HD·R4·01 Research
Thesis Proposal & Research Design
The document that decides whether your thesis is fundable and finishable.
A thesis proposal must convince a committee that a research question is significant, answerable, and feasible within real time and resource constraints. This course covers structuring a proposal, justifying research design choices, and scoping a thesis so it can actually be completed.
In Development
This course's full module content is being written. The outline below is final, subscribe for updates when it publishes.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
- 01 Structure a thesis proposal that a committee can evaluate efficiently
- 02 Justify research design choices explicitly rather than leaving them implicit
- 03 Scope a thesis question to be significant yet feasible within real constraints
- 04 Anticipate and address likely committee objections in advance
- 05 Write a research timeline that is realistic rather than aspirational
- 06 Revise a proposal in response to committee feedback productively
- Significance, soundness, and feasibility are all required, not any one alone
- A brilliant question with an infeasible plan still fails at proposal stage
- Structure should make the core argument easy to find and evaluate
- A buried argument, however sound, reads as a weaker proposal
- Implicit design choices invite committee skepticism
- Explicit justification pre-empts the most common committee questions
- Scope failure usually favours ambition over feasibility, or vice versa
- Both demands must be satisfied together, not traded off
- Proactive self-critique is stronger than waiting to be challenged
- Committees respond well to authors who have already considered the obvious objections
- Aspirational timelines are a common, predictable source of later thesis delay
- Realistic timelines should be informed by comparable prior work, not hope