Speaker 1: Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Grad Coach TV where we demystify the ivory tower world of academia and show you how to work smart and earn the big marks. In this video we're going to be looking at how to write up a research proposal whether that's for a thesis or a dissertation at undergraduate, master's, PhD level, whatever level, we're going to be looking at how to write up a solid research proposal. Now this video is based on a chapter from our free dissertation ebook which you can download at the Grad Coach website. I'll include a link to that below this video. So without any delay let's get right into it. Now before we jump into how to write a research proposal it's important for us to take a step back and ask the bigger question of why. In other words what is the purpose? What is the function of a research proposal? If you understand this why then the how and the what everything becomes a lot clearer a lot simpler to execute on. So what is the function of the research proposal? Quite simply it's to communicate in a very clear and concise way to communicate what your research is all about and convince that reader whoever they might be convince them that they should approve the research. Now convincing is the key word here. If you don't have a convincing proposal you don't really have any chance of getting approved. So what do you need to convince the reader of? Obviously I can't speak for every university but I can say there are a few common things that they're looking for. So there are at least three things that you need to convince the reader of. Number one you need to convince them that your research focus is clearly articulated. In other words is it crystal crystal clear what exactly you're going to be researching? What are your research questions? Where will you be focusing? What will you be covering? What will you not be covering? So you need to communicate that you know exactly what it is that you're going to be focusing on. The second thing that you need to convince them of is that your research is well justified. In other words are you filling a gap in the research or are you just doing the same thing that everyone else has done? Does your research have clear justification in terms of originality? It's something new or at least it's something within a new context. And importance. Is it something that is worth figuring out? If your research questions are answered are they going to add some value to the body of knowledge to whatever industry that you're working in? So that's another important requirement. The third thing that you need to convince them of is that your research is doable. Now what I mean by doable is that you can execute on this research within the constraints that you have. Constraints such as time, constraints such as money, constraints such as your own research skills. So you need to show them that not only is this research worth doing but you are the right man or woman for the job and that this is very doable within the time frame. Even the best research ideas won't be approved if they're not achievable, if they're not plausible within your context. So make sure that you're convincing on that front as well. If you're not convincing the reader on at least these three criteria, your chances of getting approved are really really slim. So give some thought to these three things. If you can't answer these questions, if you can't hit back with responses on these three points at this at this stage, you might want to just go back and think a little bit more about what exactly you're going to be doing and whether that's doable and whether it's worth doing before you start writing up a research proposal. Otherwise you're just going to be wasting time. So make sure you cover those three bases. Right now that we've covered the why, let's move on to how to write a solid research proposal for your dissertation or thesis. So I'm going to explain how to write a dissertation or thesis proposal by looking at the essential components, the essential ingredients, if we can, of a solid proposal. Now it's important to note that there are variances between schools and some schools might want a little bit extra, some schools might want a little bit less than what I discuss here, but I'm going to try to cover the essential ingredients for a really solid research proposal. So make sure that while you take in whatever is covered in this video, make sure that you're consulting whatever brief or whatever workshop notes or whatever your university has provided so that you are 100% aware of exactly what they expect in the research proposal. Right so enough about that, let's have a look at the essential ingredients of a rock-solid research proposal. Ingredient number one is a provisional title or a working title. Now provisional is the keyword because this is something that might change, probably will change, as you work through your dissertation or thesis or research project. So don't get too stuck up in conjuring up the perfect research title at this point in time, but nevertheless give it some thought. So what makes for a good research title? A good research title should convey the essence of what exactly you're going to be focusing on as concisely as possible. So let's take a look at an example. So an example here is a quantitative study into the drivers of consumer trust in robo-advisors a British context. Now within 15 words here this title clearly communicates a few things. The first thing it communicates is the broad topic of consumer trust. So we already have an idea of okay this topic or this dissertation or thesis is broadly about consumer trust. It fits within that category. The next thing that communicates is the focal topic. So it narrows down the focus to the drivers of consumer trust in online robo-advisors. So now we're narrowing that down to a specific industry. It also sets the context. So it's very clear from this title that this is within a British context within the UK. Another thing that it sets is that it's online. Robo-advisors are online products and so we already know that okay now we are talking about a British context and an online environment which is is naturally quite different from an offline environment. The last thing that it communicates is the methodology or at least it gives a hint as to the research design and that is quantitative. In other words this is going to be a study that hinges on numbers, that hinges on statistics, on some sort of statistical analysis. So that's a good example of a research title that conveys quite a bit in 15 words or so. Now it's important to state here that your university might have some limitations in terms of how long a title should be. They might even have their own convention. So make sure that you check in and that you check your notes, check your your workshop notes, your study guide etc. Make sure that you're not missing some specific requirements in terms of your university. But as I say don't get too wrapped up in terms of working title because it is just something to put down in the interim. Of course the whoever is going to approve your research proposal is not going to just look at the working title and make a decision on that. So don't get too stuck in it but you might want to take this example as a nice way of laying out as a nice nomenclature for a title. Right let's get on to the next ingredient of a solid dissertation or thesis proposal. The second ingredient of a solid research proposal is an introduction and a research problem. These might take the form of chapters or just sections depending on whatever format your university prefers, but you definitely need to include both of them. So how do you go about writing up the section? The first thing that you need to do is you need to provide a broad view of the topic and the context that you're looking at. In other words, introduce the reader to the broader topic. For example consumer trust in the in the previous example that I gave you. You're going to provide some broad overview of the topic, introduce key terminology, introduce any jargon, introduce anything that's required for the reader to wrap their head around the big picture of whatever you're going to be focusing on. Once you've done that you then need to narrow it down to your specific focus. In other words, what exactly are you going to be researching? What are you going to be sinking your teeth into in your dissertation or thesis? What's really important here is to not just get stuck in the what, but to also focus on the why. In fact the why is arguably even more important. In other words, how is your dissertation or your thesis topic justified? What is the gap in the research that you're going to be filling? For example, you might argue that there is a wealth of existing research on topic X, but that that topic has not been covered in your specific country or within your specific industry. Within your specific country or within your specific industry, there's reason that the existing research might not be applicable. It might be down to cultural components, it might be down to regulatory components, but if you're going to make an argument that there is a wealth of existing research but it doesn't necessarily apply in industry X or country X, then make sure that you justify why that is. Another angle that you might take is that there is a wealth of research on topic X already and that that was done quite some time ago and the context has changed quite significantly. We live in a world where there is just consistent change, a lot of it driven by technology, and that might have some impact on whatever topic you're looking at. You might say, well times have changed and therefore we need to revisit this topic. We need to reassess the validity of the state of research there because there are these new variables that potentially throw things into a new state. Another argument that you might make is that the existing research has methodological limitations. Now this would require that you have a pretty solid understanding of research design, so be careful with this one, but you might argue that existing research is lacking in terms of sampling. You might argue that it's lacking in terms of the approach that was taken, qualitative or quantitative, lacking in some way. So again you would justify that your research is is warranted, that it's worth doing because of some sort of methodological limitation. Whichever way you go, and I'm just presenting a few justifications, but whichever way you go make sure that you really focus on both the what, in other words what are you going to be researching, and the why. Why is it important that this gets researched? Why is it that this hasn't been done before? In other words, how are you going to be original? So make sure that you cover both the what and the why in this section of introduction and research problem. Once you've narrowed down that topic and you've got that down into your introduction section, the next thing, the next logical thing that you need to include there is your research aims and your research questions. So let's take a look at what an example of that might look like. So following from the previous example we had about consumer trust, a research aims might look something like this. So your research aim might be to identify the key factors that influence UK consumers trust in robo-advisors and how these factors vary between demographic groups. So it's just a clear line indicating what your research aims are and your research questions would then echo that. So you might have two research questions. Number one, what are the main antecedents or what are the the main drivers of consumer trust in robo-advisors in the UK? And your second question might be how does this vary between demographic groups? So what you can see there is a very tight link between the research aims and the research questions. Essentially they're presenting the same thing in a different format. The last thing you need to cover in this in this introduction section is scope. Scope is essentially just creating a boundary, just creating a ring fence to say this is what I'm going to cover and this is what I'm not going to cover. Now obviously any topic that you you look at it's going to be a rabbit hole. You can go on and on and on and on and you can connect A to B to C to D and very quickly your research can become very unfocused, can become very diluted. So the scope section here it's just an opportunity for you to say that I am aware that these connections exist, that this links to that links to that, but this research is going to focus on just this piece over here and this is why it's going to focus on this piece. And quite simply the justification is that you need to go deep within a dissertation or thesis. You need to narrow your focus and you need to do one thing really well. Don't feel the need to solve the world's problems. Don't feel the need to create a life's work. This is a dissertation or a thesis and going deep, going narrow is what it's all about. So don't be afraid to ring-fence. Don't be afraid to to cut the non-focus out because it's completely acceptable and in fact it's expected. Right let's move on to the next ingredient. The third essential ingredient of a winning dissertation or thesis proposal is the literature review. Now that you've covered in your introduction chapter or in your introduction section, now that you've covered what it is that you're going to be focusing your research on, the literature review is your opportunity to delve into and to provide a synthesis of all the existing research in relation to your research aims. So what you're doing here is presenting a clear narrative, a clear discussion of what the existing research says in relation to your research aims and to your research objectives. Now I'm not going to go into depth about how to pull off a literature review. We've got a separate video on that and I'll include the link to that below this video. But I will just quickly speak about the why. If you understand the why, then the actual what of pulling off a literature review is much simpler. So what is the why? What are the three important functions of a literature review, or at least my three important functions of a literature review? So the first thing that you need to demonstrate in your literature review is that you are very familiar and you understand the current state of the research. You can't take on, within an academic world, you certainly can't take on any sort of research without really understanding what's already been done. And so the first function of the literature review is for you to show that you've done your reading, that you've done your homework, and that you know exactly what's been done, who said what, how it all fits together. So that is very very important. The second function of the literature review is to demonstrate the gap. So just as I mentioned in your introduction, how you're going to be talking about your gap, you're going to build on to that here or potentially rehash on that a little bit and show how there is a genuine need for the research that you are going to be doing. So it plays into the justification of your research. You need to show that you've done the reading and you found the gap, you found the the missing piece or one of the many many missing pieces in terms of the existing research. The third function of the literature review is to inform any sort of methodological decision-making. So when it comes to to your research design, whether you're going to do qualitative or quantitative, that should be informed at least in part by the existing research. In other words, what have what have people done in the past? How have other researchers, how have other authors approached this? You might build on that or you might say well therein lies the problem. But regardless, you want to be paying attention to the methodological approaches of previous researchers in your space and you want to be showing that you are aware of what they've done. Also you might be able to borrow from the the existing research very often, at least with quantitative studies. Very often they will publish their question sets, they'll publish their scales etc etc and these have had a lot of work that has already gone into them and you can make use of them without having to go and design your own or of course you could you could build on to them. So it's important to understand those three components of or at least those three objectives of a good literature review because those will ensure that you write something that is touching on all the essential requirements. One thing to be really careful about when you are writing up this literature review section is that you don't fall into the trap of descriptive writing. In other words, it's very easy to go and write up a literature review which is basically just a history of what everyone has said. That is not what a good literature review is about. What a good literature review is about is is synthesizing what everyone has said in relation to whatever your research questions are. So if your research questions are, let's just take the previous example, if you're looking into the drivers, the antecedents of consumer trust, what you want to be looking for in a literature review is to flesh out well what are the drivers that people have previously found in their research, which one of these are agreed on, which of these are disagreed on, where is there some contention, how has that developed over time, how is it potentially relevant or irrelevant, how is it creating a gap in the research for my specific research. So you want to be providing a synthesis of everything that's been said, not just a pure account of it. Your writing needs to be analytical, not just descriptive. Now we do have a great post on the Grad Coach blog which provides a good breakdown of a comparison between analytical writing and descriptive writing and that is a great way of sort of assessing where you where you fit in terms of your writing, assessing whether or not you're playing too much to one side or the other. So again I'll include a link to that below this video but regardless of whether you look at that or not, keep in mind the trap of descriptive writing. Do not just provide an account of what everyone said. You need to pull that back to how is it relevant to my literature or rather to my research question. How is it a potential onslaught? How is it a potential problem in light of my research questions and my aims? So bring everything back, bring it together, synthesize everything and tie it back to your specific research. Don't just provide a descriptive account of what everyone said. Right so that's the literature review component or ingredient covered. Let's have a look at the next essential ingredient. The fourth essential ingredient of a winning dissertation proposal or thesis proposal is the research design or sometimes referred to as the methodology. So far in your research proposal you've covered the what and you've covered the why. What exactly are you going to be focusing on and why is that important? Why is that original? In your literature review you expanded on that to see what else other people had to say about your what. What you haven't covered so far is the how. In other words, how are you going to be approaching this research? How are you going to be executing on it to identify or at least try to identify the answers to your research questions? That is what the research design or the methodology chapter is all about. It is explaining in detail how you're going to be approaching this and why you've decided to approach it in the way that you have. Now much like the working title, methodology and your specific approach might change as you sink your teeth into your dissertation. You might find that you end up doing, if you were going a quantitative approach, you might find that you end up doing a slightly different set of analysis depending on the outcomes of the data etc etc. So don't get too hung up in specifying or thinking that whatever you put down on paper you are committed to. Obviously you wouldn't want to switch drastically. You wouldn't want to go from say a quant study to a qual study, although I have seen that happen, but you don't need to feel like if you write here that you're going to do analysis X Y & Z, three different types of statistical analysis, you don't need to feel like it's going to be the end of the world if you if you don't stick 100% to those. Very often the data comes out in a different way from from what we expected. For example perhaps a little statistical, but you might expect to have a normal distribution of data and you end up with non-normal distributions and therefore you need to apply a different set of analysis. So don't don't stress out if none of this makes sense just yet. The important thing to understand is that this methodology is somewhat tentative, so don't get too wrapped up in fearing that you're ultra committed once you put it down. So in terms of discussing the how of your research design, there are a few things that you'll need to look at. So let's take a look at what those are. The first thing you want to look at is your research philosophy. In other words, are you taking an interpretivist approach? Are you taking an empirical approach etc? You want to cover that up front. The second thing you want to look at is your methodological approach. In other words, is it a qualitative study? Is it a quantitative study? Are you perhaps going to go a mixed method route where you incorporate a bit of both? You want to have a look at that. Your sampling is really important. In other words, who will your sample be? Who will you be collecting data from? How many people will you be speaking to? What sample do they represent in terms of their generalizability etc? Another important point is what data you plan to collect. Data about what? In what form are you going to be collecting that data? How do you plan to to collect it? Are you going to be using surveys? Are you going to be using interviews? Are you going to be holding focus groups? And then very importantly, how do you plan to analyze it? So if you're taking a quantitative approach, are you going to perhaps use regression analysis? Are you going to use structural equation modeling? Are you going to, in a qualitative environment, are you going to be using thematic analysis or QDA? These are all potential design choices that you need to make and most importantly not just discuss what you will be doing. In other words, what you will be choosing for for each of these variables, but why you've chosen. In other words, what's your justification? Throughout your proposal, you need to justify everything. You need to explain why it is that you've chosen to go this route and not that route. Remember that your dissertation or thesis is assessing research skills. It's assessing whether or not you can undertake rigorous research and so they want to see when you are proposing that you're going to cover X and you're going to do it in this way, they want to see that you understand why, that you understand why those are the appropriate choices. Now to be fair, depending on your level of research, your research design choices, your methodological choices might be more constrained by practical issues. In other words, who do you have access to? What data do you have access to? As opposed to methodological research design theory. But regardless, whatever your constraints are, whatever the reasons are for you choosing whichever way you go, make sure that you clarify not just what you're going to do and how you're going to do it, but why you're going to do or why you're planning to do it that way. Include the justification in everything. It's worth saying that if you're not a hundred percent certain about your methodology, if you're not a hundred percent certain about your research design, it makes sense to consult with someone who does know more than you do and hopefully is an expert in the space. So it might be someone at your university, it might be someone that you know in your private capacity, you could certainly reach out to one of us here at Grout Coach, but consult with someone who is certain, someone who does understand whatever methodological approach you're going to use. Because if you make any mistakes, they will get spotted very quickly and best case they still approve your research and just give you feedback that you need to change X, Y and Z. But worst case, if you don't really understand what you're doing, you might be proposing something that isn't really achievable given your skill set. You might be committing to something which is far bigger than you originally anticipated or that's not doable with the data that you have. So you can create some significant problems down the road once you've already been approved that you're not even aware of. So my advice is just make sure that whatever you're putting down in your methodology section, whatever you're putting down in the research design section, make sure that you fully understand what you're doing. Don't just use big words and technical words that you don't fully understand. Consult with someone who does know what they're doing and that will save you a lot of pain down the road. Of course you can have a free consultation with any of our research specialists here at Grout Coach. I'll include the link to that below this video. Right let's move on to the next ingredient. Ingredient number five of a winning dissertation or thesis research proposal is the reference list. Now this might go without saying, but being an academic document you need to have a 100% on-point reference list at the end of your research proposal. You might get away with slightly shoddy referencing in assignments or course work, but as I said what they're looking for in a dissertation or in a thesis and specifically in the proposal is they're looking for you to demonstrate research skills. One of those research skills in an academic environment is technically correct referencing. So make sure that you understand exactly what the referencing requirements are from your school, for example Harvard or APA format, whatever specific format they require. Then use some sort of referencing software whether that's Mendeley or Zotero or EndNote, RefWorks, whatever the case might be. Use some software to take care of that. Certainly don't try and handle referencing in any manual fashion. It might sound like that's pretty obvious, but you'll be surprised what I've seen in some dissertations and theses. So make sure that your referencing is 100% on point. Make use of some referencing software. We've done how-to videos on both Mendeley and Zotero. I'm quite a big fan of Mendeley. I'll include the links to those below this video. One point to make about this reference section is that you shouldn't fall into the trap of thinking that your references and referencing only happens in the literature review section. Your referencing should happen pretty much throughout all the sections that we've discussed. So in your introduction you'll be speaking about context, you'll be speaking about the theoretical need for your research. Make sure that you have tons of references there. In your methodological section you're going to be talking about what you've decided to do in terms of methods, what you've decided to do in terms of research design. Again those decisions need to be backed up with some sort of justification and those justifications should be built on some theory. So you should have references, you should have citations. So make sure that you have a flow of citations and therefore a solid reference list in your research proposal. Don't let these things only sit in the literature review section. Right so that's referencing. Let's get on to the final ingredient and that is ingredient number six. Ingredient number six is practicalities. Now practicalities can can be a few different things. It can vary from school to school, university to university. The practicalities I'm bundling a few different things into ingredient number six. Essentially we're talking about anything that relates to the the practical components, the implementation, the pulling off of your research project. Some of the things that you might look at here are for example a project plan. So this might be something like a Gantt chart or some sort of project plan whether that's just in Excel or any sort of project planning software. A clear outline of what is it that you're going to do through the various phases of your research. How are you going to how much time are you going to spend on X? How much time are you going to spend on Y? What buffers have you put in? Have you allowed for communication with your supervisor or advisor? Basically just showing that you have given clear thought to how you're going to pull this thing off and that that plan is reasonable and achievable within the time that you have. So a project plan is something that you might have a look at. Another component is a resource plan or a budget. Now not every piece of research will necessarily require additional resources but some pieces of research will require a budget, will require some sort of financial resources and some of them might require physical resources such as lab equipment or you might need access to rooms to have focus groups etc. So again what you want to show you is that you've given thought to what it is that you need in order to pull off your research and how you're going to get that and potentially what you're going to do if you can't get that. What are your backup plans? Another thing that you might want to look at here or you might be required to look at here is risk management. As I've just mentioned you'll have a need for resources, you'll have a need for budgetary requirements, potentially you'll have a project plan that you're working with. All of these things are ideals if everything goes right but that's not how it works in the real world. So you want to potentially present a risk management plan or at least just a risk register to show that you are aware of what the potential risks are, the potential things that could fall through and most importantly what are your plans if those do fall through, what are your responses to the potential risks in your instance. So give some thought to how things might not go according to plan and what you'll do in those in those events. A final thing that might be required is some sort of discussion about ethical adherence. Universities always have ethical standards or ethical compliance requirements in terms of any research that's done under their banner and so you should provide some discussion of how your research will comply with those ethical guidelines or ethical requirements and if there are any potential issues how you're going to deal with them, how you're going to seek approval for any specific requirements. So make sure that you cover those potential bases in terms of the practicalities of your research. So those are the six essential ingredients of how to write a winning dissertation or thesis proposal. Before we wrap up I just want to touch on three additional tips that are useful to keep in mind when you are writing up your proposal. The first thing I'll say is make sure that you have really thought things through. In other words make sure that you have undertaken the homework in terms of research literature review, understanding what is the state of the research, understanding where are things currently, what is the need for the research, make sure that you really really really have spent your time and have a very very clear argument for why your research is necessary. If you haven't spent your time in the literature review stage, if you haven't spent your time familiarizing yourself with the literature, it's very very easy to get caught out by a supervisor or an advisor that knows the area and will very quickly say oh but so-and-so already covered this or your arguments invalid because this was already discussed over there. So you really need to know your stuff in terms of the literature. If you're covering a topic make sure you understand that topic well before you start making claims about where the gaps in the literature are and and how your research is warranted. Make sure that you understand those components. The same applies for your research methodology, for your research design. I touched on this earlier. Make sure you understand the methodology that you plan to use. Don't take a half-baked idea or half-baked understanding and try to whip out a methodological plan or a research design. Know your stuff. The second tip is don't rush. So this sounds pretty obvious but it's important to say. Research proposals usually take some time to get approved and that can be anything from a few days to a few weeks and not uncommonly a month to get approval on research because the university needs to allocate it to a suitable supervisor etc and so there is a long lead time in terms of getting your research approved and students tend to rush through this process and then they don't know this stuff as per Mahler's point and then they end up submitting something, waiting a month and then getting a no which is one soul-destroying and two putting a serious delay on completion of the dissertation and it can leave you with very little time to actually complete the research. So of course there's always we live in a world of deadlines and you need to adhere to those but don't rush through this thing. Take the time to really understand the state of the literature and really understand what it is that you're proposing. Very often students come with a preconceived idea of what they want to research without having done the the literature review and they end up rushing through it just kind of picking up the pieces of the literature that support the argument that they rush through because they have an idea that they're already in love with and they really just want to get a research proposal approved and then of course that that falls on its face. So don't rush, take the time to understand the literature, take the time to understand whatever research design you're going to do or consult with someone that can that can really confirm that for you and and don't rush through this thing. Put in the time and effort and aim for first-time approval rather than pushing a half-paced thing through and then getting pushed back on that and then having to go back and forth back and forth until you finally get approval and then land up with a very small amount of time to to actually do your dissertation or thesis. The last tip is that you should ensure that whatever you submit is well polished. So what I mean by well polished is apart from everything I've just discussed make sure that your entire product is is well designed, that it is clean and and accurate in terms of English language, in terms of grammar, in terms of presenting clear lines of argument etc. I would really suggest that you invest in some sort of editing or proofreading or at least just get someone else to just a friend to proofread your work but make sure that you are not submitting something that has typos, that has grammar issues, that has a weak English because there is just nothing more of putting to a marker than reading a document that's full of those errors because what it just says is the student hasn't really put in the time and the effort and and therefore you know it sends signals about you know how much time and effort did they put into actually understanding the research proposal or understanding the research problem, understanding the literature etc etc. So sloppy presentation brings into question the credibility and the legitimacy of everything else you've done. So my final tip is make sure your document is polished. You might want to, if you have the resources, you might want to get someone to to edit and to proofread it and pay them for it or you might just want to ask a friend for a favor. Generally any set of second eyes will spot things that you didn't spot. So you might not have a perfect document but you'll definitely have something improved. And there you have it, how to write a dissertation or thesis proposal in six pretty straightforward steps or at least six essential ingredients. As I said right up front, make sure that you understand the why of the research proposal. Make sure you understand what you're trying to convince the person on the other end of. If you keep that front of mind you're going to present or you're going to develop a solid research proposal and you're going to have the best chances of first-time approval. If you have any questions about how to write a research proposal for your dissertation or thesis, you're welcome to drop us an email hello at grad.coach. I'll include that email address in this video or below this video. You're also welcome to book a free consultation with any of our PhD qualified research specialists and you can have a chat with them about your research topic, your research questions etc etc. Hopefully they can provide you with with some guidance. They're free of charge, no obligation. Lastly if you've enjoyed this video please do give us a thumbs up, leave a comment below. If you have any questions you're welcome to comment below as well and subscribe to our YouTube channel for more dissertation thesis related content. We will be doing additional videos on how to write a research proposal, how to write a literature review, all of these components that will hopefully help you write your research and help you pull off a great piece of work. We do hope to see you again. That's all for today. This is Grad Coach signing out.