Writing Guide
PhD Research Proposal: What Is It and How Should Your Write One?
Writing a PhD research proposal is obligatory for the students who have to write their dissertations. Some students do not see sense in writing a PhD research proposal because this is an overview of the dissertation per se.
However, what such students do not know is that a PhD research proposal is something more of a draft for your future dissertation. In other words, your PhD research proposal helps you to direct your research properly and to understand what is needed to collect necessary information for the writing of your dissertation.
The elements of your PhD research proposal
Your PhD research proposal needs to have several obligatory sections that you will fill with necessary information pertinent to your topic. So, here are the most important elements of your PhD research proposal:
- Introduction. This may also be combined with Theoretical Framework, although the latter may well function as a separate section of your PhD research proposal.
- Problem statement. This is a section where you present your problem and mention why you think it is a problem.
- Purpose of the study. This is where you specify the area of your research and present your purpose statement.
- Literature review. This should take a great part of your PhD research proposal. Writing a literature review requires you to group and contrast the findings obtained by other researchers on the topic that your explore.
- Hypotheses/research questions.
- Study design. This is where you discuss your methodology and everything related to it.
- Importance of the research. Show why you think your research is worth carrying out.
- Possible limitations to the study.
Also, do not forget to include a Reference List or a Bibliography into your PhD research proposal.
