Steve Tippins Ph.D.Helping doctoral students get their dissertation accepted, succeed in their careers, & change the world | Academic Career Advisor | Dissertation Chair & Founder, Beyond PhD Coaching | 35 + years of experience.

You Can't Ignore This in Your Prospectus

3 Sept 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:56

In this short instructional video, the presenter warns dissertation candidates against proposing research that is too broad or unmanageable. Using a vivid example—studying the health impact of eating Pop‑Tarts for lunch over eight years—the speaker illustrates how lengthy data‑collection periods make a prospectus unrealistic, especially when tuition funds and time are limited. The core advice is to keep the research question concise, tightly scoped, and feasible within a reasonable timeframe. The presenter also invites viewers to join a free dissertation‑help community for further support.

Chapters

Let's think about common mistakes. One of the things I've seen is people come into their prospectus with an idea that's wonderful, but it's huge and broad. And when you really think about the concept of doability, if you want to look at the impact of— on health of people eating Pop-Tarts for lunch for 8 years, I gotta wait 8 years to collect the data. And I don't know about you, but I don't think most people want to spend tuition dollars for 8 years just waiting to have data come in. So the breadth— you want to keep this concise and doable, okay? And I've seen some people come in to do things and I'd say, great, do you have 20 years to wait to collect this data? And their answer is no. And I said, okay, then we need to make this much more concise and tight. If you're working on your prospectus and you're looking for help, you can join our free dissertation help community