WRITING A RESEARCH PROPOSAL

The skills of making a research paper involve a step-by-step method that starts
from thinking out a topic or identifying a problem and ends in the giving of
recommendations to solve the problem. In the process, the researcher learns the
mechanics of preparing a research paper and developing the ability to produce original
content. Specifically, he learns to identify a problem situation, express it in a clear
statement, read related literature critically, take down notes using his own words,
organize his ideas logically and write a paper following a standard format.

A research proposal is a written plan for conducting a research study. it specifies

what the researcher intends to do. This is very useful to both the researcher and the
teacher/panel of examiner because it allows the latter to evaluate the former`s proposal
and make suggestions for improvement.

Procedure in Writing a Research Proposal

The following are the usual steps followed in preparing a research proposal:

1. Choosing a Topic

In selecting a topic for research the student has to consider some criteria
as the following:

a. His interest and expertise

b. Availability of resources
c. Time constraints
d. Novelty of the problem
e. Importance of the problem to the community

2. Formulating the Title

A good research title is concise. It should be simple but fully explanatory.

It should be descriptive. It should convey the subject matter of the study. it
should be limited. It should identify what belongs and what does not.

The following are examples of researches in the Graduate School

arranged according to discipline:
a. Education

1. Communicative Versus ESP Approaches in Language Learning

Among CEU College Freshmen

2. Functions and Problems of Private College Registrars in MEC

Region IV: Their Implication to Higher Education Supervision

3. Education in a Philippine Barangay: A Case Study

4. Values, Attitudes and Aspirations of Out- of-School Youth

5. Study Now, Pay Later Plan: An Assessment

b. Business

1. A Study of the Price Control Law

2. The Socioeconomic Contributions of the Coconut Industry to

Community Development: A Comparative Study of Two
Coconut Producing Towns

3. Some Aspects of Tax Administration in the Philippines

4. The Contributions of the Philippine Constabulary to

Socioeconomic Development of the Country

5. Problems in the Setting Up and Maintenance of an Effective

EDP System in the Philippine Setting

c. Sciences

1. Preservation of Saba Banana by Osmotic Dehydration

2. Extraction, Isolation and Characterization of the Protein in

Papaya Seeds
3. Effect of Local Additives on the Chemical Composition of Meat

4. The Utilization of Coconut Coir Dust Ash as a Source of

Potassium Salts
 5. Preparation and Processing of Bromelain for Meat Tenderizer

d. Nutrition and Economics

1. The Influence of Nutrition on the Growth and Development of

Children

2. The Determination of the Calorie Intake of Young Adult Filipino

Women Maintaining Desirable Body Weight

3. A Survey of the Food Habits of the Senior Girl Students of a

Public High School in an Urban Community of the Philippines

4. A Study of the Budgetary Practices of the Families of 120

Enlisted Men in Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City

5. The Yaya`s Role in Child Hearing in San Pablo City

e. Sociology

1. Children of Separated and Intact Families: A Case Study

2. Modes of Adaptation in Urban Slum Community: A Case Study

3. The Participation of Women in Rural Countryside Development

4. Generational Differences in Attitudes Toward Family Values

5. A Survey of the Verbalized Motives for Gang Membership in

Two Low Income Urban Communities

3. Reviewing Related Literature

A review of related literature and studies is helpful in knowing the ideas of

others interested in research questions, similar or related, to the studies being
undertaken in order to find out if the researcher`s study is an original work or
 merely an extension of a work done a long time ago. This will enable him to
narrow down the problem to a specific and well- defined manageable problem.

Three things must be done in the review of related literature:

a. It should make a critical evaluation of the studies and examine the

appropriateness of their research designs to the present study.

b. It should show how the methodology of the previous study is

replicated, modified or improved in the present study.

c. It should show how the present study will contribute to existing

literature and studies.

4. Stating the Problem

A research problem is usually stated in one broad statement followed by

specific questions that relate to the main problem. Answers to these questions
when put together provide answer to the general problem.

5. Stating the Significance of the Study

The researcher should be able to justify his choice of a problem. He should be

able to show its practical importance especially to the intended readers of his study.
That benefit, for example, will the students, the teachers and the administrators, the
curriculum planners, the community, etc.

6. Defining Terms

It is necessary to clarify terms used in the study by defining them contextually

and operationally. This section of the research paper may also include newly invented
or coined words, technical terms and words with special meanings.

7. Specifying Research Methodology

This includes identifying type of research, design or strategy used, manner of

selecting respondents or subjects of the study, instruments or materials used.

8. Listing Down Working Bibliography

 As soon as the research problem has been chosen, the researcher can start
making the working bibliography to determine what materials are available on the topic.
A working bibliography is just a list of possible sources of data.

I. Parts of a Research Paper

A research paper generally consists of the following parts:

A. Title Page
As the first page of your paper, this contains the following:
 Title
 Author’s name
 Institutional affiliation

B. Main Text
The main text of a research paper is composed of the following parts:
 Abstract
(Should not exceed 120 to 150 words)
The abstract should specify the purpose of the study, the participants (if there are)
and the results.

Note: Below the abstract are the keywords of the study which are to be separated by
commas.

 Introduction
This part should describe the rationale of the study. Preferably, the discussion must
run from general to specific and end with a purpose or a hypothesis.

 Review of Related Literature and Studies

This contains the primary and secondary sources used by the researcher in
identifying the gap of the study and in building the background for inquiry.
 Methodology
The Methodology includes information on the participants and their profile, the
instruments used and the procedure for data-gathering and analysis.

 Results and Discussion

This part contains the outcome of the study and the analysis done on the data
gathered and treated.

C. References
It is also termed as Bibliography or Works Cited in some instances. The sources
should be arranged in alphabetical order with hanging indention.
 AVOIDING PLAGIARISM

Plagiarism is the unethical practice of using words or ideas (either planned or

accidental) of another author/researcher or your own previous works without proper
acknowledgment.

It is considered as a serious academic and intellectual offense; plagiarism can result

in highly negative consequences such as paper retractions and loss of author credibility
and reputation.

It is currently a grave problem in academic publishing and a major reason for

retraction of research papers.

Here are some guidelines to avoid plagiarism.

1. Understand the context

Do not copy–paste the text verbatim from the reference paper. Instead, restate the
idea in your own words.

Understand the idea(s) of the reference source well in order to paraphrase correctly.

2. Quote

Use quotes to indicate that the text has been taken from another paper. The quotes
should be exactly the way they appear in the paper you take them from.

3. Identify what does and does not need to be cited

Any words or ideas that are not your own but taken from another paper need to be
cited.

Cite Your Own Material—If you are using content from your previous paper, you
must cite yourself. Using material you have published before without citation is called self-
plagiarism.

The scientific evidence you gathered after performing your tests should not be cited.

Facts or common knowledge need not be cited. If unsure, include a reference.

4. Manage your citations

Maintain records of the sources you refer to. Use citation software like EndNote or
Reference Manager to manage the citations used for the paper

Use multiple references for the background information/literature survey. For

example, rather than referencing a review, the individual papers should be referred to and
cited.
 5. Use plagiarism checkers

You can use various plagiarism detection tools such as iThenticate or eTBLAST to
see how much of your paper is plagiarised.

 CITATION

Citing and Referencing in Academic Writing

Academic writing involves sources of information from authorities of published

materials (books, journal articles and published reports). These sources are used to
support the ideas you present. They are classified as primary and secondary.

Primary: publicly available data (historical documents, interview data), raw data from
experiments and demographic records

Secondary: data that were also based on primary data and have been produced for
public consumption in journal articles or chapters in edited books.

When you include sources in your academic paper, they are known as literature. When
you use literature in your paper, it is known as citing or in-text referencing.

Citation Style Types

There are many types of citations styles used in academic writing and they depend on the
type of paper you are doing. Generally, students do not choose, they simply comply with
the referencing style guidelines provided by the school or department they belong to. The
following are the citation style types commonly used in academic writing:

1. APA (American Psychological Association) FORMAT

APA (American Psychological Association): this is used within the social sciences and sometimes in
other related fields. It is an author-date format by which in-text references are given within
parentheses.

In-text referencing:
Ex. Diaz (2010) suggested that…
Recommendations suggested that (Diaz, 2010)

Reference list:
1. Book: Author’s last name, Initials. (Year Published). Title of book. Place of
publication. Publisher.

Example:
Walklate, S. (2017). Criminology: The basics (2nd ed.). London, United Kingdom:
Taylor & Francis Ltd.

2. Journal article: Last name, Initials. (Year Published). Title of article. Title of Journal,
Volume number. Page numbers.

Ex.
Sorensen, J., Snell, C., & Rodriguez, J. J. (2006). An Assessment of Criminal
Justice and Criminology Journal Prestige∗. Journal of Criminal Justice
Education, 17(2), 297-322.

3. Webpage: Author’s last name, Initials. (Year Published). Title of webpage. Retrieved
from [URL here].

Ex.
Muirehead, R. (2016). Components of the Criminal Justice System | Goodwin
College. Retrieved from https://www.goodwin.edu/enews/components-
criminal-justice/

Notes: If there is no author, begin with the title and then the publication date
If there is no publication date, write n.d. (no date) within the parentheses instead
2. MLA (Modern Language Association) FORMAT
MLA (Modern Language Association): this is used within the fields of literature and
language. In-text referencing is also done within parentheses at the end of the sentence.

In-text Referencing: In MLA, the last name of the author and the page number are cited.
Ex. Diaz suggested that…(11)
Recommendations suggested that…(Diaz 11)

Reference list:
1. Book: Author’s last name, First Name. Book Title. Place of publication. Publisher,
Publication year.

Ex. Walklate, Sandra. Criminology: The Basics. 2nd ed. London, United Kingdom: Taylor
& Francis Ltd, 2017.

2. Journal Article: Author’s last name, First name. “Title of Article.” Journal Title. Volume.
Issue Publication Year. Inclusive page numbers.

Ex. Sorensen, Jon, et al. "An Assessment of Criminal Justice and Criminology Journal
Prestige∗." Journal of Criminal Justice Education, vol. 17, no. 2, 2006. pp. 297-322.

3. Webpage: Author’s last name, First name. “Title of Work.” Title of overall website.
Version. Publisher. Publication Year. Date of access.
Ex. Muirehead, Roger. "Components of the Criminal Justice System." Goodwin College.
Wordpress, 2016, www.goodwin.edu/enews/components-criminal-justice/. Accessed 11
Nov. 2015.

Using Other Authors’ Ideas in Your Paper

You cannot simply copy literature when you cite them in your paper. You have to
state the author’s idea in your own words. While this may be difficult at first, you can
improve with practice. You can do this effectively by summarizing and paraphrasing.

a. Summarizing
To summarize is to select the key or important features of a text and then
consolidate these into a shorter version of the original text. Summarizing is done by
simplifying ideas and by using differently structured sentences (Bowker, 2007).

Look at the following example:

Original Text Summarized Version

According to Quijano (2007), One of the main reasons why
reading problems are one of the students do poorly in the National
primary reasons why some Achievement Test is poor reading
students do poorly in the National skills (Quijano, 2007). Which in
Achievement Test or NAT has turn are due to the students’
something to do with reading. disinterest in reading.
Students’ poor reading skills are
credited to their lack of interest in
reading itself.

As you can see, there are words that were extracted from the original text and used
again in the summarized version. These are the keywords and preserving them in the
summarized version of the text is necessary to ensure that the original idea is still
retained.

b. Paraphrasing

When you paraphrase a text, you restate information differently. The difference of
summarizing from paraphrasing is that paraphrasing does not necessarily need to shorten
or condense the text. The aim of paraphrasing is to rewrite by using different words and
phrases (Bowker, 2007).
 Look at the following example:

Original Text Paraphrased Version

This study was conducted 100 Grade V pupils in Reina
among 100 Grade V pupils of Mercedes Central School in
Reina Mercedes Central School the school year 2019-2020
during the school year 2019- participated as respondents in
2020. Through the data- this study. Data gathered from
gathering, the researcher was the respondents indicated the
able to determine the relationship between reading
relationship between the reading performance and the reading
performance and the reading anxiety experienced by the
anxiety of the pupils pupils.

As you might have noticed, the paraphrased version is not necessarily shorter than
the original text. Furthermore, the order of ideas did not change.

Additional Techniques in Summarizing and Paraphrasing

Your summarizing and paraphrasing skills can be improved if you take the time to
develop an extensive vocabulary of words you can use. You may start with the following
terms (Bowker, 2007):
 Articulate, comment, mention, maintain, note, point out, say, state, suggest,
indicate, refer
Hypothesize, predict, theorize, conceptualize, demonstrate, show, convey,
portray, support
Substantiate, corroborate, verify, confirm
Investigate, research, experiment, conduct, administer, observe
Acknowledge, assert, claim
Argue, challenge, compare, contradict, contrast, counteract, debate, defend,
refute, hold
Comprise, consist, constitute, embody, characterize, define, identify,
recognize, diagnose
Create, construct, develop, generate, produce, evolve, manufacture
Synthesize, coordinate, cooperate, correspond, collaborate, contribute,
share
Reveal, conceal
Analyze, examine, evaluate, scrutinize, criticize
Report, record, collect, collate, categorize, document
Differentiate, deviate, distinguish, divide, separate
Access, utilize, deploy, adopt, practice
Strengthen, increase, expand, weaken, reduce, decrease, contract,
condense
Convince, compel, justify, explain, clarify, reason, account
Signify, highlight, specify, specialize, symbolize
Accumulate, calculate, maximize, minimize, formulate
Relate, connect, link, associate, correlate
Exclude, include, situate, locate, place
Condemn, deny, decline, negate
Dominate, segregate, subordinate
Affect, influence, transform
Conclude, summarize
You can also practice effectively summarizing and paraphrasing by changing the
structure and form of the sentences. For that, you may use the following strategies
(Bowker, 2007):

1. Start by citing the author’s surname name first then (year)

Ex. Diaz (2010) stated that….
According to Diaz (2010)….
2. Cite the author’s name in the middle or at the end of the statement
Ex. As indicated by Diaz (2010)….
Reading anxiety was defined by Diaz (2010)….
 Reading anxiety is the….as stated by Diaz (2010).
3. Use different linking expressions or transitional devices to start a statement related
to the previous one.

Ex.
a. Being Specific
In particular…
Regarding…
In relation to…
With respect to…
More specifically…
In terms of…

b. Giving examples
For an instance…
Namely…
For example…
such as…
This can be illustrated by…

c. Clarifying
In other words…
Basically…
Namely…

d. Parallel ideas
Concurrently…
At the same time…
Simultaneously…
Equally…

e. Common points
Traditionally…
Typically…
Commonly…
Often…
Conventionally…

f. Acknowledging something but bringing up a different perspective

Although…
Even though…
Despite…
Notwithstanding…

g. Following a line of reason

 Therefore…..
Consequently…
Hence…
Accordingly…
Subsequently…
To this end…
As a result...
As a corollary…

1. Summarize a point shared by different authors

Ex. Diaz (2010), Cruz and Po (2013) and Santos (2016) argued in their respective studies
that…

Quoting Authors’ Ideas

There are times when you do not have to summarize and paraphrase other
authors’ ideas when you use them in your paper; and you may use direct quotations
instead. When you do this, you have to enclose the direct quotations with quotation marks
(“ ”).

Ex. According to Natividad (2018), “Prospective teachers need to master

communicative competence to ensure effective instruction in their classrooms
later on.”

Direct quotations must be used minimally. You use direct quotations only when:

a. You cannot simplify the idea in your own words

b. You want to express the idea as authoritatively as possible
c. The original words need to be available for a particular purpose (laws, literary
piece excerpts)

Direct quotations should never stand alone as much as possible. They should always be
placed in the text as support to other points made or as support for other statements.

Ex. Communicative competency is regarded as a crucial ability for teachers; that is why
they should be trained for it as early as possible. According to Natividad (2018),
“Prospective teachers need to master communicative competence to ensure effective
instruction in their classrooms later on.”

As you can see in the given text, the direct quotation functioned as a support for
the claim given in the first sentence.

Tips for Including Quotations in the Academic Paper

 1. Type every word as exactly as it is: wording, spelling and punctuation.
2. If there are errors in the original statement, do not correct them. Just place the Latin
term “sic” after the identified error/s to indicate that the words appeared as such in the
original text.
3. If you have to remove some parts from the quotation, replace them with the ellipses
(…). This can be done if there are parts of the quote that are unnecessary to your
purpose.

References

Aaron, Jane E. (2010). The Little Brown Compact Handbook with Exercises 7 th Ed.
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Baker, J., Brizee, A., & Velazquez, A. (2018). Writing a Research Paper. Retrieved from
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/owlprint/658/

Bowker, N. (2007). Academic Writing: A Guide to Tertiary Level Writing. Palmerston North, New
Zealand: Massey University.

Gillett, A. (2018, April 2). Features of Academic Writing. Retrieved from

http://www.uefap.com/writing/feature/featfram.htm

Hartley, J. (2008). Academic Writing and Publishing: A Practical Handbook. New York, NY:
Francis & Taylor.

Hecker, Diana and Nancy Sommer. (2011). A writers Reference 7 th Ed.Retrieved from
https://library.defiance.edu/writingprocess/writingprocess

Kittlestad, Kit. Examples of Informative Essays. Retrieved

fromhttps://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-informative-essays.html

Koutraki, M. (2015). Section 4: Complexity & Formality as Features of Academic Writing [PDF].
Retrieved from https://opencourses.uoc.gr/courses/pluginfile.php/16673/mod_resource/content/
0/Presentation%204-Complexity%20%20Formality.pdf

McNair Scholars. (2011). How to Create an Oral Research Presentation [PDF]. Retrieved from
http://mcnair.ucsb.edu/documents/HowtoCreateaResearchPresentation_000.pdf

Pardede, Parlindungan (2018). Research Component. Retrieved from

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330134699_Research_Component

Purdue Owl. (2018). Purdue OWL: Using Appropriate Language. Retrieved from
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/608/02/
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https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/c.php?g=465763&p=4557873

Whitaker, A. (2009, September). Academic Writing Guide 2010 A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing
Academic Papers [PDF]. Retrieved from
http://www.vsm.sk/Curriculum/academicsupport/academicwritingguide.pdf

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Kingdom: University of Leicester.