Research overview and thesis outline template

The Research Overview and Thesis Outline templates are process tools for facilitating communication between supervisor and student. Their purposes are twofold:

For supervisors, especially those with several students, they are a good way to assist in remembering where each student is up to exactly. As working documents (which chang over time), they are a record of the current state of understanding of what the research is about. They contain the necessary information for a supervisor to return straight back to the last discussion with each student. From a supervisor’s perspective, this is helpful when there are a number of students being supervised.
For students, they are documents that assists in the process of formulating the research and in structuring and writing the thesis. It is also a way of getting more value out of meetings with supervisors.

The most important thing to note about the templates are that that they are working documents that change over time and that they have value for the whole length of a PhD, from the very beginning when the first supervision meetings are held through to when the thesis is submitted. As communication tools, they are something that should be on hand at every supervision meeting, and as a working documents they should be reviewed regularly. Use of the templates and the accompanying communication process makes the process of developing and finishing a thesis much easier.

There are three parts to this resource, (1) an overview that assists in framing the research; (2) a thesis outline that assists in structuring the thesis and (3) a mechanism to track progress.

Further details of the Research Overview and Thesis Outline and tracking tool can be found here.

This material was developed by Professor Frank Vanclay of the Rural Social Research Group of the Tasmania Institute of Agricultural Research at the University of Tasmania and adapted for use on the fIRST website by Kevin Ryland (UTS).