University:
Boston University
Course:
QST SM 101 | Introduction to Management
Academic year:

2021
Views:

79

Pages:

23
Author:

Desirae Cervantes

Goals of the workshop ● Understand why we need dissertation prospectuses/research proposals ● Understand the prospectus writing & submission process ● How to write to maximize your impact ● Assess the quality of your prospectus A Roadmap for your PhD Research Project The Dissertation Proposal is the ﬁrst formal document that you will submit to your dissertation committee that highlights your research question and how you plan to answer it. Why do we need dissertation/research proposals? Please add any ideas in the chat! Why do we need dissertation proposals? ● ● It ensures you have a plan for your research, since you need to describe: ○ Why you conduct your research (literature review → research question) ○ What you need to do to answer your research question ○ How you will collect evidence to answer your research question ○ The “What for” of your research project (impact) Good news: you will not do this alone! ○ PhD Dissertation Committee ○ Chat with them at each step of the reﬂection & writing process Process to get your dissertation proposals accepted Identify your Readers Prepare the Prospectus Step 2 Submit the Prospectus Step 3 Step 1 Discussion your Prospectus with your Readers Step 6 Step 4 Step 5 Revise the Prospectus Approve the Prospectus Steps 1 & 2: Your Readers How many readers do you need? ● ● Typically 2 or 3 ○ Usually one is your advisor ● What’s your project? Are you required to only have readers in your department? ○ Can you have outside readers across departments and/or outside of BU? ● Are you starting “from scratch”? Are you developing something your have already researched on? ○ Your advisor’s project or the lab’s project ○ An existing MA thesis or seminar paper? How well do you work together? ● ● What is your working style? Their working style? What kind of mentorship do you want for the next few years? Steps 3 & 4: Prepare and Revise Do some pre-prep work ● General requirements vary ○ Mech E: 10 page prospectus + 350 word abstract; ○ GRS: 20 pages ● ● ● Find models! ● Revisions ● Do they want a whole draft? Or parts? Be realistic and practice ○ Use this as an opportunity to practice hitting deadlines for your dissertation Expect a few rounds of revisions! ○ Use this as practice for the dissertation. Set deadlines together ○ Or, check your grad handbook, and ask other students Reach out! ○ Ask older students (those in your lab, same advisor, similar topics) if they might share resources ● Conﬁrm the writing process with your readers ● Start identifying recurring feedback ● Practice asking for high and low-order feedback ● Create accountabilitydeadlines, writing groups Steps 5 & 6: Submit and Approve! Make a Checklist ● Larger graduate program deadlines ● Department deadlines ● Identify all approvals needed ● All approval forms required by your graduate school Deadlines with readers ● Conﬁrm IRB approvals if necessary ● General requirements- double check ● Approve date for oral defense ● Note that you can make this checklist beforehand! ○ If you don’t know what the oral defense will entail, talk to your readers and older students! Content of Dissertation Proposals Content of Dissertation Proposals Please write in the chat: If you were a member of a dissertation committee, what would you like to see in a research proposal? General Outlines of the Dissertation Prospectus What is your Research Question? Why is it important? How are you planning to explore this question? Can you achieve your goals in the time you have? Where are you conducting research? The order may change, some parts may be more detailed than others, but all dissertation prospectuses have these components General Outlines of the Dissertation Prospectus STEM/Social Sciences ● ● ● ● ● ● ● Statement of the problem Background Current status and signiﬁcance of proposed project Approaches/methods to reach resolution Preliminary Results Anticipated timeline Tables and Figures Humanities ● ● ● ● ● ● Statement of thesis/purpose Existing Literature/Literature Review (identify the “gap”) Your approach/method for the project Brief outline and summary of chapters Preliminary work and expected work that needs to be done Images, list of archival documents, list of primary and/or secondary sources Content of Dissertation Proposals - Writing Order The discovery process of your readers Title Abstract Intro/Conclusion Main text The order in which you must write your proposal Content - Title A good title is: ● ● ● short (try to aim for 15-20 words max), simple - avoid very technical terms or jargon, concisely and precisely indicates the nature and the direction of your project. To create a good title, ask yourself the questions below: ➔ ➔ What is my project about? Who/What do I plan to study? How am I planning to answer my research question? List keywords in the answers to the questions above Create a Sentence with the keywords → shorten it! Content - Context/Signiﬁcance After conducting and writing a literature review, it is time to lay the foundation of your research project: ● Explain the intellectual, scientiﬁc, theoretical, etc. context of your research, ● Demonstrate your knowledge of the literature (focus on a speciﬁc set of papers, critically analyze them and confront opinions and methodologies), ● Anchor your study in the context presented. Organize your ﬁndings and your thoughts: ● Reference Management Software Content - Problem/Purpose Statement Characteristics of a research topic: ● ● ● ● Interesting Doable Signiﬁcant Ethical Points that must be included in a purpose statement: ● ● ● ● ● Context of the research Problem/Purpose statement Explain why it matters Explain how you will address the problem (brieﬂy) Explain the impact of your research Content - Methodology Think about and include: ● Type of data needed to answer your research question - quantitative vs qualitative ● Type of sample that you will work on (archival documents, human subjects, other organisms, books, etc.) - selection criteria, length of the study, sample collection… ● Tools needed to conduct your research - questionnaires, examinations, instruments... ● Protocols or procedures - experiments, ﬁeld work, systematic review... ● Data Analysis - from data curation to data visualization (+ references in support) ● Risk management - anticipate difﬁculties, potential limitations, etc. are you planning on overcoming these challenges? How Content - Bibliography & Appendices ● Bibliography ○ ● Make sure to check how many references are expected by your graduate program Appendices ○ Tests, questionnaires, or other instruments you may need to conduct your research, ○ Protocols you plan on using or optimizing, ○ Any other page required by your graduate program. How to maximize your impact! How to maximize your impact! How to maximize your impact! Introduction: Problem Statement and Why My dissertation will discuss serial river photographs, groups of images that, when viewed together one after another, show the length of the river methodically. I argue that these photographic series are settler colonial images, both a product of and complicit in violence towards people and landscapes. These photographs symbolically control waterscapes and foreshadow the industrial conquest of water central to settlement of the western United States in the early decades of the twentieth century. The images are deeply enmeshed in nineteenth-century water politics and Euro-American expansionist discourses and erase alternate uses and histories of the land, especially those of indigenous people. They act as sites of interaction between rivers and photography, two individual but intertwined instruments of expansion and settler colonialism. Control of the land and water, as visualized in and foreshadowed by these images, connects directly to the climate crises that pervade news headlines today. Euro-American ecological sensibilities conveyed in nineteenth-century landscape photography exacerbate drought, wildfires, and flooding. Key Takeaways ● Prospectuses are a roadmap for your research project(s) ● Prospectus proposals can also provide practice for: ○ Future research and grant proposals ○ Mentorship communication ● Prospectuses differ by department and schools, always check guidelines! ● At the same time… the content of prospectuses is the same across disciplines ○ ● What, why, how, when, where Create a checklist(s) when you write your prospectus! ○ Checklist for deadlines ○ Checklist for important qualities and components Assess the quality of your prospectus 1. Complete - does your prospectus follow all the required elements? 2. Meaningful - has a meaningful gap been identiﬁed? 3. Justiﬁed - is the problem signiﬁcant for your ﬁeld? 4. Grounded - is the problem identiﬁed backed up by the literature? 5. Original - does this project have the potential to make an original contribution? 6. Impact - does this project have the potential to have an impact (scholarship, social impact)? 7. Feasible - can a systematic approach be used to answer the question w/i a few years? 8. Aligned - do the various aspects of the prospectus align with each other? 9. Objective - is the topic approached in an objective way?