Students will submit a short draft of their dissertation prospectus, incorporating updated versions of their previous assignments and feedback into a cohesive document. This assignment echoes the guidelines for the program, reproduced here. Prospectus drafts are graded on completion: all complete prospectus submissions meeting these requirements will receive full credit, and my feedback will be focused on moving forward.
Why are you doing a study? What gap is there in our knowledge?
Essentially, what is the dissertation about? In this beginning section, preview the general approach adopted in the dissertation: the historical, geographical, temporal, and/or substantive scope. Treat this as an opportunity to state with clarity and conviction exactly what the core issue of the dissertation will be. This section should be similar to writing an abstract.
Research Question As a part of establishing the premise of the dissertation, the prospectus should state the central question or puzzle that is to be addressed. What are you trying to find out about the world? The research question (broadly construed; this may be a research statement or multiple research questions) should be stated clearly and succinctly and phrased precisely, since it will determine what is or is not relevant to the dissertation.
What do scholars already know about your topic?
First, you should provide a well-focused summary of the current debate(s) in your chosen subfield. This will allow your committee to see how you situate your project in the existing literature.
Second, you should outline in precise terms the specific contribution(s) your dissertation will make to the subfield. If you believe you are studying a neglected yet significant subject, specify what part of that subject has been missed, and how your study will fill the gap. If you are building on an important literature in the field, say what has been achieved, and how your proposal adds to it.
If your proposal is a case study or a comparison of multiple cases, this is an appropriate place to justify your selection of cases with reference to theory. This section should contain specific subjects or questions the project intends to investigate. The rationale for developing these should be included.
This section should not review the literature in its entirety, but rather provide contextualization. A fuller literature review will appear in the dissertation itself.
How will you answer the research question?
While the focused literature review shows the importance of the issue, this section indicates the process you will use to examine the issue(s)/question(s). Address the following:
You should provide the following types of information:
Data/Materials/Evidence Data here means the raw material for your analysis, whether quantitative, qualitative, visual, spatial, textual, or something else. If your investigation is empirical, what sort of evidence will you consider? If theoretical, what material will you cover and what will you do with it? If project-based, what do you intend to create and why? How will you decide what to examine? Are you using human subjects? If so, have you addressed Institutional Review Board approval and included it in your timeline? How do you know that what you propose to examine is appropriate to answer your question?
Data/Materials/Evidence Collection How will you collect what you want to look at? Is there adequate data or other materials available? Can you obtain it? Are you planning to do library work, field work, interviews, surveys, etc.?
Analysis How will you examine your data/evidence/materials to figure out what is going on? Are you planning to do quantitative analysis or statistical modeling? Do you possess the necessary linguistic and/or quantitative skills, if relevant?
Your committee will be looking for solid evidence that (1) if everything goes according to plan, you will be able to complete a satisfactory dissertation, and (2) there is a reasonable chance that everything will in fact go well.
So what? Who cares?
What is the significance to the discipline, to society, etc.? In other words, what is the value of the project set out in the preceding section?
In this section, you should synthesize the problem, gap in literature, and your approach as explained in Parts 1-3. Using the framework you have already established, describe the underlying reasons for the research—whether social, cultural, technological, etc.—and identify why this problem requires an answer.
How do you plan to organize your dissertation?
Even at this early stage in the dissertation planning process, it is helpful to construct a chapter-by-chapter organization of the project, however provisional. This will communicate to your committee the relative importance you attach to various aspects of your investigation, and the structure with which you will offer answers to your central thesis.
How will you get from this moment to a completed dissertation?
Address the following questions:
Make sure all sources are cited - generally, this should include at least 15 sources building on the previous work. Use whatever citation format your advisor prefers.
Don’t forget: this assignment can’t be accepted late!