How to Write a Thesis Proposal

Once upon a time, in a faraway city, many students studied at their Universities and Institutes. There existed an odd tradition that every student should prove his/her matureness, smartness and sagacity by passing a challenge. Every single student had to pass this challenge or to abandon his or her beloved Universities and Institutes forever. There was no way to get around this challenge because every deceive episode became known to the higher management of those Universities and Institutes, and such students were severely punished for misbehavior. Everyone, who knew that his/her time was coming, awakened at night from nightmares and the name of the challenge sound like a curse to them. Because the challenge was called a Thesis Proposal Writing Challenge.

Well, of course, it’s just a joke, but there is a grain of truth in every joke. Writing a thesis proposal has always been difficult for every student, despite a degree and level of knowledge. The thesis proposal is just like a footing of a building, like a dough of a cake, or like the roots of a big tree. A good thesis proposal is a framework for your future research, and it defines the whole work itself. Much depends on how clear your plan is, specifically, approval of your plan, and your future work depends on how good and clear your proposal may be. You make contact with a committee or with your advisor by submitting a well-done paper. And a challenge itself lies in picking your topic, choosing the one that was meant exactly for you. It will be great if an advisor gives you a specific topic for work, or at least he or she approves the topic that you’ve chosen independently. Here and now, you have a chance to learn several useful tips as to how to write a thesis proposal.

First of all, thesis proposal is a type of academic writing that is a preface to a thesis writing task. Thesis proposals differ in page length, topics, specializations, degrees, originality, etc. Such papers can be from ten to forty pages, depending on specifics of your work, and on an outcome of your work as there may be several outcomes that need clarification. These types of writing assignments may be an Honour thesis proposal, a Master thesis proposal and a Ph.D. thesis proposal. Speaking of a Master proposal, this writing task is less detailed and not so complicated, and it can be a stage number one of your Ph.D. thesis proposal. The latter tends to be more difficult, more structured, and may contain more chapters. However, as it was said, much depends on a topic, and on preferences of your advisor.

Another important detail is a structure of such proposals as they may slightly differ as well, but the general structure looks like this:

1. Summary;
2. Stating a Problem, Subject, Hypothesis, or a Research Question;
3. Value and Importance of Research;
4. Prior Experience of Researching a Topic Supporting a Point;
5. Chosen Methods and Argumentation of a Choice;
6. Explanation of Significance of Your Research, Achieved Goals, and Obtained Results;
7. Conclusion;
8. Description of a Thesis Proposal Chapters.

Now, we would like to give you a few tips as to how to write a thesis proposal.

Topic

Before you actually start writing your master or Ph.D. thesis proposal, you should carefully choose a topic for your work because it defines how successful your work may be, and how well an educational committee accepts it. It must be clear enough so that every reader is able to understand it. A topic should be a guide to your further research. Think of what are you actually interested in, you may pick up a topic for your paper in the area of your expertise. As it was said, your advisor may give you a certain specific topic, so you won’t have to worry about it, but you may be not entirely interested in it, or disinterested at all, and it may well result in an epic fail.

Plan

Planning every stage of your work may help you not to get lost along the way. A plan, or rather a “to do” list, is a great tool for every organized student. It’s always better to compose a detailed one, especially if you are writing a Doctorate proposal. It will help you see every stage that you have already completed and those that require editing or proofreading. By the way, the plan may of great help in case if your advisor requires presenting some kind of proof of your progress with the thesis proposal.

Timing

Don’t forget about the deadline. Eventually, you will have to submit a first, second, third and fourth draft of your work before you can actually present a final version of your paper. You may even create an improvised calendar and mark there all dates when you need to submit a draft. Calendar helps you to visualize the deadline, so you will not be tricked in the end.

Assistance

Do not be afraid of asking for some help or expert opinion. If you unaware of certain important aspects of this task, it is better to consult someone who knows what to do. There is nothing wrong if you ask to look through your paper and proofread it for possible mistakes and weak spots. Well, if you have no idea how to write a thesis proposal on your own, you can always use a master or a Ph.D. thesis proposal template, but there is a trick. You cannot simply copy everything from a template because these templates are made for a certain subject or even for a certain topic. So be very careful! In the worst case scenario, you can always order your thesis with a certain Custom Writing Service, but you should consider all the pros and cons before making such decision.

Conclusion

Remember, it takes a lot of time and efforts to write a good formal proposal, so do your best to prepare the one. Otherwise, you will have to write everything from scratch, but the odds for success may be not in your favor this time. In the end, you will understand that your efforts were worth the results gained. A successful thesis proposal is a guarantee of success in the future. The last thing that is worth adding that there is no definite way to choose the exact right topic for you, submit a well-done paper and get it accepted by the committee. It’s like a lottery, and you must take a risk to win a prize.