Notes on Writing a Prospectus
A prospectus is often required during the initial stages of writing a dissertation, grant proposal,
or article/book manuscript. It is a kind of blueprint and very helpful way for planning, getting
started, managing, and eventually completing your project. A good prospectus should usually
include the following components:
1. Statement of Topic and Primary Research Question(s)
2. Statement of Proposed Argument and Thematic/Theoretical Framework
3. Statement of Intervention in Existing Literature
4. Statement of Sources and Methodology
5. Statement of Proposed Organization of Project
6. Timeline
1. Statement of Topic and Primary Research Question(s):
This is often the most effective way to begin your prospectus and should clearly state the
topic of your project and what is your primary research question. This section should tell
the reader what is the central historical, thematic, or theoretical problem that your project
will explore. It is often helpful to present you problem as a question or set of questions
that your project will attempt to answer. The challenge here is to demonstrate that you
have a “why” question, one that has importance beyond mere description.
2. Statement of Proposed Argument and Thematic/Theoretical Framework:
Your prospectus should propose an answer to your primary research question and outline
the key thematic/theoretical principles you will use to support and explain your argument.
This section of a prospectus does not need to, nor should it, convey what your final
argument will be. It should, however, suggest what your hypothesis is, highlight in
slightly more detail than your statement of topic which are the main themes of your
project, and briefly describe any critical concepts you will employ.
3. Statement of Intervention in Existing Literature:
A critical part of any prospectus is to clearly illustrate what your intervention will be in
the existing literature about your topic. This section should consider the following
questions: What have other scholars written about this subject? How is your research
question, approach, or proposed argument different? Which are the major fields of
literature that you wish to engage (Who is your audience?)? What are your project’s
original and special contributions to your field(s) (persuade the reader you are not just
“reinventing the wheel”)? Another way to think about this section is to tell the reader
why your project matters and why it will be important to other scholars.
4. Statement of Sources and Methodology:
Your prospectus should also identify and explain the primary sources you will be using to
investigate your research question and support your proposed argument. Tell the reader
why these sources are appropriate, how you will make use of them and what historical
1
perspectives they reveal. If you are planning to use archival sources, interviews,
ethnography, or other sources you should include discussion of them here. More than
simply listing your sources, however, this section should also describe your methodology,
or how you plan to gather, engage, and “read” your sources. You should also include
discussion of any perceived weaknesses or gaps in your methodology and sources and
how you plan to address them.
5. Statement of Proposed Organization of Project:
Outlining a sequence of potential chapters can help you clarify your proposed argument
and consider the balance of its parts in relation to one another. If you are writing a
dissertation prospectus, this section can be thought of as an annotated table of contents.
What are your chapter titles and what will they cover? Since most dissertation chapters
are approximately 30-40 double-spaced pages, if the major sections of your dissertation
seem likely to exceed this length, plan to subdivide them. You should find that
developing a table of contents helps your thinking and processing of research data so that
the actual writing of the dissertation is more clearly focused.
6. Timeline:
Your prospectus should also include a schedule for completion of your research and
writing. This section, though it is likely to change during the course of your project,
should be concise, yet detailed. Do not be afraid to chart out your course of action month
by month or even week by week. Be clear on things such as when and where you expect
do conduct research, how long you expect to research specific sources, and how long you
expect to take to draft each chapter. Also remember to account for time for revisions and
allowing others (colleagues or advisors) to read and comment on your work.
Tips to Remember:
1. Keep in mind that the shape, topic, and issues in you project (especially dissertations!)
can, and often do change during the course of your research and writing. The prospectus
should be thought of as a starting point and blueprint that may, and probably will, be
altered.
2. Don’t worry about being speculative in certain parts of your prospectus. This is
necessary at this point since you have yet to complete the lion’s share of your research
and writing.
3. If you have difficulties in writing your prospectus, you should probably view such
problems as diagnostic of the work you have yet to do in planning your project. If you
are having trouble articulating your topic, you probably need to think it through more
thoroughly; if you are uncomfortable with your rationale for undertaking the project,
perhaps you need to do more research on previous approaches; if you have trouble
summarizing your chapters, perhaps you need to spend some time on either the
organization of the dissertation or on the content of the individual chapters. This exercise
is worth the effort as a dissertation prospectus will probably be the first draft of all the
other prospectuses to follow.
4. Prospectuses often tend to either lose themselves in detail, or to be too general. To avoid
this, try to do what you would in any paper you write: make sure that your main argument
2
remains clearly above ground, and that each paragraph has a clear connection with the
ones preceding and following it. The prospectus is not a mini-dissertation, and need not
involve more time in writing and revising than another paper of comparable length. Yet
enough care and stylistic grace should be exercised so that the prospectus clearly and
concisely articulates the project, its arguments, methods, and special considerations in a
manner that your colleagues and advisors can grasp.
