Steps to Complete a PhD Dissertation

Plan
By Lori Garrett-Hatfield,
After a doctoral student completes coursework, and passes the
comprehensive examination, they will need to develop a dissertation
plan, also called the proposal, in order to write the dissertation. A
good dissertation plan provides the framework for a good
dissertation & bad dissertation plan makes it difficult to write a
dissertation that is cohesive and understandable-which makes the
time to graduation that much longer.

1. Selecting An Area Of Interest

The first step in a student's dissertation plan is to select an

area of interest, or a topic, to research. Keep in mind that
whatever topic a student chooses, he will be immersed in that
topic for a few years, so he should choose a topic that
interests him. Students who are having a difficult time
selecting a topic should ask their adviser, and do a literature
search to see what research has been done in the area of interest,
according to the American Psychological Association (APA).

The Problem

The first section in the dissertation plan is the problem

chapter, also called the introduction and background
chapter. In this section/chapter, according to the APA,
the doctoral student will introduce the general problem that
she is trying to research, give the background, and introduce
the research questions. The research questions will help the
student guide her research. It is important to think about how
the research will change the current situation, or help to
understand the problem better. Also, while the problem section
is the first section in the dissertation plan, it doesn't have to be
the first section a doctoral student writes. The student may want
to write the literature review first, and then write the problem
section.

The Literature Review

The APA identifies the literature review section within the

dissertation plan as the section for discussing the topic,
introducing key concepts related to the topic, and reviewing the
existing literature associated with the topic. The student will need

to be prepared to do a large literature review of books,

journals, and the internet on the topic she selected. In many
dissertations, the literature review is the longest chapter, so
when writing the dissertation plan, keep in mind this section
may become a bit unwieldy. GradMatters, a graduate student
advice site at Tufts University, suggests using a note-taking
program, such as Endnotes or Refworks to keep up with
references.

The Methods Section

In the dissertation plan or proposal, the methods section is an

outline of the methods the student plans to use to research
the topic. By this point, reports the APA, the doctoral student
in education or the social sciences should have determined
whether or not the dissertation research will be qualitative
(which may consist of interviews, observations, or artifacts) or
quantitative (which may consist of statistical analysis of
surveys). The student will need to have information on who
she will research, where, when, and how the data will be
collected and analyzed. In the hard sciences, however, the
dissertation plan, especially the methodology section, is a bit
different. Many times, according to Science Magazine, the
doctoral student has completed the research, but needs to
write up the research into dissertation plan format. For these
students, the methodology part of the plan is actually the easiest
to write.