Please advice! I am currently writing my research proposal PhD 3 years full time...and am finding the whole process rather open ended and vague...is this usual...also is it standard to accomodate supervisors ideas? I am an alumni so know my supervisors well...but think I may be being manouvered to research an area that is less interesting to me...or is it just new student paranoia...? Is there some unwritten rule concerning this process that I am missing! It seems a lot harder than I thought.

I suggest you read "How to get a PhD" by Cryer and Pugh. Good luck!

Hi again Saw! I often wonder how much I need to incorporate of my supervisors opinions/ideas. I think that it's important to recognise their ideas and opinions (they have expertise) but also where you can't you need to argue for this. Remember that the proposal can change anyway as your reserach unfolds and surely part of the whole process is to not be accepting of everything as a given. Our ideas and opinions need to be accounted for as well. In two or three years time we need to be able to support what we did and why.

what is in your proposal is not necessarily your subject for your future phd study. no worries, you can still choose a subject that interests you very much when you start