Appendices
Writing a MSc thesis proposal The thesis proposal helps you to – Focus your ideas – Make clear what it is you aim to achieve – Create a document to share with potential collaborators and – Provide documentation for ethical and scientific clearance if required.
The thesis proposal should be 10-15 pages long and should include: 1.
Title: A short statement of the research topic, including geographic location of work e.g. Incidence of intestinal parasites in school children in Timbuktu.
2.
Author: Your name.
3.
Address: Your address, phone numbers and e-mail address.
4.
Supervision: Name of your Supervisor and co-Supervisor (if any) along with their e-mail addresses.
5.
Specialisation: Master in epidemiology or infection biology.
6.
Summary: Not more than 200 words containing background, aim, approach and expected outcome of the research.
7.
Introduction: Summary of what is known about the subject (1-2 pages). Do not waste space with extended descriptions; try to be to the point. Provide the reason(s) and rationale for the thesis.
8.
Aim and objectives: State the aim of your thesis, e.g. identify highly variable micro- satellites of M.ulcerans. Objectives are steps or smaller goals on the way to achieving your aim. In this section you can also formulate your hypotheses, e.g. Adults have a higher burden of Schistosoma than school children, or research question, e.g. what are the dynamics of acquired immunity against nematodes in cattle?
9.
Approach: Describe your proposed research activities (2-3 pages) and give a detailed description of your methods. If you intend to do a field study, start with a short description of the study population, study type (cross-sectional, case-control), sample size considerations, data collection, questionnaire design and validation, interventions, data analysis. If you intend to do a laboratory study, describe the source of the samples, the sample material you will use (worm eggs, DNA, serum samples, etc.), the methods of analysis, experiments, and evaluation of results.
10.
Expected outcomes: Imagine the results you expect from your work and try to describe them, e.g. knowledge on the prevalence of P. falciparum in women.
11.
Ethical statement: Identify and discuss with your Supervisor ethical concerns that may arise during your research and describe them (half page). For example, every child excreting worm eggs will receive mebendazole treatment. If you intend to work on human subjects, you require an ethics clearance. Discuss this with your Supervisor ahead of fieldwork. If ethical clearance is deemed necessary please see also section 3A "Ethical Clearance" before starting the writing process. Appendix - 71
