Anthropology Department

Writing a Thesis Proposal in Anthropology

Look at model thesis proposals (below)!

Every research project should begin with an original research proposal. Any good proposal does at least two things: it articulates an interesting question or goal, and it lays out a plan for answering that question or achieving that goal.

A good thesis proposal will tell varied readers why your project is novel, describe its significance to anthropology, present a detailed methodology or course of action, detail the preparation and resources that you have lined up to date, and commit to a final product that will contribute to broader understandings of your topic and research problem.

Thesis proposals also work for you, the researcher. They are an important way to begin the process of making your thesis project real, of committing to a particular anthropological problem and approach, and of demarcating a feasible topic and methodology. Thesis proposals can also jumpstart your planning for how you will manage your thesis research and writing. How will you proceed? What are the likely primary and secondary sources you will use? Within what theoretical discourses will you situate yourself? What useful methodological strategies might you identify?

To prepare for this, go back to your course notes and look at anthropological theory and other adjacent social theory writings that particularly intrigued or inspired you, then look at ethnographic books and articles and consider the authors' research methods and their primary sources or data. Are there theories, methodologies and forms of data you would like to draw on and/or emulate? 

Consider as well what you are most curious and passionate about. You will be living and  breathing this research project over your senior year! Still, your project should challenge you, it should take you outside of your current knowledge, past experience, and immediate environment. 

The Proposal

There are multiple ways to organize a thesis proposal. To cover the most important information, yours should include the following sections in this order (each section should be be set off with a subtitled heading).

1) Title: get the readers' attention

Your title should be descriptive and concise. It can be divided into two sections before and after a colon (:). You should aim to include all or most of the key words that pertain to your proposed research, but there's an art to good titling!

2) Problem: provide a succinct statement (one paragraph)

Research is not a summary of what is available on a given topic but an original analysis of a specific problem. A research problem is distinct from a topic in that it is more specific and orients research toward an analysis or solution; your research problem should generate research questions.

Research questions should be complex. If you already know the answer to the question, or if it can be answered through a few simple inquiries, it is not addressing an adequate research problem. Your research problem should be a conundrum, a lacuna, or a multi-faceted issue you want to illuminate and better understand. It should also require you to look at multiple sources. In introducing your research problem in your thesis proposal, you should provide a succinct statement which will help you to remain focused on the issue that you are addressing and how the information you will be discussing is related to that issue. This should not just be a list of questions!

3) Background: create a common ground of understanding and enter into the scholarly conversation

In order for the reader to understand the issue you are presenting, it is necessary to provide a context. In a thesis proposal, that section provides a brief overview of the larger issues and ideas of your topic, and how this specific research problem relates to these larger issues. Whatever you choose to highlight, the reader should be convinced that your research will contribute to understandings of broader social, historical or cultural issues.  

Provide a brief literature review. A research project should be original, rather than reproducing existing literature on the topic. Yet it is helpful to consider any current research as part of a scholarly conversation. This is an opportunity to begin that conversation by reviewing the anthropological (and adjacent) research to date, indicating what aspects of it your project will build upon and the ways that your proposed research differs from what has already been done. You should be able to identify themes that emerge from the existing research as well as its shortcomings. Or, you may find that what exists on the topic is truly excellent, but that it doesn’t account for the specific problem you have identified. In this section, you should also clarify the anthropological (and adjacent) theories you will use to conceptualize your project and identify specific sources you will draw on for those theories.  

4) Methodology: Explain how you will do the thesis research

What, precisely, will you do to answer the question you are posing? With your main research problem and questions in mind, this section should answer the questions of where, who, how, and when. Will you conduct ethnographic fieldwork or will you be doing an archival project? What will be your primary sources of data? (e.g., a particular archive online or in a specific institution, social media communities or posts, participant observation, interviews, online media and advertisements, specific texts).

Here you need to convince the reader that your proposed methodology, your primary data, and modes of analysis or interpretation are logically linked to your stated questions or goals. You also need to convince the reader that this approach will be feasible (in the relatively short time period of the senior thesis) and credible (e.g., you have the specific language/course training, relevant work or travel experience and/or contacts to carry out the work). 

Optionally, you could provide a rough timeline or work plan for the thesis project here. This can help you begin the planning process and give readers a clear picture of how your project will unfurl. When and how will you take each of the steps towards achieving your goals? What logistical hurdles might you encounter? 

5) Significance and Style: Why does this matter? (one paragraph)

This should be a very brief summation of the importance of your thesis project. What contribution do you hope your project will make to anthropological debates and ideas? How might it challenge or expand on previous work?

Optionally, you could state here what kind of final product you plan to produce: a historical analysis? a new theory? a life history, a problem-oriented ethnography, a comparative study, a personal narrative, etc.? Will the project be multimodal? How? Is the style of the ethnography important for the work you hope to do?

6) Bibliography: Cite your sources!

This should include the sources you have to date or think you should consult, which link up with your stated research problem, methodology and literature review. In addition, all references cited in earlier sections of the proposal should be included here. You should use the Chicago Manual of style author-date system for citations and references.

Model Anthropology Thesis Proposals

These thesis proposals model the format and kind of project plans the Department is looking for in a strong thesis proposal. They demonstrate effort in preliminary research into potential primary and secondary sources, and first stab thoughts about both the topic and the research problem and questions that will organize the project. Note that the thesis did not necessarily turn out to be this project exactly, but they did get the authors off to a great start.