Dharma's Notes from Dissertation Proposal Discussion:
Have committee together before selecting proposal
Proposal defense not adversarial, more of a meeting to get suggestions, etc. can bring a friend to take notes
Proposal serves as a sort of contract, though not binding.
While there is no time requirement, you need to have it 6 mos to a year before you plan to defend
Field prelim is a good time to sort of try out possible people for dissertation committee (once you reach candidacy is the time to start really thinking about forming committee)
Aim for 3rd or 4th year for getting proposal in, but this is variable. Depends a lot on the work.
With 3-paper option you must show results, whereas with main thesis you just need to do the work (even if you don’t get results)
No deadlines after prelim.
Important to pick something that your advisor is interested in and make sure it’s a manageable size. Bad proposal is about something, good is what are you going to answer and how are you going to do it.
Dissertation is not determining what you want to be it’s just what your next project is.
Proposal is a plan—what are you doing, why choosing to do it the way proposed. How are you going to do it. Compare to a grant proposal
Anna recommends using LaTeX and subversion for thesis creation