OFFICE OF GRADUATE STUDIES

 

Phase One: Proposal

In a proposal you tell two people, your advisor and yourself, what you have in mind. Your research advisor can help you write a good proposal, but the first step is yours. Before you approach an advisor for help, sketch a draft proposal.

Writing a proposal is not preliminary to research. It is a part of research. To write a good proposal, you should investigate your potential topic before you approach your advisor. One way to do that is to conduct a search for books and articles on the subject using standard bibliographies in your field and reading one or two key books or articles.

Consider your resources and time constraints while developing your initial proposal ideas. The topic you choose depends on a number of things: your own interests; whether your advisor will be on campus while you are working on the project; his or her expertise in your area of study; and the time you have available to complete the research and writing. To narrow or limit a topic usually means giving up some aspect of a topic and concentrating instead on part of it.

The proposal sketch that you write before you meet with your project advisor should explain:

• the topic you expect to investigate,
• the general line of inquiry you intend to pursue or the tentative argument you intend to pose, and
• the plan for doing research.

Don't worry if your proposal seems vague or incomplete. A proposal is a starting point, not the finished thesis. Include ideas that you feel sure you would like to investigate as well as other related ideas that you think might be worth exploring. But get your ideas down and type your proposal neatly before you approach your advisor. This will give your advisor a sense of your seriousness about doing the project and will give you both a starting point for discussing the project.

When you talk with your research advisor about your tentative proposal, work toward revising it in several specific ways.

Consider the following questions:

• How is the project related to what I have learned in previous courses and from my own personal reading and research?
• What question am I trying to answer by doing the project, or what problem am I trying to solve?
• Is the question answerable or the problem soluble? If so, can it be answered or solved in the time I have to work on it?
• Is there a piece of the question or the problem that I could work on that would let me go into greater depth than if I tried to take on the whole thing?
• What should the final project look like (length, format, illustrations, bibliography)?

As you try to answer these questions and to develop your proposal, keep in mind that at this stage nothing is engraved in stone. You are not committing yourself unalterably. You cannot possibly know in advance everything that will actually happen as you do the project. In fact, the unexpected things that happen as you work are a part of what makes writing theses exciting and rewarding.

The completed final draft of your proposal should include the following:

1. A succinct, tentative title. This is a working title. It says what you think the project is about as you begin it. By the time you finish the project your title may change as your understanding of the project changes.
2. A statement of the project's central issue stated either as a noun phrase ("Women in Selected Shakespearean Plays") or as a question ("What does Shakespeare think of women?").
3. A list of central research questions. What do you want to learn? What problem do you want to solve?
4. A description of your hypothesis. What do you guess the answer or solution will turn out to be?
5. A description of the kinds of things you imagine you will have to do in order to complete the project. What kind of work activities will be involved?
6. A description of the resources you think you will draw upon. Explain which of these you will bring to the project yourself (what do you already know that will help?), which resources you will depend on your advisor to contribute, and which resources you will have to go out and find.
7. A calendar. This is your work plan. It describes what you imagine you will do at each stage of the work. Set a tentative due date for each stage. Decide with your research advisor on the due date for the final product. Set realistic goals. Make your research project one of your highest priorities, but don't over-commit yourself. Lay your schedule out so that you can successfully complete each stage of the research project on time without neglecting other important parts of your life, like work and family. Research requires commitment, discipline, and organization-so plan wisely.

After you have given your proposal a final revision and your advisor has approved it, go to work on the project. Or, more precisely, continue to work on your project. Writing a proposal has already given you a good start.

Be sure to file the "Application for Filing Thesis Title" form with your Graduate Deputy before the end of February if you plan to graduate in June, or before the end of September if you plan to graduate in February. You must include the working title of your thesis on the form and have your advisor sign it.

Sample proposal:

Writer: Jane White

Working title: "Casualties of Civilization: Repression and Progress in the works of Stephen Crane."

My thesis will examine the social and economic forces of Crane's time and how Crane's prose embodies the harmful consequences of these forces in characters such as Maggie, Henry Fleming, Trescott, George Kelsey, and the Swede ("The Blue Hotel"). Crane lived in a time of enormous social and economic changes. He wrote a great deal about the people trampled under America's feet and tossed to the side as the country marched on toward the twentieth century.

My title suggests that I will use psychoanalytical concepts to understand Crane's work and times. From the research I have already done, I think there is substantial material available to demonstrate that Freud's ideas of the subconscious and of civilization's effect on the individual psyche are exhibited in Crane's texts. I want to look at the impact that society has on individual characters from Crane's oeuvre: for example, Maggie's suppression of desire, the Swede's death wish, and George Kelsey's Oedipal guilt.

I have begun compiling my working bibliography. In addition to the Library of America's edition of Stephen Crane's works, I have also begun reading Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents and a work about Freud and his ideas in relation to progress, Norman 0. Brown's Life and Death. I have also researched some general works dealing with the theory of progress, Lewis's The American Adam, Smith's Virgin Land, and Bury's The Idea of Progress. I will also be making use of the select bibliography of works about Stephen Crane provided to me in "American Literature of the Nineteenth Century II."

I will spend the semester break (January) researching and reading my materials. In February and March, I will write my rough draft, turning in one chapter to my advisor every two weeks for comments. In April, I will revise and present a final draft to my advisor by May 1. If no further revisions are necessary, I will spend the second week of May preparing the final copy so as to be able to turn in the final copy on May 13.