Prospectus

The prospectus has 3 parts, at least one page to each part (but no more than 5pp total).

• Treatment: the concept. State directly and without waffling the object of study and the method of study for your dissertation. The description must be confined to the "problem" addressed--its relation to a paradigmatic problem or question in the discipline, and how you propose to investigate it. The treatment must in no way attempt to answer the question or problem, but only state its interest for you and your thoughts about the method you have chosen to address it. You should be able to state in one sentence what you are working on. Remember the analogy of the spider: to spin the web with which to catch dinner, the spider needs two points of anchor. The dissertation is the web. The anchor points are the object of study and the method of study. The treatment primarily deals with the anchor points, with the web remaining implicit.
• Chapter plan (here the web is made explicit, but still without providing any "answers". The committee wants to know the scale of your project--to ascertain that it is doable and relevant to your career goals. The section is an outline of how you plan to organize the inquiry, chapter by chapter. The plan should indicate the topics to be treated, in what sequence, with what materials to be covered in each segement. What is the "logic" or "narrative" line through the information?
• Annotated bibliography (sample). List the most important works directly relevant to your plans. Provide one sentence indicating the nature of this relevance.

• Introduction
• Bibliographic Essay
• Prospectus
• Tactics
• Notes
• Sentences
• Talk
• Write
• Oblio

General Readings | Seminars 1990s | Chora-l | Veterans