you are going more into detail and it's very important to be also placed in the annex of your research proposal. As you can see, here's a list of activities. Here is the master thesis. It takes an average in Liège four months I can define every month in two weeks and define with these dark bars when I'm going to do the literature review, the interviews, the case study analysis, the simulation work, when I'm going to start to write my thesis. Very important to do that as early as possible to make sure that you go psychologically through the process of your thesis writing. Because if you leave everything till the end you will be improvising and improvising you can never become professional with improvisation as long you have a lot of time and in fact you don't have time you must try your thesis to graduate so this is the best way to do it as early as possible and try to explore previous master's thesis of older students who graduated and see how they did it to make sure that what could be the tasks and activities that you must come up and how much time they will take Some people would say, I will do a literature review in two months. In reality, it might need three months. Maybe it will need eight weeks. You never know. Six weeks. You never know. So it's very important to have this translation into deliverable steps and time. And it's very important once you finish this, that you have a section in your research proposal called project outline. The project outline. You link it to the organizational chart and you link it to your Gantt chart and your proposal must describe where are you going to start. You say when are you going to start, what steps are you going to do and where are you heading to, where will you get to, how you will get there. Very important. If you don't do this in the project outline, the certainty that you will do successful work is very weak. So make sure that you have defined the step of your research, you say where are you starting, describe what's the problem, the literature view where are you heading and make sure that you will describe that accurately and what are the final aim to go for well the last step that you should look at before leaving that I have just forgot to say that you should describe every milestone into activity description and evidence of progress the last thing you should look at is the impact and biography this This is the last part of your proposal and the last element that you should address in your proposal. And first I will start with the impact. It's very important to identify, does the proposal clarify clearly how it is relevant and realistic on the short-term and long-term. By definition, impact is the effect or influence on short-term to long-term scientific, technological or socio-economical changes produced by a research, directly or indirectly, intended or unintended. And you should ask yourself, are the impacts identified by the proposal relevant to the society at large? Can the impact be listed and realistically achieved? And let me give some examples. The impact should be able to be explained. is different from the objective and it's the only way to do an impact is to publish your work because if I'm going to spend maybe six months of my life on a manuscript for a thesis or maybe four years for my PhD work if this document is going to be in the depository of the library of Liège University no one on earth will access it even it's not on Google so forget about it the only way make sure that your work has an impact and other researchers and other professionals and the society in large is going to access it, read it, benefit from it is to publish the work and study or look at the impact of your work. Here is an example of a work I will read you I will read you this very fast energy certification labels increases the awareness of energy consumption and enables consumers to compare buildings therefore providing builders with an incentive to improve energy efficiency in buildings? Improving energy efficiency in buildings is one of the most cost-effective ways across all sectors to reduce energy consumption and hence green gas house emissions. Energy efficiency is the most cost-effective method to improve energy security. From the household perspective, energy efficiency seems to be profitable. you are telling how energy efficiency or the labels are you how is this impact of this topic energy efficient lighting and appliances can save about 465 euro per year per household in energy bills much more savings can be easily insured when the whole building is energy efficient the energy efficiency of buildings can only be guaranteed by creditable building energy label so here you are describing what is the impact of your research you are saying that while studying the labeling of buildings already I can promise to have a cost-effective savings and I can guarantee a security and independence from fossil fuels and you try to quantify it with some example saying that for example a building that has energy label a for example can save up to 465 euro per year so we give an example so this is a very important aspect that you should include what would be the impact of your study and this is difficult you have to brainstorm you have to think if I come up with my research and I publish it could it be useful examples for dissemination activities also to spread dissemination means spreading your research findings is there a clear or attainable plan for dissemination for results this is a question. Is the dissemination plan targeted, clear and attainable? Is it relevant and you have a clear exploitation of the results? These are all important topics and you can disseminate your work by publishing it, by having internal seminars, regular reporting, publication, conferences, exhibition or reaching out communicating with the community. If you go to an NGO and tell them I would like to present my master's thesis to you, I would like to share with you my document. These are all important activities you must guarantee to make sure that you are disseminating your knowledge. In a PhD it's very important to do a lot of effort to disseminate the information. In a master thesis it would be enough to publish in a conference or publish in a journal, your results, and this is the only way to validate and make sure that your information now is available to the public, it's accessible, and it could be shared and become beneficial to the society. Last part is the biography. In your research proposal, you should include a bibliographical sector. You should have references cited in a specific format. In my lab, I prefer the APA standard, and I have a presentation on that. But you should make sure that many reviewers, they go at the end of your research proposal and read the biography. And based on the quality of biography they find, they start to say this is a good research or not. This means that the more you are describing the key publication-related topic, it means that you did your homework, you read, and you should pay attention how you write it, because there are rules in citation. You should write, for example, the family name, and then the year, and then the title, and then the city, and so on. There are different styles. Make sure that you are using the right style. You just ask your supervisor for that. You can show your motivation on the subject also based on that. Use a reference management system. There are many softwares. Previously, there was a software called EndNote. Today, the most commonly used is Zotero, and I advise you to use Zotero. Well, I'm going to the end. This is it. This is the research proposal. It sounds maybe dense, very informative, but keep in mind that a research proposal does not need to be more than five, six pages. Sometimes the research proposal, a large European project, can be something like 25 pages. I'm talking about funding of millions. So in your case, all you need to have five pages, six pages, describing and covering these issues and just start to write and go through it I give you some golden final tips structure your text make sure you have headings address every topic into a heading structure section and write under it write short sentences this is a very important thing many I figured out that in the French speaking word many students seems to write long sentences chop your sentence keep it short and follow your ideas and don't make it complex just write you can write down first in a sketch what ideas you want to communicate and start to make them short sentences in a row use bullets bullets are very important because readers get bored when they find a full block of text try to make bullets to highlight important topics provide images charts i already told you that you need a gun chart an organizational chart a study research design for the methodology try as maximum to have a kind of visual component don't make it exceed 30 40 percent of the proposal so that the proposal is readable and accessible and the keys are access to success are important that you should assure that all relevant chapters of the proposal have been addressed accurately the ten themes that I described are addressed in detail be brief and concise as possible you should support your information with empirical and proof try to have always statistics numbers references to cite your work right don't hesitate don't leave it till the end if you have time write a part of the proposal later on write another part so just keep writing it's very easy it's not a difficult thing it's just that you have to get used to answer these kind of questions and do it and improvise it ask for peers you can send it to colleagues to a teaching assistant to your supervisor don't hesitate to do that to review the proposal and improve it you can make draft 1 draft 2 until you are satisfied and willing to submit it you can get expert help you can talk to the audience people you can talk to somebody who knows about the problem go consult a professor or any person who is professional you should be well organized synthesized and don't forget that we are looking for a master student a master student who has a critical appraisal who can criticize who can build up a case with new information and this is very important by describing any controversies that you find in the objectives include the evidence as possible whether it's against or with your proposition these are the key rules of success I would like to go back just to remind you that this is very important to respect this structure cover it go step by step until you have a good proposal one thing I can promise you if you developed and invested as much as possible time in writing your research proposal your master thesis process will go as smooth as possible because you thought ahead about what you are going to do so instead of going reactive and just reacting on everyday crisis the simulation is not working the interviews is not doing you have here something that protects you it makes you more certain stable and you see what are you going to do and already you are certain that you can achieve the goal easier so this is very important I would like to thank you for your presentation here are my reference and those don't hesitate to contact me I'm looking forward for your proposals thank you very much

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New Book Highlight- Proposals That Work: A Guide for Planning Dissertations and Grant Proposals

We’ve recently added Proposals That Work : A Guide for Planning Dissertations and Grant Proposals  to our online collection.

This book covers all aspects of the proposal process, from the most basic questions about form and style to the task of seeking funding. What makes this book great is that there are several proposal examples to help you visual the end product of a proposal.

In the newest edition, the authors have included a discussion of the effects of new technologies and the Internet on the proposal process. There are new sections covering alternative forms of proposals and dissertations and the role of academic rigor in research.

This book is a great resource for anyone beginning to work on their dissertation or grant proposal as well as those who are interested in brushing up on their writing skills.

You can access the book online.

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• Knowledge Base
• Dissertation
• Dissertation & Thesis Outline | Example & Free Templates

Dissertation & Thesis Outline | Example & Free Templates

Published on June 7, 2022 by Tegan George . Revised on November 21, 2023.

A thesis or dissertation outline is one of the most critical early steps in your writing process . It helps you to lay out and organize your ideas and can provide you with a roadmap for deciding the specifics of your dissertation topic and showcasing its relevance to your field.

Generally, an outline contains information on the different sections included in your thesis or dissertation , such as:

• Your anticipated title
• Your abstract
• Your chapters (sometimes subdivided into further topics like literature review, research methods, avenues for future research, etc.)

In the final product, you can also provide a chapter outline for your readers. This is a short paragraph at the end of your introduction to inform readers about the organizational structure of your thesis or dissertation. This chapter outline is also known as a reading guide or summary outline.

Table of contents

How to outline your thesis or dissertation, dissertation and thesis outline templates, chapter outline example, sample sentences for your chapter outline, sample verbs for variation in your chapter outline, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about thesis and dissertation outlines.

While there are some inter-institutional differences, many outlines proceed in a fairly similar fashion.

• Working Title
• “Elevator pitch” of your work (often written last).
• Introduce your area of study, sharing details about your research question, problem statement , and hypotheses . Situate your research within an existing paradigm or conceptual or theoretical framework .
• Subdivide as you see fit into main topics and sub-topics.
• Describe your research methods (e.g., your scope , population , and data collection ).
• Present your research findings and share about your data analysis methods.
• Answer the research question in a concise way.
• Interpret your findings, discuss potential limitations of your own research and speculate about future implications or related opportunities.

For a more detailed overview of chapters and other elements, be sure to check out our article on the structure of a dissertation or download our template .

To help you get started, we’ve created a full thesis or dissertation template in Word or Google Docs format. It’s easy adapt it to your own requirements.

 Download Word template    Download Google Docs template

It can be easy to fall into a pattern of overusing the same words or sentence constructions, which can make your work monotonous and repetitive for your readers. Consider utilizing some of the alternative constructions presented below.

Example 1: Passive construction

The passive voice is a common choice for outlines and overviews because the context makes it clear who is carrying out the action (e.g., you are conducting the research ). However, overuse of the passive voice can make your text vague and imprecise.

Example 2: IS-AV construction

You can also present your information using the “IS-AV” (inanimate subject with an active verb ) construction.

A chapter is an inanimate object, so it is not capable of taking an action itself (e.g., presenting or discussing). However, the meaning of the sentence is still easily understandable, so the IS-AV construction can be a good way to add variety to your text.

Example 3: The “I” construction

Another option is to use the “I” construction, which is often recommended by style manuals (e.g., APA Style and Chicago style ). However, depending on your field of study, this construction is not always considered professional or academic. Ask your supervisor if you’re not sure.

Example 4: Mix-and-match

To truly make the most of these options, consider mixing and matching the passive voice , IS-AV construction , and “I” construction .This can help the flow of your argument and improve the readability of your text.

As you draft the chapter outline, you may also find yourself frequently repeating the same words, such as “discuss,” “present,” “prove,” or “show.” Consider branching out to add richness and nuance to your writing. Here are some examples of synonyms you can use.

If you want to know more about AI for academic writing, AI tools, or research bias, make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

Research bias

• Anchoring bias
• Halo effect
• The Baader–Meinhof phenomenon
• The placebo effect
• Nonresponse bias
• Deep learning
• Generative AI
• Machine learning
• Reinforcement learning
• Supervised vs. unsupervised learning

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When you mention different chapters within your text, it’s considered best to use Roman numerals for most citation styles. However, the most important thing here is to remain consistent whenever using numbers in your dissertation .

The title page of your thesis or dissertation goes first, before all other content or lists that you may choose to include.

A thesis or dissertation outline is one of the most critical first steps in your writing process. It helps you to lay out and organize your ideas and can provide you with a roadmap for deciding what kind of research you’d like to undertake.

• Your chapters (sometimes subdivided into further topics like literature review , research methods , avenues for future research, etc.)

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If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

George, T. (2023, November 21). Dissertation & Thesis Outline | Example & Free Templates. Scribbr. Retrieved September 3, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/dissertation-thesis-outline/

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Proposal Maker

Before starting a project or any activity in an organization, there’s always a need to share this idea. Sharing it to a group would result in a much more outstanding proposition. Take, for example, a proposal for a project which needs to be evaluated and thought over before its implementation.

Creating proposals needs a lot of thinking. There are numerous factors that need to be speculated. It needs to be discussed and of course, be approved by someone of high position. Writing  grant proposals are very significant too, for this is mostly what the executives will be taking note of.

• Simple Proposal Formats
• Project Proposal Examples

59+ Proposal Examples

Sample proposal example.

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Sample Proposal Template

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Size: 76.3 KB

Size: US, A4

Research Proposal Examples

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Size: 52.7 KB

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Size: 294 KB

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Project Proposals

It project proposal template.

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Business Proposals

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Thesis Proposal Examples

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Dissertation Proposal

Dissertation proposal template.

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Event Proposal Samples

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Size: 212 KB

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Training program proposal.

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What Is a Proposal?

Proposal examples are written propositions that are addressed to clients or by any department to its head executives. It contains ideas that would be beneficial to an organization. There are many types of proposals, such as a budget proposal and event proposal.

Proposals aim to be approved by the people involved. Writing a proposal , you have to ensure that all is well thought of. It is important for a proposal to be organized, structured, complete, and clear. You can make proposals in a way you see best and most understandable.

A Business Proposal and What It Holds

One type of proposal is the business proposal . This proposal aims to grab a client to invest in their organization. These proposals mostly address clients, who would potentially purchase goods and services.

There are no specific formats for a business proposal. What matters is its content that delivers a complete and clear concept. Its important elements are:

• Cover letter or page
• Table of Contents
• Overview of the Problem
• Method of Solving the Issue
• Company’s Qualification
• Benchmarks (or Schedule)
• Total Expenditure

The length of the proposal is insignificant. It focuses more on how information is communicated.

Guidelines for Writing a Proposal

Writing a proposal is a skill. Though it’s an easy way out to just follow proposal examples , it’s different when making an original one. Don’t get discouraged, we have prepared a few samples for your reference. Plus, here are tips and guidelines to make your proposal effective and more attractive.

1. Planning a Proposal

• Know the people who will be reading it :  Understanding what the reader will want to hear is important. When writing a proposal , keep in mind what you want your readers to understand. You may also see sponsorship proposal examples & samples .
• Determine the issue of which your proposal is aiming to resolve:  You have to make sure that the readers understand the problem, the situation and has it been dealt with before.
• Unravel solutions to those problems and issues :  Make it straightforward and easy to understand. Keep a narrow perspective of the problem and foresee outcomes. You may also like investment proposal examples .
• Apply a writing technique that would make it easier for readers to understand :  Keeping it simple yet persuasive is much more meaningful.
• Make use of an outline :  This keeps a proposal organized, and will help you deliver what you desire. You may also check out request for proposal examples .

2. Writing the Proposal

• Impress your readers with a firm introduction :  Make sure you catch the attention of the readers and keep them interested. You may also see policy proposal examples & samples .
• State the issues clearly and completely :  Determine the causes and effects of these issues.
• Issues should have solutions :  Explain how to address these issues, why in this manner, and what is expected to be achieved. You may also like concept proposal examples & samples .
• Include a well-constructed schedule of duties and budget :  Be as accurate as possible making sure that benefits outweigh costs.
• Wrap up everything in a short but on-point way :  Keep your content to a minimum and precise. Do not beat around the bush, but be straightforward with what you can offer.
• Keep an open mind and let others assess your work :  Edit your work and proofread to make sure there are no mistakes. You may also check out fundraising proposal examples & samples .

What Is a Research Proposal?

Aside from business proposals , there are other kinds of proposals that anyone can encounter, such as a research proposal. What is a research proposal?

A research proposal is the written proposal for a research paper that aims to convince the reader that there is a need for a research study to be conducted and needs financial aid for the research to be successful. You may also see non-profit proposal examples & samples . Research proposals present all that will be done during the research, what it is for, and what benefits are expected to be achieved at the end.

What Is a Grant Proposal?

There are organizations that operate with the purpose of serving the people and not for profit accumulation, like charities, government branches, foundations, and trusts. You may also like partnership proposal examples & samples . Therefore, to acquire funds that are needed for that organization, grants have to be issued.

A grant proposal is a document requesting funds to achieve a certain undertaking. These kinds of design proposals are used by any government entity asking for monetary assistance to be prepared for operations like improving roads, building facilities that would benefit the society, scholarships, research, charities or cases wherein a calamity has devastatingly affected a community.

Types of Proposals

Reaching this point, you have seen different types of proposals. To better understand, here are brief summaries of the different types of proposals:

1. Unsolicited Proposal:  Unsolicited proposals are proposals where no instructions regarding submission of proposals are made but are submitted anyway to catch the potential sponsor’s interest. Some business loan proposals are unsolicited and may be submitted anytime.

2. Solicited Proposal:  Solicited proposals is a response to any specific program that is issued by any organization. Proposals of this kind usually have deadlines. Take a look at the  security proposal examples  that are online for more.

3. Supplemental Proposal:  There are instances that the current budget is not enough for the current project. To acquire more funds, a request for an increase in the budget is made in the form of a supplemental proposal.

4. Competing Renewal Proposal:  A proposal is made to request sponsors for continued funding for a project proposal that is about to terminate. These type of proposals are like newly-made proposals that need to be approved in the same manner as the new one.

5. Non-competing Proposal:  This type of proposal is a request for the succeeding year’s funding, including the progress report of the project, the budget, etc. It also has the schedule of duties, changes or updates, and other relevant information about the project. You may also see grant proposal examples .

General FAQs

1. define a proposal..

A proposal is a written plan or a suggestion put forward for consideration by others. It is mostly formal. Business proposals are sent to the prospective client to obtain specific jobs. Also used by a seller, who writes to a buyer to know if he/she wants to buy certain services/goods from the seller.

2. Why is a Proposal important?

Proposals are a way to pitch an idea and state your requirements. It is important because it provides information in writing and you can act knowing the implications of your choices and decisions. Proposals help in making a structured and logical argument to lay down every idea and point in your favor.

3. What should a Proposal cover?

Proposals must cover the following:

• Introduction: a brief overview of the issues, costs, and benefits
• Issue: The subject, the reason for the proposal, the main argument, etc.
• Solutions: Step-by-step plan, potential obstacles and how to overcome them
• Qualifications: Your personnel requirement, experience, etc.
• Conclusions: Add the budget , benefits and reinforce your final point.

4. What makes a Good Proposal?

Preparing a winning proposal means that you are writing for the client and are proving a clear solution to their issues. Not every proposal you make is accepted by the client, so make sure that you make it from the point of view that is beneficial to the client.

5. What is the best way to conclude a Proposal?

The best way to conclude a proposal can be:

• To summarize the key points of your proposal
• Focus on why action is needed
• Emphasize the benefits the action provides
• Add bullet points of essential information
• Add verbal highlights of your key benefits
• Close on a positive note and ask them to take action.

Text prompt

• Instructive
• Professional

Generate a proposal for a new school recycling program

Compose a proposal for a school field trip to a science museum.

Home > Blog > Thesis Statement Essays Examples

Thesis Statement Essays Examples

• Smodin Editorial Team
• Updated: August 30, 2024
• General Guide About Content and Writing
• Step-by-Step Instructions for Writing

Writing an essay can seem challenging, but a solid thesis statement can make it easier. A thesis statement is a crucial part of any essay. It gives your reader a clear understanding of your main idea. The goal should be to deliver a strong, concise, yet compelling statement that immerses the reader in your writing. A strong thesis statement means a strong start to your essay !

We’ve developed this comprehensive guide to explore what makes a good thesis statement. We’ll discuss different thesis statement essay examples and show you steps on how to write a strong statement. Whether you’re writing a research paper, argumentative essay, or policy proposal, a solid thesis statement is key.

What Is a Thesis Statement?

To put it simply, a thesis statement summarizes your entire paper. It usually appears at the end of the first paragraph, known as the essay introduction. Your thesis should be specific, concise, and clear.

It should express one main idea and guide your writing. For example, if your paper explains climate change, your thesis might assert that “Climate change poses a significant threat to global ecosystems.”

How To Write a Thesis Statement: Example and What To Include

In this section, we include how to write a thesis statement with an example to help you out in the process. Below, we have listed some of the steps involved, while compiling a thesis statement.

Start With a Question

Every good thesis statement starts with a question. Think about what you want to explore or decide about your topic. For example, “Has the internet had a positive or negative impact on education?”

Write Your Initial Answer

After some research, write a simple, tentative answer to your question. This will guide your research and writing process. For example, “The internet has had a positive impact on education.”

Refine Your Thesis Statement

Your final thesis should ultimately tell the reader why you hold this position. You can elaborate and explain what they’ll learn from your essay and the key points of your argument.

For example, “The internet’s positive impact on education outweighs its negatives by providing easier access to information. Exposure to different perspectives and a flexible learning environment for students and teachers contributes to this”.

A Good Thesis Statement Example

A good thesis statement is concise, coherent, and contentious. It should clearly state your main idea and be backed up by specific evidence. Take a look at the following good thesis statement example:

“While many people believe climate change is a natural phenomenon, evidence shows that human activities significantly contribute to its acceleration.”

This statement is clear, concise, and debatable. It presents a strong position that can be supported with evidence.

Types of Thesis Statements

Your thesis should match the type of essay you’re writing. Here are some examples of different types of thesis statements.

Argumentative Thesis Statement

In an argumentative essay , your thesis should take a strong position.

For example:

“The government should implement stricter regulations on carbon emissions to combat climate change.”

An argumentative paper makes a clear, debatable claim that requires evidence and reasoning. This thesis presents a clear argument that will be supported with evidence throughout the essay.

Expository Thesis Statement

In an expository essay , your thesis should explain the facts of a topic or process.

“The invention of braille improved the lives of blind people by allowing them to read and write independently.”

This statement explains the impact of braille without taking a position.

Thesis Statement Essay Examples for Different Types of Papers

Let’s look at some thesis statement essay examples to understand how to craft one effectively.

Example 1: Argumentative Paper

Topic: The impact of surveillance on society

Thesis statement: “Although surveillance is often viewed negatively, its positive effects on public safety outweigh its downsides.”

This thesis presents a clear argument that will be supported with evidence throughout the essay.

Example 2: Expository Paper

Topic: The history of the internet

Thesis statement: “The internet revolutionized communication by allowing instant access to information and connecting people globally.”

This statement explains how the internet has changed communication without presenting an argument.

In both examples, the thesis statements are clear and concise, and provide a roadmap for the essay.

Example 3: Analytical Paper

Topic: The impact of social media on mental health

Thesis statement: “Social media influences mental health by increasing anxiety, promoting unrealistic body images, and enhancing social connections.”

An analytical thesis statement breaks down an idea into parts to examine and interpret. This example shows the impact of social media into specific components for detailed analysis. An analytical paper breaks complex subjects into components for detailed examination and analysis.

Characteristics of a Good Thesis Statement

An effective thesis statement is the backbone of a well-structured essay. Thesis statement examples help illustrate the differences between strong and weak thesis statements. Here are the essential characteristics of a good thesis statement.

Concise Summary

The best thesis statements should be brief and to the point. Avoid unnecessary words. For instance, instead of saying, “In this essay, I will discuss the reasons why climate change is a critical issue that needs urgent attention,” you can say, “Climate change demands urgent attention due to its severe impact on global ecosystems.” This keeps your thesis clear and focused.

The aim is to bring the statement to the concluding point as effectively as possible.

Specific Evidence

In academic writing, your thesis statement should be backed up by specific evidence. It should not just make a claim but also provide a hint of the evidence that supports it. For example, “Human activities, such as deforestation and fossil fuel consumption, significantly contribute to climate change,” indicates that the essay will discuss these specific activities.

A strong thesis statement clearly states your main idea. It should convey the central point of your essay in a way that is easy to understand. For example, “Renewable energy sources are essential for reducing carbon emissions and combating climate change,” clearly states the essay’s main idea.

3 Common Mistakes to Avoid

According to the Guardian , teachers are observing that students are continuously having issues with writing essays. This may be due to various reasons like a lack of foundational skills in writing or the likelihood of them making specific mistakes when compiling their essays and thesis statements.

Below we have listed some of the common errors students can make when writing a thesis statement for their paper.

1. Being Too Broad

A thesis statement that is too broad lacks focus and fails to provide a clear argument. For example: “Climate change is bad,” is too broad. Instead, narrow your focus to something more specific, like, “Climate change significantly impacts coastal cities by increasing the frequency of flooding.”

2. Not Getting Into Specifics

A vague thesis statement doesn’t give specific details, making it difficult for the reader to understand your argument. For example, “Climate change affects the environment,” is too vague. A more precise thesis would be, “Climate change accelerates the melting of polar ice caps, leading to rising sea levels.”

3. Just Stating a Fact

In a great research paper, a thesis statement that states a fact rather than an argument is not debatable. For example, “Climate change exists,” is a statement of fact and not arguable. A more debatable thesis would be, “Immediate action is required to mitigate climate change impacts on future generations.”

How To Strengthen a Weak Thesis Statement

If your thesis statement is weak, here is how you can strengthen it:

• Contextualize your topic: Understand the broader context of your topic. This helps in narrowing down the focus and making it more specific.
• Make it arguable: Ensure your thesis is something that can be debated. A strong thesis often takes a clear stance on an issue.
• Support with evidence: Be prepared to back up your thesis with specific evidence. This adds credibility and strength to your statement.

Example of a Weak Thesis

A weak thesis statement, such as “The internet is useful,” is too general and lacks specificity. It doesn’t provide any direction for the essay, leaving readers unclear about what the essay will address. A weak thesis statement:

• Lacks focus: The statement “The internet is useful” doesn’t specify how or why the internet is useful. This lack of focus can confuse readers and make it challenging to develop supporting arguments.
• Is not honing in on a specific topic: This thesis is overly broad, covering too many potential topics without honing in on a specific aspect.
• Doesn’t leave room for a debate: It doesn’t present a debatable claim. A strong thesis should make a claim that others might dispute, providing a basis for argumentation and discussion.

For instance, an essay based on the weak thesis “The internet is useful” could meander through various topics like online shopping, social media, and research, without a clear structure or argument. This makes it difficult for readers to grasp the main point or purpose of the essay.

Example of a Strong Thesis

A strong thesis statement, like “The internet is useful for education because it provides access to a wealth of information and resources,” is specific and provides a clear argument supported by evidence. It also indicates what the essay will discuss, which helps guide the reader.

Therefore, a strong thesis statement should:

• Have a clear focus: This thesis specifies that the essay will focus on the educational benefits of the internet. This clarity helps readers understand the essay’s purpose from the beginning.
• Be to the point: The thesis mentions “access to a wealth of information and resources.” So, it provides a specific angle on how the internet is useful, which helps to narrow the scope of the essay.
• Include a debatable claim: The statement makes a claim that could be argued. It posits that the internet is beneficial for education. But, it also implies that there are specific ways in which this is true. Thus, the statement opens the door for discussion and analysis.
• Guide the essay: This strong thesis provides a roadmap for the essay. It suggests that the following paragraphs will explore how the internet facilitates education through information access and resource availability.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is included in a thesis statement.

A thesis statement is a sentence that summarizes the main point of your essay. It usually appears at the end of the first paragraph.

Can a thesis statement be more than one sentence?

Ideally, a thesis statement should be one or two sentences long.

Where should I place my thesis statement?

Your thesis statement should be at the end of the first paragraph, known as the essay introduction.

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A good thesis statement is the backbone of your essay. It guides your writing and tells your reader what to expect. By following the steps we’ve outlined in these examples, you can write a strong thesis statement.

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