Form
The prospectus should include a title page listing the name of the members of the prospectus committee, specifying the principal advisor. The prospectus should conform (as later also the dissertation) to the standards in scholarly writing within the field in terms of style, including transliteration, transcription, and translation of ancient languages and the form of footnotes, references, and bibliographies.
Contents
The prospectus is expected to contain the following information about the projected dissertation:
- The nature of the problem that the student intends to study
- Its importance to the overall field of study in which the student is working
- A broad review of scholarship on the question being examined, such as:
Which (principal) scholars have dealt with this or similar issues?
What, in the student’s opinion, remains to be done (i.e., why the student is writing this particular dissertation)?
A discussion of the methodologies the student will use to tackle the problem (i.e., how does the student intend to argue the point?)
- An outline of each of the chapters; if there are foreseeable difficulties in gathering the material necessary, this should also be noted
- A schedule of approximate dates for submission of first drafts of each chapter
- A select and relevant bibliography
- Tablet samples should be included with prospectus submissions where applicable
The length of the prospectus should not exceed approximately 3,000 words (for text, footnotes, and schedule inclusive; brief bibliography not inclusive).