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Writing a Dissertation Proposal

Writing a Dissertation Proposal. Purpose. Qualifying Exam (Dissertator status) Plan for your remaining education Convince your thesis committee the dissertation will “work” Beginnings of at least a first paper/chapter. TimeLine. Second Year: Field Classes, papers, looking around.

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Writing a Dissertation Proposal

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  1. Writing a Dissertation Proposal

  2. Purpose • Qualifying Exam (Dissertator status) • Plan for your remaining education • Convince your thesis committee the dissertation will “work” • Beginnings of at least a first paper/chapter.

  3. TimeLine • Second Year: Field Classes, papers, looking around. • Summer After Second Year: Begin a search on a topic, meet with faculty. • Third year: Develop proposal in Fall, Proposal Defense by end of Second Semester.

  4. Finding a Topic • Feasible vs Interesting • Someone here to work with • Interesting enough to you to keep you motivated • Four Basic Approaches • Expand Existing Literature • The RA Route • The Newspaper or Hot Topic • The Faculty Suggestion

  5. Expand on Existing Literature • Literature review from field class • Picking up an “obvious” hole or open question • Advantages: • Follows your interests from second year classes • Clearly fits into a literature • Develops skill in picking topics • Disadvantages • May not have an obvious advisor • May take a while to fully develop • Finding the balance between feasible and interesting is hard and time consuming.

  6. The RA Route • Research topic stems from work you do as an RA • Expanding on an existing study • Advantages: • Natural Choice of Advisor who is familiar with topic • Low cost in finding topic/working on it. • Pretty good idea about feasible/interesting at start. • Disadvantages • You don’t really learn as much about picking a topic. • It may not reflect your interests (hard to keep momentum/long term agenda) • There is always then a bigger question of “whose work is it?”

  7. The Hot Topic • Ripped straight from the headlines! • The topic is determined by important policy issues. • Advantages: • Probably very interesting to you (motivation/longevity). • Interesting to others (committee members/job market). • Easier to motivate. • Disadvantages • Lack of expertise with advisor. • Not clear into what literature it fits (publishing) • May be difficult to keep interest while narrowing to feasible.

  8. Suggestion from Faculty • Comments from faculty in classes “this is an interesting open question.” • Discussion with faculty member “what open questions in XXX are important?” • Advantages: • Probably a good topic/question. • Lower cost in getting started. • Natural choice of advisor (usually). • Disadvantages • You don’t learn to pick a topic. • It may not reflect your interests. • Negative selection of shared ideas?

  9. Choosing an Advisor/Committee • I’m here to help with that: you should talk with me about who you want to work with. • Field Classes: a great place to get to know people. • Just meet with them: email, make an appointment. • Advisor will help with committee.

  10. You’re Not Paul Samuelson • Don’t fall prey to the Magnum Opus fallacy • Break it into smaller tasks. • Write a paper, not a thesis (then write another paper…) • Break the paper into smaller tasks too. • Get feedback regularly: we don’t expect you to solve all your problems by yourself. • Other graduate students are helpful. Talk to each other.

  11. Setting Deadlines • Welcome to the real world: you set and keep deadlines! • Make them realistic. • Strive to meet them. (self flagellation? Self Reward system?) • This is where loving your topic matters. • The most important thing is to write something every week! • Programs (and notes, output) • Literature review • Results? (even if wrong!)

  12. What’s in a Proposal? • A credible central essay (job market paper). • Furthest along • It doesn’t have to be done, but a good start. • A credible plan for additional work: 1 or 2 essays, chapters etc. • Knowledge of the Literature, data, and appropriate modeling/estimation approaches.

  13. How to Proceed • Talk to faculty. As early as second year. • Begin with writing Literature Reviews: • What are open questions? • What are limitations of previous studies? • Papers and Projects in 2nd and 3rd year classes. • Read (the literature) • Talk (with faculty) • Write write write

  14. Outline of a Proposal • Introduction is motivation and overview • Lit Review: places you in literature • Not a paragraph on every paper you’ve read • Data Section • As much detail as you have • Model Section • Theory and econometrics • Outline of Expected Results

  15. Rules • Proper Citation (Chicago Manual of Style) • Learn to write. Get some books on it. Think about it. Get editing help. Read each others stuff. • Write. Revise, revise again, rewrite. Then write.

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