Alignment means your problem statement, purpose, methodology, and research questions all point the same direction. A misaligned prospectus, like studying Pop-Tarts for lunch in one section and dinner in another, will get torn apart by your committee and can derail your entire PhD.
Another area where— probably the biggest area where people have issues in their prospectus is something called alignment. And alignment means, are all the pieces of my prospectus and dissertation going in the same direction? For example, I need a problem statement. The problem is we don't know the effect of having Pop-Tarts for lunch every day on health of 32-year-olds. Then now I need a purpose. Well, the purpose of this— and many times you list your methodology— of this quantitative longitudinal study The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of having Pop-Tarts for dinner for 32-year-olds. Well, my problem statement said lunch and my purpose statement said dinner. They're saying different things. So when you start saying different things in your problem statement and your purpose statement and then your research questions go in another direction, your committee is going to pretty quickly come back and saying, you know, this might be interesting, but you're not in alignment. If you're working on your prospectus and you're looking for help, you can join our free dissertation help community.
