Proposal Format

The proposal should follow standard formats accepted by academic departments.  A good guideline for proposal and theses writing can be found in the graduate student handbook,  Department of Earth Science, Northeastern Illinois University, from which the general guidelines are taken:

Writing a Thesis Proposal
 

Your proposal is a contract you make with yourself and with your committee.  What will you investigate?  How will you do it?  What's your time schedule?  By the time you are at the proposal-writing stage, you should have already done quite a bit of research and should have a good idea of what problems you are investigating and how you'll approach them.

It's very important to have a good, solid, well-developed proposal.  Developing and writing your thesis proposal is NOT wasted time.  On the contrary, it saves you time: it helps you define your research so that you don't waste time researching things which aren't useful.  In addition, a well-done proposal can be used as part of the rough draft of your thesis.

Your proposal will probably go through two to four drafts with your advisor.  Once it's in a finished form, give your advisor four copies and ask her or him to circulate it to the committee members to see what comments they have. 

Length of the proposal will probably be no less than about five pages of text.  Discuss the following things in this proposal:

I.  INTRODUCTION:

 
A.     Describe the problem you want to study.
 
B.     Put your research in a context by presenting previous research.  Who has investigated this problem or similar problems?  What did they find?  How does it relate to the problem you're investigating?  By the time the reader is through reading this section, it should be very obvious  exactly what is known about this topic.  It should be clear that your project is the next logical step in investigating the topic.  In this section (and all others), use standard geological referencing style.
 
 C.     Describe the general geology of your study site (if you are studying a site).  Show a rough map of the location of your study area.
 
 D. Give any other important background information.
 

II. OBJECTIVES:
 

List the objectives of your research.  Be very specific.  You will probably have about four to eight of these objectives, but it varies.

III. METHODS:

A.     Explain the methods by which you expect to meet the objectives.  Be very specific.  Be sure that the methods specifically address the objectives.

What information will you need to collect?  Tell where you think you'll find it.

What analytical methods will you use?  What instruments will you use?  (Give brand names and model numbers.)  Will you use computers?  Lab space?  Storage space?  Other things?

B.      Give a timeline for your research.

 IV. REFERENCES CITED:

List references you cited in your proposal.  Use standard format.  This list of references will probably form the nucleus of your thesis bibliography.