Chapter 6 Qualification

This chapter says that the qualification part should clarify "who should do the project, why they are uniquely qualified for the project, and what kinds of resources will be used" (101). And it is especially important to convince the readers that your team has related experience or skills which enables them to accomplish the project successfully.

However, in the case of thesis proposal, there is no teammates to write about, let alone qualifying their abilities and potentials. I think here the teammates can be considered as the theories, instruments and the methodology you will apply to the research. And in the qualification part, we need to convince the committee and other readers that those theories and instruments will work for your study, because they have worked for many other similar studies before. Show them the logics of your specific research design.

In that sense, the qualification overlaps with literature review to some extent. I think the point of the qualification part is to show the reasonableness of your research methodology in the light of previous research.

And it is also important to persuade the readers that your design is "uniquely qualified"--it don't has to be the best way, but an intriguing way, a different way. No one is perfect, and no research design is perfect. There may be various shortage and limitations in the research, but it makes a difference for the academia or industry. Just clarify that it is creative, it is unique, it is different.

In fact, we will always have some points of that kind to make, since the research is designed to fill out the gaps left by previous researchers. And it will be an opportunity to excite your committee, for those who are doing fairly exploratory studies, like Mike's sound rhetorics, Sean's machinima, and my ad cinematography.