Depending on the type of dissertation you will go on to complete, there might be a few structural differences (which we will cover a little later on). However, every proposal must contain a few essential things:

• An outline of the topic you are researching
• An explanation of how you are going to find the information you need
• A hypothesis or question which will be explored and answered in the dissertation
• A reference list or bibliography which pinpoints a handful of sources likely to be useful for your research

The word count will vary depending on your subject, course, and individual university, but proposals are typically between 1,000 and 3,000 words long.

The idea of a dissertation is to find a gap in the existing research and conduct your own research to address this. Gaps in research could include things like:

• Date of studies (for example, much of the literature on a particular field could be 5-10 years old so an update may be due)
• Subject of studies (for example, there is not as much academic research on the novels of Anne Bronte as there is about her more famous sisters, Charlotte and Emily, so there is a ‘gap’ here)
• Particular theories and frameworks (for instance, there may be lots of studies on the issue of anxiety disorder, but not very many which address it from a psycho-analytic perspective)

The idea is to provide a snapshot of what your dissertation is going to do. This way, your tutor can give you feedback: they might suggest that a different focus or a different research method would be better for your dissertation, for example. The thing to remember is that your dissertation will almost certainly end up being different in some way from your proposal, and that’s okay!

You will need to be able to describe and evaluate what your research is for and how it will achieve its goals. You will need to demonstrate that your approach is methodologically sound, ethical, feasible and relevant.
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