CHAPTER I.  STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

• Introduction (optional according to student and advisor preferences)
• Statement of the Problem
• Principal proposition
• Interacting proposition
• Speculative proposition (if appropriate. Some theoretical stuff may belong here, but here's a major decision point that bridges directly to the statement of purpose)
• Purpose of the study (focus statement, central questions)
• Justification (significance of the study)
• Limitations & delimitations
• Definition of terms (if you have complex concepts or terms that that are not commonly understood and can't easily be woven into the narrative).

CHAPTER II. RELATED RESEARCH

     Sections vary widely, depending on the study, but will generally expand on major topics or concepts established in Chapter I, starting broadly with background of the study, expanding on the major issues or dimensions of the problem, then narrowing to review and critique of related studies and finishing with the theoretical bases for the study.

    Sharon Taylor's study of the impact of religious conservatism on school board decision-making has the following elements in the Review, nearly all of which are either directly included, implied or suggested by the discussion in Chapter I:

• Introduction
• The debate over religion in public education
• World view of Christian conservatives
• Historical origins of fundamentalist beliefs
• Issues that engender controversy
Outcomes Based Education
Sex Education
Censorship of the Curriculum
• Theoretical & Methodological Bases for the Study
School board decision making
Individual decision-making and legislative workflow
Role Orientation Theory
Values and beliefs

CHAPTER III. PROCEDURES (or METHODOLOGY)

• Design of the study. Reiterate the purpose, set out the major categories or variables, and your theory of how the categories interrelate to demonstrate causal connections or other revelations that make this study unique or an improvement on prior efforts.  This is your model or diagram of the entire study, explained to the reader in narrative and possibly diagrammatic form.  In other words, we should have gotten a solid idea of the logic or theory underpinning the study in the problem statement (CH I) and a thorough delineation of it  in Chapter II (Review), probably at the end capping off the entire review, and an operational rendiltion of it in the first seciton of CH III.
•  Objectives, hypotheses (and/or) research questions
•  Population and sample, or participants in the study
•  Data collection (specification of data sources and action steps)
•  Instrumentation (development or adaptation, instrument structure and scaling, sub scaling or measurement properties). Unless self evident, instrument scoring may also need to be covered
•  Data analysis and reporting
•  Scheduling and sequencing (sequence of major activities & projected dates)
•  Ethical treatment of human subjects, if applicable
•  Bibliography
•  Appendices
•   Instrument(s)
•   Cover letters (in the case of surveys or to make contact arrangements)
•    Procedural details that don't belong in the main body
•   etceteras

    In proposal writing, there are two pieces that get developed early on, parts of which get moved later to other parts of the final proposal.  They are theoretical framework having a borrowed theory or structure from the literature if appropriate with your own design connecting it all,  and Objectives with questions, because if you don't develop those pieces early, you can't get to other parts. While a theoretical orientation might be briefly over viewed in Chapter I (where you identified the conceptual or methodological holes in the existing knowledge base concerning the problem...e.g., "the other idiots investigating this problem failed to consider X"), the actual detailed discussion of relevant formal theory from which you are borrowing belongs in Chapter II, most particularly any theoretical constructs derived from the literature on which the dissertation is based. Likewise, while the statement of purpose for the study following the problem statement is a brief narrative summary of the objectives for the study (what you intend to do), the actual detailed breakdown of the objectives and questions belongs in Chapter III following the overall design discussion.

    Note that in the research business, the word "design" is used in at least two different ways. I use it primarily in reference to the overall conception of the study, its "model" wherein the variables or categories are described and depicted with any relational propositions spelled out. Researchers more heavily steeped in a statistical orientation tend to convey an analytic approach, and may speak in terms of a "2 X 3 factorial design" in a "pre-test, posttest randomized control group experiment" or something along those lines. This usage also conveys a model, but the operational details of analysis should be handled in the "Data Treatment" section.

    Finally, I suggest that you follow the nechanical requirements of the graduate school for theses and dissertatoins in the proposal so you don't have to spend hours reformatting when you actually write the dissertation.  Put a title page on it with table of contents.  Each chapter starts on a new page with both chapter label and title in upper case letters. The margins of the first page of a chapter are one inch on the right and bottom, one-and-a-half inches on top and left. Page number goes at bottom center for the first page of a chapter and top right for subsequent pages. Margins for all other pages are one inch on top, right, and bottom, and one-and-a-half inches on the left. Tables and figures begin at the top of the page following the page on which they are first mentioned

    An example of a proposal can be found here, but note that it was NOT written for a dissertation by a doctoral student. It's short and not highly sophisticated. It was written by a specialist student in psychology and counseling for a hypothetical study for a summer school class. A good effort on her part in a short time.