Frustration is typically what students feel when comes to finding the correct dissertation proposal format. A lot of reference books and other website would give you different techniques on how to write a dissertation proposal format but it is very important to know that there is a sequence of pages or chapter that you can use.

In creating your dissertation, you also need to take into account what type of citation that you are going to use because this is going to greatly have an impact on your dissertation proposal format.

The title page is basically the first that you need to write. It should include a title of course and instead of typing in dissertation you need to type in dissertation proposal. You title should be at least contain five worlds and then you can include a subtitle.

In dissertation proposal format, you need also to put in a brief abstract that is not more than three hundred fifty words and it should be to summarize all the contents of the dissertation itself. After the abstract, you should start writing the introduction which is generally used to give the reader a general over view of the background of the study and also the issues that made you do the study.

Next, you have to write the statement of the problem. It should be able to identify the problems that you wish to tackle and if there is some dissatisfaction with the present knowledge in a certain field of interest or industry. It should be clear and precise and should be able to also identify the basic purpose of the study and how it help in the advancement of the field that you are investigating.

A basic dissertation proposal format should also include the research questions and or your hypothesis about the certain field that you wish to investigate. After that, you can start writing the chapter on methods and procedure. This is where you need to put how you will undertake the studies, what information and resources that you are going to use, how you will obtain the information and what sampling procedures you will employ.

This section should be able to convey the reliability and the validity of the information that will be used in answering the research questions and should be able to describe the procedure of analyzing a certain data set that can be related to the research questions that you want to answer or the hypothesis that you want to test out. Also, this section should have clear and precise descriptions of the instruments and the procedures that are going to be used in gathering all the data that you need.

After you have written the methods and procedures part, you need to write a section which would address the weakness and the limitations of the study. Lastly, you need to create a reference page which should contain all the references that have been used in the study and you should follow the format that is required of you like the Chicago style, MLA or APA.

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One of the most common mistakes new college writers make in literature courses is that they produce a plot summary, not a thesis for their essays. When you produce a plot summary, you are only regurgitating the author’s words about the events in the story.  When you actually write a thesis, you are creating an explanation of why the author wrote what they wrote, and about the writing devices they used to create the piece of literature. In other words, you are answering a big question about the work, not just creating a synopsis.

For example, if I was writing about the novel The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, I might create a thesis about how as the Joad family moves west to California, Pa’s role of family leader gradually being taken over by Ma symbolizes the upheavals workers were facing at the time the novel was written. I might also compare the severe economic crisis we are now facing to the conditions faced by workers in the 1930’s and compare and contrast them as a subsection to my thesis.

The possibilities are endless for a thesis; however, usually we are given specific prompts to write from for essay assignments. Read them carefully, and evaluate what your professor is looking for. Professors all have certain themes that they like to stress in class–you must be ready to pick up on these and use them to your full advantage when writing your essays.  Now, I’m not saying to attempt to recreate your professor’s take on any specific subject word-for-word; but I am saying to be smart and don’t deliberately try and contradict everything your prof has expounded upon or you may find yourself with a disappointing grade. Try to find some middle ground to write from.

The best way to approach writing a thesis is to ask a question, then attempt to answer it. In the example from The Grapes of Wrath, I would ask myself why Steinbeck’s characters underwent the changes they did, and how this contributed to the overall message of the novel. Writers almost never write detail in a novel, short story or poem randomly; it’s our job as readers to ask questions why the writers use the specific literary devices available to them to create enduring understandings of our human nature through literature.

So for goodness (and grades!) sake, take the time and thought necessary to develop a good thesis. It’s the key to learning to write well about literature.  The same skills can be used for many humanities courses as well. If you are having difficulty with developing your thesis, check and see if your college or university offers a writing lab. These are staffed by specially trained students who are strong writers and will be able to help you develop a thesis.

One of THE most helpful things I have ever learned in an English class, courtesy of Mr.Powell and Mrs.Herold of Joel.E.Ferris High School in Spokane, WA, is this suberb way to analyze  literature effectively and thoroughly. It’s called Q-IDEA, and to this day still remains to be most most effective weapon  to analyze any kind of literature thrown at me.

Q-IDEA is a way to use quotes in works of literature as very good justification for an opinion in any sort of essay, report, etc. that has to do with literature. This is what the letters in the acronym QIDEA signify:

Q- simply stands for the QUOTE chosen from the work of writing to use as justification.

I-stands for IDENTIFYING the literary device being used, like imagery, symbolism, allegory etc.

D-stands for DEFINING the literary device in the context of the work of writing.

E-stands for EXPLAINING the reader’s reaction.

A-stands for AUTHOR’S INTENT, meaning, what is the big picture that the quote is trying to convey; what is the the author’s intent for using that literary device within the quotation.

I know this may seem confusing at first but believe me this is very very effective when done properly. Here is an example I will use to clear things up. This is taken from “The Great Gatsby,” by F.Scott. Fitzgerald:”This is a valley of ashes – a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of gray cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-gray men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight,” (from Chapter 2). In this quote, Fitzerald is using METAPHOR and IMAGERY. In the example to follow,  I will  explain just the metaphor using QIDEA .

Q-”This is a valley of ashes – a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of gray cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-gray men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight,” (from Chapter 2; remember you need to ALWAYS cite where you got the quote from).

I-The literary device used in this quote is a metaphor.

D-The metaphor in this quote is used to explain the human corruption and the fakeness of the area, the ash represents the dreams built on lies and ghastly sight of it all. The ash is also representative of something already dead, as in the lives of the people that reside within. The ash also “stirs up an impenetrable cloud,” that clouds the outsiders views of it, making it appear real and like a dream even though there is nothing truly “real,” about the place.

E-The reader immediately gets the reaction that although there may be gardens and houses and cars, it’s really not made up of beautiful things, in fact it gives a sense of things already dead. It makes the reader almost shrug at the thought of the place as being dirty and un-alive, like a ghost town almost, yet with people living and houses and activities going on.

A-The Author’s intent in this is to make the reader see that it may be a place with life in it but there is not real life there and the people that live their obsess over things that are un-real and seem to be holding onto dead dreams of materialism and shallowness. This is not a place of dreams where everything you wish could come true, it is the author’s way of showing the truth through the cloud of lies.

This is my analysis of the quote and I hope it clears things up for you. Using QIDEA in an essay, you do not need to necessarily write QIDEA out formally in your essay, but  use the inputs together in one fluent paragraph and you have a very thoroughly explained quote and all the justification you need to back up your opinion. This has helped me to read more in depth and certainly worked wonders for  me everytime I’ve written an essay on literature; I hope this has been helpful to you as well.

What questions do you have about essay writing? Post them here and we’ll do our best to solve your essay writing questions. Short of writing the actual essay, of course!