Components of Thesis Proposal

Thesis proposal is written by a student who is working on a masters or doctoral degree to be presented and carefully reviewed by a committee to determine if the subject is appropriate or suitable and relevant to the field of study.  If your thesis proposal does not approve by the committee because they see that it does not have any value in the chosen topic, you will have to do other thesis proposal.  So, thesis proposal is one of the important parts of a dissertation or thesis.

If you want to have a successful thesis proposal, you should outline your thesis topic, discuss the issues the paper will address and explains why the topic deserves further research.  Identify a specific problem and offer a detailed solution for that problem.

Here are some basic components of your thesis proposal

  • Title Page. Short and descriptive title of the proposed thesis project as well as the author, research mentor and date of delivery.
  • Abstract. A brief summary of your thesis proposal and it should not excess more than 200 words.
  • Table of Contents. List of headings and subheadings with page numbers.
  • Introduction. Background of your study and should capture reader’s interest.
  • Thesis statement. State your thesis.  It can be in the form of a hypothesis, research question, project statement or goal statement.
  • Approach or Methods. Describe the methods to be used and contains description of your approach, materials and procedures as well as calculation and techniques.
  • Preliminary results and discussion. Discuss the results of your study.
  • Work plan. Time table of your project such as the indicating deadlines and the work already completed.
  • Implication of research. New knowledge will likely to produce.
  • List of reference.  Cite all references used.