Beginning the Proposal Process

As with writing a regular academic paper, research

proposals are generally organized the same way
throughout most social science disciplines. Proposals vary
between ten and twenty-five pages in length. However,
before you begin, read the assignment carefully and, if
anything seems unclear, ask your professor whether there
are any specific requirements for organizing and writing the
proposal.
A good place to begin is to ask yourself a series of
questions:
• What do I want to study?
• Why is the topic important?
• How is it significant within the subject areas covered in
my class?
• What problems will it help solve?
• How does it build upon [and hopefully go beyond]
research already conducted on the topic?
• What exactly should I plan to do, and can I get it done in
the time available?
In general, a compelling research proposal should
document your knowledge of the topic and demonstrate
your enthusiasm for conducting the study. Approach it with
the intention of leaving your readers feeling like--"Wow,
that's an exciting idea and I can’t wait to see how it turns
out!"

In general your proposal should include the

following sections:
I. Introduction
In the real world of higher education, a research proposal is
most often written by scholars seeking grant funding for a
research project or it's the first step in getting approval to
write a doctoral dissertation. Even if this is just a course
assignment, treat your introduction as the initial pitch of an
idea or a thorough examination of the significance of a
research problem. After reading the introduction, your
readers should not only have an understanding of what you
want to do, but they should also be able to gain a sense of
your passion for the topic and be excited about the study's
possible outcomes. Note that most proposals do not include
an abstract [summary] before the introduction.
Think about your introduction as a narrative written
in one to three paragraphs that succinctly answers
the following four questions:
1What is the central research problem?
2What is the topic of study related to that problem?
3What methods should be used to analyze the research
problem?
4Why is this important research, what is its significance,
and why should someone reading the proposal care
about the outcomes of the proposed 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 narrative flow of your proposal. This is where you
explain the context of your proposal and describe in detail
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 topic; instead, you must choose what is
relevant to help explain the goals for your study.
To that end, while there are no hard and fast rules,
you should attempt to address some or all of the
following key points:
• State the research problem and give a more detailed
explanation about the purpose of the study than what
you stated in the introduction. This is particularly
important if the problem is complex or multifaceted.
• Present the rationale of your proposed study and clearly
indicate why it is worth doing. Answer the "So What?
question [i.e., why should anyone care].
• Describe the major issues or problems to be addressed by
your research. Be sure to note how your proposed
study builds on previous assumptions about the
research problem.
• 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 your
analysis of the topic.
• Set the boundaries of your proposed research in order to
provide a clear focus. Where appropriate, state not
only what you will study, but what is excluded from
the study.
• If necessary, provide definitions of key concepts or terms.

III. Literature Review

Connected to the background and significance of
your study is a section of your proposal devoted to 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 have used,
and what is your understanding of their findings and, where
stated, their recommendations. Do not be afraid to
challenge the conclusions of prior research. Assess what
you believe is missing and state how previous research has
failed to adequately examine the issue that your study
addresses. For more information on writing literature
reviews, GO HERE.
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" [themes] rather than systematically describing
groups of materials one at a time. Note that conceptual
categories generally reveal themselves after you have read
most of the pertinent literature on your topic so adding
new categories is an on-going process of discovery as you
read more studies. How do you know you've covered the
key conceptual categories underlying the research
literature? Generally, you can have confidence that all of
the significant conceptual categories have been identified if
you start to see repetition in the conclusions or
recommendations that are being made.
To help frame your proposal's literature review, here
are the "five C’s" of writing a literature review:
1Cite, so as to keep the primary focus on the literature
pertinent to your research problem.
2Compare the various arguments, theories,
methodologies, and findings expressed in the
literature: what do the authors agree on? Who applies
similar approaches to analyzing the research problem?
3Contrast the various arguments, themes, methodologies,
approaches, and controversies expressed in the
literature: what are the major areas of disagreement,
controversy, or debate?
4Critique the literature: Which arguments are more
persuasive, and why? Which approaches, findings,
methodologies seem most reliable, valid, or
appropriate, and why? Pay attention to the verbs you
use to describe what an author says/does [e.g.,
asserts, demonstrates, argues, etc.].
5Connect the literature to your own area of research and
investigation: how does your own work draw upon,
depart from, synthesize, or add a new perspective to
what has been said in the literature?

IV. Research Design and Methods

This section must be well-written and logically
organized because you are not actually doing the
research, yet, your reader has to have confidence
that it is worth pursuing. The reader will never have a
study outcome from which to evaluate whether your
methodological choices were the correct ones. Thus, the
objective here is to convince the reader that your overall
research design and methods of analysis will correctly
address the problem and that the methods will provide the
means to effectively interpret the potential results. Your
design and methods should be unmistakably tied to the
specific aims of your study.
Describe the overall research design by building upon and
drawing examples from your review of the literature.
Consider not only methods that other researchers have
used but methods of data gathering that have not been
used but perhaps could be. Be specific about the
methodological approaches you plan to undertake to obtain
information, the techniques you would use to analyze the
data, and the tests of external validity to which you commit
yourself [i.e., the trustworthiness by which you can
generalize from your study to other people, places, events,
and/or periods of time].
When describing the methods you will use, be sure
to cover the following:
• Specify the research operations you will undertake and
the way you will interpret the results of these
operations in relation to the research problem. Don't
just describe what you intend to achieve from applying
the methods you choose, but state how you will spend
your time while applying these methods [e.g., coding
text from interviews to find statements about the need
to change school curriculum; running a regression to
determine if there is a relationship between campaign
advertising on social media sites and election
outcomes in Europe].
• Keep in mind that a methodology is not just a list of tasks;
it is an argument as to why these tasks add up to the
best way to investigate the research problem. This is
an important point because the mere listing of tasks to
be performed does not demonstrate that, collectively,
they effectively address the research problem. Be sure
you explain this.
• Anticipate and acknowledge any potential barriers and
pitfalls in carrying out your research design and
explain how you plan to address them. No method is
perfect so you need to describe where you believe
challenges may exist in obtaining data or accessing
information. It's always better to acknowledge this
than to have it brought up by your reader.
V. Preliminary Suppositions and Implications
Just because you don't have to actually conduct the
study and analyze the results, it doesn't mean you
can skip talking about the analytical process and
potential implications. The purpose of this section is to
argue how and in what ways you believe your research will
refine, revise, or extend existing knowledge in the subject
area under investigation. Depending on the aims and
objectives of your study, describe how the anticipated
results will impact future scholarly research, theory,
practice, forms of interventions, or policymaking. Note that
such discussions may have either substantive [a potential
new policy], theoretical [a potential new understanding], or
methodological [a potential new way of analyzing]
significance.

When thinking about the potential implications of

your study, ask the following questions:
• What might the results mean in regards to the theoretical
framework that underpins the study?
• What suggestions for subsequent research could arise
from the potential outcomes of the study?
• What will the results mean to practitioners in the natural
settings of their workplace?
• Will the results influence programs, methods, and/or
forms of intervention?
• How might the results contribute to the solution of social,
economic, or other types of problems?
• Will the results influence policy decisions?
• In what way do individuals or groups benefit should your
study be pursued?
• What will be improved or changed as a result of the
proposed research?
• How will the results of the study be implemented, and
what innovations will come about?
NOTE: This section should not delve into idle speculation,
opinion, or be formulated on the basis of unclear evidence.
The purpose is to reflect upon gaps or understudied areas
of the current literature and describe how your proposed
research contributes to a new understanding of the
research problem should the study be implemented as
designed.

VI. Conclusion
The conclusion reiterates the importance or
significance of your proposal and provides a brief
summary of the entire study. This section should be
only one or two paragraphs long, emphasizing why the
research problem is worth investigating, why your research
study is unique, and how it should advance existing
knowledge.
Someone reading this section should come away
with an understanding of:
• Why the study should be done,
• The specific purpose of the study and the research
questions it attempts to answer,
• The decision to why the research design and methods
used where chosen over other options,
• The potential implications emerging from your proposed
study of the research problem, and
• A sense of how your study fits within the broader
scholarship about the research problem.

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 consult with your professor about which one is
preferred.
1References -- lists only the literature that you actually
used or cited in your proposal.
2Bibliography -- lists everything you used or cited in your
proposal, with additional citations to 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" centered 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 [i.e., education=APA; history=Chicago, etc] or
that is preferred by your professor. This section normally
does not count towards the total page length of your
research proposal.