Planning your Dissertation Part 3: 'The Research Proposal' by Roy Horn

The research proposal is the key 'gateway' document to your dissertation. It sets out the main details of how your research will be conducted. In many universities the dissertation cannot be progressed until a supervisor has been allocated and the research proposal agreed between student and supervisor. It is also a key document in formulating and crystallizing your topic ideas into a 'doable' dissertation.

The research proposal is a critical part of producing a successful dissertation. It can often seem in producing them that they are rather slow to develop and wasteful of time. If you were going to set out on a long journey, you would most likely carry out extensive planning for the trip. You should think of the research proposal as the important planning for a long journey. Unplanned journeys are really exciting but can land up anywhere and often end in chaos and failure - these are not the outcomes you want for your dissertation!

Research proposals can take many forms and can look very different, but a good starting point is to follow the main outline headings given below:

1. Title
2. Background to the research
3. The research problem
4. The objectives of the research
5. Literature
6. Methodology
7. Ethical issues
8. Access issues
9. Time-scale
10. Bibliography

Important Points

State the research problem clearly and precisely using research questions or hypotheses - this may take a few goes but it is the difference between failure and successful completion.

The research must be embedded in a critical review of the literature relating to the subject area. This is easy at the proposal stage and most good supervisors will not let the proposal go until it is clear, precise and embedded in the literature. It is a nightmare if you have to build the literature around the dissertation at a later stage!

All proposals must consider, reflect and act on ethical issues and access issues. The proposal is the place to start that critical reflection! More and more your research will need approval from an ethics committee. So you may need a separate document setting out the ethical issues and the impact the research may have on participants.

Be organised and systematic about building a bibliography from the very start! You don't want the last job you have to do, under time pressure, to be tracking down references you could have recorded at the time you read the stuff! Nowadays most students do this in Word 2007 the same software you will be using to write the dissertation.

For more detail on research proposal and bibliography check out my book Researching and Writing Dissertations (2009), Roy Horn, CIPD: London, pages 50:64.

Finally, use Tom's Planner to develop the timescale of the dissertation. Tom's planner is quick and easy to learn and use and will be crucial to the success of your dissertation. As I said in blog 2 you can easily use it to update your tutor of your progress. See the link for an example of Tom's Planner set up with the early stages of a typical dissertation:

https://www.tomsplanner.com/public/blog3

In the next blog I will look at the crucial task of 'tackling the literature' and being critical.

Get a head start on your dissertation by using this template and start planning now! This schedule will save you lots of time and energy.

***

Roy Horn is an academic at Buckinghamshire New University in the UK and tutors dissertation students. He has written two books one on dissertations and one on skills.

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Start importing from Excel & MS Project

New Import Features.

From now on you can import files from Excel and MS Project! No need to start from scratch in Tom's Planner when you've already built your project in Excel or MS Project, just open the tool, click on the import button in the toolbar and choose were you want to import files from.

A lot of our users commented that it would really help when recommending Tom's Planner to colleagues and friends, they can save time and start using Tom's Planner straight away!

Once you need the complexity of MS Project, you can also choose to export your Tom's Planner file. This feature was already part of the feature list, but has been upgraded to make the transition even easier.

What's Next:

Of course we're not stopping here, the other features on the wish list will be coming your way in the next couple of months:

1. Special columns like start/end date, total duration, 'drop downs' for resources and/or progress (20% of the votes).
2. The option to create Sub-Groups in groups in the columns (11% of the votes).
3. A Filtering Feature that lets you 'show' or 'hide' elements based on colors, specific words, values etc. (8% of the votes).

We'll keep you posted on updates!

The Tom's Planner Team

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Available on iPad & iPhone

A few months ago we decided to poll our users on what they wanted us to built next and we have been working hard to grant the first two of these wishes!

iPhone and iPad Compatibility.
Tom's Planner is now compatible with the iPad and iPhone (got 39% of the votes!). No app is required, just open Tom's Planner in your mobile browser and you're good to go! The look and feel is exactly as in a normal browser, there is just one thing you need to know when working with Tom's Planner on your mobile browser:

The magic is in the Loooong Click!

Now you can adjust schedules when you're on the move so your project plans are always up to date. You'll have insight in your projects on-site, in meetings and are able to share progress with clients. And in combination with the collaboration feature you no longer risk multiple versions of the project schedule circulating in your team!

Tip: create an icon of your Tom's Planner project plans by favoriting them in your mobile browser to go directly to your schedules when you need to check them.

Android users need to have a bit more patience, but we haven't forgotten about you.

The iPad & iPhone compatibility is available for all Tom's Planner accounts (including the free account).




New Import Features
From now on you can import files from Excel and MS Project! No need to start from scratch in Tom's Planner when you've already built your project in Excel or MS Project, just open the tool, click on the import button in the toolbar and choose were you want to import files from.

A total of 22% of our users wanted us to built this feature, a lot of them commented that it would really help when recommending Tom's Planner to colleagues and friends, they can save time and start using Tom's Planner straight away!

What's Next
Of course we're not stopping here, the other features on the wish list will be coming your way in the next couple of months:

1. Special columns like start/end date, total duration, 'drop downs' for resources and/or progress (20% of the votes).
2. The option to create Sub-Groups in groups in the columns (11% of the votes).
3. A Filtering Feature that lets you 'show' or 'hide' elements based on colors, specific words, values etc. (8% of the votes).

We'll keep you posted on updates!

The Tom's Planner Team

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Planning your Dissertation Part 2 : 'Taming that Dissertation!' by Roy Horn

The first step in taming your dissertation is to define and refine the research question. This is just a posh way of saying what your research will do – so don’t let the wording put you off. All dissertations should have a clearly set out aim statement. For example:

‘The aim of this research is to carry out a qualitative case investigation of employee absence at SEDO Ltd using the Steers and Rhodes (1978) notion of Ability to Attend’

This is a good start, it is precise, but there is not enough detail to use as a practical guide – remember precision and breaking tasks down into smaller units is good planning. So we must add more detail in a different form. Also remember that these statements are your setting of the dissertation exam paper – so you need to set the right exam! Take time at the beginning so that you can achieve what you say you will achieve by the end.

Research questions
Research questions are one such way and are very suited to non-quantitative dissertations. These look like this:

RQ(1) – Investigate the pattern of attendance for individual employees.

RQ(2) – Investigate Employee issues related to ‘ability to attend’

RQ(3) – and so on…

…until you have listed all the required elements that the dissertation will cover.


Hypotheses
The other common method is to express quantitative aspects of a dissertation as hypotheses. Such as:

H1 - Students with jobs spend more on books than those without jobs

H2 – Students who get high grades spend more on books than those who get low grades


For more detail on creating appropriate hypotheses check out my book Researching and Writing Dissertations (2009), Roy Horn, CIPD: London, pages 189:190.


Find a Supervisor
So now you have an aim and some more precise statements its time to find a supervisor and see if they think the research is doable. Some universities allow you to select you own supervisor and some just allocate them. Either way you need to establish a quick and effective communication channel to your supervisor. The two main tasks with supervisors are reporting progress and asking questions. Tom’s Planner is a really easy and quick way to update your supervisor. If you share the link to your planning schedule on Tom’s Planner they can see how you are progressing. Then, just pop them an email with the link in once a week. Hey presto! That tricky little issue is solved.


Break the tasks in to doable chunks
The real key to taming the dissertation is to break all the tasks required in to small doable chunks. That is good planning! If some of the tasks can be done by friends and family that is good management. There are some classic areas you just do not want to have to do yourself. Such as, interview transcription, data entry and proofing reading. Using Tom’s Planner you can schedule these tasks. Then you and they know what to do by when. You will already have plenty of work to do with coursework and exams so don’t waste time doing boring and repetitive tasks that someone else can do.

Don’t forget to have a look at my developing planning schedule to see how it is done:

https://www.tomsplanner.com/public/topiclevel

In the next blog I will look in detail at how to structure the dissertation proposal.

Get a head start on your dissertation by using this template and start planning now! This schedule will save you lots of time and energy.

***

Roy Horn is an academic at Buckinghamshire New University in the UK and tutors dissertation students. He has written two books one on dissertations and one on skills.

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Planning your Dissertation Part 1: 'Dissertations learn to love them' by Roy Horn

So you’re doing a dissertation that’s really exciting! But hang on, that is also really scary! At the start there looks to be a lot to do. How will you organise the biggest thing you have ever attempted? The good news is that you can learn to love and enjoy your dissertation! No, I am not joking! Some people really enjoy their dissertations. They get a lot out of them and more importantly they get a good grade!

So why do some people enjoy them and get good grades and some people think they are the worst and most boring nightmare? It is all down to Planning. Dissertations are just like any other project! Hell! That is all they are - a project. Once you are in work you will be juggling several projects at once – so the dissertation should be a piece of cake! Like any project a dissertation is:

• A start point
• A list of tasks
• An end point

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New Feature: Printing Full Color

From now on you have two options when printing Tom's Planner schedules: printer-friendly and full color. Click the print button in the toolbar and select the color settings of your choice. At Tom's Planner we try to think green and only print when really necessary and when possible use recycled paper.

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