Hello and welcome back to my channel where I talk a little bit about theatre,
a little bit about being a PhD student and a little bit about those two things
smushed together. So today, in response to a number of requests down in
the comments of a few of my other videos, I wanted to talk a little bit about
research proposals.
Whether you're applying to do a PhD or potentially partway through a
master's project or looking at a research project slightly further ahead
than that, a research proposal is something that you're likely going to
have to write somewhere along the way. Essentially, what it is is a document
that sets out what you're trying to achieve with a particular piece of
research that you're suggesting that you want to do. Now, this is something
I've only done a couple of times myself so this is in no way a video where I'm
professing to be an absolute expert in this subject. But, I wanted to
let you in on my process for writing my PhD proposal in case you're
thinking of applying to a PhD program or potentially are part way through a
master's project and have to do a research proposal as part of that. So,
when I first set out to write my PhD proposal I essentially put it under
three different headings. my first one was the Research Objectives, my second
one was Background Knowledge and Context and my third section was
Methodology. After that was also an Indicative Bibliography which we'll talk
about in a little minute. So, the first section was research objectives and
essentially what this is is setting out what I was looking to achieve with the
piece of research that I'm currently doing. And in many ways, lots of these things
have shifted slightly since I actually started doing the research because,
sometimes, you can't predict what you might find out until you actually start
doing the project. But in this section I took a couple of different approaches to
laying out what I wanted to achieve at that point in time. So, although there is
definitely an argument that a PhD proposal or research proposal is an
opportunity to set out how good you are at writing, I also chose at the very very
beginning of mine to set out in bullet points what I was looking to achieve
with my PhD project. So, I put down four bullet points which broadly outlined
some of the things I was hoping to explore, analyse or find out during my
research. I then followed this up with a whole lot of context which really aimed
to suggest why I was the best person to do this research project and why it
might be important. If this is something you're looking to
develop skills doing then I'd maybe suggest looking at my last Essay
Tips video where I looked a little bit at how to really kick off an essay.
But, in using both bullet points and then a more prosaic form, what it meant was
that I'm quite aware that people that look through these proposals probably
look through an awful lot to try and shortlist down to the people that they
might interview and then to whittle it down even further after that
process. So, by using bullet points, essentially what you're doing is making
that person's job a little bit easier for them. And, as well as having that
in-depth prosaic bit where you show off your writing skills and really explain
in-depth why you want to find out these things that you've bullet pointed. But
bullet points just gives them the headlines and just really sets out nice
and simply what this research project is aiming to do. The second section that I
laid out was Background Knowledge and Context. So, within this I was aiming
to show that I've done a little bit of reasoning around this area already and
knew what direction the field was going in, as well as what some
of the key texts were. But also, in doing that, I'm also setting out, again, why this
research project is really really important. So there's bits where I'm
setting out that there is a particular gap in knowledge somewhere that I can
fill in but I'm also pointing out where, in the conclusions to an article or a
book, another scholar might have suggested that more work needed to be
done on a particular subject. Here, I'm aiming to point out bits of literature
that I agree with and will be using to reinforce my argument or to guide to my
research but also looking to point out some bits of literature which I slightly
contest. In showing that you're aware of the literature that already exists, this
area very much works in tandem with the indicative bibliography which I'll talk
about in a moment. But while the indicative bibliography
tends to be more just a laying out of different references that you might
use, this is a chance to really show that you understand those works. Not just that
you've just managed to do a Google Scholar search and write them out in a
list but you've read through a few of them and have started to get a grasp on
what fields that you're looking to
put your two pence into. Thirdly
was the section Methodology, in which, broadly speaking, I set out how I was
going to do my research project. Now this is a really important and part of any
proposal because it shows that you've not just got a passion for this subject,
you've not just done a little bit of the reading, but you've also got an idea of
how you're going to go about undertaking this research project. A PhD is three years
which in some ways feels like a very very long time and in others feels like
a very, very short amount of time and so this is an area in which you can
set out that you've thought about how those three years might play out (or
however long your research project is). So, for example, I set out that for the
first nine months I probably would mostly be delving into a lot of the existing
literature to further iron out where my research was going to sit and
how I was going to add new knowledge to the field. And then there's about a year
in which I said I was going to go and do field work, which has largely corresponded
to how I've actually done my research project. But it's worth pointing out
that this can change after you start.
Finally, any research proposal is going to involve an indicative bibliography.
And essentially what this is is a list of references which you might use in
your final research project. And this final section very much takes place in
conversation with the earlier Background Knowledge and Context section. The
trade-off being that, in the earlier section, you can go into a few sources in
real detail and really show that you've understood those and maybe criticize
them a little bit or maybe suggest how they might shape your research project.
In this section, however, all you're really able to do is list them. This
means that you're able to include a much wider range of work within your
indicative bibliography but that you can't really go into it in any detail
whatsoever other than listing it. It's worth making sure that, within this
section, you've both got some really up-to-date sources to show that you're
on top of current research in your field and you can see where it's heading at
the moment and in the near future but also you make sure that you've included
some of the really foundational texts within your field which might be
slightly older but will naturally be just as important to your research
project. In summary, I'd like to say that doing a research proposal, whether you've
got to do one or whether it's just as an exercise in order to
set your mind in the right direction for undertaking a bit of research, is a
really, really useful exercise. It makes you think about exactly how you're going
to do this piece of research as well as to start to work out what direction, what
literature you're going to need to read and what kind of directions your
project might go in. But a big thing that I'd always remember is this is the start
of a research journey it is not the end of one. So you're not expected to make
any big conclusions, you don't necessarily have to have some kind of
big hypothesis (although you might have an idea as to why you're exploring the
thing you are and where that research may head). The proposal, then, is very much
an opportunity to lay out exactly how you think it might happen at this point.
It doesn't mean these things aren't changeable as your project goes
forward, it's just to prove that you are capable of planning a project to the
detail that is required. Thank you very much for watching, I'm sure I've
left a lot of questions and a lot of open ends in this video. If you've got
any more things you want to throw up then please do put a comment below
and I'll do my best to get back to some of those, and I'm sure some of the other
wonderful people that watch these videos will also chuck in their
thoughts because that's always really useful. It's always great when these
videos are the start of a conversation rather than the end of one. But thank
you very much for watching, if you've enjoyed then please do consider
subscribing and/or give this video a thumbs up. Thanks very much and I will
see you soon!