Hi there,

I have a PhD supervisor and a research proposal which has been initially accepted as platform for my PhD reseach.

I have been asked by the chief of department to refine my research question and rewrite the proposal in a concise manner. I am struggling to get my proposal adjusted but I am afraid I don't have any background information about how a good proposal is or should be.

I am eager to get your reactions...and does anyone with sufficient experience in PhD have a good example of a research proposal / motivation letter ?

- My PhD proposal is about Multilingual Language Policy

Thank you in advance.


Regards,
Réda

Hi Zenith,

I don't have an example, but if you like some advice, I can help you ;)

What helps me is to go out and explain my research proposal to others, especially other PhD students. This way I can improve my question (with research gap and relevance), methodology and possible answers.

All the best.

Hi Réda,

It can be hard to be concise when you are passionate about your research and want to talk about it as much as possible but being concise and to the point is a skill that academics and researchers must have in order to communicate their research effectively.

My advice would be:
1) take a good look at your proposal and check whether everything in there is needed. Perhaps your original proposal highlighted your own in depth knowldge but is it needed for your reader to understand what your research is about or is trying to acheive?
2) Do you need the complete literature review in your proposal at this stage?
3) Are there stylistic changes you could make so that your word count is reduced? I tend to write long winded sentences (probably illustrated in this post) and I find that it complicates what I would like to say (as well as adding to the word count).

I wrote this guide a couple of years ago which may be helpful:
http://www.ed.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.58205!/fileManager/HowToWriteProposal.pdf

Best of luck,
Nathalie