The importance of producing a well-defined project proposal cannot be overstated. The activity of preparing a full project proposal provides you with an opportunity to think through the project that you will be undertaking and to consider the many aspects of the project. For a project to have a high probability of a successful completion, it is essential to specify a project with:

a clearly understood set of objectives, and

a specific method or approach to satisfy them.

Not preparing a project proposal can give rise to problems relating to projects that are:

too large;

too complex;

ill-defined;

under-resourced.

By preparing a project proposal, you and your supervisor are ensuring that:

you are defining a real problem or studying a real issue;

it is possible to learn enough about it;

it is possible to make a proper analysis;

you will be able to write it up in the time allowed.

Summary

In general, the student and the supervisor will have agreed a suitable project topic area or project topic. The next step is to define a specific project (if this has not already been done) with a clearly understood set of objectives and a specific method or approach to satisfy them. This is done using a standard template for a project proposal.

Objectives for an academic project should be stated in terms of what the project sets out to achieve. It should be clear what the achievement of each objective would contribute to the overall project and consequently, the project write-up. The objectives should be high-level ones rather than low-level objectives that can often be confused with activities rather than objectives.