Proposal Planning and Structure Review

Strengthen the proposal before polishing the wording

A proposal is easier to revise when its reasoning is clear before sentence-level editing begins. The review focuses first on whether the research question, rationale, literature, method and planned outputs fit together.

What is reviewed

• The research question and whether its scope is workable.
• The relationship between the stated problem and the literature review.
• Whether the proposed method can answer the question that is being asked.
• Assumptions, missing definitions and decisions that need evidence or supervisor confirmation.
• Organisation, headings and the sequence in which the argument is presented.

What this does not replace

Your supervisor, department and graduate office remain the authority for programme-specific rules and approval. Where a template, ethics process, required form or institutional deadline matters, use the current official source.

After the proposal stage, continue with thesis workflow planning or defence preparation when your project reaches that stage.