Keys to Writing the Best Dissertation Proposal | Key Points

An Introduction to dissertation proposals

The research proposal for your dissertation assignment is an important first step, providing an in-depth essay plan that acts as an overview of what your final dissertation would be about, as well as giving an insight into the reason of your selection of a certain topic. Therefore, writing a research proposal is an integral part of getting a clear perception of what the topic needs to be; a compass that directs your way throughout the course of the final project, uniquely informative and binding to ethical values.

The thought of your entire year’s knowledge being judged on a single dissertation is quite intimidating on its own and so, is enough to motivate students to do their best in receiving a good grade. Although the subject areas vary accordingly, many PhD research proposal writing services suggest that they all share a similar space, in terms of their importance in acting as fundamental building blocks for the ultimate goal of an outstanding dissertation paper; simplifying the work, while assisting in time management, planning, and productivity.

Preparatory measures to write your dissertation proposal

Confused about executing a reliable proposal? Here are some basics that can help you get started:

1. Mindfully choosing your topic:

Evidently, the first and foremost step in the challenge to write a strong proposal is to choose the right topic. It should be made sure that the topic in focus is one that not only appeals to you but also such that extensive sources of research are present to help validate your dissertation paper.

2. Reading and Research:

Once your topic is chosen, it’s time to put your research hats on! This requires you to collect bibliography details from the reference sources and for this, you can keep note of the following:

• Book title
• Author’s name
• Editor’s name
• Publishing company

However, if, due to any circumstances you do not keep track of this, there are various apps and software that make life easier by enabling you to receive the relevant citations. The research and writing process should be extensive, revolving particularly around your research topic, making it as informative as possible and covering all dimensions of the subject area.

The student is required to look critically into the sources by asking questions like:

“Is this source updated?”

“Does it have any methodological errors that I would prefer to leave in my own dissertation paper?”

“Does the source have ethical issues, like plagiarism?”

 And so on.

3. Planning your time

Peek into your mind palace that by now should be saturated with all relevant information and strategies for the proposal and get to jotting down everything on paper, so you don’t miss out on adding any vital information!

Visual charts to allocate time on tasks, such as Gantt charts, are extremely useful in time management and achieving your short term goals. Google calendar is also beneficial for this, as it gives you the leverage of marking dates and making ‘to-do lists’, making sure that you don’t rush onto another task before finishing the previous one.

Considering all the stress that a student experiences, it is highly recommended that time is allotted for each task beforehand so that the anxiety and pressure don’t get the best of you!

4. Being productive and limiting distractions

Our smartphones can sometimes get in the way of our productivity and cause us to procrastinate for hours, without even realizing it. Much worse, such distractions can become a habit and leave us behind on important tasks that result in unachieved goals, if not identified and resolved in time. To tackle this common problem in students, apps such as ‘Freedom’s free trial’ can be used; blocks web-connection for 3-4 hours so you can stay focused for longer!

One of the major keys of being productive is to take multiple short breaks in between work that requires mental labor, to reduce the exhaustion that comes with it.

 Learn to take breaks, not quite entirely.

 

The basic format of the research proposal

As mentioned earlier, each dissertation paper may vary according to its requirements; however, since they share a similar purpose, the format for writing research proposal remains considerably non-variable. Generally, every proposal starts with an introductory paragraph; dealing with the thesis statement and the main objectives that are to be tackled by the proposal. It also mentions ‘why’ the certain topic was chosen and all other relevant questions that are intended to be answered by the proposal, giving a very clear and concise picture of all that is coming ahead.

An important segment in the format of writing proposals is the review of literature or in simple words, bibliography. Here, all the citations gathered should be mentioned correctly, along with all relevant references. The inclusion of various methodologies used in gaining information is also included in the basic format of proposal writing. These should be clearly descriptive of the setting and participants of the study that were included in the research as well as Information regarding data collection and analysis of the research hypothesis sample.

In accordance with the previously mentioned aims and objectives, to show the information findings you have already gathered and then, end the proposal with a concluding paragraph, involving future research that can be done on the topic or any such relevant suggestions.

 

Dissertation versus Thesis

If you are planning ahead for your future studies (which is a great indication of your commitment) and come across the words ‘thesis’ and ‘dissertation’ multiple times, yet, remain clueless about the difference between the two, then my friend,  worry no more!

Although both serve and follow similar purposes and formats, they can be distinguished on the basis of the level of education requiring them and thus, can be best explained by the following examples:

MBA research proposal:

As the name suggests, this is a comprehensive research proposal that is expected from that of a master’s level graduate. Such a research paper is called a thesis and check s for the ability to contemplate a certain topic, much like an undergraduate research paper. The student’s research work should be at least 100 pages long and thus, not as detailed as that of a dissertation

Ph.D. research proposal:

This type of research proposal is called a dissertation and is much more comprehensive than a thesis. The quality and quantity of research work required in this is far more detailed and uses other’s research for guidance, to come up with a unique hypothesis based entirely on their understanding.  For this reason, a dissertation proposal is longer and requires greater time and knowledge to complete.

Formulating questions

It should be understood that using relevant question is an extremely integral part of your dissertation proposal because not only does it help you stick to the topic of discussion, but also,  makes sure you cover absolutely all aspects of the topic from all possible dimensions. The questions do not have to follow a certain pattern or any set of rules, so it’s upon the student to make this a useful asset of a phenomenal proposal.

Here are a few points that you can keep in consideration while adding questions, that can further help you get a clear vision of the aspects that your proposal shall tackle:

• Manageable in terms of research and easy to cater to the existing academic abilities
• Using substantial and original documents to find questions from, making sure they hold value in the content.
• Clear, simple and easy to understand
• Interesting enough to keep one indulged in the research writing.

Online tools that can assist in writing proposals

Living in a technologically advanced era has its benefits of making our life much easier than it used to be. Many software and apps have been developed to assist in writing research proposals and should be used to make your work the best version of itself; free from possible human errors.  All kinds of mundane tasks can be performed with ease, starting from gathering citations, articles for research to proofreading and editing your work for any possible grammatical errors. The ease and accessibility of this are such that it has greatly increased the standard of research proposal being submitted by students, and thus, makes it even more important to use them.

Lists of recommended tools are mentioned below:

Mendeley:

If you are looking for researches to take inspiration from, guiding your way through proposals or the dissertation help paper itself, this will be your best buddy to seek advice from! Whether itbes references, citations or bibliography, you can easily use the desired information accordingly. Moreover, the Mendeley reference manager gives you the ability to import documents to the library with ease.

Google scholar:

We’ve all used the famous google scholar in our lives to look up articles relevant to a wide array of topics. Therefore, using this is one of the most popular amongst others, mostly, due to the exceptionally informative articles present here.

Sparrho:

If your research paper is science-based then this is a one of a kind tool to help you find relevant articles based on research. It pins boards research curated by experts and exposes you to a search engine that has access to nearly 60,000 articles on a wide variety of topics.

Boom Essay:

This tool provides students with academic writing services that cater to the needs of all levels of education and writing styles by professional writers. The customer service forum here aids in assisting students with any issues they face regarding proposal writing and can so, contact and resolve them.

Spellcheck plus tool

Using this tool can come in handy if you are uncertain of your sentence structure or just your grammar, especially if you’re not a native English speaker. The variety of options here makes sure that your work doesn’t include any sort of errors regarding the grammar or punctuation used.

BibMe

Another tool to help you get guidelines regarding your proposal or citation tips, this is also very popular among students. Its plagiarism checker tool is very useful to confirm with ethical guidelines and make sure the content used is original.

Grammarly:

As humans, we are prone to make grammatical errors in our work and for this very reason, we require an effective tool to help us minimize this issue when writing proposals, to ensure a good grade. This tool is extremely beneficial for proof-reading and editing your content before submission because not only is it super easy to use, it is highly reliable due to its frequent updates.

io

For research papers that include illustrations; graphs or drawings, to help understand the content more, this tool comes in handy and is very convenient to use.

AOMEI backup software

Imagine working so hard on your proposal, just to realize that you forgot to save it? Just the thought of it gave you goosebumps, didn’t it? So, to make sure such a thing doesn’t happen in reality and to avoid loss of your material, this tool is beneficial as it saves a copy of your data.

Concluding, writing dissertation proposals hold tremendous importance for a student working towards a research paper as extensively detailed as a dissertation. The process asks for a great deal of determination and commitment, to reach the ultimate goal of success. Using technology in doing this can greatly ease the burden on the student and can also increase the quality of work provided.

The internet is filled with research paper writing services that guide your way to writing the best work possible. The availability of 24/7 chat boxes is open for students for consulting professionals who are very experienced in their field of work. Moreover, the presence of sample papers online can further assist you in getting inspiration for your work and also a deeper insight into what the subject area expects of you. Adding to this, the vast sea of knowledge that stands in front of every individual today removes all excuses of not being able to find ‘enough’ information and so, it’s important to stay hungry for information and give it your best in all ways possible!