UK Essay Writing Service - We accept all subjects. Just send us your instructions. Only £10 per page. www.mywritingassistant.com
Hong Kong Essay Writing Service - We accept all subjects. Just send us your instructions. Only HK$117 per page. www.mywritingassistant.com
Singapore Essay Writing Service - We accept all subjects. Just send us your instruction. Only SG$19.32 per page. www.mywritingassistant.com.
The Research Proposal
Hong Kong Essay Writing Service - We accept all subjects. Just send us your instructions. Only HK$117 per page. www.mywritingassistant.com
Singapore Essay Writing Service - We accept all subjects. Just send us your instruction. Only SG$19.32 per page. www.mywritingassistant.com.
The Research Proposal
For the McNair Program, your Research Action Plan serves as your research proposal.
In the future, when your research will have to be approved by others, whether by a dissertation committee or by a funding source, you will need to write a research proposal. This is a vitally important document. In graduate school it can determine whether or not your dissertation topic is approved. Once you have earned your doctorate, it can determine whether or not you will receive funding to conduct publishable research which, in turn, helps determine your academic success (promotion, tenure, professional reputation).
A research proposal is an academic instrument that shares attributes with both an architectural plan and a legal contract. As a plan, it specifies exactly the problem you will research, the methods you will use to gather data on this subject, and the analysis techniques you will use to make sense of the data. As a contract, it specifies exactly what activities you will engage in, how long it will take, and – if sponsored research – how the money will be spent.
The main purpose of the proposal is to convince others that your research is important and that you are qualified to conduct it.
Although consequential as the proposal is to you, the readers of your proposal may give it as little as 10 minutes of their time. (And if, for example, your research topic is not in a subject area that a foundation sponsors, one minute may suffice.) Members of a dissertation committee may have heavy teaching loads, administrative duties and their own research to conduct. A committee at a foundation may have to read (or scan) hundreds of proposals in order to find those few that can be funded. Thus, you must capture your readers’ attention quickly, be clear and precise in your presentation, omit all extraneous material but leave no unanswered questions. A tall order!
Because your goal is to convince others to approve your research project or to give you money to conduct it, you want to demonstrate by your proposal that your research will meet the highest standards. That means your proposal must be of the highest standard because it is assumed that your research will be no better than your proposal. If your proposal is sloppy (lots of misspellings, for instance), it is assumed that your research will be sloppy. If you begin with “background” about how you became interested in the topic, very likely your proposal will be dismissed because it appears that you cannot distinguish between what is relevant and what is irrelevant. If your research question is not stated clearly or if you fail to make a connection between your question and the data you propose to collect, it is likely that your research will also be conceptually inept. If the terms you use in the research proposal are murky, it is assumed that your research will be as well.
A good way to ensure that your proposal is a good one is to ask as many people as possible to give it 10 minutes (same as you’ll likely get) and jot down in the margins their suggestions for improvement. You may find that what seemed clear to you is stated in such a way that it is apparently not clear to others. Someone may suggest a methodology that is better suited for your study than the one you chose. Someone else may point out that you contradict yourself somewhere. And so on. Another advantage of asking others to critique your proposal is that it allows you to set it aside for awhile and come back to it with fresh eyes.
What goes into a proposal?
You will want to consult the guidelines of the department or government agency or foundation that requires the proposal. These specific guidelines take precedence over any others.
An example of the sections required for a dissertation proposal in political science at Vanderbilt University is shown on the next page. Universities vary in their requirements, of course, and departments within universities vary as well. When you are in graduate school and have a password to the non-public parts of the university’s website, you can find the requirements you will need for your department.
Dissertation Proposal Guidelines (Vanderbilt, political science):
Title
One sentence description
Abstract of one paragraph to a maximum of one page
The problem and its significance (include hypotheses)
Literature to which the project contributes
Resources available at Vanderbilt for the research
Method and procedure
Tentative chapter outlines
In general, research proposals include the following:
Title or title page
Description of the research topic
Why the topic is important
Literature review (and bibliography)
Data to be collected
Methodology
Description of how your findings will be disseminated (e.g., proposed journal submissions)
Some proposals will also include a separate section for expected results. Some proposals will include a table of contents and appendices.
For research grants (sponsored research), you will also usually provide a description of the personnel involved in the project, references, a timeline, and a budget.
Sources for more details
Much of the information for this handout was taken from the following websites. Reading the guides in their entirety will pay dividends:
Beginner’s Guide to the Research Proposal
Teaching the Research Proposal
Proposal Writer’s Guide
The Art of Writing Proposals
