Writing the thesis proposal

How to start

After we agree on a workable plan, you can start writing your thesis proposal based on my feedback and comments to your first (or second) draft.

What to prepare

A thesis proposal that meets the general requirement (see Thesis Manual) and my personal standard.

Guidance for preparation

Besides the general requirements, I have some personal standards on a thesis proposal. The purpose of having a higher standard is to guarantee that the thesis can be finished smoothly.

The thesis proposal consists of the following five parts, with a total length about 20 pages (the page limit is indicative, not a requirement)

The introduction starts with motivating the research question, preferably by a real life problem. Use one or two existing articles to describe to what extent the problem has been solved in literature. Right after the motivation, the research question must be stated clearly, and briefly. If the research question is indeed complex, and requires background information, you still need to inform the readers about the general direction of your research at this early place. The exact research question can be presented later after presenting background information.

After the motivation, the introduction should be continued with a general description on how you would solve the research question, particularly, which method you are going to use. It is important to provide arguments on why your proposed method would work This part can be viewed as a summary of the methodology section, but should contain no formula. Please note that the arguments are based on either logic or literature. Even before going through the analysis, the reader can be convinced that your proposed method would work.

After the description of your work, the Introduction should contain a brie literature review on relevant studies. The number of papers reviewed in the proposal can be limited. Please do not review a paper because you have to review some papers. For each stream of literature you reviewed, you have to discuss what the relevance to the underlying research is, in particular, what is the relation between your proposed research and the reviewed paper.

It is not necessary to completely plan your methodology because you may modify them during your research. Nevertheless, there are three points that you must cover.

Firstly, clearly introduce your notations such as variable definitions, etc. Secondly, write the building blocks of your methodology. It is advisable to divide them into subsections with meaningful subsection titles. Lastly and most importantly, for the most essential building block (usually the novel contribution of your thesis), write down the details of the methodology. For example, for a maximum likelihood approach, write down the likelihood equation; for an estimation procedures, write down the estimator.

The Data section documents how data is retrieved. This is not only a proposal: you should have actually retrieved data. The descriptive statistics of the data should be presented in tables or figures at the end of this section.

In this short section (often half a page), please answer the following two questions, please plan provide a time frame of your working plan. Please also indicate the time period during which you cannot work on the thesis. Examples are holidays and other activities such as internships, resits, etc.

Make sure that all references cited in the proposal are given in the reference list and vice versa. Also make sure that the citation style is in line with typical scientific journals.

Academic writing

The requirement of academic writing for the thesis proposal is at the highest level. I would suggest you start with reading the tips on CANVAS, the module "Academic writing". Many of my requirements/tips below are in line with his suggestions.

Do's:

Write from the perspective of the reader: make the structure of the text understandable for an average reader without specific knowledge in the filed you are working on. In particular, think carefully about the order of the texts.

Try to use active form as much as possible, in particular, when it is "you" who decided to do something. For example, "we use the maximum likelihood estimator to estimate A" rather than "A is estimated by the maximum likelihood estimator". Limit your use of passive form. Use that only if you are making an objective statement. It is OK to write "We" (as if the reader is also on board) or "I" (as if you are telling the story) as the subject in a sentence.

Please write in academic language, i.e. precise and effective. Each sentence must be justified or justifiable.

Check whether any two conjunction sentences possess a proper logic or linkage between them.

Make sure that your proposal is free of spelling mistakes or grammar error.

Don'ts:

Do not make bold statement without justification. Examples of bold statements are "... has been extensively studied in the literature." "Banks are concerned about risks." (If you say so, please provide evidence such as references)

Do not use emotional words such as "very important", "very interesting" unless you can justify them. (I think you cannot justify! What you find interesting might not be interesting to a reader!)

Do not write very long sentence. (A sentence occupying five lines should be split.) If you can write in two sentences, do not write in one.

Do not use oral language such as "if you look at A, you would believe that B is correct."

Suggested style

You are very much encouraged to write your thesis in LaTeX. Please use a Times New Roman font with font size 12, at least 1.5 line spacing (double spacing preferred during the writing process), at least 1inch spacing in all four margins.

What to expect

You will receive feedback on the final draft of the proposal. If needed, we have a meeting to discuss the draft and agree on the final modifications towards the proposal.

Typically, you conduct another round of minor revision based on the feedback and comments. If the revised version is good, then the status of your thesis is "proposal accepted". You also receive 4 ECTS for the thesis proposal.

What can go wrong

If your final draft of the proposal does not meet the standard, i.e. the quality of the proposal is severely below the requirement above, I will provide your feedback and guidance in a meeting. Then you have another chance to submit a new version of the proposal.

If the new version still does not meet the standard, the thesis proposal receives a "fail" in the system. You will be provided with the reason why it is a fail.

Time line regarding this Step

After handling in your final draft of the thesis proposal, it typically takes 1-2 weeks till receiving my feedback and having the meeting about the thesis proposal.

In some exceptional case, the proposal stage can run much longer than expected, for example, if we mutually agree that we would like to write down the entire methodology part. In such a case, finishing the proposal can take up to two months and finishes a few weeks before the first draft of the thesis. Please do not feel discouraged if the thesis proposal stage is getting longer: you can start the analysis in parallel!

 

 

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