Doctoral Proposal Development

This course deals with both the theoretical and practical aspects of designing dissertation research and successfully defending the design in a proposal hearing. The purpose of the course is to assist students through the proposal and dissertation writing processes. This course covers the structure and content of a student dissertation research proposal, scientific writing conventions, strategies for conducting a literature search, critical evaluation and synthesis of literature, development of specific aims and research methods, procedures for writing and editing research proposals, and presentation of population health information. Students will be introduced to the process of acquiring and managing extramural funding for sponsored projects with emphasis on NIH research grants. Students will be encouraged to flesh out their doctoral dissertation proposal and to complete a pre-doctoral grant application during this course.