Nhd rough draft example4/8/2024 For some topics, this will mean addressing one or more accounts of pretty much the same events that you will explore. Having framed a question, you need to explain why you think answering it will take years of primary-source research, rather than a few hours reading a book that someone else has already written. What have others written about your subject specifically? But the focus on freedom has left other important concepts relatively unexplored. The meanings of freedom were myriad, and it mattered immensely whose definitions won out. Historians have shown how meanings of freedom differed not only between blacks and whites and between northerners and southerners, but also among African Americans, across lines of sex, class, and region of origin. For example, Kate Masur ( An Example for All the Land, 4.) explains the significance of her study of Reconstruction in Washington, D.C., by discussing scholarship about Reconstruction in general, and arguing that it has paid insufficient attention to ideas about equality: Whether or not previous historians have investigate the specific events you will discuss in your research, you should explain what they have said about the broader themes you will explore. For other forms of dialectics used by historians, see “ Dialectical Thesis Statements.” What have others written about your subject generally? Hunt’s question,-what went wrong?-implies a comparison between the optimistic plans for public housing and the disappointing outcome. ![]() ![]() In general, or perhaps always, the question should present a comparison, or dialectic. Put a question like that in your prospectus, and your committee will know exactly what you seek to accomplish. He gives his introduction its own title: “What Went Wrong with Public Housing in Chicago?” This leaves no doubt about his goal in conducting the research he did. This will keep you on track as you do your research, and it will help your reader understand why you are telling the stories you do.Ĭonsider, for example, Bradford Hunt’s introduction to Blueprint for Disaster. What question do you want to answer?Ī major function of a prospectus, and ultimately the introduction of your dissertation, is to explain what question you seek to answer. But if done right, it will pay off in the end, for each hour devoted to the prospectus will save multiple hours by helping you research and write your dissertation more efficiently. Crafting your prospectus, then, should be hard work. Though the questions are simple, answering them will require you to become a leading expert in the historiography of a given topic. Specifically, the prospectus must answer a series of questions. Here I have drawn examples from such works. The prospectus also functions as the rough draft of a dissertation introduction, so by reading the introductions of monographs (especially historians’ first books, which are typically based on their dissertations), you can get a good idea of the form. ![]() Though the dissertation you complete will likely differ significantly from the one you conceive, you should be able at least to sketch out a viable project before attempting to write one. A dissertation prospectus is an essay arguing that you have found a research problem whose solution merits thousands of hours of your time hundreds of hours of the time of your various advisors and committee members as well as that of librarians, archivists, and other people of good will and, if you are lucky, some public or foundation funds toward your research expenses.
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