Thesis Outline… Version 2

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.

PhD Thesis Chapter Outline

I got the hint – from my supervisors and many PhD guide books – that it can never be too early to write a thesis outline, even though I am only 6 months into a 6 year research.

The challenging aspect of attempting to write a PhD thesis chapter outline this early is that none of the content has happened (yet), so the structure seems like a ‘proposal’ of what the thesis outline ‘will be’. Drafting it can also get quite messy:

On the other hand, The advantage of writing the outline this early is that it focuses the research into the chapters and sub-sections of the thesis. This makes it easier to judge whether a piece of research is revelant or irrelevant to the PhD scope, and if relevant, the outline establishes where it should be situated within the thesis. Based on this, I will attempt to place a chapter/section number at the beginning of every post to label how it fits within the thesis. This is the first draft of the outline, and it will be revisited and reviewed frequently throughout the progress: