phd-research-proposal

Making a Good PhD Research Proposal

What is a research proposal?.

A research proposal is a draft to represent the outline of your perception towards research designed to:

Define a possible problem in a specified (your)domain and find a suitable solution.
State the originality of your solution.
Explain how it is developed from existing literatures.
Persuade the funders and/or supervisors to expose the importance of your work and how you found that yourself as the right person to go in this work.

It is important to note that, the length of the research proposals may vary depending on the department(s). So you need to check the word limits and guidelines of the department to which you are belonging. Generally, as a part of application process, the proposal should be around 3,000 words. Also you must prepare very carefully, to explain how you will be able to complete your project with in your course period according to the scope of your research.

Why Research Proposal?

The funders and/or potential supervisors will assess the originality and quality, feasibility of your research project and your critical thinking capability from your research proposals. They will easily determine, how much you are expert in your field based on your knowledge in the existing literature, which is necessary to carry out the research. Moreover, research proposals are useful to assign appropriate supervision team. Generally speaking, if you are interested to go on with a particular potential supervisor and you have already discussed your work with this person, you can mention this in your proposal. We strongly recommend you to identify a prospective supervisor and make you in touch with you informally before making the formal application.

Importantly, research proposal is an opportunity to communicate your passion in your field and to make some persuasive argument regarding the benefits of your research. Also it is an opportunity to convince the readers towards the accomplishment of your project.

Structure of a Research Proposal

Normally research proposals evolve as the work progresses, because they are just an outline but also persuasive essays which refine your original approaches in light with detailed literatures. So they must be perfectly structured. Before preparing a research proposal, you must check carefully with your department, whether any specified templates is prescribed. Generally, a good research proposal must have the following elements.

Title
It must be created with important keywords, in order to relate your proposal to potential supervisors and relevant funding schemes etc., It must completely describe the subject matter and give an indication of your approach.

Overview
Since readers may know nothing about your subject, you must give a short overview that must tell the reasons regarding the fitness of your research with in the existing literature or debates. It must be highly specific as possible, when you debate with the related sourcesand carefully identify the influences. This section should have a link between your research and existing strengths of the same department. You should visit the necessary websites to aware the existing researches have taken place in the department and try to find out the ways to complement the shortcomings using your project. This section should be created with the following.

Necessary research questions.
Conceptual and theoretical details of appropriate approachesmainly suited to your field.
Academic and other significance of your research.

Position of Your Research
This section should discuss and demonstrate your understanding of the research issues along with the theoretical and practical gaps with the existing researches. This section is intended to contextualize your research questions rather than the detailed explanations.

Research Methodology & Design
This section should be efficiently structured to represent your research methods, which will include.

The clear definition of parameters used for your research.
A theoretical discussion for overall approach.
Description of aims and objectives.
Timeline details needed to complete your research.

References
You should provide reference texts and resources that must play an important role for your experiments and analysis.

Possible Pitfalls
There are some predictable traps that students tend to fall into time and time again when making a research proposal. Being aware of these potential pitfalls before starting your research proposal can go a long way in helping you to successfully avoid them.

Be sure about the statement of your research idea, question/problem that must address the possible gaps in the literatures.
You must contact the potential supervisors in advance, and submit the polished version of your proposal for comment.
Make sure that your research proposal is well structured with all necessary sections.
Try to make the scope of your project reasonable and ensure the significant limits of size, complexity and time duration required for the successful completion.
Make sure the connection between your research and existing literatures.
Make sure that your research proposal reflects your passion on the subject matter because it is up to you to make the readers to know the worthy of your research.

To know more about making a good research proposal, you can refer the following books which are widely available in bookshops and libraries.

Bell, J. (1999): Doing Your Research Project: A Guide for First-time Researchers in Education & Social Science, (Oxford University Press, Oxford). Baxter, L, Hughes, C. and Tight, M. (2001): How to Research, (Open University Press, Milton Keynes). Cryer, P. (2000): The Research Student's Guide to Success, (Open University, Milton Keynes). Delamont, S., Atkinson, P. and Parry, O. (1997): Supervising the PhD, (Open University Press, Milton Keynes). Philips, E. and Pugh, D. (2005): How to get a PhD: A Handbook for Students and their Supervisors, (Open University Press, Milton Keynes).