Do you have a research question that you would like to investigate? Would you like to do that in the context of a doctorate? Are you planning to present your idea to your preferred professor to apply as a candidate for supervision? It’s time to write your exposé!

The exposé provides an overview of your planned research work. It links your research question with a plan for its investigation. You provide a clearly understandable, coherently reasoned explanation of

• what you want to investigate,
• why you’re investigating it and
• how you want to investigate it.

A well-written synopsis not only convinces scholarship providers or potential supervisors of your research idea. It also helps you as the author to structure your own project, to critically question it and to recognize potential challenges early on. Think of the exposé as a very first draft of your dissertation. This type of preparation can save valuable time, energy and resources later on.

A clear structure is the necessary framework for convincingly communicating the core of your idea – the research question. You explain how you derived it and how you want to investigate it. There is not one strict form that an exposé must follow. However, certain key elements should be present in a logical order to achieve a comprehensible result.