Thesis Outline Template

About this template

When to use it

A dissertation writing plan agreed with a supervisor before drafting begins. The cover reads “graduate school / thesis outline form / (master’s and doctoral writing plan)”, followed by six rows for the title in Korean and English, major, student number and name, supervisor, and the intended submission semester. It is not a place to draft the thesis; it fixes the plan in tables and is submitted as an examination document.

Filling order

1. The summary ships as 5 chapters, 90 pages, 18 weeks, 6 supervision sessions. If your department differs, change it here first and align every table below.
2. I. Five rows — topic, research questions (three at most), method (literature, survey, experiment, case study, mixed), data source and period, expected contribution.
3. II. Enter chapter titles. Page allocations are pre-set at 10 / 24 / 24 / 24 / 8 with a running total of 10, 34, 58, 82, 90. Change an allocation and you must recompute the running total and the 90-page sum by hand.
4. III. The 18 weeks are split into six sessions, weeks 1–3 through 16–18. Writing the chapter number into “draft due in this period” ties the two tables together.
5. IV. Nine checklist rows in three groups — chapter structure, numbering, page allocation. Numbering is limited to three levels (1.1, 1.1.1), with bullets below that.
6. V. Six submissions (this plan, examiner appointment request, pre-review manuscript, plagiarism check, signed approval page, library copy) with destination and deadline, then the review-stage table and signatures.

Where the tables disagree

Nothing calculates. Note that II allocates 24 pages to each main chapter while the checklist in IV says “about 20 pages each” — reconcile them against your department’s rule before submitting. The summary figures (90 pages, 5 chapters, 18 weeks, 6 sessions) must equal the totals in II and the ranges in III. The schedule assumes, as the footnote in III says, that proofreading and reference checks finish two weeks before the pre-review, so set session six by counting back from that date.

Examples

• I, questions — “(1) does processing time change, (2) does organization size moderate it, (3) how long does the effect last”.
• II, chapter III — “Method”, 24 pages, sections “3.1 sample, 3.2 measures, 3.3 analysis”.
• III, session 3 (weeks 7–9) — draft of chapter III, meeting on 2026-05-14.
• V, item 4 — plagiarism check certificate / graduate office / 10 days before pre-review.

Common mistakes

• Editing page counts without redoing the cumulative column and the 90-page total.
• Writing “chapter 2” instead of a real chapter title.
• Submitting with the supervision dates blank — agreeing that schedule is the point of the form.
• Ignoring the academic calendar in V; the approval page and the library copy go to different offices.