RESEARCH PROPOSAL -3PAGES
The goal of a research proposal is to present and justify a research idea you have and to present the practical ways in which you think this research should be conducted. The forms and procedures for such research are defined by the field of study, so guidelines for research proposals are generally more exacting and less formal than a project proposal.
Research proposals contain extensive literature reviews and must provide persuasive evidence that there is a need for the research study being proposed.
In addition to providing rationale for the proposed research, a proposal describes detailed methodology for conducting the research consistent with requirements of the professional or academic field and a statement on anticipated outcomes and/or benefits derived from the study.
A proposal should contain all the key elements involved in designing a complete research study, with sufficient information that allows readers to assess the validity and usefulness of your proposedstudy. The only elements missing from a research proposal are the results of the study and your analysis of those results.
Finally, an effective proposal is judged on the quality of your writing. It is, therefore, important that your writing is coherent, clear, and compelling.
Regardless of the research problem you are investigating and the methodology you choose, all research proposals must address the following questions:
• What do you plan to accomplish? Be clear and succinct in defining the research problem and what it is you are proposing to research.
• Why do you want to do it? In addition to detailing your research design, you also must conduct a thorough review of the literature and provide convincing evidence that it is a topic worthy of study.
• How are you going to do it? Be sure that what you propose is doable.
In general your proposal should include the following sections:
I. IntroductionThink about your introduction as a narrative written in one to three paragraphs that succinctly answers the following four questions:
• What is the central research problem?
• What is the topic of study related to that problem?
• Why is this important research, and why should someone reading the proposal care about the outcomes from the study?
II. Background and Significance
This section can be melded into your introduction or you can create a separate section to help with the organization and flow of your proposal.
This is where you explain the context of your project and outline why it's important.
Approach writing this section with the thought that you can't assume your readers will know as much about the research problem as you do.
Note that this section is not an essay going over everything you have learned about the research problem; instead, you must choose what is relevant to help explain your goals for the study. To that end, while there are no hard and fast rules, you should attempt to deal with some or all of the following:
• State the research problemand give a more detailed explanation about the purpose of the study than what you stated in the introduction.
Present the rationale of your proposed study and clearly indicate why it is worth doing.
• Explain how you plan to go about conducting your research. Clearly identify the key sources you intend to use and explain how they will contribute to the analysis of your topic.
III. Literature Review
Connected to the background and significance of your study is a more deliberate review and synthesis of prior studies related to the research problem under investigation. The purpose here is to place your project within the larger whole of what is currently being explored, while demonstrating to your readers that your work is original and innovative.
Think about what questions other researchers have asked, what methods they've used, and what is your understanding of their findings. Assess what you believe is still missing, and state how previous research has failed to examine the issue that your study addresses.
Since a literature review is information dense, it is crucial that this section is intelligently structured to enable a reader to grasp the key arguments underpinning your study in relation to that of other researchers. A good strategy is to break the literature into "conceptual categories" [th
emes] rather than systematically describing materials one at a time.
VII. Citations
As with any scholarly research paper, you must cite the sources you used in composing your proposal. In a standard research proposal, this section can take two forms, so speak with your professor about which one is preferred.
References
lists only the literature that you actually used or cited in your proposal.
Bibliography
Lists everything you used or cited in your proposal with additional citations of any key sources relevant to understanding the research problem.
In either case, this section should testify to the fact that you did enough preparatory work to make sure the project will complement and not duplicate the efforts of other researchers. Start a new page and use the heading
"References" or "Bibliography" at the top of the page. Cited works should always use a standard format that follows the writing style advised by the discipline of your course. This section normally does not count towards the total length of your proposal.