As my research developed, its structure evolved as well, to an extent where I felt that the previous research outline I had set last year was not articulating the progression accurately enough. I had a cluster of new thoughts, methods, and areas that I knew the research should address, but they didn’t seem to have a place within the previous thesis structure.
Amidst this confusion, I decided to write down every single thing that came to mind on a post it note, so basically putting my mind down on paper. Then I started to shuffle the post-it notes around and organise them into the headings, subheadings, and hierarchies of a research structure:
This helped me produce the thesis outline below, and assign a word count for every section. I realised that the outline does not necessarily run in a linear format, and as a result, the thesis’ flow will be cross-referencing different sections constantly:
I then used the literature and practice review list I had compiled to date, and dissected it under the different sections. I believe this will be very useful when I am writing up each part of the thesis, as I will know which literature I need to refer to:
Ironically, when I was sharing my Thesis Outline… Version 2 with my colleague, Sheila Pontis who’s in her last research year, she laughed and said: “Oh your outline will change many many more times!”. So I’m expecting many many more versions to come!
Note: I will be restructuring the categories of the blog to work better with the current research structure.
