Research Proposal Feedback: Fill & Download for Free

Way too early for that… Advanced notice of rule making is what it sounds like… Meetings, research, proposals, feedback, lobbying, threats… It'll be years before a President gets to weigh in.

There are a number of rules of thumb that can be used to test whether your contribution is sufficient for a PhD defense.You can summarize your research in one or two sentences in academic company and that will result in a short conversation.You will not be jarred or threatened when someone asks you “so what?” because you have one or more responses to this question.You recognize two or three different approaches to your research question and are able to suggest strengths and limitations for each.You have a fairly succinct and specific answer to your research question based on the data you have produced.You can explain your research to lay people and they will both understand it and consider it moderately interesting.You have a graph, figure or passage that you can discuss in depth as a great example of your analysis.You know what other scholars would say about your results and have a strong answer about which one best explains your results.Your supervisor has not asked you to re-write significant parts of your thesis.You are following your research proposal, and have taken your committee’s feedback seriously.I’m sure there are more rules of thumb, but if you have a good number of these covered, you should be in good shape.

PhDs in Australia are by research and are supposed to be finished within 3 years (though 4 years is much more common in reality). You are not expected to attend classes during your PhD as you are expected to already have had a rigorous education in your subject through your Bachelor’s and/or Masters degree. Bachelor’s degrees in Australia do not follow the US “liberal arts” model and hence have a deeper but narrower focus on your field. International students are usually required to have a Masters degree before they begin a PhD in Australia, while domestic students need either a Masters degree or an Australian Bachelor Honours degree.An increasing number of Australian universities are now requiring PhD students to undertake some professional development, research methods and research integrity classes during their PhDs, but these are not expected to take a significant proportion of the students’ time.Hence, Australian PhDs are expected to begin their research on day one.When they apply for a position in a PhD programme, applicants need to have identified the supervisor with whom they will be working and have prepared a brief research proposal.In the first year, students are required to prepare a literature review on their topic and further refine their proposal so that the steps, methods and planned outputs are clear. They also need to begin exploratory work on their topic. At many universities, PhD students must formally present and defend this proposal in front of other faculty from the department at the 9 month to 12 month mark. Often, they will also present results from preliminary experiments during their proposal defence. This requirement ensures that they get timely feedback before they get too far into the work and it is also a way to make sure that students who are not making any progress are not left to flounder, but either given more help or weeded out before they have invested too much time.In the second year and third year, students are expected to get on with the work that they have planned. Many universities have a “mid candidature review” at 1.5 to 2 years, again to check that progress is satisfactory. Students will be expected to have presented their work in poster and/or verbal form at conferences or other venues and (in STEM fields) will usually be expected to have prepared and submitted manuscripts for publication as journal papers.