How To Write A Research Proposal To Impress Your Professor
Finally, you’re about to finish your studies. However, there are still some steps that you should take to pursue a degree. For example, you should write a research proposal — a formal document that is necessary to provide when you’re going to do some kind of research. It is usually required before you defend the thesis or the dissertation.
Writing a research proposal, you have to formulate your thesis statement, explain why it is relevant and important, and describe your further actions. Depending on the specific educational institution, your academic level, discipline, and even professor, your paper may have a different structure.
Generally, the research proposal template consists of 5 important sections:
- Title page;
- Introduction or abstract;
- Literature review;
- Research design;
- Reference list.
Besides, your professor should provide you with a formatting style guide (APA, MLA, etc.) that determines the correct name of these sections, their volume, citation style, fonts, and so on.
Purpose of a Research Proposal: Understand Your Goals
Your primary task is to decide why you are writing this paper. If your only goal is to get a good grade, you won’t really succeed because it is poor motivation to study a lot, gather information, analyze it, etc.
As a student, you work on this project to get your dissertation or thesis plan approved. It means you receive the opportunity to share your vision, to convey your thoughts. You can use your research proposal as a platform where you can show your potential and convince your professor that your ideas are worthwhile.
We are going to provide you with some actionable tips that may come in handy along this path.
Title Page
The title (or cover) page is the very first page of your proposal. It is necessary to provide a reader with brief information on the topic, your name, your professor’s name, your educational institution.
Depending on the formatting style, it may be necessary to include some other details. For this purpose, you have to study your instructions with a keen eye so that there are no misunderstandings. If your document doesn’t look standardized, you may lose your chance to get research approval.
How to Write an Abstract for a Research Proposal
The abstract is a short summary of the whole paper. It consists of 300-500 words, so that you should be as brief and clear as possible. Write about your research question, the methods you’ve used to find an answer, your key results, and primary insights. You can come up with this section at the very end when you have the whole proposal written. Ensure that your readers can get a full understanding of your project from this section.
Introduction
It is the first voluminous part of your paper, and you should approach it wisely. If you fail at this stage, there are no chances that you convince your professor to continue reading. You have to come up with a powerful initial pitch that doesn’t leave any questions about what you want to research and why. Your introduction section has the following aims:
- Introduce your dissertation topic;
- Provide the audience with the background and context;
- Formulate your thesis statement.
Writing this section, you should focus on your target audience. Your task, for now, is to impress the professor, but your dissertation will surely have more readers. Are you writing for scientists, regular members of society, practitioners? What do they already know about the problem that you’re going to highlight?
Depending on the specific format, you can create a separate literature review section or include its analysis right here. Write your opinion: is there something that is missing from current knowledge? Do you think you can contribute in some way? How will you do this? Why do you think your research is worth doing it as well as the financial support (if needed)?
Research Schedule
It is also necessary to include the part with a detailed timeline of the research. Your professor should know how much time it will take you, what are the main stages, what you will do at each of them, etc.
In any case, it is useful to develop such a schedule because it helps you to organize the whole project.
Start with defining the main steps, e.g., basic research, literature review, research outline planning, data collection, etc. Then you need to divide these stages into smaller milestones to prepare a plan of action. For example, at the first stage of basic research, you have to meet your supervisor, brainstorm research questions, read some samples, etc. You should also set deadlines for all these milestones.
Writing this section, consider optimizing timing so that you don’t waste time and effort. However, it is important to adequately assess your resources. If you know that you tend to procrastinate, save some time just in case.
How to Write a Research Proposal Example
Writing a research proposal example, you should devote the primary effort to the section where you explain how exactly you’re going to conduct the research.
Usually, the methodology consists of several aspects:
- Research type. First of all, write whether you’re going to conduct qualitative or quantitative research. It is also necessary to indicate the type of data you’ll collect. It can be original, primary, secondary. You can also choose several research design types from so if you decide to go with an experimental, descriptive, or correlational one, including this information in the methodology section.
- Sources. You can’t just open a couple of browser tabs and copy the necessary information. It is essential to designate a list of sources in advance so that your professor can decide whether they are reliable enough. Where you’re going to collect the data, and how exactly you’ll select it?
- Writing a research proposal sample, you have to indicate your future research’s primary tools and procedures. Depending on the topic and academic field in general, students organize interviews, surveys, and even experiments to get more information, especially the practical one. However, it is not enough just to list these methods. You need to provide that they will help in finding answers to your research questions.
- Practical issues. Finally, you need a section where you’ll cover all other questions. For example, how much time do you need for each of the stages? What limitations may you face? How will you address obstacles when you face them? What help do you need?
- Financial issues. You can write a research proposal to apply for funding. So, you have to decide on your budget and defend it in your paper: indicate the sum you need, its justification, and the explanation of how exactly you calculated this amount.
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