I’ve answered a number of questions about dissertation prospectuses over the years, but finally a student asked simply, “What is the purpose of the prospectus?” and I thought: I’ve never really answered that question. Here’s my attempt to answer.
I welcome feedback, and I’m curious to know whether it might be useful outside my own department. I located my own prospectus from the early 90s, when I was at Notre Dame’s Medieval Institute, and I find that the sections almost match the ones we ask in my current department (English at the University of South Florida). Please feel free to comment!
My draft document:
The dissertation prospectus serves multiple purposes: some for the doctoral candidate, some for the committee members, and some for both. In the USF English Department, we expect prospectuses to be roughly 15–40 pages and have set sections: see the PhD Handbook, “The Prospectus,” (especially pages 36–7) for details about departmental expectations. This document seeks to give a little more insight into how the process of writing the prospectus prepares the candidate to write the dissertation itself and what directors and readers expect.
The prospectus is not set in stone, but it is a valuable working document. Major changes to the purpose, scope, methodology, or sources should be discussed with the director and often readers as well.
Later in the process, it can be easy to lose the forest for the trees. The prospectus gives an overview of the forest to which the candidate can return to remember the overarching argument if this happens. Portions may be adapted for use in the dissertation itself.
Committee members have the prospectus for reference and may return to it if the dissertation seems to depart greatly from the original plan for the dissertation, but once a prospectus is approved, committee members tend not to reread it.
For the candidate: The prospectus offers an excellent opportunity to practice writing clear prose that presents well formulated and well structured arguments.
For the committee: The prospectus offers an opportunity to see whether the candidate can write clearly and comprehensibly about sophisticated ideas and arguments.
Definition of Purpose: This portion should be only a few pages and explain the research question and tentative argument.
For the candidate: Writing this section gives boundaries to the research project: what will be included (and, by implication, what will not). In literature, it briefly explains which primary texts will be the main focus and why, and how the research builds upon existing scholarship to invent new knowledge and understanding.
The candidate can also use this section as a starting point for discussing the dissertation with friends and colleagues, particularly early in the process.
For committees: The Definition of Purpose demonstrates to a committee that a candidate has a research project appropriate for a dissertation (more or less a book-length project). It displays the candidate’s sense of the field: what matters, where more work can be done, and what previous work can provide a foundation on which to build something new.
The committee needs to see that the candidate has a realistic plan for a work that can be completed within the time allowed and that the dissertation will make an original contribution to the field.
Review of the Critical Literature: This portion is the longest part of the prospectus and in some ways the most important, for here candidates engage deeply with the critical conversation they are entering.
For the candidate: By gathering, summarizing, and grappling with key secondary literature before starting the dissertation itself, the candidate accumulates a strong bibliography and a good understanding of it.
Candidates should extend their skills in bibliography to find as much relevant work as possible. Not all of it will fit into this section, but the candidate should keep full bibliographical records of each item they skim or read and notes on the overall argument and how it is or is not valuable to their work.
Candidates must exercise good critical judgment to decide which works are important and must be covered in the prospectus; which will help the dissertation but in a minor enough way that they need not be covered here; and which do not belong in the dissertation at all because they contribute little or nothing new to the field, have become outdated, or prove unreliable.
The process can help to avoid problems later: a candidate who reads well in the field will not suddenly discover that their argument has already been made, or soundly rebutted, before. If a new work appears that overlaps with their own, they will be well practiced in reading critically to see whether they need to adjust their topic or approach to avoid repeating or contradicting strong new work, or whether their own work complements or corrects the new work.
At this stage, candidates accumulate most of the secondary literature they will use. They should continue to add as new works are published and as they find previously published work that they had missed, or which become relevant as their arguments or approaches change. However, in this stage, candidates will complete much of the heaviest work of the dissertation: the secondary reading.
Candidates should reach a fuller understanding of where scholarship stands and where they owe intellectual debts, and what they contribute to the field.
For the committee: The Literature Review allows readers to see candidates’ critical thinking. The Review reveals first how well candidates know the field and can identify distinct schools of thought and the major scholars within them. This section shows whether candidates have strong bibliographical skills or need help finding more relevant materials. It also indicates how well candidates can identify and briefly summarize other people’s work, focusing on major points and points that intersect with candidates’ own projects.
Committees want to see that candidates do not uncritically accept every argument advanced in print, nor are they purely contrarian. They also want to see that candidates make appropriate claims for their own work in relation to others, neither claiming credit for a new discovery or interpretation when it has been offered before nor minimizing their differences from previous work and own contributions to the field.
Description of Methodology: This section in some ways overlaps with the previous two, but it gives more detail about how the dissertation will make and support its arguments. Candidates should identify the critical schools of thought they follow, any techniques being used for data gathering or analysis, and major tools they will use (software, databases, etc.).
For the candidate: This section fleshes out the purpose described in the first section and sets it in the broader scholarly conversation clearly set forth in the second section. Candidates decide at this point which critical approaches and tools will be most useful so they can prioritize those.
This section may help the candidate sketch out a timeline: what analysis must be carried out, or what data gathered, before any of the chapters can be written? Before a specific chapter can be written?
For the committee: This portion shows that the candidate has a coherent methodology—or allows the committee to identify inconsistencies, misunderstandings, or gaps in the candidate’s understanding before the candidate goes into the dissertation itself. The committee can suggest additional approaches or tools if appropriate while the candidate is still early enough in the process to incorporate them for the whole dissertation.
Identification of Objects or Texts to Be Studied: This section is often folded into one or more of the other sections: texts are usually laid out in the Definition of Purpose, and databases may be mentioned there or in Methodology.
Outline: This section offers a tentative table of contents for the dissertation. Each chapter or section should receive one to three paragraphs describing the specific argument that the candidate plans to make in each and how it contributes to the overall argument.
For the candidate: Because most people write a chapter at a time, this section provides a work plan. Chapters need not be done in order; just the identification of individual units of the argument helps.
This section often adapts well into a timeline.
For the committee: This section shows that the candidate has conceived of a reasonable division of the work and arguments into coherent parts and can articulate at least research questions, and preferably a tentative thesis, for each chapter.
This section may reveal that too much or too little has been planned for the dissertation: an introduction, conclusion, and three to six body chapters are generally good. Fewer than three body chapters, or more than six body chapters, may indicate that the dissertation will be too long or too short, too superficial or too complex, or that the connections among portions need to be rethought.
Bibliography/Works Cited: This must include every item cited in the prospectus, but there are various options for organizing and even for what else to include.
The committee may want all items that the candidate plans to use in the dissertation included, or they may want only items cited in the prospectus, or something in between.
The committee may want a breakdown into primary and secondary texts, or a breakdown by chapters, or both.
- A breakdown by chapters works best when each chapter has a discrete group of cited works and little overlap; it does not work well if many chapters cite the same works, so that the candidate must either repeat them for each chapter or risk readers unable to find a work cited in the Literature Review because they’re not sure to which chapters they apply.
- A breakdown into primary and secondary texts works best when these groups are truly distinct so there is never any question where a text should be. This breakdown does not work well if there is much overlap between the two, as may happen in modern or contemporary literature or a dissertation on critical theory.
What do you think?
Nicole Guenther Discenza 