Formulating dissertation topic like a tailor?
Some students ask: "Is my dissertation proposal topic too narrow?".
First of all, I am not a tailor so I am not sure what width (or scope) of proposal is suitable for you. What I know is this: you keep doing literature review with a mindset of intellectual curiorsity and then refine your dissertation proposal... ultimately, you get an appropriate dissertation proposal scope that suits you. If you want a better proposal, you study more and reflect more on what you have learned from your literature review.
A simple response to your concern about narrow proposal scope is: expand your propsoal scope and increase its theoretical depth; increase the number of your proposal objectives and research questions. However, you still need to ensure that the quality of your formulated objectives and questions is good. How to do that? There is no short-cut: do more study to build up your intellectual capability and make yourself more informed about your topic areas. This strengthened intellectual capability will enable you to formulate a better proposal with improved intellectual scope and depth.
Project scope is not mainly determined by the size of your unit of analysis (e.g. individual, dept or an organization) nor the sample size of your survey; the analogy of you being a tailor on dissertation (as clothes) is also flawed.
First of all, I am not a tailor so I am not sure what width (or scope) of proposal is suitable for you. What I know is this: you keep doing literature review with a mindset of intellectual curiorsity and then refine your dissertation proposal... ultimately, you get an appropriate dissertation proposal scope that suits you. If you want a better proposal, you study more and reflect more on what you have learned from your literature review.
A simple response to your concern about narrow proposal scope is: expand your propsoal scope and increase its theoretical depth; increase the number of your proposal objectives and research questions. However, you still need to ensure that the quality of your formulated objectives and questions is good. How to do that? There is no short-cut: do more study to build up your intellectual capability and make yourself more informed about your topic areas. This strengthened intellectual capability will enable you to formulate a better proposal with improved intellectual scope and depth.
Project scope is not mainly determined by the size of your unit of analysis (e.g. individual, dept or an organization) nor the sample size of your survey; the analogy of you being a tailor on dissertation (as clothes) is also flawed.
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