neuroscience phd research proposal example

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Thesis proposals are a maximum of five pages long (incl. title page, content approx. 2000 words) and set up as follows: Title page:

• working title of the dissertation
• name, signature and contact information of the doctoral student
• institute , in which the dissertation should be carried out
• names and dated signatures of all the members of the doctoral committee .
• beginning and planned end of the dissertation

Content (max. four pages, approx. 2000 words):

• an introduction (suitable for ‘general biologists’)
• descriptions of the questions/hypotheses/goals that the dissertation should address
• the experimental approach/strategy
• preliminary data obtained in the period until submission of the proposal (if not applicable make a clear statement why no data are available)
• a time schedule (what should be achieved when and by which means)
• a list of relevant references, cited in the text
• planned courses
• planned teaching activities (ONLY ZNZ)

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Examples of research proposals

How to write your research proposal, with examples of good proposals.

Research proposals

Your research proposal is a key part of your application. It tells us about the question you want to answer through your research. It is a chance for you to show your knowledge of the subject area and tell us about the methods you want to use.

We use your research proposal to match you with a supervisor or team of supervisors.

In your proposal, please tell us if you have an interest in the work of a specific academic at York St John. You can get in touch with this academic to discuss your proposal. You can also speak to one of our Research Leads. There is a list of our Research Leads on the Apply page.

When you write your proposal you need to:

• Highlight how it is original or significant
• Explain how it will develop or challenge current knowledge of your subject
• Identify the importance of your research
• Show why you are the right person to do this research
• Research Proposal Example 1 (DOC, 49kB)
• Research Proposal Example 2 (DOC, 0.9MB)
• Research Proposal Example 3 (DOC, 55.5kB)
• Research Proposal Example 4 (DOC, 49.5kB)

Subject specific guidance

• Writing a Humanities PhD Proposal (PDF, 0.1MB)
• Writing a Creative Writing PhD Proposal (PDF, 0.1MB)
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Free PDF: The 4 questions every SOP must answer → Master’s or PhD

How to Write Your Neuroscience SOP: A PhD Success Story

• By Jordan Dotson
• Updated: March 1, 2023

I fully admit, editing a neuroscience statement of purpose is a daunting task. When working with a PhD applicant, it’s even more intimidating. The research nuances are mindboggling. (Literally?) Molecular assays and signaling pathways – the  jargon is dense, and the details are important. It takes a great deal of work to make sure the SOP portrays the applicant in the clearest and most compelling way.

Luckily however, some students are so awesome they make this job a breeze.

As a former professional ballerina with a 4.0 GPA, two years of neuroscience research, and publications in TWO different majors, Martina is the type of student who makes the rest of us feel lazy. Yet, like most STEM students, Martina didn’t feel 100% confident about portraying her candidacy in writing.

I’m telling you, this task is hard for everyone.

This was especially true during the super-competitive 2020-21 admissions cycle, when lots of amazing PhD applicants received surprisingly unfortunate results.

Yet, coming from a small regional college, and with only two weeks of revision, Martina wrote, edited, and perfected one of the most amazing SOPs I’ve ever read. And her success speaks for itself.

The Results

Martina applied to 12 top-ranked R1 programs . She received interview offers from 10. She interviewed at 7, was accepted at 5, and ultimately enrolled at her top-choice school.

“I feel really lucky to have done so well during this crazy application season,” she said.

But in my opinion, luck had little to do with it. Instead, Martina’s success was born in her incredible work ethic, her research accomplishments, and her willingness to write the strongest SOP possible.

What’s great about this SOP?

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more perfect utilization of the Structure is Magic SOP template , and this is something that should inspire every applicant in every type of degree program or academic field.

• Two paragraphs in the Introductory Frame Narrative
• Two paragraphs for Why This Program
• Two paragraphs for Why I’m (Overly) Qualified
• One resounding frame narrative conclusion paragraph

The frame narrative starts with a highly memorable story. (She was a professional ballerina!) But like all great SOPs, it quickly moves into an intellectual journey. This journey concludes with a beautifully specific “academic goal.” It relates her research proposal to a larger humanistic issue, but lists the specific problems she hopes to explore in her PhD: “ I hope to continue elucidating hypothalamic metabolic circuits, and exploring how obesogenic diets affect long-term developmental outcomes in relation to the normal functioning of the satiety hormone leptin. ”

TIP: If you don’t know how to write a hyper-specific academic goal, the SOP Starter Kit will tell you exactly how.

Really, I love how Martina took great pains to elaborate her research proposal (just as I described in this previous article ). It’s a symphony of intellectual depth and research competence. As she describes her potential PIs’ work, she constantly links it to her own experience (and her future goals).

She doesn’t just say: “Dr. So-and-So’s work is fascinating, and I hope to contribute.”

Instead, she says: “[Dr. So-and-So’s work] has been critical to my understanding of sensitive periods for the trophic actions of leptin in the brain…[and] my experience with quantitative immunohistochemistry and RT-qPCR make me well qualified to contribute to such research…[and this is why] I am interested in studying the role LepRb and its developmental actions might play in leptin resistance and obesity in adulthood.”

Notice that 3-point argument? That’s the SOP in a nutshell.

• The professor’s work on X intrigues me…
• Because it correlates to my past experience in Y…
• And this is why I’m confident about studying the related topic Z at this university.

With every word, Martina crafts a persuasive intellectual argument. It’s not about her . It’s about the research . It shows that she has a solid understanding of how she might fit into these professors’ labs, and what they might accomplish together .

When Martina finally presents her credentials, it’s almost an afterthought. She’s written with such nuance and depth that the reader already knows she’s an incredible neuroscience researcher. Her successes as an undergraduate are icing on the cake.

Seriously, this essay makes me giddy. But enough of my rambling. Let’s take a look at the SOP that helped Martina achieve such awesome results:

A Brilliant Neuroscience Statement of Purpose

When I ended my career with the California Ballet in 2016, I looked forward to an academic experience studying the metabolic and neurological systems which had silently governed my physical reality as a performer for so long. Surprisingly, the opportunity proved more rewarding than I could have imagined. The perseverance I cultivated as a ballerina proved essential as I immediately dove into the Psychology, Biology, and Philosophy curricula at Stark University, and I soon developed an interest in the neural regulation of metabolic development. After joining Dr. Jean Grey’s research lab in my sophomore year (a position I have maintained ever since), I had the great fortune of studying the effects of obesogenic diets on conserved signaling pathways governing metabolic regulation in Drosophila melanogaster. Through this work, I have become singularly fascinated with the myriad factors that contribute to the growing obesity epidemic, and its developmental origins in particular.

The questions that underpin our work in the Grey Lab are compelling. How do critical or sensitive periods of neuroendocrine development contribute to long-term functioning in animals and humans at the behavioral and cellular levels? Interestingly, current research at Gotham University seeks answers to these very questions, and that is precisely why I apply as a PhD candidate to the interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Neuroscience.

At GU, I hope to continue elucidating hypothalamic metabolic circuits, and exploring how obesogenic diets affect long-term developmental outcomes in relation to the normal functioning of the satiety hormone leptin. I am quite interested in the work of Dr. Jonathan Crane, whose research on the development of hypothalamic circuits, and how they regulate feeding behavior, has been critical to my understanding of sensitive periods for the trophic actions of leptin in the brain. I believe my experience with quantitative immunohistochemistry and RT-qPCR make me well qualified to contribute to such research. In fact, Dr. Crane’s continuing work on the molecular signals connecting postnatal overnutrition to abnormal development of hypothalamic circuits represents questions similar to those that drew me to studying the neurobiological aspects of feeding and development. It also defines the kind of work I hope to accomplish as a doctoral candidate. While Dr. Crane’s investigation into the necessity of LepRb for typical hypothalamic development is fascinating, I am interested in studying the role LepRb and its developmental actions might play in leptin resistance and obesity in adulthood.

Additionally, Dr. Otto Octavius’s research on the effects of high developmental sugar consumption on memory circuits is fascinating to me; it dovetails nicely with my experience using high-fructose corn syrup diets to mimic obesogenic conditions, while using both behavioral and molecular assays such as weight, food intake, and RNA sequencing to investigate physiological and neural changes. For these reasons, I believe I would be a great fit in either the Crane Lab or the Octavius Lab, given my experience researching metabolic development at both the behavioral and cellular level.

Having averaged 25 research hours per week during the last few academic years, and up to 50 during the summers, I believe I have acquired all the necessary tools to succeed as a graduate student at GU. I lead the developmental subdivision at the Grey Lab, a project investigating how the timing of a high-fructose diet during development affects cellular and behavioral outcomes in adult Drosophila as it relates to unpaired 1 – the Drosophila analog of leptin – and its downstream JAK/STAT signaling pathway. In investigating this evolutionarily conserved circuit, I created a new experimental protocol for carrying out developmental feeding experiments with Drosophila larvae, as well as performing behavioral assays related to feeding such as weight, two-choice feeding preference, and capillary feeding assays. Additionally, I have performed dissections and imaging with destabilized transgenic fly lines to quantify neuropeptide-f and STAT92E expression at both the cellular and terminal levels, hoping to elucidate the potential role of SOCS36E in receptor functioning. This work has lead to me identifying a unique obese phenotype related to early dysregulation of unpaired 1, of which I was slated to perform RNA sequencing prior to COVID-19 related disruptions.

Pursuing these research projects as an undergraduate has been a monumental task, I admit, so I am proud to have maintained a 4.0 GPA, all while achieving numerous successes in my second major, Philosophy. Having coauthored a paper in the American Journal of Bioethics, as well as winning the California Philosophical Association’s undergraduate award and presenting at their annual conference, I am all the more confident in my readiness to succeed at GU.

When my career in ballet drew to a close, I looked forward to fully devoting my time to the study of the human brain’s infinitely curious adaptive processes. Now, I find myself in a similar situation, once again eager to devote myself to the study of the developing brain and how it governs metabolic regulation. The rigorous standards of The Grey Lab, along with Dr. Grey’s strict belief in personal responsibility, have shown me that (like dance) true intellectual contributions are only possible through perseverance, determination, and a ruthless eye for weakness in both experimental design and execution. Balancing laboratory workloads with a full schedule of undergraduate classes has been a taxing endeavor, but this too has been essential to my growth as a researcher. Today, I look forward to the new intellectual challenges that Gotham University will provide, and I am sure that I will discover new passions, curiosities, and questions as I prepare for my hopeful career in academia, as a professor.

The SOP Symbolizes and Summarizes Your Entire Candidacy

Again, I admit that Martina is a rock star. Not all of us can mimic her remarkable undergraduate experience. But we CAN learn from the thoughtfulness of her writing.

Martina didn’t cobble together an essay and expect her credentials to win the day. Instead, she understood that this piece of writing, these 900 words, represent everything about who she is and what she aims to be. Her statement of purpose wasn’t just a part of her application, one more sheet of paper in the pile. It represents her entire application. It integrates all of her strengths and intelligence. It presents her research goals fully, and convinced no small number of readers that she is a clear communicator too.

Everything we NEED to know about Martina is in this SOP. There’s no fluff. No out-of-place material better left to the CV. It’s just 100% airtight writing about a talented scholar and her specific goals.

I’m incredibly grateful to Martina for allowing me to publish this (pseudonymized) SOP. Students like her inspire me every day, and I hope her example inspires you as well.

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Ph.D. Thesis Proposal

The Ph.D. Thesis Proposal is a written document stating the research question, presenting the hypothesis being tested, reviewing the relevant background literature, summarizing the methodology used, and presenting the research data to date. The proposal is meant to encourage the student to plan the necessary steps for the completion of his/her program, to teach the student to organize a large and diffuse body of literature, and to help identify all potential problems and concerns at an early stage of the student's research.

Students are required to submit a written thesis proposal to their Advisory Committee and, with the approval form signed by all members of your committee and then defend the proposal orally in the Candidacy Examination. 

After the thesis proposal is submitted, the Advisory Committee will review it with the student to determine its suitability for presentation and defence in the Candidacy Examination. The Advisory Committee will assess the acceptability of the proposal in terms of content, style and originality of scholarship.

The proposal should be 20-25 pages in length, double-spaced. This page length does not include the bibliography and figures. The proposal must include the following sections:

• Introduction and Statement of Problem
• Background Information (relevant literature leading up to your studies) 
• Rationale for the study, hypothesis, and specific aims 
• Methods for each specific aim, including the rationale for the choice of methods when alternatives exist, possible problems that may be encountered and their solutions, analysis and interpretation of data, etc. 
• Summary of results to date (specific items may be included in methods, if preferable)
• Short conclusion and statement of expected contributions to original knowledge
• Preliminary bibliography  

Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory

If the proposal is deemed unsatisfactory, the supervisor must discuss its weaknesses with the student and must incorporate changes that will ameliorate the proposal. The revised proposal must then be re-submitted to the Advisory Committee members. If the proposal is approved by the Committee members, the student's supervisor will then submit a letter to the Chair of the Graduate Committee, with members of the Advisory Committee copied on it, stating their unanimous approval that the student may proceed with the Candidacy Examination.  

The Ph.D. proposal must be submitted  at least two (2) weeks prior to the Candidacy Exam .

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Demystifying Graduate School: Navigating a PhD in Neuroscience and Beyond

Linda k. mcloon.

1 Graduate Program in Neuroscience, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455

2 Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Neurosciences, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455

A. David Redish

3 Department of Neuroscience, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455

The decision to apply to a PhD-granting graduate program is both exciting and daunting. Understanding what graduate programs look for in an applicant will increase the chance of successful admission into a PhD program. It is also helpful for an applicant to understand what graduate training will look like once they matriculate into a PhD program to ensure they select programs that will help them reach their career objectives. This article focuses specifically on PhD programs in neuroscience, and while we use our program, the Graduate Program in Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota, as an example, most of what we describe is applicable to biomedical graduate programs generally. In order to ensure that our description of graduate programs is typical of neuroscience graduate programs generally, we surveyed the online websites of 52 neuroscience graduate programs around the U. S. and include our observations here. We will examine what graduate schools look for in an applicant, what to expect once admitted into a PhD graduate program, and the potential outcomes for those who successfully complete their PhD in neuroscience.

What Makes a Strong Application to a PhD Program in Neuroscience

A number of years ago, our Graduate Program in Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota performed a statistical analysis of what correlated with successful completion of our PhD program. Consistent with more recent analyses ( Weiner, 2014 ), we found that the strongest correlation was if the applicant had done research outside of the classroom setting. Given those results, at this point, our admissions committee will only consider applicants if they have some research experience. However, in our experience speaking to undergraduates, we find that undergraduates tend to underestimate how much research they’ve done. This issue of what counts as “research” appears to worry many applicants, who often feel that they have not done sufficient research to meet this requirement.

The most useful research experiences are not necessarily those which result in publications, or even those which find statistically significant answers. Rather, the most useful research experiences are those in which an applicant contributes to the research being performed, which involve grappling with questions which do not have known answers in the back of the book. These experiences are generally performed outside of a regular classroom setting, but a wide array of experiences can fulfill this research prerequisite. For example, an applicant might have done one or more summer internships in a laboratory. Others may have done a directed research project that was taken for academic credit but whose sole purpose was to perform independent research. Others may have done internships at companies. We often see applicants who have worked in laboratories or done independent original research projects in the context of their specific coursework during the school year. These courses are becoming more common, and these independent research-focused undergraduate classes can be great examples of independent research if the work provided the applicant with experience in doing research directly.

Some colleges do not have strong research opportunities available. Students in those situations should reach out to summer or other internship programs at other universities to gain that research experience. There are many such research programs. For example, the University of Minnesota runs a Life Sciences Summer Undergraduate Research Program (LSSURP) that provides such opportunities across many fields in the life sciences (including neuroscience). Many universities have Research Experience for Undergraduate (REU) programs available that are funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). These programs usually pay a summer stipend and living costs as well as providing research experiences.

However, it is not necessary for the research to be done in a formal setting. What matters is that the applicant has some experience with direct research. Similarly, the duration of the research done is not as critical a concern as having had the experience of performing research at all. The key question is: Does the student have real-world experience in doing research, and in spite of methodological difficulties and negative results in experiments, does the applicant still have a love for the scientific process? It does not matter if there were no conclusive results, if the project was left unfinished, or if the project was not published as an abstract or peer-reviewed publication.

While coursework in a graduate program is important, the “real” work of a graduate student is to learn to do science. The research experience demonstrates to the admissions committee that the applicant has a realistic sense of what it is like to work on an open-ended problem, which takes innovative thinking about experiments and controls as well as understanding the need for patience with the scientific process. It is important that both the applicant and the admissions committee know that if admitted, the applicant will not be surprised by the focus of graduate school on independently performed research.

Personal Statement

The personal statement is one of the most important aspects of an application to a graduate program. There are three main areas that need to be included in a personal statement, and if these are inadequate, it will have a negative impact on the ultimate success of that application. First, and most importantly, a personal statement must make it clear why that applicant wants to pursue a PhD in neuroscience specifically. A broad flowery description about the applicant’s interest in biology since they were 5 years old is not helpful. This statement is easier if the applicant has some laboratory research experience and can speak to why that research experience was motivating. A clear articulation of “why neuroscience” is imperative.

As noted above, the most important information in an application is the research done by the applicant. Thus, the applicant needs to provide a description of the independent research they have performed to date somewhere in the application. The research description should focus on the big picture: What was the big question? What choices were made in the experiments? What controls were done? Why were the specific controls used? The applicant should do this for each distinct research project. This shows the admissions committee how the applicant thinks about science; understanding the process is more important than if there were positive results.

The final part of the personal statement should state why they are applying to the particular program. A good way to show that the applicant has spent time looking at the specific graduate program and has thought about which programs were a good fit for their interests is by identifying programmatic strengths, such as the expertise of the faculty, or by identifying other specific or unique aspects that differentiate the program, such as, for example, our Itasca program [see below].

Finally, applicants should proofread their personal statements. Typographic errors, poor grammar, and other sloppy writing suggest an applicant who does not take the time or effort to ensure quality. It may seem silly to mention, but it is important to make sure that when mentioning programmatic strengths, the applicant should be sure that these are the programmatic strengths of the institution to which the application is sent.

Majors, Grades, and GREs

Neuroscience encompasses many different disciplines – from genetics and subcellular approaches to neural circuits and behavior. Most neuroscience graduate programs admit applicants with a broad variety of majors. Many of the applicants that we see majored in neuroscience, biology, or psychology as an undergraduate, but applicants with other undergraduate majors such as math, computer science, or physics have succeeded in our program. Many programs also admit applicants with degrees in the humanities, and we have found that many students with these broad backgrounds have succeeded in our program, some of whom only developed an interest in neuroscience after they graduated from college. However, successful applicants from the humanities need to have taken classes in the sciences before they apply to graduate school for a PhD in neuroscience.

The most important statement that we can make about grades is really in terms of the specific classes taken. While the major area of study is not critical, an internal survey of our program found that trainees were most successful in our PhD program if they had taken at least some biology, some physics, basic chemistry preferably through organic chemistry, and college level mathematics through calculus.

In our survey of over 50 graduate programs in neuroscience, most programs do not seem to have a strict GPA cut-off under which they will not admit someone; nevertheless, GPA is an important criteria being used by many admissions committees. While overall GPA is important, students who did poorly in their freshman and sophomore classes, but did well in their junior and senior years, can excel in their PhD training. Another example might be someone who had a very bad single semester or year due to extenuating circumstances, such as an illness of a death in the family. If one of these scenarios applies, it is imperative for this to be directly discussed in the personal statements that accompany a graduate program application. While most admissions committees do not explicitly rank schools, expected difficulty of the undergraduate program is usually taken into account when looking at grades, classes and GPA.

The use of the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) in making admissions decisions to a neuroscience PhD graduate program is a complex issue and has become controversial in recent years. Although many recent studies have claimed to suggest that GRE scores do not correlate with successful completion of a PhD degree in the biomedical sciences ( Hall et al., 2017 ; Moneta-Koehler et al., 2017 ), other studies examining PhDs in more quantitative disciplines, including neuroscience, found that the portions of the GRE score are in fact correlated with successful degree completion ( Willcockson et al., 2009 ; Olivares-Urueta and Williamson, 2013 ). In a large meta-analysis of GRE scores and success in graduate school, Kuncel and Hezlett (2007) found that both the GRE and undergraduate grades were effective predictors of important academic outcomes even beyond grades earned in graduate school. It should be noted that all of these studies have been performed on programs that took GREs into account when making admissions decisions and thus are based on biased data sets. Following this, some neuroscience graduate programs have elected to remove the GRE from their admission decisions, while others have decided to weigh it less in their decision-making. Most graduate programs recognize that the GRE score is just a tool, and one of many that admissions committees use to make their admissions decisions. Our graduate program, for example, is currently in the latter group—we still require it but are weighing it less than other factors such as the personal statement, classes taken, GPA, and letters of recommendation.

Letters of Recommendation

Letters of recommendation are some of the most important components of an application to graduate school. Who the student chooses to write for them and what those letters say are important factors considered by admissions committee members. The most important letters are those from research mentors with whom the applicant did independent research. A lack of letters from research mentors leaves open the question of the extent and value of that research experience. The best letters of recommendation are detailed and provide a clear indication that the mentor knew the student and can assess the student’s potential for success. The mentor’s comparison of the applicant’s abilities relative to others with whom they have worked is particularly useful.

Letters from other sources, such as athletics coaches or course directors, can speak to initiative, time management, ability to work under stress, and so forth; however, most admissions committees do not find these particularly useful, unless the course director can speak to exceptional academic achievement, such as an undergraduate shining in a graduate class. Least useful are letters from non-academic sources, such as faith leaders, employers, family friends, and the like. These letters cannot speak to the questions of success in a graduate program and have been known to detract from an application, because it implies that the student does not have sufficient academic mentors to provide the full complement of letters.

Should letters come from postdoctoral fellows or graduate students? In many large laboratories, the primary professor may not actually interact with an undergraduate research assistant very much. Instead, undergraduate research is often done under the supervision of a postdoctoral fellow or graduate student. While letters from senior postdoctoral fellows are acceptable to some programs, they are not for others. We advise the applicant to check with each program to determine if this is an issue for their admissions committee. Our program has accepted students with one letter from a postdoctoral mentor, but we found that these students were not eligible to be nominated for some university-level awards. Thus, there is a balance in having the letter come from someone who worked with the student directly but also having the letter come from a faculty member. We recommend that undergraduates in these situations get a single letter that is co-signed by both the postdoctoral fellow and the professor or senior mentor.

The Admissions Process

Most graduate programs in neuroscience use a two-stage admissions process. The first stage identifies a subset of students to invite for an interview/recruiting visit and then a subset of those students is provided offers. All graduate schools in the U. S. have signed the Resolution Regarding Graduate Scholars, Fellows, Trainees, and Assistants from the Council of Graduate Programs which says that students have until April 15th to make their matriculation decisions. In order to try to manage this, schools will admit more students than they actually expect to matriculate, and may place other students on a waitlist, trying to balance issues of getting too many students, producing a problem for budgets, or too few students producing problems of cohesion, and problems meeting the research needs of the program and university.

Interview and Recruiting Visits

Some graduate programs bring students out either singly or in small batches to visit their program, interview with faculty, and see what possibilities could come from matriculating into the program. Other programs bring students out all at once as a cohort in a combined interview/recruiting visit. Many programs combine this interview/recruiting visit with other program events; for example, we tie ours to our annual retreat. The method of organizing these interviews and recruiting visits is not particularly important, as the goal of these visits is the same – to provide an in-person look at the graduate program.

From the program side, the interview/recruiting visit allows the admissions committee to assess the fit of the potential students and to ask specific questions related to how they think about science. It is important for visiting interviewees/recruits to realize that graduate programs often have graduate students contribute to the governance of the program and provide input to the admissions committees. In our program, two current PhD students are full voting members of the admissions committee. Comments made during events where only graduate students are present do matter, and we have had a number of experiences where comments and behavior at dinners or other trainee-only events have led to rejection of the applicant.

From the visitor side, this is an opportunity to see what the program is like, as well as the living environment where the program is located. Important questions that applicants should consider include whether the students are getting the training and support that they need, whether the faculty members are engaged with the program, and whether there are faculty members to work with in the student’s area of interest. Generally, applicants should recognize that their goals, interests, and research directions may change. Ensuring that a program can accommodate those changes is an important thing when choosing a PhD program.

Choosing the Right Program

Graduate school, like most of life, is about finding the right fit. Every student is going to have to use their own judgement to determine which graduate school is right for them, but we have some suggestions about issues to consider.

First and foremost, are there a sufficient number of faculty members in their area of interest? Importantly, students should recognize that interests often change, either with experience or time or discoveries, so the student should also look at what other faculty members are around, and what opportunities there are to examine other research areas. For example, how collaborative are the faculty? What processes are in place if one needs to switch advisors? Does the program do rotations in different laboratories, or does the student have to choose an advisor immediately?

In our survey of over 50 neuroscience graduate programs in the U. S., all but one admit students into the program as a whole, rather than into specific laboratories. Students in the majority of programs spend the first year rotating through three or four different laboratories in order to get a thorough exploration of advisors and potential research areas. Furthermore, because students are admitted to the program as a whole and not into a specific laboratory, there are processes in place to handle the (rare) situation when a student needs to switch their primary research mentor.

An important consideration on picking an advisor is not only the research area of the advisor, but also the training and personal style of that PhD mentor. In our graduate program, we have 8-week rotations to give a student and an advisor sufficient time to determine if they can work together well. The duration of laboratory rotations varies between programs, but generally most programs have between 2 and 4 during the course of the first year. Choosing a PhD thesis mentor is not generally an issue of advisor quality, but rather one of style. Should the student and advisor meet daily? Weekly? Monthly? Is the goal a thesis that is a hoop to jump through on the path to another career or is it a magnum opus on which one will build a reputation? How are manuscripts written? How does the laboratory decide which projects to do? These questions do not have right and wrong answers, but a mismatch between styles can potentially make it difficult to complete the degree.

There are several other considerations. The applicant should examine the curriculum. How comprehensive or specific is it? Does it cover what the student wants to have as their baseline/background? Applicants should also look at publication requirements and expectations. Are students publishing first author papers? Trainee funding should also be evaluated. How are trainees supported? Is funding guaranteed or not? Part of the consideration relative to trainee funding is whether the program has training grants to help financially support students—these can include National Institutes of Health (NIH) T32 grants, and National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Traineeship (NRT) and Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) training grants. Training grant support from NIH and NSF is a good measure of how the PhD training program is viewed by external reviewers. It is also useful to see if the trainees are successfully competing for fellowship awards. This speaks to the quality of the graduate students as well as the quality of mentorship from their thesis advisors and the program.

Other issues to consider are the environment and social climate of the program and the career paths the program’s graduates take. In terms of social climate and environment, we suggest asking whether the trainees know and support each other, and whether the faculty members know the trainees. Science is increasingly a collaborative venture. Evidence could be the presence of co-mentored trainees, as well as research publications that are co-authored by members of the graduate program. Other evidence of the environment of a PhD graduate program is to determine how integrated the PhD trainees are in program decision making and leadership. Do they serve on committees, and if so, what are their roles? Self-reflective programs generally include multiple voices in making program decisions. This also speaks in part to mentorship of trainees, as participating in program governance provides the PhD trainee an opportunity to develop leadership skills.

In terms of outcomes, it is important to recognize that career goals change, but we recommend programs that provide opportunities for a variety of career paths. Importantly, programs should have processes that enable students to succeed in academia and elsewhere. As we will discuss in the following section, post-graduate paths for PhD trainees have always included a mix of academic and non-academic careers. This was also the recommendation of a workshop held by the National Academy of Science ( IOM, 2015 ), and in fact reflects the actual career choices of individuals who received their PhD in neuroscience ( Akil et al., 2016 ). Importantly, the career-space that our current graduates will face will look very different from previous generations. In particular, it will look very different from the previous generation when there were very few academic jobs available. The current career space is broader than it used to be, including some jobs, such as internet-related positions, that did not exist a generation ago. Furthermore, neuroscience academic jobs are opening up as baby boomers retire and universities invest in neuroscience. Whatever the student’s goal is, we recommend looking for programs that provide career facilitation support for a variety of outcomes, because, as noted above, career goals may change with experience.

While many students and many programs will look at time-to-degree as a criterion for program quality, we feel that this can be misleading. No one has ever asked us how long we took to get through graduate school. One way to think about graduate school is to realize that graduate students in neuroscience programs get paid to go to graduate school – being a graduate student in neuroscience is a job, and one that should provide a living wage in the area that one will be living in during one’s time in graduate school. The main problem with students taking too long to complete a degree is that it may indicate deeper problems in a graduate program, for example, when students are not graduating because their technical skills are needed in a laboratory. These situations are rare, but extremely long durations (e.g., 8 years) can be a sign to look for when making a decision. However, the difference between spending 4.5, 5.5, or even 6 years in graduate school is simply not important relative to the duration of a scientific career. In fact, there is a case to be made that taking an extra year to get additional publications can be a wise choice for students going into academic careers, since fellowships, awards, and other granting mechanisms, such as individual NIH postdoctoral training grants (F32) and individual NIH Pathway to Independence (K99/R00) awards, and the faculty level “early stage investigator” identifier at NIH, are based on date of graduation. Furthermore, few reviewers normalize number of papers by time spent in graduate school.

Additional Resources

The Society for Neuroscience provides useful resources to undergraduate students interested in a PhD in Neuroscience. One resource is the online training program directory that offers graduate program information on more than 75 top neuroscience graduate programs in North America, and provides a short summary of the characteristics of each program (e.g., number of faculty, student demographics, and research areas) along with a link to the program of interest. A second resource is available to prospective students who are able to attend the SfN annual meeting. Known as the Graduate Student Fair , it offers an opportunity for prospective students to meet face-to-face with representatives of many graduate programs.

The Gap Year Question

In recent years, we have seen that increasing numbers of applicants are taking a gap year between completion of their undergraduate degree and entering graduate school. We have not seen any correlation with success in graduate school from a gap year, and the Graduate Program in Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota does not require such a gap year. However, other neuroscience graduate programs have begun to require it. The gap year itself can vary, but often the recent college graduate enters a formal postbaccalaureate or “postbac” program, such as the one at the NIH, works in a laboratory, and participates in specific programs designed to increase readiness for graduate school. Many applicants have taken one or more years off from formal education to do research in an academic, government or industry setting. Whether a postbac year is useful or not is very much an individual choice.

There are two cases where a postbaccalaureate experience can be helpful for admissions into a neuroscience PhD program. One is when the undergraduate GPA is lower than a 3.0 or the student does not have the requisite science-related coursework. The other is when a student does not have sufficient research experience. Structured programs, such as the one at NIH, can be helpful in these situations. These postbac programs can provide an experience that is valuable for those students with limited research experiences. They can also provide opportunities for students who decide to transition to new fields late in their college career or after completion of their undergraduate degree. However, as noted above, in our experience, students underestimate their research experience and take gap years unnecessarily. To summarize, additional research training after a bachelor’s degree is not necessary for successful admission into a graduate program in neuroscience for the vast majority of applicants, nor does it appear to correlate with successful completion of the PhD.

What Trainees Can Expect During Their PhD Training in Neuroscience

A neuroscience PhD is a research-focused degree. This means that the student will spend the majority of their time as a PhD trainee working on research that can be published in peer-reviewed journals. However, that journey can look quite different from program to program. Most programs work through some structure that is a combination of coursework and early research exploration in the first years, punctuated by a written preliminary exam, followed by a thesis proposal, thesis research, and a thesis defense. In almost all of the programs we surveyed, the student is paired with an advisor that is the primary research mentor.

Throughout this section, we will use our program as an example and we will note where it differs from others. However, the general timeline is similar between programs.

In August before our “official” school year actually starts, we provide a month-long hands-on, state-of-the-art research experience for all our incoming PhD students at a research station owned by the University of Minnesota at Lake Itasca at the headwaters of the Mississippi River. This program is unique in our experience relative to other programs, and it (1) provides a neuroscience background experience for students coming from diverse intellectual backgrounds, (2) binds the class together into a cohort which helps to provide a strong support system during the transition to and experience of graduate school, (3) begins the trainees on a journey from student to colleague. They then return to the Twin Cities to begin their formal year 1 experience.

In the majority of neuroscience graduate programs, students spend their first year doing two to four laboratory rotations with faculty who participate in the neuroscience graduate program and complete a set of core classes. The four core classes we require are Cell and Molecular Neuroscience , Systems Neuroscience , Developmental Neurobiology , and Behavioral Neurobiology . Other programs require other classes that might constitute a “minor” in a secondary subject, such as pharmaceutics or computational methods. At the end of the first year, many programs have students take a written preliminary examination that is focused on the integration of the material taught in the core first-year classes. Generally, programs use this sort of examination as a check to ensure that students have integrated the knowledge from their first-year classes. Students in most neuroscience graduate programs also take a class that provides training in research ethics, writing experiences, and other important non-academic components that will be necessary for a research career. Starting in the first year, it is typical that the program directors have annual or semi-annual meetings with every trainee in the graduate program. In later years, a thesis committee will also meet semi-annually with students to provide oversight and mentorship. Some programs we surveyed have separate committees that monitor student progress in the PhD program independent from the mentor and thesis committees. We advise looking for a program that will provide the trainee with regular evaluations and clearly defined milestones to help the student complete their degree in a timely manner.

In year 2, students in the majority of graduate neuroscience programs have settled into a laboratory and are working towards writing their thesis proposal. The thesis proposal is usually the basis for the “oral preliminary exam.” In our program, we have students write their thesis proposal in the form of an NIH NRSA (F30 or F31) grant proposal which helps train students to write grant proposals.

Many programs have students take other elective classes throughout their second and sometimes even into the third year. In the second year in our program, students take one more required class, Quantitative Neuroscience that covers statistics, programming, and experimental design, but that then completes their class requirements. These types of quantitative classes are being introduced in many neuroscience graduate programs in response to the rigor and reproducibility issues that are being raised in the scientific literature and expected to be discussed as part of grant submissions to the NIH.

Most neuroscience graduate programs also have a teaching requirement. In our program, this occurs in the second year. Programs require different amounts of teaching, so this is a good question for the applicant to ask when they are interviewing. Many graduate students are interested in careers that include teaching as well as research, and additional teaching experience is important. We provide extra opportunities for teaching, where the trainee might run discussion sections or give course lectures. Often, these “extra” teaching experiences are paid beyond what the student receives from their stipend. For those interested in a more teaching-centric career, these experiences are very important. We recommend the applicant ask about how teaching expectations of the graduate students is handled in the programs to which they are applying.

Year 3 and Beyond

In the subsequent years, PhD trainees continue to do research, write and publish papers, present their work at conferences and in colloquia, and proceed on the journey to graduation. Graduate neuroscience programs generally have trainees meet with their thesis committee once or twice a year to ensure that they stay on track to graduation. The final stage, of course, is the thesis writing and thesis defense.

Presentations and Outreach

A key factor for a successful science career is the ability to communicate one’s discoveries, both to fellow scientists and to the public at large. In our program, students are required to present their research annually to the other faculty and students in the Graduate Program in Neuroscience. These presentations are opportunities to learn how to present work to a friendly audience who will push one scientifically, but still provide positive support. In our experience, students are often very nervous giving their first colloquium, but confident by the time they are ready to defend their PhD thesis. The final PhD defense is a public presentation in which the student presents and defends their research. The specific aspects of the PhD defense are accomplished in different ways amongst PhD graduate programs; however, in the end, all PhD programs require that the student be able to publicly present their research in a comprehensive and cohesive manner as well as field questions about their research.

In addition, neuroscience graduate programs provide many opportunities for outreach beyond the scientific community, although most do not require outreach explicitly. Typical types of outreach in many programs include volunteering to present science at K-12 schools, Brain Awareness Week programs sponsored by the Society for Neuroscience, or science museums as examples. We have found that these opportunities provide students learning experiences in how to present scientific data and ideas to a broader audience. Not surprisingly, the ability to present ideas to a broad audience translates very well to communicating scientific results to other scientists as well.

It’s a Job

We have found it useful for students to think of graduate school as a combination of college and career. Students should not have pay out of pocket for their PhD program. Most neuroscience graduate programs not only pay students a stipend but also provide tuition and health care benefits. For some trainees, conceptualizing graduate school as a job rather than as continued school can be important for dealing with family pressures to “get a job” rather than “continue in school.”

Where to Go from Here

Fundamentally, the goal of a PhD program is to teach the student how to think critically and how to determine if a new discovery is real or illusion. An undergraduate program is usually about how to learn from books and from teachers, how to determine if the text in front of you is trustworthy or not, and how to integrate knowledge from multiple sources. A graduate program is about how to determine if the discovery you just made is correct when there is no answer in the back of a book for you to look up. In practice, this means learning how to ask questions that are answerable, how to design appropriate controls, how to interpret results and integrate them into a scholarly literature, and, importantly, how to communicate those discoveries to other scientists and the public as a whole.

These skills are useful in a variety of careers. Much of the discussion of graduate school outcomes has suggested that graduate programs are designed to produce faculty for colleges and universities and bemoan the fact that (1) there are too many PhD trainees and not enough faculty jobs, and (2) that many students are forced into “alternative careers.” Both of these statements are wrong when one looks at the actual data.

First and foremost, we wish to point out that there should be no such thing as an “alternative career” — graduates should go towards a career and not away from one. We tell our students that we want them to do something important, whether that is becoming faculty at a research institution, teaching undergraduates at a liberal arts college, contributing to industrial research, analysis, or translation, becoming a writer and making research findings accessible to other scientist or lay audiences, or making policy in a governmental or non-profit setting.

Second, the complaints seen in many of these publications do not take into account very important demographic trends. Current students will see a very different world of faculty jobs than their professors did. Simply put, understanding the faculty situation requires considering the baby boomers (q.v. ACD biomedical workforce data ). In 1980, a 35-year-old young professor was born in 1945, while a 65-year-old was born in 1915. This means that the generation of senior professors in 1980 consisted of those who had survived two World Wars and the Great Depression, while the junior professors were baby boomers. With the blossoming of investment in science after WWII, there were lots of jobs, and the baby boomers filled them quickly. Mechanisms were developed for new professors to get initial NIH grants to help them set up their laboratories (q.v. NIH History of new and early stage investigator policies ). In contrast, in 2000, a 35-year-old was born in 1965, and a baby-boomer born in 1945 was 55, in the prime of their scientific career. There were fewer jobs and few funding mechanisms that focused on providing assistance for new, young investigators. In 2018, that baby-boomer born in 1945 is nearly 75 years old and likely retiring or retired. Thus, based on our own university as well as checking sources online such as Science Careers , there are faculty positions in neuroscience open all over the country. In addition, there are now specific programs at NIH to help new faculty get grants and transition into becoming successfully funded faculty quickly.

In practice, this has meant that there are many faculty positions for those who want them, at many different types of academic institutions. An undergraduate student who wants to take the next step into a PhD program should be encouraged to do so. PhDs have always gone on after their PhD to contribute to science in many ways. A recent survey published in Nature found that a scientific PhD had high value in the United Kingdom and Canadian job markets ( Woolston, 2018 ). In fact, when we look at the distribution of careers our graduating students have taken since graduation, we find that the vast majority (96%) are engaged in important, science-related jobs.

However, the essential benefit of a PhD is that it teaches one how to think critically about the world around them. Life is long and careers are long, and the needs of both society and technology changes. It is critical to remember that many of the jobs people are doing today literally did not exist when we (the authors of this paper) were in graduate school. For example, it is now possible to make a living running an educational website on scientific topics that gets millions of hits per month, reaching thousands of school districts around the country, but when we (the authors) were in college, the internet didn’t exist. A well-designed PhD program will prepare its trainees for whatever career they chose.

We cannot imagine the world 30 years from now, but we can state that PhD-trained scientists will not only be able to handle these changes but will in fact invent many of them. Huge technological innovations now allow investigators to see many individual neurons inside the brain, control the properties of neurons experimentally, to see effects of individual channels and proteins within a neuron or glial cell, and to observe the effects of these manipulations on behavior. Neuroscience is making amazing discoveries in the fundamental science of how the brain functions and the clinical and practical consequences of those discoveries. Simply put, it is an amazing time to be a neuroscientist.

The authors thank Drs. Robert Meisel, Timothy Ebner, Paul Mermelstein, Stephanie Fretham, Kevin Crisp, and Neil Schmitzer-Torbert for comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript.

• Akil H, Balice-Gordon R, Cardozo DL, Koroshetz W, Posey Norris SM, Sherer T, Sherman SM, Thiels E. Neuroscience training for the 21rst century. Neuron. 2016; 90 :917–926. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
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PhD Assistance

Guidelines to write a research proposal for neurology research scholars.

To be considered for the PhD in neurology program, a scholar, in support of his/her research supervisor, must prepare a Dissertation Proposal describing the basis, methods, discussion and the  references with a time frame to complete the document. Research proposal writing can be called a complicated process. Many new ideas on the influential writing style and formatting have to be implemented to convey your research plan. This guideline is designed for PhD scholars who are required to submit a research proposal for their PhD admission. This High-Quality Research Proposal Writing Service helps you develop an approach for writing a clear and focused research proposal.

Introduction

Neuroscience is the prospective discipline that is supposed to solve numerous problems related to nervous disorders and problems with the human nervous system. Nowadays, the discipline is only in its developing stage, and fresh and creative ideas are valuable for improving science. The student who wants to contribute to the development of neuroscience should learn about the current condition and structure of the science and then share the alternative and brand new ideas in the research proposal to convince the professor that the topic is worth investigating. One should present the list of the sources and methods used for the research of neuroscience and complete a logical structure of the PhD Doctoral Dissertation Proposal , which would reflect the student’s responsible attitude towards the process of writing.

Purpose of a Research Proposal

The purpose of a research proposal convinces the investigator and the funding agency. The purpose of the project should consist of

1) The significance and worthy of the study

2) The novelty in technical approach and feasibility

3) The supervisor and the scholar should carry out and accomplish the work with integrity as proposed.

Format for writing a proposal

A dissertation proposal will have the following sections:

The main body, consists of:

Methodology

• Literature R eview

Limitations

• Ethical considerations
• Mini-conclusion

If a dissertation proposal has been done appropriately, it will give you a direction while writing the main body of the work.

The title should be short, precise, and should have clarity. A single sentence containing 55 letters is preferable. Acronyms and technical jargon should be avoided.

The introduction section should emphasize the research problem and its significance. The technical approach used to solve the proposed problem should also be mentioned. The research team involved in the work must be introduced as well.

In the methodology section the methods to solve the problem has to be outlined through which you will collect and process your parameters. If your research is quantitative, then include a reference to a questionnaire, survey, or data source. A clear scope of your research should be involved. The reason for the selection of the methods should be emphasized along with the specification to the research field.

Literature Review

A brief review of the Primary Literature Relevant to the proposed research work should be given under this section. It should

• Key literature sources should be cited
• Recent works of literature which have similar works should be cited
• Critical analysis of the literature works

This section should also explain the benefits to the scientific society and the reason for undertaking the project.

The proposed work should have:

• Scientific Advancement and implementation
• Previous studies in your research area
• Research gap/problems/errors in previous studies

Develop instrumentation, methodology and teams that will take science on a novel path.

Research Methods

In this section, information on the research team and collaborators related to your work, an accurate timeline, and the experiments and theories’ portrayal with additional plans despite difficulties. The timeline should explain the project’s length and provide a plan on the tasks and the duration.

As a part of writing the limitations that imposed on research findings should be identified. Some limitations explain issues that cannot be addressed. This section clearly shows the  researcher’s involvement with the subject matter and is familiar with the wider concepts relating to the topic.

Human Subjects

If there any ethical concerns relating to your research get a secured permission from the participants to be interviewed/included in the research work.

If your project involves experiments on either animals or people, you will need to obtain approval for your project through your Institutional Compliance office.

PhD Dissertation Proposal will include an estimated timeframe for the work to complete. This can be a each chapter basis, or the actual research, which require to be focused before begin the writing. The work should be feasible and realistic which requires some initial research.

This section should provide ancillary information relevant to the research project.

It is not necessary to include a conclusion in your proposal, but it might be a good idea to recollect the reasons for selecting the topic, the type of  research and its expected results.

Points to do before writing a proposal

• Refer the proposals of your supervisors or other scientists.
• The research idea should be important and technically sound. The proposal should be clear in making a worth funding by the funding agency and program.
• Research your work before you begin writing by doing preliminary experiments to the feasibility and clear idea of your work. Your idea should have novelty.
• Plot a research road map for your project.
• Recognize the key experiments and carry out the experiments and work out on the budget.
• Your proposal shoul be Plagiarism corrected .
• Don’t use many technical jargon. Use the spell checker and grammar checker. Approach Best PhD proposal writing service or PhD Research Proposal Assistance to support your toughts.

[1] Joseph T. King, Jr., M.D., M.S.C.E., How Many Neurosurgeons Does It Take to Write a Research Article? Authorship Proliferation in Neurosurgical Research, Neurosurgery, Volume 47, Issue 2, August 2000, Pages 435–440, https://doi.org/10.1097/00006123-200008000-00032.

[2] M Annersten & R Wredling (2006) How to write a research proposal, European Diabetes Nursing, 3:2, 102-105, DOI: 10.1002/edn.52

[3] Goswami, U. Neuroscience and education: from research to practice?. Nat Rev Neurosci 7, 406–413 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn1907

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Research Proposal Example/Sample

Detailed Walkthrough + Free Proposal Template

If you’re getting started crafting your research proposal and are looking for a few examples of research proposals , you’ve come to the right place.

In this video, we walk you through two successful (approved) research proposals , one for a Master’s-level project, and one for a PhD-level dissertation. We also start off by unpacking our free research proposal template and discussing the four core sections of a research proposal, so that you have a clear understanding of the basics before diving into the actual proposals.

• Research proposal example/sample – Master’s-level (PDF/Word)
• Research proposal example/sample – PhD-level (PDF/Word)
• Proposal template (Fully editable) 

If you’re working on a research proposal for a dissertation or thesis, you may also find the following useful:

• Research Proposal Bootcamp : Learn how to write a research proposal as efficiently and effectively as possible
• 1:1 Proposal Coaching : Get hands-on help with your research proposal

FAQ: Research Proposal Example

Research proposal example: frequently asked questions, are the sample proposals real.

Yes. The proposals are real and were approved by the respective universities.

Can I copy one of these proposals for my own research?

As we discuss in the video, every research proposal will be slightly different, depending on the university’s unique requirements, as well as the nature of the research itself. Therefore, you’ll need to tailor your research proposal to suit your specific context.

You can learn more about the basics of writing a research proposal here .

How do I get the research proposal template?

You can access our free proposal template here .

Is the proposal template really free?

Yes. There is no cost for the proposal template and you are free to use it as a foundation for your research proposal.

Where can I learn more about proposal writing?

For self-directed learners, our Research Proposal Bootcamp is a great starting point.

For students that want hands-on guidance, our private coaching service is recommended.

Psst… there’s more!

This post is an extract from our bestselling short course, Research Proposal Bootcamp . If you want to work smart, you don't want to miss this .

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Neuroscience

Formal thesis proposal.

Deadline for the Formal Proposal

The formal, written thesis proposal is due by 4:00 pm on the third Friday of September. You are expected to turn in 2 hard copies of your document to the Chair by this deadline. The Chair then distributes these copies, with one delivered to your assigned thesis adviser and the other delivered to a second reader, who will be one of the other neuroscience faculty. The Chair decides who the second reader will be.

Evaluation of the Proposal

After you turn in your proposal, the neuroscience faculty meet to discuss all of the proposals. Questions that the faculty have in mind during this discussion include: is the project fully envisioned, does the project contribute uniquely to the literature, is the project manageable in the time frame of 1-semester or 1-year, do we have enough laboratory and fiscal resources to see the project to completion, does the student have the skill set needed to complete the thesis, are there specified hypotheses, is the proposed methodology suitable to test those hypotheses, does the student understand what statistical/analytical approach is needed to test the hypotheses, is the student’s writing up to the level that we would expect from a W3 class. After this faculty meeting, your thesis adviser will give you feedback either in email or in person. The feedback may be very general or may be very detailed with constructive criticism. The constructive criticism may mean that you have to go back to the drawing board for certain components of your methodology and/or may have to consult a different literature to problem-solve a sticking point. The constructive criticism may also include an expectation that we see a reworking of your thesis proposal by a certain date.

General Format of the Proposal

The formal proposal will have the format of: Title Page, Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, References, Appendices (if appropriate). As for setting a tone in the thesis proposal, you should assume you have an audience of people interested in neuroscience who do not necessarily have a background in your research area. Assume for example, the reader is another neuroscience major in a completely different specialty. More info on each section of the document is next.

On the title page, please include your name, the title of the project, the date, the name of your thesis adviser, and whether your project is one semester or one year. The abstract comes next on its own page and should be approximately 150 words or less. Usually the abstract takes the form of a sentence or two to lay out the problem/set the stage, followed by a sentence or two about the methods to be used, then a sentence or two about how you will analyze your data, and a sentence or two to end that explains why your project is important in the grand scheme of the literature. Since you have not completed your project, you will be writing the methods/results part of the abstract using the future tense (e.g., Participants will undergo…; Data will be analyzed by…).

The introduction starts on its own page and will probably be the longest section of the document. In the introduction, you want to give enough background information about your topic that the reader is led naturally to your hypotheses. Typically you start out broad, making it clear to the reader why the topic itself is worth studying. The bulk of the introduction is a literature review, where you discuss what is known already about the problem, citing the relevant literature as you go along. It should be clear in or after the literature review what remains unknown, which is your segue to why your study is an important extension to the literature. This will lead to your specific proposal for the study with a few sentences about exactly what you will be doing in your study and how you will do it. The introduction usually ends with a declaration of your expectations or hypotheses.

In the methods section, you should provide the following information as appropriate: who are the subjects, what stimuli or equipment are needed for experimentation/manipulation, what are the steps in your protocol, along with a description of the kinds of variables you will be getting from your methodology. Each subsection may be its own paragraph or many paragraphs, depending on the study. The goal is to give the reader a detailed roadmap of what you will be doing and what you need to do it. Since you have not executed the study yet, you will be writing the methods section in future tense. One detail we wish to stress is that it is important for the reader to know what variables will result from your methodology. For example, say you are administering a 75-item self-report questionnaire to a group of people. How do you score this questionnaire? Is there just one resultant variable (e.g., a raw total score), or perhaps 10 resulting variables (e.g., subscale scores)? What does a high number mean versus a low number? If you are using a score to divide your sample into two smaller subsamples, how exactly will you do this? As another example, let us say that you are videotaping behavior of mice as they move around a square box. How will you score the videotaped footage? Are you getting a frequency count of 3 behaviors in 1-minute intervals? Are you labeling a certain behavior on a 7-point scale? Again, be clear about what kinds of variables are generated during your protocol.

In the results section, you will give the reader a sense of what statistical or other analytic/descriptive approach you will use to test the hypotheses. Since you have not completed the project yet, you will again be using the future tense. The analytic approach that you suggest to use should mesh with the kinds of variables you have just described in the methods section.

For the references section, you should list out the full citation for any work you have cited parenthetically in the earlier parts of the document. In terms of mechanics and style guides, you should check with your thesis adviser what style is the preferred choice.

Helpful Hints

(1) Since the formal thesis proposal is the first start of your writing for the thesis itself, it is imperative to start keeping track of your references as you go. We strongly encourage you to use RefWorks or another type of software to help manage your references section.

(2) When you are doing web searches for your literature review, it is a good idea to check multiple search engines.

(3) Do not procrastinate. The deadline for the formal proposal will come upon you soon enough, and a lot of work goes into it. This is definitely not something to leave to several days before the deadline.

(4) It is a very good idea to set up earlier deadlines with your thesis adviser for completion of each section. Your adviser will want to see drafts (sometimes multiple drafts) of each section to check it for completeness, accuracy, and for quality of writing before you assemble the full package and print the hard copies. Keep in mind that your thesis adviser has multiple thesis students, each of whom is going through the same process as you. This means that your adviser will be reading multiple drafts from multiple students; hence, earlier deadlines keep you on track and help the adviser manage the supervision load.

(5) There is no set page limit or page limit goal for sections in the thesis proposal. The proposal is complete when you have been thorough and have addressed all the points as laid out above. Each project is different, and each student’s thesis proposal will be a different length.

(6) If you worry that your writing skills are not as good as they can be, then by all means take advantage of the writing services we have on campus. The writing center has excellent staff who are specialized to read in/for the sciences. There is no shame in visiting the writing center or making an appointment to meet with a writing specialist. However, you will want to budget extra time for this. Doing a good job on your proposal, with or without extra writing help, will require you to start early.

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Writing your research proposal

When applying to study for a PhD or MPhil in the School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, you will typically need to send us an initial 500-word research proposal.

The content and structure of your research proposal will be influenced by the nature of the project you wish to pursue. The guidance and suggested headings provided here should help you to structure and present your ideas clearly.

Your initial research proposal

When writing your initial research proposal, you can either address it to the School generally, or to a specific supervisor if you have one in mind. 

Potential supervisors in the School will review your initial research proposal, and get in touch with you to discuss it. Your proposal may change following this conversation. Depending on the supervisor and the outcome of this discussion, you may be asked to produce a longer research proposal of between 2,000 and 4,000 words.

Tips on writing a research proposal

Before you write your research proposal, we strongly recommend that you check our  research page  and  individual supervisor profiles  to view our areas of expertise.

• You should avoid the use of overly long sentences and technical jargon.
• It is important that the proposed research is realistic and feasible so that the outcomes can be achieved within the scale of a typical research degree programme. This is usually three years full-time for a PhD (or two years for an MPhil). 
• A strong research proposal can and should make a positive first impression about your potential to become a good researcher. It should demonstrate that your ideas are focused, interesting and realistic.

Although you should write your proposal yourself, it is best if you discuss its contents with your proposed supervisor before you submit it. If this is not possible, then try to get someone else (such as an academic at your current or previous institution) to read and comment on it to ensure that it is sufficiently clear.

Your proposal needs a clear working title that gives an indication of what you want to study. You are not committed to continuing with the same title once you begin your studies.

Research question

For many projects, you'll usually address one main question, which can sometimes be broken down into several sub-questions. However, it's OK to have two or three research questions where appropriate.

In your research proposal, you'll need to state your main research question(s), explain its significance, and locate it within the relevant literature, in order to set out the context into which your research will fit. You should only refer to research that is directly relevant to your proposal. 

Questions to address in your research proposal

You will need to address questions such as:

• What is the general area in which you will be working, and the specific aspect(s) of that area that will be your focus of inquiry?
• What is the problem, shortcoming, or gap in this area that you would like to address?
• What is the main research question or aim that you want to address?
• What are the specific objectives for the proposed research that follow from this?
• Why is the proposed research significant, why does it matter (either theoretically or practically), and why does it excite you?
• How does your work relate to other relevant research in the department?

Methodology

You will need to explain how you will go about answering your question (or achieving your aim), and why you will use your intended approach to address the question/aim. 

Questions you might need to address include:

• What steps will you take and what methods will you use to address your question? For instance, do you plan to use quantitative or qualitative methods?
• How will your proposed method provide a reliable answer to your question?
• What sources or data will you use?
• If your project involves an experimental approach, what specific hypothesis or hypotheses will you address?
• What specific techniques will you use to test the hypothesis? For example, laboratory procedures, interviews, questionnaires, modelling, simulation, text analysis, use of secondary data sources.
• What practical considerations are there? For example, what equipment, facilities, and other resources will be required?
• What relevant skills and experience do you have with the proposed methods?
• Will you need to collaborate with other researchers and organisations?
• Are there particular ethical issues that will need to be considered (for example, all projects using human participants require ethical approval)?
• Are there any potential problems or difficulties that you foresee (for example, delays in gaining access to special populations or materials) that might affect your rate of progress?

You will need to provide a rough timeline for the completion of your research to show that the project is achievable (given the facilities and resources required) in no more than three years of full-time study (or part-time equivalent) for a PhD, and two years for an MPhil.

Expected outcomes

You need to say something about what the expected outcomes of your project would be.

How, for example, does it make a contribution to knowledge? How does it advance theoretical understanding? How might it contribute to policy or practice?

If you are aiming to study for a PhD, then you need to say how your proposed research will make an original contribution to knowledge. This is not essential if you are aiming to study for an MPhil, although you will still need to show originality in the application of knowledge.

List of references

You will need to provide a list of any key articles or texts that you have referred to in your proposal.

References should be listed in the appropriate style for your subject area (e.g. Harvard). You should only reference texts that you think are central to your proposed work, rather than a bibliography listing everything written on the subject. 

Format and proofreading

Make sure that your proposal is well structured and clearly written. It is important that you carefully check your proposal for typographical and spelling errors, consistency of style, and accuracy of references, before submitting it.

The proposal should be aesthetically well presented, and look professional (e.g. no font inconsistencies, headings clearly identifiable). If you include figures, then they should be accompanied by captions underneath).

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Free Research Paper Samples, Research Proposal Examples and Tips | UsefulResearchPapers.com

Neuroscience research proposal example.

February 11, 2014 UsefulResearchPapers Research Proposals 0

Neuroscience is the science which studies the structure, functioning, development, genetics, biochemistry, physiology and disorders of the nervous system. The study of behaviour and its type is also the field of research of neuroscience and it connects it with psychology. The study of the human brains is a complicated job, which can not be carried out in the boarder of the single discipline, because the research starts from the study of the molecules and nervous cells and finishes with the complicated system of the human brain and the whole nervous system in general.

The topics of the research of neuroscience are: the activity of neurotransmitters in synapse; how genes influence the development of the nervous system in embryo and adulthood; the activity towards the simple structures of the nervous system; the structure and functioning of the complex neural chains – perception, memory and speech.

We can write a custom research proposal on Neuroscience topics for you!

The human brain is an extremely complicated system and neuroscience is closely connected with numerous disciplines and now it also involves computer technologies for the detailed research of the work of the brains and the whole nervous system organizing the new branch of the science – computational neuroscience. The results of the research in the sphere of neuroscience are widely used in medicine, because there are more and more people with the nervous disorders and problem with the nervous system and behavior. In addition, due to the research of the human brain it is possible to cure the serious diseases and injures of the certain parts of the brain, which was mostly impossible even a few years ago.

Neuroscience is the perspective discipline which is supposed to solve numerous problems related with the nervous disorders and problems with the human nervous system. Nowadays, the discipline is only on its developing stage and fresh and creative ideas are quite valuable for the improvement of the science. He student who wants to contribute into the development of neuroscience should learn about the current condition and structure of the science and than share the alternative and brand new ideas in the research proposal trying to convince the professor that the topic is worth investigation. One should present the list of the sources and methods used for the research of neuroscience and complete a logical structure of the paper which would reflect the responsible attitude of the student towards the process of writing.

Research proposal writing can be called a difficult process and one can use the pluses of the Internet and read a free cognitive neuroscience research proposal example written by the certified and experienced writer. Many new ideas on the persuasive style of writing and formatting can be borrowed from a free neuroscience research proposal sample written online, so every student should look through at least a few examples for the successful result.

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