should include studies done previously with comparisons and critical analysis
1. Rationale
Writing a research proposal is a crucial part of any research process. If you were going to be carrying out research for a commercial client, it is unthinkable that you would go ahead without a clear research proposal that you would submit for approval. Similarly, if you were paying someone to undertake a research project for you or your organisation, you would want to see a research proposal before agreeing to let him or her start. Writing good research proposals is extremely challenging. This is because you have to think through your proposed work prior to commencing it. It is impossible to write a good research proposal without doing a considerable amount of background work. The research proposal helps you organise your ideas and clarify precisely what you will be doing. It helps you plan your work. By thinking through what you will be doing and by explaining how you will be going about it, you are helping to ensure it is achievable.
All Masters research students find writing research proposals difficult. This is because you cannot write a good research proposal until you yourself really know and understand what you are going to do. In writing a research proposal, you are trying to give confidence to your reader that you have: a clear idea of what you intend to do; why it needs to be done; how it will be carried out; how data will be analysed; the likely contribution of the research.
It will take you a significant amount of time and effort to write a good research proposal. The time and effort will be worth it as you will utilise much of it in the project itself. In terms of assisting and clarifying your thinking the proposal is invaluable, and much of the work can be transferred into the final Research Project.
1. Overview of assignment
The Research proposal is advised to be around1,000 words long in total (excluding references). The content and style of research proposals will differ between individuals. Outlined in this section are the common elements that are found in the majority of research proposals.
Title
It is useful to begin with a working title. These are often difficult to develop as one needs to capture the essence of the project in a few words, but can be invaluable in focusing thoughts. One of the ways you might do this is to phrase the title in the form of a question.
Introduction
Justification for your topic needs to be grounded in a real issue. This will involve showing the reader that there is something worthwhile in your topic choice.
Overall research question setting is important at this stage. The purpose of your research needs to be expressed in a few sentences. This is difficult and will call for some clear thinking. The aims may well be revised as the work progresses, but it is important to begin with a clear aim. The aim of the research is the desired outcome. Whatever the stated aim, it needs to be supported by argument that shows its importance and value.
Outline Literature Review
The purpose of the literature review is to demonstrate your awareness and understanding of relevant literature on and around your chosen area. ‘Literature’ refers to both ‘academic’ literature such as journal articles, chapters in books etc. Please remember to reference any article, book etc. in the BU Harvard style and include in your references section at the end of your Research Proposal.
The literature review you do at this stage is not the same as the critical literature review you will need to do for your final Research Project. The literature review undertaken at this stage is designed to show that you have carried out some preliminary examination and have a sound general understanding of the issues.
When undertaking a literature review, there are a number of stages to the process. First you have to locate and gather the information, secondly you have to read and understand it. Finally you have to show how you have made sense of the material in a written literature review. In your research proposal, what the reader will be judging is how you have made sense of the material. They will not want a list of books, articles, reports etc. Nor will they want a synopsis of the content of each article or report separately. You need to develop a literature review that evaluates and synthesises the material found so far which relates to your research. In the literature you demonstrate your critical understanding of relevant literature and should show how your proposed research fits into work already done by others.
Your literature review must work towards concluding paragraphs that focus on the research questions you want to ask. These questions must flow from the literature.
Proposed Methodology and Design, Data Collection and Analysis
Methodology is the analysis of, and rationale for, the particular method or methods used in a given study. It consists of the ideas underlying data collection and analysis.
Research design and data collection refers to how you intend to carry out the research. The research design gives an overview of the research method(s) chosen and the reasons for doing so. It includes an explanation of how you intend to carry out the research. For instance, surveys, interviews, examination of secondary data, case studies or a combination of methods. Depending on the type of research you are undertaking, you may need to address issues of sampling and explain and justify the reason for your particular sample or sampling approach.
It is very important to show in your research proposal that you have thought through how you are going to collect and analyse the data. For instance, if you are interviewing people, who will be interviewed? will the interviews be taped and transcribed? If so, what will you do with the transcripts? How will you analyse them? If you are going to be doing a case study, what will you be including in your study? How will you be analysing and presenting the material? If you are using secondary source data, what variables are you measuring? How will you construct measures for each variable? Where will you source the data? At the research proposal stage, you may not have had time to prepare draft questionnaires, collect data etc.
In the research proposal, there needs to be a coherent link between: aims and objectives; literature review; data collection and analysis. Your research proposal is rather like a jigsaw puzzle. Each section must fit together to help build into a coherent picture.
References
You must give full reference details in the BU Harvard referencing style, at the end of your research proposal. All authors/sources mentioned in the body of your research proposal must be cited with full bibliographic references .
A clear statement of purpose will:
Explain the goals and research objectives of the study (what do you hope to find?).
Show the original contributions of your study by explaining how your research questions or approach are different from previous research (what will you add to the field of knowledge?).
Provide a more detailed account of the points summarized in the introduction.
Include a rationale for the study (why should we study this?).
Be clear about what your study will not address (this is especially important if you are applying for competitive funding; narrowly focused studies are more likely to win funding). In addition, this section may:
Describe the research questions and/or hypotheses of the study.
Include a subsection defining important terms, especially if they will be new to some readers or if you will use them in an unfamiliar way.
State limitations of the research.
Provide a rationale for the particular subjects of the study
