AEF801: DISSERTATION
PROPOSALS, PLANS & PROCEDURES
These short notes simply highlight what is expected in a Proposal
and a Plan for your own dissertations. This whole course
is
designed to help you learn about the approaches, methods, rationales
and
procedures of research, all of which can be expected to inform and
underpin
your own research proposals and plans. You are asked to submit
ONLY
the Plan - the notes on the proposal are a guide to the sorts of
considerations
required to develop a reasonable and professional plan.
PLEASE
NOTE: Your Dissertation Plan is the major assessment point for
this Module (AEF801).
Your Dissertation itself constitutes a separate module (AEF899), which
is separate from this course, and is under the direction of your
Supervisor and your Degree Programme Director
Proposal:
Your proposal should tell the reader, in reasonable and convincing
terms:
- What particular issue or problem you propose to address;
- Why this issue or problem is important and how it generally fits
with
the
overall area of concern and (if possible) with other areas of knowledge
and understanding;
- What specific research question your proposal seeks to answer,
and why;
- What it is you propose should be done to answer this question -
the
general
approach(s) to be used;
- Why this approach makes sense and seems likely to produce
reliable
answers;
- Why the answers, when you have them, will be useful and
worthwhile, and
to whom
Clearly, then, such a proposal should link and refer to the existing
knowledge
and literature. So you will need to become aquainted with at
least
some of the necessary literature on the subject and issue in order to
develop
a sensible research proposal. Your supervisor should be able to
suggest
some suitable avenues or starting points, if you are not already aware
of these from from your other courses and your own knowledge.
However,
you are not expected to provide an exhaustive literature review at this
stage.
The purpose of the proposal is to assess whether the research
project
is doable, and whether it is likely to be worthwhile. It is NOT
(obviously)
expected that the proposal will actually do the research, or even
explain
precisely how it will be done - research, after all, is a process of
discovery
- if the results, information and knowledge are already known, then
what
you propose is not research.
Also obviously, not everyone has the same level of knowledge and
understanding
- so what counts as research for you may not count as far as other
people
are concerned - they may already (think they) know what it is you
propose
to find out. Hence, part of the development and assessment of the
proposal involves other people contributing to the development of a
research
project by pointing out that some of what you seek is already
available.
Your supervisor is intended to be the primary 'other people' involved
here,
though you are expected to be able to think of and contact other people
who may also be able to help you refine your proposal.
Plan:
Your plan should provide more detail on what you intend to actually
do and why, and thus will incorporate any amendments and revisions to
your
proposal made necessary by a more detailed consideration of what will
be
necessary in the research, in the light of what is already known.
The general outline of the plan should follow the same pattern as the
proposal,
but should contain more detail on (and justification for):
- the specific research question(s) or hypotheses (as a modest
expansion
of the Proposal points 1, 2 and 3 above)
- What it is you propose should be done to answer this question -
the
general
approach(s) to be used;
- the framework or network of relationships (transactions,
negotiations
etc.)
which is assumed to generate the observations or events which
characterise
the research questions - the theory or preconceptions which underpin
your
research design
- the methods you will use to carry out the research, including
the
additional
literature and knowledge you will need to assemble and digest to do the
research
- the justification for using these methods in preference to
possible
alternatives
- the methods you will use to assess the results and integrate
these with
the existing knowledge, and their justification
- the nature of the conclusions you expect to be able to draw, and
their
relevance for specific audiences and potential users.
- the planning of time and available resources so that the project
can be
completed on time, including allowance for unforseen difficulties and
an
assessment of their probability and possible effects on what you
propose
to do
- milestones or waypoints - dates at which each phase or stage
should be
started, and by which each is expected to be completed, and possible
diversions
and safety strategies (plan 2), including provision for timetabled
consultations
with your supervisor and others at specific times during the research -
you do not want to be frustrated by the need to consult with people
when
they are not available!
Your plan should be your working document - the guidance and
road
map for the execution of the research. It will, therefore, be
subject
to continual review and possible revision as you carry out your
research.
In essence, points 1 - 3 above provide an outline of the final report
of
your research - your dissertation. As you progress the work, this
part of your plan will (should) grow and develop into the final
document.
Points 4 and 5 constitute your progress chart and check list.
You should be able to present this Plan in about 6,000 words (max.),
excluding necessary references, tables, figures and, possibly, data
appendices.
If there is both the time and the demand from the class, we can arrange
for a mini-conference for you to make
an oral presentation of
your proposal to the whole class, and a number of departmental
staff, before
the end of June. This occassion could contribute to the
development
of your plan, being an opportunity for others to make suggestions and
to
comment on your definition of the research question and approach. Please let me know if you think
this would be a good thing to do.
Note:
As guidance for your final report, the general expectation is that
this
dissertation should be judged either
as an academic research monograph
- a good working paper (prior to possible publication in an academic
journal)
- or as a
professional consultancy or in-house business report. Clearly,
the appropriate styles and presentation are rather different for each
of
these templates, but the nature of the content should be both
rigorous
and relevant. The object of the exercise is not to
convince
the reader of how much you know and have read, but to convince them of
your capacity to make sense and use of what you know and what you have
discovered, and to make sensible, justifiable and reliable inferences
and
deductions from what you see and hear.
Good luck, and you know who and where we are if you need help.
In case you need to refresh your memory of what we are looking for
in
your final dissertation, here is a copy (pdf file) of our present
assessment form, as discussed earlier in this course.
See here for guidelines and rules about
the relationship between students and supervisors and for the formal
requirements
for the presentation of the dissertation.
Please refer to your Degree Programme Handbook (DPH) for more
details on the requirements for the Dissertation (AEF899). e.g. MSc. Rural Development and Resource
Management DPH.
Finally - when you submit
your dissertation, you will
need to complete a Submission Form -(here as Word document) which
requires the signatures of:
- Your supervisor or Degree Programme Director
- The Reader Services Supervisor, Robinson Library (to confirm that
you have no outstanding loans)
- The University Finance Department (to confirm that you have no
outstanding bills)
Back to AEF801 Index.