Proposal

Things to include or consider in your proposal
  1. EMDRC. C: Proposal checklist
  2. Title and declaration page
  3. Budget and project timeline
  4. Plagiarism declaration
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Page setup:
  1. Left margin at least 4cm; right margin about 2.5cm. This will allow for the binding of the dissertation/thesis
  2. Use A4 page set-up
  3. Page numbers in the same font as the font you are using for the text. Use fonts such as Arial, Times New Roman, Book Antiqua, or Bookman Old Style. Avoid the comic fonts 
  4. Font size 11 or 12 (for SUN: font size 10)
  5. Set language to English [South Africa] – avoid the American spellings e.g. behavior 
  6. Line spacing of 1.5. We also suggest that you set your spacing to allow 6pts after each paragraph – this improves the look of the document and you don’t have to put in an extra paragraph break

A few hints and tips to structure your proposal
  1. Your proposal should be more or less 10 pages for the MMed/ MPhil, 15 pages for the MSc and 20 pages for the PhD (excluding the summary, the budget, timeline, references and appendices).  Less is more; save the rest for your thesis.
  2. Start with your aim and objectives.  The aim holds your project together and should be no more than one sentence.  The objectives will help put your aim in perspective, but the aim has to be able to stand alone.
  3. MMed/ MPhil objectives: limit yourself to no more than two or three.
  4. MSc/ PhD objectives: choose your objectives with the end in mind (i.e. publication).  Each objective should represent a prospective publishable paper.  Divide the rest of your proposal into sections, with each section dealing with one of the objectives, each with its own methods, ethics, etc.  The section objective essentially becomes the aim of that section which you can expand on in no more than a further two or three objectives, thus constructing a research framework which you can carry through to publication and your thesis.  It just makes things easier.
  5. Your objectives should not include a review; you have to do that anyway and it is usually Chapter 1.  Besides it is really difficult to get an unsolicited review published.
  6. Choose your title so that it is essentially a shorter version of your aim, but still contains all the relevant information.
  7. Your background/ literature review should be no more than 1000- 1500 words.  Structure this so that it forms a story which intuitively leads to the knowledge gap your aim will address (e.g. international literature >> national literature >> local literature >> knowledge gap >> aim)
  8. Don’t fudge the stats.  The reviewers are not thick.  See a statistician. Do or ask someone to do a power calculation to determine your sample size.  Look at previous papers to see what was used/ done in previous studies.  Aim to use similar methods as it makes your work comparable (and therefor useful).  You’ll be surprised how often what was considered a convenience sample is found to be more than enough after performing a power calculation and the latter is of higher value to your results.
  9. When you do your ethics section, look at what is considered in your ethics application and ensure those issues are clearly addressed.  A sample consent and patient information sheet are provided on the site for you to consider.
  10. Write the purpose of the study/ summary/ abstract last.  Alter it slightly to represent the pertinent points depending on where you submit.  The EMDRC is concerned with feasibility and performs a gate-keeping function into research, the HREC is concerned with ethics and the PGWC is concerned with the resources you’ll take away from the day-to-day function of the public sector.  Ensure each proposal you submit addresses these specific items in the purpose of the study/ summary/ abstract
  11. You can also read the excellent proposal guidance provided on both UCT and SUN HREC’s websites.
Writing tips
Reviewers generally have to get through a lot of work so to make things easier for them (and thus your chances of a favourable review) consider the following:
  • The first and last paragraph of each section in general summarise the section
  • Organise your themes by using one theme per paragraph (no matter how long or short the paragraph ends up being)
  • The first and last sentence of each paragraph in general summarise that paragraph (and thus the theme)
  • Use tables and figures to emphasise and explain important parts of your work
  • Use reporting checklists to structure your work (see http://www.equator-network.org/).  You can amend it to include only the part required for the proposal.