Criteria for Success
- Identify a knowledge gap, motivate its solution, and demonstrate understanding of the existing literature.
- Propose a novel solution that addresses the identified knowledge gap, and lay out an approach with a concrete plan.
- Clearly state the research goal, and connect all parts of the proposal (both written and oral) back to this goal.
- Propose a research plan that is feasible for a PhD thesis and that meets requirements for graduation.
Purpose
Through your thesis proposal, you must convince your thesis committee that you are well-prepared to conduct the research that will become your thesis. Your proposal should justify the motivation for, and feasibility of, a novel research plan. What problem (or question) are you trying to solve, and why does it matter? How will you address it? The process of preparing your proposal is meant to clarify your thinking and build communication skills. The written document includes a more detailed description of the research, while the presentation focuses on the main ideas and creates dialogue with your committee.
Analyze Your Audience
The audience of your thesis proposal is your thesis committee, including your advisor. Consider the expertise of each member of your committee. In what aspects of your project do they have deep knowledge? In your proposal, demonstrate your understanding of important topics through relevant background for committee members, clear rationales, and appropriate alternative approaches. It is also helpful to anticipate questions each committee member may ask during the oral presentation.
Additionally, determine whether your thesis committee or advisor has any specific expectations for the proposal. While you should follow the requirements outlined in the BE Grad Handbook, faculty may have preferences that are helpful to be aware of.
Finally, consider the time your committee dedicates to your thesis proposal. The written document is rather long (up to 20 pages), so make sure the main ideas are clearly conveyed in the shorter Abstract and Specific Aims sections. Summarize your proposal in a ~30 minute oral presentation to allow plenty of time for questions.
Structure Diagram
Written Document
The main sections of the written document, their lengths, and a description of what to include can be found in the BE Grad Handbook.
Oral Presentation
For the oral presentation, different structures can effectively motivate and convey the main ideas of your research plan. It can be useful to include a slide that states your overall objective and graphically summarizes your aims, which you can return to as you transition between aims. The diagram below contains two example slide outlines. Note that you do not need to include all the information from the written document in your presentation.
For more details on the organization of the written document or presentation slides, seek out relevant examples. Since project types vary widely across the department, examples from labmates, peers in your subfield, or peers with the same committee members may be most helpful.
Skills
Identify a knowledge gap and propose potential solutions
Through your thesis proposal, your committee is assessing your ability to recognize what is not yet known and to propose feasible solutions or hypotheses in response. As you identify a question and define your approach, keep the “why” in mind. Why is your project significant? Why is your proposed solution appropriate? Both answers require a strong familiarity with the current state of your field. To generate and refine your ideas, consider the following steps:
- Define the long-term goals of your field. What are the big open questions? What are some current challenges? Consider how you can contribute to these goals in your lab. Talk to your advisor to hear their perspective.
- Read lots of literature. Citation managers are useful tools for organizing papers and notes; ask if your lab has a preferred one. Determine what has already been done and what might be missing from previous approaches. One strategy is to summarize the highlights, limitations, and relevance of key papers you read. Pay attention to the discussion section, where authors may identify opportunities for future work.
- Generate and evaluate ideas. As you read, make a list of questions or problems you think would be interesting to solve. What steps can you take to address them, and what methods can you employ? Note limitations or trade-offs for different approaches. Then, elaborate on the impact of solving these challenges. How would your project move the field forward? Finally, consider the feasibility of your ideas. Do you have the resources to execute them in the next several years? Remember, the scope of the thesis proposal is what you can accomplish in your PhD!
- Ask for feedback. Beyond your advisor, talk to your labmates! These are great people to bounce ideas off of, or to ask for feedback on outlines. Additionally, questions from peers outside your field may help you articulate your rationales.
- Iterate. Begin by drafting your overall objective and specific aims, and refine these as you receive feedback. Writing the document and condensing your plan into slides will require you to justify each component, so the process itself will help clarify your thinking.
Concisely state your overall goal and connect your aims to this goal
Succinctly stating your objectives demonstrates strategic thinking and a strong grasp of your proposed plan. Summarize the overall goal of your thesis proposal in a single sentence. Similarly, title each aim with a complete sentence describing the main take-away. If you find it difficult to articulate these, it may mean your goal isn’t clear—try talking to a peer to refine your ideas.
Be sure that each aim connects to your overall objective. Aims can be linearly connected, cyclical, independent, or a combination of these.
For the written document, it can be helpful to both begin and end by drafting the Abstract and Specific Aims sections. Start here to sketch the big-picture idea of your project, then return to these sections when you’ve refined your thinking to summarize the final draft. Your committee will likely pay the most attention to these sections, so be sure they are polished.
Include sufficient, relevant background information
The background of your proposal should logically motivate your project. By the end of this section, your committee should have a clear understanding of the knowledge gap you aim to fill. For each topic within the background, ask yourself how it connects to your research question and remove any tangential information. You will need to read widely to generate your research plan, but not all of this knowledge should be in your final proposal. For the oral presentation especially, raising scientific avenues that your work does not plan to address will detract from your aims and may lead to additional questions from your committee.
Aim to write paragraphs and craft slides that each make a claim. Rather than listing previous studies, synthesize them into a main point that relates to your objective. For instance, “prior studies are limited by X” and “new technique enables Y” are stronger than simply stating that these studies or techniques exist. (Notice that this framing leads nicely to an approach that overcomes X or utilizes Y.)
When discussing your approach, introduce the key techniques you plan to use but leave out less critical historical or technical details. It is important to acknowledge limitations of your plan and have an idea of alternative approaches; however, focus your proposal on justifying your initial plan (which should be the best option).
Concretely describe and justify planned experiments
Elaborating your research plan requires critical thinking and an understanding of appropriate methods in your field. In your approach, lay out the logic of your plan and be aware of the limitations of particular techniques. You do not need to describe experimental details at the level of a methods section. Briefly describe alternative approaches and be prepared to answer questions from your committee about troubleshooting potential challenges. Finally, you can frame any preliminary data as part of the justification for your aims, or you can include these results as partially completed sections of your approach. (Note that preliminary data is often helpful but not required.)
For each set of experiments or tasks you propose, construct your plan with the following components:
- Include a rationale. What specific question are you trying to answer? Why is this the next logical step to take, based on previous work, preliminary results, or the previous aim/experiment?
- Concisely describe your approach. What methods will you use to perform your proposed task (e.g., collecting data, analyzing data, building a model)? Be specific yet succinct.
- Identify metrics for success. How does your research output (data, model, etc.) relate to the question you’re trying to answer? How will you know if you’ve completed this section/aim?
- Describe alternative approaches. Where might you encounter challenges? What happens if your design/method fails? What will you conclude if your results contradict your hypothesis?
- Clearly state the expected outcome. Once you have completed these tasks, what will you have generated or learned? This may be captured in your metrics for success, but it can also be helpful to conclude aims or sections of your approach with a concise summary sentence (written or verbal).
Translate the written document into a succinct presentation
The oral presentation will demonstrate your preparedness through an outline of your research plan and your response to questions from your committee. Translating ~20 pages of text into a ~30 minute presentation will require you to leave out some details. Focus on your main goals and approaches; you can always share additional information (verbally or on backup slides) as your committee asks questions.
Follow Comm Lab tips for composing slides. In particular, include only essential information. You must be able to explain every plot, graphic, or text, so remove extraneous details. Additionally, graphic visualizations can help convey complex ideas. Create your own graphics to illustrate your aims and overall objective, important workflows or processes, or experimental setups. This is especially relevant for a research plan, as you will likely not have much data to show.
As you present, be prepared to be interrupted with questions. The thesis proposal is a dialogue with your committee, not a formal seminar. Take time to collect your thoughts before answering questions. If you don’t know the answer, demonstrate your thinking process by describing how you might find it. Extensive discussion with your committee may mean that you do not get through all your slides; however, you are more likely to present (and receive feedback on) your entire research plan if you prepare a clear, concise presentation.
Conclusion
Your thesis proposal is an opportunity to clarify your research direction for the next several years, both to your thesis committee and to yourself. The process of preparing your thesis proposal is valuable: delineating a research plan facilitates the thinking required for PhD-level research. In communicating your ideas effectively, you will not include every detail of this iterative process—the final document and especially the oral presentation should convey the direction you’ve settled on—but the overall result will reflect the new skills and insights you’ve gained.
Published Oct 2025