The completed Research Proposal will be around 10-15 pages in length.
Grading
This assignment is worth approximately 38% of the overall class grade. The research proposal will contain the following sections:
Abstract & Introduction
You will write a brief summary (also called an abstract) of your proposed research. The abstract should be no more than 250 words in length. The purpose of the abstract is to describe every major aspect of the proposal: a brief background; specific aims or hypotheses (what do you hope to learn/what are your questions); methodology to be used. The introduction should be designed to interest your reader in your topic and proposal and provide some historical/cultural context for your project. At the end of your introduction, include your hypothesis statements. Think about starting with an example, a quote, a statistic, a question, a fact, an opposing opinion, etc. Also, use concrete language and specific examples to grab your reader. Conclude with a solid statement, something that makes us think, or at the very least makes us understand your project and want to read more about it
Literature Review
This section should contain a more in-depth explanation of your research objectives by contextualizing it within a body of scholarly literature. It addresses the following kinds of questions: What have others said about this area(s)? What theories address it and what do these say? What research has been done (or not done) previously? Are there consistent findings or do past studies disagree? Are there flaws or gaps in the previous research that your study will seek to remedy?
Methods
This section of your proposal should answer the questions of where, who, how, and when. For this proposal you will write up a description of how the research will be carried out. You should include: a description of where and with whom, you will carry out your fieldwork; a detailed description of specific methods to be employed to accomplish your research goals; justification of why these are the most appropriate methods to use; a discussion of the ways in which the results will be collected, analyzed, and interpreted; a projected timeline (work plan), and a discussion of potential difficulties and limitations (for example time pressures, problems with validity, human subjects, issues specific to your site, conceptual limitations?); a paragraph on ethical considerations must be included if your research will entail participant-observation, interviewing, or surveying of people
Reference Page
A reference page is the last page of a research paper that’s been written in APA style. It lists all the sources you’ve used in your project, so readers can easily find what you’ve cited. It includes information such as author, year of publication, title, and publisher or URL. The Reference Page allows the reader to find the sources easily, and can be considered as the long-hand format of the in-text citation.
