Arguably, writing up a dissertation proposal is much more difficult than writing the actual proposal itself. In any given field of study, there are any number of different dissertation ideas, which can make choosing a single topic for your own dissertation that much harder. You have to be extremely careful when choosing a topic, because naturally, of course, your entire dissertation will hinge on that. If you choose a subject or a proposal which is too difficult, you may never prove what you need to prove. If you choose a subject or a proposal that is not broad enough, then your paper will fall short all the way around.
You need to choose a topic of research about which you yourself can develop a clear and concise understanding; only if you can understand it and convey it in your dissertation proposal will you be able to do so in the paper itself. It is always recommended that you check out a dissertation proposal sample – a good one, at that – so that you can get an idea about what you need to do. Believe it or not, sometimes it is better to look for dissertation ideas on a subject about which you do not know as much – that way, the entire proposal will be a learning process for you. More importantly, you will not risk coloring your research with your own knowledge and biases.
It is not uncommon to take a few months to write up a dissertation proposal. Many students go through upwards of twenty drafts, even though the structure of the proposal itself is rather easy to follow. Like any other academic paper, it begins with an introduction, wherein you will summarize the largest and most important issues you will be discussing. You need to pinpoint where your research stands in regards to the broader topic (i.e., if you are talking about chromosomes, tie that into genetics as a whole). Your primary research question also needs to be included in the introduction.
The second section of your dissertation proposal is where you state the problem. That is, you state the core issue, the specific questions which go along with it, the context and background of the issue, and the overall importance of the issue. This is, of course, part of the proposal body; also part of the body is the conceptual framework of your proposal. Here you answer the questions of how you see the issue, what it addresses, and what its key points and factors are. You have to describe what you think is happening in the issue, and the definitions of any important terms.
Next comes your methodology chapter, where you describe what you intend to do in your actual dissertation and explain why, as well as how you intend to tie all these questions and methods into the conceptual framework. Many students generally find that this is the easiest part of their proposal, but as always, there will be lots of proposal help available to you, in terms of setting up your paper, subject manner, resources, etc.
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