Q: How can I justify a clearer procedure or technique compared with an ambiguous procedure that has already been proposed?

Firstly, note that we have made some edits to your query for greater clarity. Also, here’s a summary of the situation to ensure we have accurately understood your statement of the problem.

It seems you have recently submitted a proposal, either for your thesis or for a grant. However, on reviewing the proposal after submission, you believe there is an alternative procedure that is both clearer and backed by theoretical and clinical concepts (compared with the proposed procedure). You would like to update your proposal with this procedure, and therefore, wish to know how you can justify this.

If our understanding of the situation is correct, we can understand your need to make this change. It is important to get a proposal (whether for a thesis or a grant) as right as possible at the time of submission, as the proposal reflects both your grasp of research and your confidence in being able to conduct the research. Both these aspects are critical in receiving the approval.

Now, if the proposal is for a thesis, you would have more leeway to make a change after submission. Based on the discussion (defense) with your supervisor, making this change would be easier, and perhaps necessary (if your belief in the clarity of the new procedure is indeed accurate). For a grant proposal though, the margin for error and therefore the room for making a change at this stage is rather less. However, in either case, you should contact the respective party about making the change as early as possible.

To respond to your actual query, it may not be possible to provide you specific suggestions as the particulars of the procedure are not mentioned. All the same, here are a few pointers.

• You could do a quick review of relevant literature around the new procedure and provide references to relevant studies to justify your proposal of this procedure. This will help determine if the procedure is likely to work and to what extent.
• If there is no relevant literature (perhaps because the procedure is quite novel), you could perform some preliminary calculations or experiments (as the case may be) as a tentative test to your hypothesis. This too will help determine if the study is likely to yield the proposed results with the new procedure.
• If you are not in a position to obtain some basic, preliminary results, you can consider doing a comparative analysis between the two procedures. This will help the approver at least theoretically decide between the two procedures.

For more help, you may also refer to the following resources:

• How do I write the methods section of a research proposal?
• How do I develop an outline for a Masters thesis proposal?
• How should I write about my academic research in a research proposal?