GUIDELINES FOR WRITING THESIS PROPOSAL

Research and Proposals

GUIDELINES FOR WRITING THESIS PROPOSAL

1. Proposed Title of the Thesis: The title should be a short phrase that indicates your issue and standpoint. Make sure that you can define the key terms and justify the claim implied in the title. After you find an area of interest and narrow it down to a subject, you should again narrow down the subject to a topic. The title must be focused and specific, and re-searchable: it should answer some of the following questions:

a. Are there sufficient published sources of information on this topic?
b. Does this topic require research in a variety of sources, especially standard published material? If it needs only experience and personal opinion, it is not re-searchable.
c. Will the objective evaluation of sources and your analysis of the issue/ text lead to defensible conclusion?
d. Is the topic suitable for the available time and material, and the required length (say 50-100 pages)?

2. Introduction: Introduce the text or issue that you intend to research by saying what it is basically about; but do it in such a way that the very first sentence indicates your way of looking at it: introduce it from the viewpoint of your hypothesis. Because you normally take up a text on which there is some literature, the best idea is to begin by contextualizing the ‘issue’ you want to research: introduce your issue in the background of existing (available) body of knowledge on it. Remember that you rarely ever make an entirely original ‘research’ for MA thesis. Even if the text/ issue is relatively a new one, draw the reader’s attention towards the problem and perspective you will focus on and adopt in the light of the common parlance that most readers would take. In any case, in the very first paragraph of your proposal, introduce the problem and try to indicate your standpoint as you introduce the text.

For instance, you have felt or found that Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is not just a colonial story but an archetypal and allegorical journey into Everyman’s unconscious, a quest for conquering and understanding others which turns out to be an ironic quest in which the main character encounters and understands his own animal self. You see that the so-called problem of ‘colonial quest’ is more significantly, if more broadly, human being’s ever-repeating or archetypal quest for learning and conquering the world and other people, which ironically turns out to be a shocking revelation, especially to the civilized man in this case.

Now, you may begin by claiming that though Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is almost always considered as a story of the colonial mission and just that, quite another problem (your problem) is by far a more important one for a proper understanding of the text (or a particular issue in it). Then, you may also claim early on that the commonly discussed problem of ‘quest’ should be analyzed and understood from a psycho-philosophical perspective. Indicate what you aim to explore.

Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness tells the story of a white man named Kurtz who turns out to be a savage after living in the hinterlands of Congo. Most critics have emphasized how Marlowe, another white man, learns a lesson about how the ‘civilized’ colonizer is vulnerable to same human weakness of being inhuman when they are in the ‘savage’ situation. But, the quest and the illumination of Marlowe, as the narrator of the story tries to convey to us, should be seen as a quest into man’s inner self. In order to understand the central problem of the vaguely defined ‘quest’ more properly, it is necessary to look at it from a psycho-philosophical perspective and understand it as an archetypal-allegorical quest of the human race, which they begin with some ideal purpose and end with an ironic revelation about their own innate and invincible inhumanity, their animal instinct.

3. Statement of Problem: After you have introduced the problem and your perspective, raise the issue more critically and also clarify your perspective. The Statement of Problem is a critical introduction and problematization of the issue that you have found and which you want to research. After you tell the reader what the text is about, you should not only say what the writer/ text says but also state clearly what you think it must be understood as. This means that by problematizing an issue in the text, you should go on to say from what perspective you will to look at the problem, and what you intend to justify. In the Statement of Problem, you may do the following things: After having introduced the text, the problem and your perspective in the first section, now you may discuss the ‘problem’ more critically.

Marlowe’s journey into Congo is on its surface one that is made by a ‘civilized’ man into the heart of a country of the so-called savages. Mr. Kurtz, who has allegedly "civilized" the natives and brought them education, is enshrined by the Belgians as a being of supreme intellectual power and the principal representative of the forces of civilization in the Congo. But in the course of time, he has begun to demand worship from the natives while he instigates and partakes in unspeakably savage rites. By seeing this change of Kurtz, Marlow recognizes the decay and corruption of colonial imperialists. He sees how corruptible even the civilized man is. His ideals irrevocably corrupted, Kurtz's soul – not Africa – is the true heart of darkness. In other words, Charlie Marlow's voyage into the depths of the "Dark Continent" parallels his voyage into the heart of an immense darkness, into the collective unconsciousness of the human race. The voyage for learning about the exotic lands and the dangerous savages becomes a descent into an underworld of the universal savagery of all human beings.

But as you do so, you should give sufficient (though not elaborate) evidence for your claim. That is, say on what ground you are making your claim, or on what ground you will prove it. Also indicate your focus and delimitation.

Conrad universalizes the nature and process of corruption of Kurtz, and the way he makes Marlowe’s quest symbolize the archetypal human quest that ends in self-knowledge. Conrad uses a variety of techniques to imbue his narrative, like a parable, with a quality of universality. The technique of the narrative frame, while looking like the medieval tale-telling strategy, allows the narrator to be a distant observer of events he had witnessed. And because the tale is related by an anonymous narrator who identifies so strongly with Marlow, the two characters’ identities merge. Conrad's highly charged and sometimes poetic language, clearly hints at the effect of exterior setting upon the interior landscape of the soul. His journey symbolizes every human being’s quest for knowledge, and therefore, he comes to. Similarly, as Marlowe gradually comes to take Kurtz more seriously – as representing all corruptible human beings – we see that the story is not a superficial indictment of the western man. Marlowe accepts that everyone of us are bound to accept the veil of Maya, the garb of social manner, and some mendacity, in order to sustain what we call civilization.

Why does Conrad charge the voyage with several symbolic meanings? Why is Marlowe made to eventually sympathize with Kurtz? The present will justify that Marlowe understands and sympathizes with the savage inside man because he finally understands and accepts the indomitable animal force in men, including the civilized ones.

You may even state your objective here, because there is no separate “Purpose of the Study” or “Aim of the Study” section.

In the proposed thesis work, I intend to analyze the quest of Marlowe from a psychological and philosophical standpoint by studying the language and plot, characterization and symbolism in the text. I intend to justify that Marlowe’s quest is a archetypal and universal quest for knowledge and conquest of the world which normally turns into an exploration into the inner self of oneself.

4. Hypothesis: The hypothesis is a claim (and in some other kinds of researches, a question) that should be put into just one sentence if possible. The hypothesis is the heart of the research paper. Your research will be a study and documentation for justifying the claim made by this hypothesis. All the facts and research you put in your paper will have to relate to your hypothesis. A good hypothesis is more than just fact: it is an educated opinion about a subject.

Fact: Conrad is a writer of great significance.

Educated opinion: Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is an allegory of man’s quest for knowledge which turns out to be an exploration into man’s self.

Educated opinion: Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is a story of the western man’s ironic journey of knowledge into his own instinctual savagery, but this problematic should also be seen as a universal phenomenon about human nature and civilization.

Educated opinion: Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is a bold indictment against the white man’s colonial mission to civilize the oriental man.

This hypothesis is in reality the summary of the whole thesis in one sentence. It should be focused, but fully explained and supported in the length of your thesis. If you choose a hypothesis that is too broad, your paper will be weak. If it is too narrow, you will not have sufficient things to say. The hypothesis should:

make a claim that you will and can justify: state a problem or issue that is worth exploring and researching

indicate the perspective from which you will look at the problem, and solve it suggest a focus or delimit the issue that you will study and write upon Joseph Conrad’s classic Heart of Darkness is an allegory of man’s quest into his own basic savage self, and so Marlowe’s journey into Africa should be analyzed as a philosophical and psychological quest that enlightens him with the ultimate truth about the essential human nature.

5. Literature Review: Provide an adequate literature review in order to highlight your issue and to give information on the subject. Your review of literature is not just a collection of quotations from critics. A review must take either a stance of critical disagreement with existing assessment(s) of the subject, or it may claim for a shift of emphasis or perspective. You must review the major critics from the viewpoint of your own hypothesis. After you have discussed several critical perspectives in the issue, you may like to say that they are incorrect, insufficient in their understanding, just tangential, or that they have not centralized the important issue that you are trying to explore. The proposal is a document where your efficacy for accurate documentation is tested, so you should make sure that you cite sources properly.

6.  Methodology: The method of the most common type research paper which is to be based on textual analysis will be on the method of library research. So here, you may mention this obvious side of the methodology section – that you will consult libraries and authentic websites, read books on relevant theoretical perspectives and on the writer and the selected text, consult the supervisor, develop critical tools in the discussion and apply them in the text in the analysis section, and so on. But, besides that obvious information about the mode of your research, you should also stipulate what particular of theoretical/ critical framework you will develop for looking at and analyzing the text or issue. In this section, you should tell what you want to achieve or justify and how. This could also be the place in the proposal for defining your terminology and discussing your perspective. This means that you will do these things in the ‘methodology’ section.

What mode of research you will follow,

What materials you will use,

What theoretical perspectives you will borrow,

What critical tools you will develop,

What you will accomplish and how,

What you will focus on: what you will actually include and what you will only study.

7. Bibliography/ Works to be Cited: The bibliography may include materials that you plan to read as well as those that you have quoted in the proposal or read while developing it. You may also include materials that are not available to you at the moment but you will need to find and read sooner or later to write your thesis. In the bibliography, you may include not only books that are written upon the text that you want to research/ analyze, but also books about the writer (if they do have something to say about your issue in the selected text) and books on the theory and perspective that you will develop (if they will throw light on how to look at and deal with the problem you have raised).

The researcher should prepare a bibliography to avoid the charge of plagiarism in the research paper. It should include four categories of listings:
a) Existing materials that a researcher has read
b) Existing materials that a researcher plans to read
c) Material that is available to him, and
d) Material that is not available to a researcher but he will need sooner or later to write is thesis.

Suggestions:
All text must be in Times New Roman, font size 12.
All titles, including thesis title, must be in bold face and should be left-aligned (not centered).
The whole text must be double spaced.
(You may leave one line space before a title.)
Leave one-inch margin on all four sides of the page.

The title should be a phrase, and not a sentence or clause; you may use a colon for focus or elaboration.
The hypothesis should be very precise (just one or two sentences).
The statement of problem should also be precise (This may be 1-3 short paragraphs).
The critical review of literature should include sufficient coverage of existing literature on the text/ issue. (This may also be 2-5 paragraphs, depending on how many areas of criticism you cover).
The methodology may be one or more paragraphs, giving one paragraph each for raising one issue or discussing one category of critics.
The ideal length of the proposal is 5 pages.
Proper in-text citation is essential.
The work cited/ bibliography must be in the standard MLA format.

Sample:

Eliot, T. S. “Tradition and Individual Talent”: Essays on the Creation of Knowledge. Ed. Shreedhar P.  Lohani et. al.

 Kathmandu: Ekta Books, 1998.

Mechanics of Writing

    The goal of mechanics of writing is to make the writing precise and grammatically correct. It is directed to make the writing systematic and being concerned about how to be correct in spelling, punctuation, italics and so on. The mechanics of writing are the rules that must be followed while preparing research paper so that the research strategies and the format becomes systematic and consistent in all academic sectors. If one does not follow or if there are no such rules of writing then the writing would be certainly very difficult.

 The important factors in mechanics of writing are:
1) Spelling
2) Punctuation
3) Italics (underlying)
4) Names of persons
5) Titles of works in the research paper
6) Quotations
7) Capitalization and personal names

1) Spelling: Spelling in the research work should be consistent, clean and correct expert in a quotations. The spelling in quotation must be the original whether correct or incorrect. If we have to divide any words, we should not do so at the end of the line. If the word does not fit there, we should leave the space and bring the words in the next line.

2) Punctuation: The purpose of punctuation is to bring clarity in writing and to make it comprehensible. Punctuation clarifies sentence structure, separating some words and grouping others. It adds meaning to written words and guides for readers to understand as they move through sentences.
Commas, full stops, semicolons, colons, dashes and parenthesis, hyphens, apostrophes, quotation marks and exclamation point all serve the function of punctuation and one should take account of all these marks while writing research works.

3) Italics (underlining): In research papers and manuscripts submitted for publication, words that would be italicized in print are usually underlined. In general we should underline foreign words used in an English text. The name of the book in which a person is doing research is always italicized.

3) Names of Persons: Generally a researcher should state a person’s name in a text of his or her research paper fully, accurately and exactly as it appears in the original source. For example Martin Luther King, Jr. should be used as it is not as only Martin Luther.
Researcher must not use formal tittles in referring to men as women, living or dead, such as Prof. Devkota. Dr. Sangita. Instead of it, the researcher should only write Devkota, Sangita and so on.

4) Titles of works in the Research Paper: Title of the publication works in the research paper should be cited form the title page not form the cover page.
    For capitalizing titles, one should capitalize the first words, the last words, the words and the principal words, the last words and the principal words in both titles and sub-titles. Generally title of the works must be underlined or italicized. Title of the names of books, pamphlets, periodicals, films, radio and television programs etcetera should be underlined if hand written or italicized if printed in the research paper.
    Titles of the names of articles, essays, short stories, short poems, chapters of book and so on should be put with in quotation marks. The same is for the case of unpublished work, such as lectures and speeches.

5) Quotations: Only the most important words, phrases, lines and passages should be quoted in the research paper as briefly as possible. The researcher should put them with in quotation mark if they are three lines or less than three lines. If a quotation runs to make than four lines, it should be put under indent.

Thesis Statements

    Thesis statement is a single sentence that formulates both the topic and the point of view. In a sense, it is the answer to the central question or problem the research has raised. Thesis statement will enable one to see where one is heading and to remain in a productive path as one plans and writes.

    There are two important factors that shape a thesis statement viz. purpose and audience. One should keep in the mind the purpose are likes to achieve and the research the appropriate point of view. Thesis statement helps the readers to get in to what is being said about a subject. The thesis statement is usually a single sentence that declares the main idea of the writers. It operates the reader to know w the most important, general idea among other idea and observations included to strengthen argument of the writer. It is like a focal point of a picture.

    Most writers place their thesis statement early in the essay so that the readers will get a better insight in to their motives and thing being talked about. They open with thesis statements to orient, particularly if they are talking about a new and difficult subject. A thesis statement placed at the beginning enables the readers to anticipate the content and more early understand the relationship between various ideas and details, included having a sense of control over the subject.

Plagiarism

    Equivalent to Latin word “Plagiarus” is Plagiarism in English. The Latin word “Plagiorus” means kidnapper, but Plagiarism as a term used in academia refers to type of cheating that has been defined by Alexander Lindey. According to Lindey Plagiarism is the false assumption of authorship; the wrongful act of taking the product of another person’s mind and presenting it as one’s own. From this definition we came to the point that plagiarism is to use other person’s ideas or expressions in one’s writing without acknowledging the source. It is an intellectual theft as well as moral and ethical offense rather than a legal one. Most of the cases of plagiarism fall out of the copyright violence.

    Plagiarism is a result of lack of creativity and sincerity. It is a short cut way chosen by immature and uncritical writing to gain fame. Plagiarism in student writing is often unintentional as when small pupil of nursery class copies his assignment word by word from another source. But when it comes to high school and research conducting students, it is taken as a serious crime. In such condition, students can be expelled from the educational institution and authors who are changed of plagiarism may lose job and have to face public embarrassment too.