The Learning Centre provides assistance to students in preparing research proposal. Please visit the web site of the learning centre for details or go directly to a page giving excellent guidelines on preparation of a research proposal . We use the time unit of 'sessions' because this is used as the basis for enrolment. For postgraduate research students there are 2 sessions in a year so each equates to about six months. The project is defined and the main skills have been acquired.
Research can now begin in earnest.
Enough of the project has been undertaken to be able to describe the contents of the thesis. By the end of the fifth session, it should be possible to write the chapter headings and most of the sub section titles for the chapters. The sections of work yet to be done should be clearly recognisable and there should be a plan of not more than two sessions of full-time research to complete the experiments. The experimental work appears to have now been completed, and the focus shifts to the preparation of the thesis. As the results are documented in the emerging thesis, it may become apparent that some additional experiments need to be undertaken.