To those of you who wonder what the proposal is all about:
It is as well intended for my supervisor as for any other skilled mind which does not come from my certain area of research. It shows what my idea of what I have been working on so far and explains what the drawback of related work have been. It ends with a kind of roadmap to reaching the final part of the PhD student's life: The dissertation.
In short this means I am structuring my research findings to cover 6 important points I have to address with the proposal.
- A statement of the problem and why it should be solved (is there a problem at all?)
- Reference to and comments upon relevant work in this area (what have the others done so far?)
- My ideas and insights of how to solve the problem plus results I have already obtained (this is how i role! And yes, I can do it ...)
- Characterization of the solution that is being sought after (when do I want to stop and insist on the piece of paper they call degree)
- A plan of action (what else is there to do besides writing it all down? Often many hours are buried in evaluation)
- A rough outline of the thesis (well, what the little book gonna look like?)
But as you can see, this should be enough work for the next 2 months.
