Guidelines for Writing a Thesis Proposal (with thanks to Robin Ridington)
Abstract
A thesis proposal indicates that you are ready to work at a professional level. It is the kind of document you will be writing throughout a professional career. Like a grant application or paper proposal, it should be clearly written and focused on a problem that you can easily identify. You should be able to abstract your topic in a single paragraph and summarize it in a single page. Throughout your professional career you will write abstracts and summaries of proposed and completed work. If you cannot explain what you propose to do, there is probably something wrong with your plan.
Proposal
A proposal should only be drafted after consulting a guide such as Proposals That Work (2nd ed.) 1987, by L.F. Locke, W.W. Spirduso and S.J. Silverman (Sage Publications), or Research Design: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches 1994 by J.W. Creswell, Sage Publications.
The proposal itself should include information on the following categories:
1. Statement of Problem
This should be short and to the point. It indicates that you have gone beyond having a general area of interest (gender - kinship - ethnohistory - sociolinguistics - archaeology) to a focused question or problem. Obviously you cannot know the answer to your question before you start but it is equally obvious that you cannot answer a question before you can articulate it.
2. Relevance to Existing Literature
Although a thesis must be an original contribution to knowledge, it must make that contribution within an established field of anthropological inquiry. What is the history of your problem? What information is already available? What information will add to it? How will your perspective contribute to an overall understanding of the problem? WARNING - Avoid jargon, buzzwords and name-dropping. It won't do to say "The thesis will be situated in a Derridian deconstruction of the Marxist episteme." Explain and define your terms. If you can't do so, you probably aren't thinking clearly. You are leaning on the existing literature rather than building on it
3. Availability of Material for Study
It is all very well to plan a thesis on Venerian kinship and ecology but not in this millennium. State clearly what sources of information are available to you. Give examples if possible. What kinds of information will you be collecting? Indicate that you have the skills required and have considered ethical issues and potential problems which may be specific to the proposed research.
4. Collecting and Analyzing Information
It is not enough to say "I plan to use archival (or ethnographic or whatever) sources." You must indicate what kinds of information you will gather, how you will organize it and how it will be analyed. Does the project require a language, linguistic transcription skills, quantitative ability, experience with database programs? Indicate that you have the required training. Does your argument depend on counting things or will it work to cite telling examples to demonstrate your points? Remember that data are plural and that when you mean methods, don't say "methodology" in order to sound fancy.
5. Timetable
Indicate when you plan to carry out the various phases of your work. Plan for periods of research, writing, revision, and defense. Indicate sources of funding, permissions and access to information, completion of UBC ethics committee review, travel plans and visas, personal time budget.
6. Chapter Outline
Even though you will not have collected your information at the stage of writing a proposal, you should have thought about the containers into which you will ultimately package it. What categories of information will you be collecting and how will you present them?
Conclusion
A thesis proposal should demonstrate your ability to think about a problem and identify sources of information relevant to it.You may be tempted to cram into it every theory or perspective you encountered in your courses and seminars. Avoid the temptation. Be selective. The measure of your becoming a professional is your ability to identify a relevant literature from among the many literatures you have encountered. Finally, keep in close touch with your supervisory committee. Show them drafts of your proposal. Take their advice.