Structure of the Master Thesis Proposal

The proposal for the Master thesis should include the following elements (sections):

1) Title page. The title should be precise and reflects the contents of the thesis in terms of problem
statement and methodology. (refer to YU thesis style Guide)

2) Introduction section. This section should introduce the topic to the readers. It should include:

a. General overview: This subsection introduces the area of the topic, how much there is interest in
this topic in research, how much important it is, and what you are planning to do. This should not
exceed two pages in length.

b. Background Information: This subsection gives background information about the approaches,
methods, techniques, or algorithms used in the topic of your choice. This serves as a context to the
specific topic or research problem of your thesis.

3) Problem Statement section: This section should include the following subsections:

a. Research Purpose: This subsection gives an answer to the major question: What is it you are
planning to investigate? The research idea and the purpose of the research should be clearly
identified.

b. Research Motivation: This subsection should give an answer to the major question: Why are you
planning to investigate the problem under consideration? It includes what motivates the
researcher to do the research in light of any gaps in previous studies and gives a rational to any new
approach or technique being proposed to improve performance or solve some real life problem. If the
research idea is based on some theoretical foundation, this subsection should refer to it.

c. Research Questions (Specific Objectives): This subsection should indicate a set of precise and
answerable questions that reflect the main objectives of the research. These objectives or questions
are not general statements. Rather, they should be measurable and quantifiable and must have
answers in the final results of the research. They should be numbered and given in some logical
sequence.

d. Research Significance: This should indicate the importance of the research findings that could
come out of doing the proposed topic to solve a technical problem or to contribute to the research in
the field.

e. Operational Definitions: In this subsection all variables and measures in the problem statement
should be clearly defined.

f. Hypotheses (if any): If needed, this subsection should clearly specify any assumptions or statistical
hypotheses related to effect of any variable(s) being investigated and should show the direction of
effect.
g. Limitation of the Scope (if any): This subsection should specify any aspects of the topic being
investigated that are not going to be covered in the study because of some technical or some other
consideration.
4) Literature Review (Related Work) section: This section should present the research studies that
are related to the research problem you are planning to investigate in the thesis. The three elements
that should be mentioned for each study are: purpose of the study, research methodology, and
findings. This section should not come as a list of studies. Rather, it should show the relationships
between these studies and should point out the similarities and differences and the gaps and
weaknesses. It should also show how your proposed research will contribute to the body of research
in this area.

5) Research Methodology section: This section should give an answer to the major question: How
are you planning to investigate the research problem under consideration? It should describe the
steps and methods that will be used to solve the research problem. The methodology section should
include the following mains points:

a. Overall Research Design: This should include a figure that shows the overall research design with
all inputs, outputs, and research procedural phases. This is different from a project plan which can
come at the end of the methodology.

b. Data Sample: This subsection describes the data set or corpus to be used in the study, how it is
selected, and its main characteristics.

c. Research Phases: This subsection should in clued a detailed description of the major phases or
experiments mentioned in the schematic representation of the research design, including a description
of the algorithms to be used.

d. Data Analysis & Interpretation: This subsection should describe the techniques used in
analyzing and presenting the results. It should describe clearly the measures used in the analysis, how
they are computed (formulas), and examples about this computation.

e. Research Tools: This includes any software tools that will be used in conducting the experiments
and any other tools used for analyzing the results.

6) List of References (Using YU Style Guide).

===================================================================
Notes:

1) Style of Citations, list of references, cover pages, line spacing, fonts, tables, figures etc should
be written or presented according to the YU thesis style Guide. Supervisors and Students should
refer to YU thesis guidelines as approved by the Deanship of Scientific Research and Graduate
Studies.

2) The language should be checked before submitting the proposal to the department. It is the
responsibility of the student and the supervisor to have a well written proposal in terms of structure,
content, and language.