Proposal structure

• Title – this should be concise and descriptive.

• Abstract – a brief overview of the general area of study summarizing what? Why and how? You are proposing to undertake within the research

Literature Review – you should develop your proposal to demonstrate that you are aware of the important issues, themes and debates in the relevant literature, identifying existing gaps (both theoretical and practical). You must refer to key articles and texts and briefly show that you understand how they are relevant to your research area. A PhD is an original piece of work and so you should demonstrate that your proposed area has not been studied before.

Key Research Questions – in this section you need to outline the aims and objectives of the research. What are the key questions you’re research will be focusing on and seeking to answer? If you have a hypothesis, what is it?

A clear statement of your research topic and hypotheses, plus any questions and sub-questions you wish to try and answer. The questions driving your research.

• How you aim to make an original and necessary contribution to the current literature and details of the gap you hope to fill with your own research.
• How your research makes ‘an original contribution’ to your field and how will you achieve this
• If your research provides new knowledge, or reinterprets existing ideas in an original way
• How your research fits in with the existing key literatures, including an awareness of current developments in the field.
• Explain why is it important that this gap is filled both in academic terms and in terms of general public knowledge.
• An outline of the methods you plan to us to answer the proposed questions in your research topic.

Methodology – you need to explain what methods of investigation you are planning to utilize within the research .How you intend to do the research i.e. the methodology you’ll use and how you’ll structure your work?

• An idea of the timescale involved, including the stages of your research. Timescales – it is important that you map out a reasonable schedule of your work so that you can monitor your own progress and manage your project effectively. Start with your intended finishing date and work backwards. Do not underestimate the amount of time that it takes to write a polished final thesis.
• What resources you intend to use?

Conclusion A well-composed proposal usually finishes by alluding to the original research question, reminding the reader about the main theoretical claim (in normative works)/falsifiable hypothesis (in empirical ones), and speculating on the final product of the thesis: what kind of impact could your research have if it is successful?

• References – you need to include a list of references to key articles and texts that are both cited within the research proposal and provided as a bibliography at the end of the proposal. Within the proposal you should utilize the Harvard referencing standard, with the author’s last name followed by the year of publication in brackets, for example (Darlington, 2013); the bibliography should include the full reference stating the author, title, journal/book details, publisher, year and page numbers where relevant. Additional