Thesis Proposal Guidelines

Goal of the thesis proposal

The purpose of the thesis proposal both written and presentation components is to: Provide a means and incentive for you to clearly define your problem and proposed approach as you embark on your research. Make your committee aware of your specific research problem and proposed approach. Convince your committee that your proposed project is both sufficient and feasible. Convince your committee that you are well-prepared to dive into the research. Provide an opportunity for your committee, the faculty, and other students to provide suggestions and feedback early on in your research process so that it can potentially help shape the course of your research. As such, we provide guidelines for writing a thesis proposal that meets these goals.

Outline of the thesis proposal document

Title and abstract: The title should be descriptive. The abstract should be a short (no more than 150 words), concise description of the problem and proposed research. Introduction: Describe and motivate the problem. Background and related work: Describe the context of your study, usually in the form of a literature survey. All the literature described should be relevant to the research problem. Proposed research: Describe the o specific research problem o proposed solution and methodology o feasibility (including expected availability of data sources, software, etc.) o expected results (i.e., the hypothesis) o validation approach and objective measures that will be used to evaluate the results o preliminary results, if any o tentative timetable listing target dates for meeting the various project goals Conclusion: Summarize the problem you plan to tackle and how you intend to do so. Clearly state the scientific contribution the research is expected to make. Bibliography: List all the sources referenced in the proposal (probably primarily in the background and related work section). We recommend that you follow a standard, consistent style such as the APA Style (see http://apastyle.org/) both in the bibliography and in the referencing throughout the document; this will make your life easier when you write the final thesis.

Miscellaneous expectations and concerns

Length: Length is not important so much as content. Typically, the largest portion of the proposal is the literature survey. The length of this section depends on the research field itself; a problem in a niche, cutting-edge field will typically have less related research to describe than an extensively studied area. The thesis advisor is responsible for guaranteeing that the literature studied is sufficiently comprehensive. As a rule of thumb, the thesis proposal tends to vary between five and ten pages. Preliminary work: Preliminary work can be helpful in establishing the feasibility of the work. On the down side, excessive preliminary work diminishes the potential for the comments from committee members and colleagues during the proposal to have a significant impact on the direction of the research. Consequently, we do not expect preliminary results although they are valued (in limited quantities). Substantial preliminary results are a good indicator that a proposal is overdue. Adherence vs. flexibility: The proposal is only meant to serve as a preliminary map of how the research will proceed. Research is notorious for not going as initially expected, so it is not expected that the final thesis will reflect the proposal exactly. In some cases, even the topic may shift in the course of the research. However, the proposal should provide a solid starting point from which to proceed. Timing: We expect the proposal to be made by the end of the first year, earlier if possible, but no later than the first full month of your second year (September). This allows for enough time to complete a research project of significance (i.e., has publication potential). The first year should be more than enough time to choose a topic, read the relevant literature, and make a proposal.

Sample thesis proposal

Jian Xu, Iterative Aggregation of Bayesian Networks Incorporating Prior Knowledge, Fall 2004.